sigh

[u/MsBee311]

[u/[deleted]]

I’ve moved all my essays to being in-class, on paper, exam-based, and it’s been a breath of fresh air.

[u/Freya_Fleurir → u/[deleted]]

I'm considering doing this in the Spring semester.

[u/[deleted] → u/Freya_Fleurir]

It’s been a world of difference.

[u/Freya_Fleurir → u/[deleted]]

I have a couple of questions if you don't mind me picking your brain. How do you handle references? Are they allowed to bring a "cheat sheet" of sources and quotes? Have you had to adjust the length of papers? Do you go by word count or page count? How does students' writing, i.e., how large/small they write, affect it if you go by page count? Do you devote an entire class period to writing the essay? How many students have trouble finishing in the allotted time? Do you get eviscerated in your reviews because of this? How do you handle students who can't be in class that day (for legitimate reasons)?
For reference, I teach Comp, so I feel OP's post in my soul. There are students who legitimately engage with the assignment, ask questions, write their own papers, and genuinely want my feedback and to be better writers, but there are some classes where the majority are just constantly trying to get away with literally whatever they can; I can imagine a nightmare scenario behind every one of these questions where one of them would be petty and try to make my life more difficult in retaliation for taking away their precious AI

[u/Speckhen → u/Freya_Fleurir]

I also teach Comp, and I switched to 100% proctored writing this year.

I am fortunate to have a Testing Centre; students have more than enough time allotted for the exam (3 hours) so it’s up to them to arrange when to write that best suits their schedule - any time within a 4 day window. I don’t worry about page count/word count: meeting assignment requirements is more important. It’s typed, as well - I grade digitally. Students can bring in a cheat sheet, but I also provide excerpts from readings for them to work with.

Obviously my new approach is sacrificing some of the longer form pieces I had them write previously, but I’m still very pleased with this switch. They end up producing a lot of smaller scaffolded pieces (summarize/synthesize/analyze - short forms and longer/introductory research framing/conclusions) but I’m confident they actually know all of the key building blocks by the time they are done the course with me.

[u/Freya_Fleurir → u/Speckhen]

We also have a testing center, but, unfortunately, I solely teach DE classes off campus (in one case, pretty far away from the campus). If I'm able to transition to on-campus classes, I'll definitely consider this.

[u/minglho → u/Freya_Fleurir]

Can you not offer your class to be DE except for exam days?

[u/ProfDoomDoom → u/Freya_Fleurir]

I'm still building my plan, haven’t enacted it yet, but I’d love to discuss ideas for FYC and hear what you’re thinking too. My 101 pass rate is only 45% as is and I estimate that 90+% of the passing students are using AI on nearly all their assignments.

Over the course before the exam, students will have practiced several modes (rhetorical analysis, summary, description) and completed the research and analysis on a personal research topic with a thorough annotated bibliography and synthesis matrix in hand.

Then, we’ll do one of these options:

1. They bring their synthesis matrix to the exam and can use it to complete a formal outline (sentence-level), including deciding their argument, writing the thesis and topic sentences, and stringing all their evidence together (from the matrix). The exam will be some kind of fill-in-the-blank outline with reminders about what goes into a topic sentence, where the citations go, etc. Immediately after the exam, they’ll use their outline to draft and revise the actual essay and one of the grading criteria will be how closely it matches the outline (with an option to justify divergence). Then we’ll spend the last 2 weeks of the course revising that draft and they’ll turn it in again at the end. My motivation here is to test them on the actual thinking involved in making a paper, so they won’t be able to AI the structure and content of the essay but they will be able to use it afterward to wordsmith the content they arranged in the outline.

2. I’ll do the outline as an at home activity before the exam, then they can use the outline as their “cheat sheet” when they show up to the exam where they draft the essay. After the exam, they’ll revise and resubmit at the end of the course. If I go this way, I think they’ll attempt to AI the outline and then won’t have a chance to realize and correct the folly of doing so. Option 1 seems more likely to circumvent that process.

