“May you live in interesting times” has long been repeated as a deceptively innocent-sounding curse.
Whatever your feelings on the rapid advances and proliferation of AI tools, there’s no doubt that they’re making things “interesting” for teachers and learners alike.
It’s easy enough to take an anti-AI stance in education. After all, the whole point of educational settings is to learn how to think, create, and interact more deeply and meaningfully. Typing a prompt into an AI generator (as I did to create that robot image above) doesn’t provide us much opportunity to do that work.
At the same time, it’s short-sighted and naive to think these tools won’t be a part of the landscape for not only today’s young learners but also for us — the educators creating materials for these learners to use in teaching them. Whether you are a homeschool parent, a brick and mortar educator, an online teacher, or a tutor, you’re going to find yourself pushed up against these tools in ways that require you to make decisions about their use — and they might not be as easy as you think.
Some tools are already becoming so ubiquitous that you might not even realize you’re using them! If you subscribe to software and apps that are building AI into their functionality (and almost all of them are), it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell when you’re tapping into those tools just by using the product.
With these realities in mind, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about my own ethical frameworks and how they interact with these tools as well as what my field (education generally and online homeschool education more specifically) is doing in response.
Updating Class Policies (for Learners and for Me!)
I’ve been working with other educators to come up with some frameworks on AI ethics in creating teaching materials. You can see the results of that work here.
Using those guidelines, I found it was time for me to update my own class policies for both learners and for myself. You’ll find those reflected on my Class Policies section, but since they’re brand new categories, I also wanted to highlight them here.
Academic Honesty and Student AI Use
We live in a world with rapidly-evolving technological advancements and learning tools. It can be challenging to fully understand where the line between your work ends and the work of others begins — especially when many programs have embedded AI tools.
My policy on academic honesty and AI use is, generally, this: All learners should strive to do work that challenges them to do their own thinking, present ideas with integrity, and ethically credit others for ideas or work they have used to produce their own projects.
Depending on the class or project, there may be more specific guidelines on using/not using particular AI tools. In general, these policies for academic honesty and AI tools are in place:
- The use of built-in spellcheck, grammar check, and style suggestions are acceptable. Learners should review these suggestions and make their own judgments on whether the suggested change accurately reflects their goals. (Don’t just accept the changes without thinking about them! They’re often wrong!)
- The use of AI text generators (like ChatGPT, Bard, etc.) are generally discouraged since we’re in classes designed to learn how to write. If you do use a tool like this, it should be in limited, controlled ways where you are making informed decisions about the final product.
- An unacceptable use of these tools would be to have the program craft full paragraphs or entire essays.
- An acceptable use of these tools would be to have the program generate an outline based on your brainstorms.
- It is possible that your project could justify more extended use of AI tools. (For example, you might write a paper about AI and its potential for usefulness or abuse.) In those cases, you must disclose clearly and plainly which parts of the text are generated by AI. (You could do this by announcing it in the text, including a footnote, marking it with an asterisks and explaining the use at the end of the paper, etc.)
- All sources you’ve used to gain information beyond “common knowledge” must be properly cited. Classes involving source use will generally include instruction on the MLA-style citation systems. When in doubt about whether something counts, go ahead and cite it!
- Do your own work! Getting feedback from a parent, tutor, friend, etc. is an encouraged part of the writing process, but the decisions about what you write and the words themselves should be your own. I’d much rather see messy ideas that are your own than polished ones that are someone else’s. Writing is thinking, and it’s your thoughts I want to read!
- If you ever feel confused about whether something is acceptable, get in touch! I’m happy to discuss it with you so you can make an ethical, fair decision about the work you do.
If I suspect academic dishonesty, I will generally give learners a chance to explain their choices and (if appropriate) redo the assignment. Repeated violations of academic honesty may result in failing grades (for those who opt into numerical grading), no course completion letter, and no feedback (I don’t want to spend my time reading work written by robots!)
The most important thing is that we’re here with (I hope) the same goal: to work toward your improved writing, analysis, and critical thinking skills. If we keep that goal in mind, we can navigate the rest together!
Academic Honesty and AI Content in Teaching Materials
Just as I have an academic honesty and AI use policy for students, I think it is only fair and reasonable that I have one for myself.
In general, here’s my promise: The materials I provide in classes are my own and/or will be presented with ethical, clear reference to their creators.
Here are some ways that I may use work from others and from AI tools:
- I often provide quotes, details, facts, and statistics from research I have independently conducted. I will provide references where applicable.
- I may use built-in AI tools in subscription services I use to create teaching materials to enhance the student experience. These include the following:
- AI-generated design templates on Canva and Mailchimp.
- Auto-generated captions for video using Otter.
- Spellcheck and grammar check in Word and Google Suite.
Here are some ways I will NOT use work from others and from AI tools:
- I will never use AI as a replacement for research. I promise to read, analyze, and synthesize information from outside sources myself.
- I will never use AI to generate significant portions of written materials. My words will be my own.
- I will not plagiarize others’ work and present it as my own. I will cite my sources and provide information for students to explore them on their own.
Creating Policies of Your Own
If you’re a homeschooling educator, I encourage you to consider creating an AI use policy of your own for any work your learners turn into you directly. Being upfront, transparent, and clear about how and when your learners can (and cannot) use these tools will help them understand a complex technological landscape more fully. Feel free to take any of my own policies to use if they’re helpful!
In addition, I encourage you to consider how you’re using AI in creating your own teaching materials and how the educators you interact with (through co-ops, purchased materials, and enrollment in external classes) are using it in theirs. I helped write this collective document: Frameworks for Ethical AI Use in Creating Teaching Materials. It’s intended to be shared among and adapted by educators, including homeschooling educators creating materials for their own learners. I hope you’ll take a look!