A new chatbot from OpenAI has the potential to be a powerful academic tool. It can answer encyclopedia questions, write essays, and even crack a joke within seconds of typing your request.

Students are starting to use it to submit essays and writing assignments. But will my teacher know I cheated?

How students are starting to use ChatGPT to submit essays and writing assignments

ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) writing tool developed by OpenAI, can generate anything from essays and haikus to term papers. While students have been raving about its incredible capabilities, educators are nervous that it could be used to cheat on assignments and exams.

One teacher at a Kentucky elementary school is embracing the tool as an opportunity for students to get hands-on experience with AI technology. Donnie Piercey has 23 fifth graders in his class and uses the AI-powered chatbot as a tool to help them write.

He says it helps them find ideas to write about, overcome writer's block, and see examples of competent grammar and punctuation usage. He also wants his students to be prepared for the future of education in a world where machines and humans will interact with each other.

However, he also fears that students might use ChatGPT to submit essays and other writing assignments as part of their college applications or as homework for school, which is a different matter entirely. This is because colleges generally consider plagiarism to be a violation of academic integrity and using a bot to write an essay that doesn't reflect your own work would be considered cheating.

In response to the concerns of many teachers, ChatGPT has been blocked by school districts in several states, including New York City and Seattle. And universities in the United States are preparing for the possibility that their students may start to use chatbots to cheat on their tests and assignments.

Luckily, there are a few ways that teachers can protect themselves from the potential consequences of their students' use of ChatGPT to cheat on their assignments or exams. The first is to make sure that all of their students are aware of the potential risks.

Another way that teachers can protect themselves is to make sure that all of their students have a copy of their own assignments and essays before they start using chatbots to write them. This will ensure that if they do cheat, the professors can verify that the student has written the assignment themselves rather than have it generated by an AI.

Thirdly, teachers should make sure that their students understand that using chatbots for a final submission is not acceptable. They should also encourage their students to use their own work as inspiration for their essays, not as the basis for the final assignment.

Finally, teachers should encourage their students to use their own language in their essays. This is particularly important if the student's native language is not English.

While many students are anxious about the potential for ChatGPT to be used to cheat on their essays, teachers are hopeful that it can be a great tool for fostering critical thinking and editing skills. They also think that ChatGPT can be an effective tool for teaching writing to students whose first languages don't involve English.

How teachers can determine whether an article is spun up by AI or written by the student

AI has made its way into all aspects of K-12 education, from personalized learning to tracking student progress and flagging students at risk of failure. But it can also have a negative effect on our educational systems if the tools aren't designed with student privacy in mind.

Luckily, educators have a wide array of options when it comes to choosing the best edtech tool for their classroom. Here are five questions that will help you sift through the noise and find the products that can improve your students' learning experiences.

There are many tools on the market, but some of them are so good that they deserve special mention. For instance, there is a digital pen that uses data from a student's pen strokes to help them remember notes in real time. It's a technology that teachers can't afford to ignore.

But even with the best technology on the market, it's still difficult to know how it will be used and whether it will improve student learning outcomes. Having an open dialogue about how the tools are used and how they can be shaped to better meet students' needs is a win-win for all parties involved. The other big question is what to do if you see a student using an AI-powered tool that doesn't have your best interests at heart. The answer may lie in rethinking how we test and reward students, or in devising policies that can protect us all from the dangers of an AI-driven future.

How teachers can prevent students from using ChatGPT

There are several ways teachers can prevent students from using ChatGPT to submit work. One strategy is to create scenarios that require more advanced writing skills. This could include short weekly essay questions or discussion board prompts that require higher-order thinking skills, such as relating material to their lives.

Another strategy is to provide project-based learning scenarios where students can explore a new topic and apply their knowledge in local and authentic contexts. This could help keep students from using ChatGPT to cheat on their work and encourage them to take ownership of their assignments.

Educators can also ensure that students understand the potential pitfalls of using ChatGPT by requiring them to read and analyze the AI-generated paper before they submit it. Then they can use the information to write a more original response, which will likely be more accurate and engaging than an AI-generated version.

Many teachers are worried that the AI-generated content may slip through anti-plagiarism software and go undetected. To protect against this, teachers can require students to use a tool like Turnitin that scans submitted essays for plagiarism before allowing them to be graded. However, this would add another layer of tasks that can take time away from planning lessons and giving feedback to students, says Stephen Parce, a high school principal in Colorado.

A third strategy is to quiz students on their own papers, which can deter them from submitting plagiarized work. This could be done by having students answer a few basic factual questions about their subjects or by asking them to read over their own papers and explain any major changes they made, such as the source of their information or their conclusion.

Some educators are unsure how to deal with the possibility of students using ChatGPT to cheat on their assignments and exams. They are also concerned that the technology may lead to other negative effects, such as reducing students’ motivation in class or making it easier for them to cheat on tests.

While this kind of technology is still in its infancy, schools need to start figuring out how they can best use it and what responsibilities they have for students and teachers in the future. This will require teachers and administrators to think critically about what they're doing, according to Eric Conner, a senior research analyst at K-12 tech company Edutopia.

The AI-generated answers ChatGPT produces often contain minor inaccuracies, which is not a good sign, Glantz said. But it also provides an opportunity for teachers to teach students about how to verify information and understand the underlying language learning model that AI systems employ.

In addition, if students can use this technology to submit their own work and avoid getting caught, it can be an invaluable learning experience for them, Glantz says. It can also lead to more authentic learning and give students a sense of accomplishment.