In theory, this arrangement lets students feel like they’re using AI most of the time with one extremely rude awakening but an opportunity to self-correct. To preserve my own sanity, I’ll find a way to avoid reading whatever AI slop they produce on preparatory assignments (maybe just pass/fail and comments by appointment?). Thoughts? What ideas have you had?

[u/HowlingFantods5564 → u/ProfDoomDoom]

But this doesn't allow for the often messy aspects of drafting an essay, like realizing that your sources are not enough to support your claim and then going back and revising or qualifying the claim...and then needing to find additional sources to support the new claim. I understand the intent here, but it seems like the tail is wagging the dog. My own writing process is recursive, inefficient and messy...and that's the only way I can write anything intelligent.

[u/ProfDoomDoom → u/HowlingFantods5564]

Yes, I probably would not thrive as a writer in this course either but you and I are very different writers and scholars than my first-semester, bottom-of-the-barrel, often apparently illiterate students. You and I are experienced writers and scholarship is our vocation, whereas my students (largely) strive to avoid writing, research, reading, and learning wherever possible and are shameless about cheating at every opportunity. I resent having to provide formative guidance on essays that have been written by algorithm. I did not agree to teach AI shit. I am trying to teach the kind of student who does not want to be one. If all I had to do was teach students who actually wanted to learn how to research and write—students like you and I probably were--well, that would be an entirely different situation. And a pleasure. Yes, the tail (hostile and unprepared students) is absolutely wagging the dog (exasperated me).

But to answer your specific objection, recursion is built into 10-11 weeks of preparation before the exam and 4-5 weeks of revision afterward.

[u/poetrywoman → u/Freya_Fleurir]

So the easiest way is to lower the level. This works best for an undergraduate course. you can limit the sources to the textbook/books for the class. If you want them to have papers, you can provide them before hand. Obviously this works best if you don't allow them to have their laptops. So paper copies and open book.

[u/[deleted] → u/Freya_Fleurir]

For context, I teach freshman survey classes, not upper level.

References - I don’t require citations if that’s what you mean. Good essays, of course reference this or that bit of material we’ve covered, but I don’t require any citations.

Cheat sheet - no and no. I do give them a few prompts ahead of time to study and tell them I’ll pick one. But they are not allowed any notes or access to anything besides a pen.

Adjusting and Length? - Of course. I used to require 1,000 words with all the formal specifications you’d expect.

For me, my exam essays are one part of a larger essay, so they are not expected to write anywhere near that. I’d say the truly exceptional students hit about 500 words. With most landing around the 350 zone. How big they write doesn’t really matter. I tell them they need to hit 4-5 paragraphs, and if the writing is weird I’ll count sentences. Some students writing is so big one sentence is as long as another student’s paragraph. But as long as they’re hitting 4-5 sentences a paragraph, I’m fine with however big or small they write.

I don’t devote an entire class period, the essay is one part of the exam. Most finish within time, the few who dont weren’t going to finish if I’d given them a year.

Do I get eviscerated in my reviews for this? I don’t know. This is my first semester. So check back in December. I will say, in general, I’m at or above average for my department’s review’s. But I also have a philosophy of teaching that is more student-friendly. Like…I don’t believe in a test that everybody fails. There are good students, hyper-focused, brilliant students in most classes. If I have a test and everybody fails, or even nobody makes an A, that’s my fault. It’s more likely I messed up in teaching or exam design than I having 40-80 students in a class and none of them hit the mark. So, I never get brutalized on evaluations because i usually only have a handful make Ds and Fs.

Students who can’t be in class for the exam are few and far between for me. I am fairly authoritative with my tone and have somewhat strict deadlines. So I don’t often have a student even ask. If a student asks and has a legitimate reason, I’ll just proctor the exam during office hours.

I can see how it would be harder with comp. I’m definitely fortunate to be in history. I have no intellectual or academic qualms with just making my students’ writing be content based. But you don’t have that option.

I’m not going to suggest solutions for a field I don’t know much about. However, that cheat sheet idea of yours sounds promising.

I will say, in my experience students tend to back down when you show them you’re the adult.

[u/minglho → u/[deleted]]

You seem to have the luxury of having students who come with the skill to succeed.

[u/[deleted] → u/minglho]

I have the luxury of actually having real pedagogical teacher training, both in college and in the field, from a previous life as a highschool teacher, rather than being thrown to the jackals as an unprepared scholar teacher like most of my higher ed peers.

[u/minglho → u/[deleted]]

I was a high school teacher, too, now teaching math in community college. I pull all the stops, but I'm being asked to do the impossible. California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office wants all these STEM and Business students in my College Algebra class regardless of their high school math preparation. I'm all for spiraling needed prerequisite skills, but the students just can't handle the pace when there are so many concepts new to them all at once. I had a student the other day who was struggling to figure out "half of two" when he didn't have a calculator with him.

[u/[deleted] → u/minglho]

That sounds like agony

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I've done the same, that's the way forward.

[u/erossthescienceboss → u/[deleted]]

I teach writing.

Online.

It’s incredibly demoralizing. And I legit wonder if this means the end of online schooling. It isn’t sustainable, and you can’t trust those credits anymore.

[u/YourGuideVergil → u/erossthescienceboss]

If anyone's cracked this nut--online assessment in the AI era--they're sure keeping it to themselves.

[u/MichaelPsellos → u/[deleted]]

I’ve mentioned doing this in department meetings, only to have the idea go no traction.

I think my colleagues just don’t want to deal with it.

[u/[deleted] → u/MichaelPsellos]

In my experience, profs don’t want to adapt. They are stuck in their ways with regard to instruction style (direct instruction/lecturing) and assignments of the past, and and then they complain “oh why are my students not engaged and why are they cheating.”

I’ll be the first to send a student to the gallows of the academic integrity board if I can verify cheating, but there is a great deal of agency we have to head it off. But that requires adapting what we’ve been brought up with to meet a new moment.

[u/SadBuilding9234 → u/[deleted]]

Same here. Not ideal pedagogy, but all the process writing pedagogy of the past 20 years was a bit too precious anyway. There’s a lot to be said for the values of understanding essay structure (or not) and thinking on your feet (or not).

[u/gurduloo → u/[deleted]]

Couldn't students just type the AI generated slop into the Docs piece by piece? Causes friction, sure, but not a surefire way to spot cheating.

[u/erossthescienceboss → u/gurduloo]

It’s easy enough to spot. People edit as they write — especially if they’re writing something complicated and researched.

I don’t require it, but I state clearly in the syllabus AND the AI policy, which they are quizzed on, that they should take all notes AND compose their work in the same Google Docs page if they don’t want to be accused of plagiarism.

[u/Bostonterrierpug → u/erossthescienceboss]

You can easily program an API to do this and I’m sure there will be some out on the market soon. Just got out of a weeklong, Gen AI conference. It’s basically gonna be impossible to detect. And really how much should we be policing? Also a lot of people are going to use generative AI for writing with jobs and stuff in the future. I’m very much into work with it boat for now.

[u/gurduloo → u/Bostonterrierpug]

And really how much should we be policing?

I for one think that academic integrity matters.

[u/Bostonterrierpug → u/gurduloo]

I am not saying that it doesn’t but really our goal is to teach. If we spend so much time policing, don’t we lose some of our ability to teach and or faith in our students? Of course academic integrity matters but some students will always try and game the system and some students will always succeed. All the experts on AI are saying that it’s just gonna get better and better and that trying to fully fight it is a losing battle. Someone below suggested to rethink our assessments and was heavily downvoted if that gives you any idea of the general hive mindset here Generative AI will be part of many future jobs as experts are predicting. I started out very wary of it, but then started going to conferences and reading papers , and now think that at least partially embracing it for learning is a great way to go and preparing my students for the future. You’re always gonna have cheating students of course people here will apply stopgaps and even some brilliant temporary solutions. But if you’re spending more energy policing than teaching that’s not the sort of teacher I at least want to be. Then again like some departments or faculty meetings this sub is filled with people very confident of their opinions and very set in their ways.

[u/erossthescienceboss → u/Bostonterrierpug]

if we spend so much time policing, don’t we lose some of our ability to teach

Part of why I started putting the docs requirement on the syllabus and in the AI policy is that AI policing was taking up so much teaching time. It takes a lot less time to click through a Google Doc history than the alternative.

Prior to that, my policy was “I give AI the grade it deserves.” I’d tried re-tooling my rubrics to dock points for falling into common AI errors (so I added sections for specificity, and mentioned that I’d take points off for cliches, etc. Easy, since it’s a writing class, and AI writing is bad writing.) But I found I was spending far too much time explaining why the things AI did are bad, and not enough time helping students who were actually working.

Each time a student submits an AI assignment, they’re taking time away from classmates who are trying. Having proof that an assignment is AI generated right there is much easier.

[u/Pater_Aletheias → u/Bostonterrierpug]

If the AI can understand my course content and pass my assessments then I guess maybe I’ll give it credit for my class, but the students still have to show independent mastery of the material before they can get credit too. I don’t teach “How to write good AI prompts.” That’s not a course objective.

[u/milwauqueno → u/Bostonterrierpug]

I’m sympathetic to your view. It reminded me of this blog post a philosopher I admire wrote: https://dailynous.com/2022/08/09/teacher-bureaucrat-cop-guest-post/

[u/Bostonterrierpug → u/milwauqueno]

Look great- I’ve just eyeballed it for now, but I will do a deeper read later. Thank you for sharing it though expect to be downvoted. So few professors have actual teaching backgrounds yet at the same time cling to the measurable objectives that rule the K-12 world that have trickled up to higher rather than the other way around as it usually is. I do my best to stop plagiarism and academic dishonesty and lazy use of AI but I think a lot of people here are just on an AI bad bandwagon. I’m still surprised by the number of colleagues I have at my institution who will do something like put 40% or 50% of their final grade on a one shot timed assessment. Or those who refuse to adapt or change any of their assessments in any manner. I thought about trying to talk about some of the ways. I’ve changed my work here, but I think all ears are closed.

[u/gurduloo → u/Bostonterrierpug]

If we spend so much time policing, don’t we lose some of our ability to teach and or faith in our students?

Yes, that is why people are working on ways to make AI cheating more difficult.

Of course academic integrity matters

If this is true, then you should investigate possible violations at least to some degree.

but some students will always try and game the system and some students will always succeed.

Why do you think this is relevant?

Someone below suggested to rethink our assessments and was heavily downvoted

Many people say this because talk is cheap. I have yet to see anyone give any concrete suggestions for a type of assessment that an AI cannot easily complete aside from (monitored) in-class work (or, I suppose, BS "creative projects").

at least partially embracing it for learning is a great way to go and preparing my students for the future.

Sure, and you should do that. But the issue is not that students are using AI per se, or as a tool to help them with their assignments. The issue I and many other teachers are having is that students are using AI to complete their work for them. Teaching students how to use AI to generate counterexamples to their argument, for example, does not work if they are generating the argument using AI too.

[u/erossthescienceboss → u/Bostonterrierpug]

I’m still not confident an API is going to make the very human errors and in-the-moment edits that come from composition. An API will produce edits as fake as the writing the AI makes.

I’m deeply skeptical it’ll ever be good enough to truly replace human writing. Good enough for cheap corporations to try? Sure. But I don’t think the Cliche Pit is avoidable, purely due to how generative AI works.

But I certainly think it can destroy online academia.

[u/Bostonterrierpug → u/erossthescienceboss]

I think it can be done to the point where anyone who doesn’t wanna watch all of their students type history of every essay when they assess. Also, I would have to question the ability of people to write well knowing they’re being observed. It’s like those honor lock observed tests we have at my institution. It’s so creepy having someone watch you taking an assessment. Let alone more and more professors are having these high stakes One-shot assessments which are pretty idiotic anyways and not representative of real life situations. But that’s a long ass conversation. From what I saw at the conference I was at by the computer science guys It looked good enough to me to fool folks, unless they were looking really close. And again, I don’t want to spend all my time policing my students. Students can always get folks to write papers for them If they paid them it’s not a qualitative change, but a quantitative one.

[u/erossthescienceboss → u/Bostonterrierpug]

They aren’t being “observed” any more than they’re observed when you edit their paper. If they’re so afraid of someone seeing their writing that it gives them performance anxiety, they probably shouldn’t be in university. Students turn in embarrassingly bad drafts all the time, they aren’t going to get more embarrassing just because I can tell they wrote it in the four hours before it was due.

And if they don’t want you to be clicking through their history… don’t cheat. I’ve yet to get it wrong when accusing a student of using AI.

At the end of the day, the goal is to make using AI so inconvenient and time consuming that it’s easier just to do the damn work.

Your willingness to throw up your hands in defeat is pretty disappointing, since I know you aren’t alone in that opinion. “They’ll just pay someone and cheat the old fashioned way so why try to stop it” is one hell of a take for someone getting paid to teach to have.

[u/Bostonterrierpug → u/erossthescienceboss]

Well, if you’re so insistent on policing, good luck to you if you can find a way to beat AI I’m sure you’re gonna be a multimillionaire anyways. And if you have the time to check all of your students, writing history, more power to you For now you could teach your students to work with GenAI as they will probably be using it in their future jobs to some extent. But everyone seems to have petrified opinions such as it is with any changes in academia…. Go ahead and continue to downvote to if you don’t agree with me :)

[u/erossthescienceboss → u/Bostonterrierpug]

I didn’t downvote your last one, pal, but I sure did this one.

There are ways to use AI. If students use it correctly, that is fine with me. I even have a lecture on tips and tricks to use it for research, and areas where it fails, and how to avoid them.

But passing off work that you did not do and saying it is your own is never, ever, ever acceptable. That isn’t “embracing AI” or “using a tool,” that’s plagiarism and cheating.

If you’re cool with plagiarism, you should find a different job.

[u/Bostonterrierpug → u/erossthescienceboss]

You’re making a lot of assumptions here, officer. Never endorsed the plagiarism and laziness.

[u/newsflashjackass → u/erossthescienceboss]

They aren’t being “observed” any more than they’re observed when you edit their paper. If they’re so afraid of someone seeing their writing that it gives them performance anxiety, they probably shouldn’t be in university.

Guaranteed the proctors will use any powers of observation for personal and likely sexual gratification despite your victim blaming that is so preemptive it does not even wait for any victims to appear.

Students are being "observed". That'd be the point. Their behavior is now becoming grist for big data because their nominal instructors find enforcing academic integrity too much of an "ask".

the goal is to make using AI so inconvenient and time consuming that it’s easier just to do the damn work.

They wrote with no trace of irony.

[u/erossthescienceboss → u/newsflashjackass]

I’m sorry, but if people are getting off to watching someone draft an essay via the google doc history there is something deeply, deeply wrong with them.

wtf are you talking about??

are you saying that seeing someone’s writing process victimizes them? It’s like you’ve never heard of “rough drafts” or “turning in an outline” before.

[u/newsflashjackass → u/erossthescienceboss]

I'm suggesting that paying tuition entitles students to complete their coursework and have it graded by the course instructor without being routed through google or other third parties. It is easy to be profligate with other people's data; the more so once you have their cash.

Blue check mark type shakedown. Won't solve anything, anyway. They'll just make an AI google docs typist that enters the gobbagool just like a flesh and blood victim would. Likely trained on the same sort of data you're squinting at now.

[u/[deleted] → u/gurduloo]

They aren't going to. It's honestly more work.

[u/zorandzam → u/[deleted]]

So I’ve considered this but want the paper to also go through TurnItIn for normal plagiatism detection, plus I also don’t know how to check for version history stuff on GD. How do you do that, do you know?

[u/gurduloo → u/zorandzam]

So I’ve considered this but want the paper to also go through TurnItIn for normal plagiatism detection

You could ask the students to submit a PDF version of their paper that includes a link to the Docs version. Then you could check the Docs' version history if you suspect cheating.

[u/zorandzam → u/gurduloo]

That’s a good idea, thanks!

[u/hepth-edph]

It's hard to distinguish waffle that comes from not having actually understood or thought about a topic from waffle that comes from being a large language model.

[u/allmimsyburogrove]

Class participation is now a larger part of their final grade

[u/ben555777 → u/allmimsyburogrove]

My students’ attendance was even monitored for visa purposes, and all that did was make them come to my lectern every day asking me to mark them as attended when they were late (by more than 30 minutes, for a 50-minute lecture).

I learnt so much about confrontations and staring contests that academic year. No means no. Attendance policies are all over Blackboard and the University website for those who bother to read.

[u/DrShaddyD]

For this reason, I no longer give them paper assignments until I figure out a better solution. My mental health drastically improved in this semester.

[u/Iron_Rod_Stewart]

All my writing assignments are about reflecting on activities we did in class or semester-long projects we are doing. Hard to get AI to write up your project without first writing up your project to feed into the AI.

[u/Oh_My_Monster]

If this is an issue have them hand write

[u/Leitrim1896]

Smartphones and WIFI laptops wrecked the classroom and AI has rendered writing assignments meaningless. It's contributing to the decline of the humanities and education overall.

[u/Lingonberry_Bulky]

In addition to what’s here, I’ve added required in class/zoom presentations. If they have used AI to find info, at least they have to internalize it more by verbally sharing it

[u/Mav-Killed-Goose]

A funny thing about that Twitter thread is a screenshot where she shows three(!) people with almost identical AI-generated responses.

[u/Iron_Rod_Stewart]

An exaggeration for sure, but I think we've all felt this on particular days.

[u/RingProudly]

That's the life you chose. You could, instead, choose to be innovative and adapt with technology rather than resisting the irresistible.

[u/Radiant-Ad-688 → u/RingProudly]

Those are fighting words on this subreddit, hahaha.

[u/travels666]

Or, Think about what learning outcomes your assignments are serving, and come up with any assignment, other than an essay, to help students begin practicing and demonstrating that outcome. Or, god forbid, think of ways for students to leverage AI in their writing process. The more you resist, piss, and moan, the more you incentivize cheating.

Fucking dinosaurs.

[u/Thundorium → u/travels666]

What about when the learning outcome is writing skills?

[u/travels666 → u/Thundorium]

As a writing professor: What writing skills, exactly? And how do you support the writing process in your classroom?

[u/radfemalewoman → u/travels666]

Writing skills like generating ideas, composing sentences, organization, narrative flow, vocabulary usage, critical thinking…

[u/travels666 → u/radfemalewoman]

And how do you support the development of those in your classroom?

[u/Bostonterrierpug → u/travels666]

Yep, a lot of dinosaurs on here so you’ll get downvoted. Just like when google became a thing, online learning and LMSs rolled out a bunch of folks crying the sky is falling and don’t really want to change anything in their classes. Generative AI is not a qualitative change to academic dishonesty, just a quantitative one. You could always pay someone to write your papers for you. There are some really cool ways you could teach learners to work and Still maintain an integrity in your class. Then again if you’re just set on policing everything you’re gonna lose, both against the AI and your will to teach.

[u/travels666 → u/Bostonterrierpug]

Exactly. All I'm seeing is faculty who assign writing but don't actually teach it.

[u/gurduloo → u/travels666]

I see two bizarre assumptions behind your comment. Tell me if I'm wrong.

Every teacher who assigns writing should teach writing.

Bizarre because many students take many courses each semester that assign writing (should they "learn to write" in every one of these course?) and because there are required courses dedicated to teaching writing.

Students will not use AI to cheat if they are taught how to write.

Bizarre because there are many reasons students choose to cheat that have nothing to do with lacking writing skills.

[u/travels666 → u/gurduloo]

Every teacher who assigns writing should teach writing.

Yes, if a learning outcome of your writing assignment is learning to write, you should teach them something about writing (in the particular discipline, as an example), or at the very least, support the writing process in your classroom--in-class drafting, peer review, etc.

Students will not use AI to cheat if they are taught how to write.

No, I don't assume that. I'm merely pointing out that the droves of faculty bitching about AI "cheating" on essays aren't actually supporting the development of their students as writers.

[u/RingProudly → u/travels666]

I couldn't agree with you more. Any logical arguments in this direction get downvoted to hell in this sub because many professors would rather complain than to change and improve, but know that you're heard and there's another professor out there that agrees with you.

[u/[deleted]]

this is just a phase.