The book report is now a thing of the past. Take-home tests and essays are becoming obsolete.

Student use of artificial intelligence has become so prevalent, high school and college educators say, that to assign writing outside of the classroom is like asking students to cheat.

“The cheating is off the charts. It’s the worst I’ve seen in my entire career,” says Casey Cuny, who has taught English for 23 years. Educators are no longer wondering if students will outsource schoolwork to AI chatbots. “Anything you send home, you have to assume is being AI’ed.”

The question now is how schools can adapt, because many of the teaching and assessment tools that have been used for generations are no longer effective. As AI technology rapidly improves and becomes more entwined with daily life, it is transforming how students learn and study and how teachers teach, and it’s creating new confusion over what constitutes academic dishonesty.

“We have to ask ourselves, what is cheating?” says Cuny, a 2024 recipient of California’s Teacher of the Year award. “Because I think the lines are getting blurred.”

Cuny’s students at Valencia High School in southern California now do most writing in class. He monitors student laptop screens from his desktop, using software that lets him “lock down” their screens or block access to certain sites. He’s also integrating AI into his lessons and teaching students how to use AI as a study aid “to get kids learning with AI instead of cheating with AI.”

In rural Oregon, high school teacher Kelly Gibson has made a similar shift to in-class writing. She is also incorporating more verbal assessments to have students talk through their understanding of assigned reading.

“I used to give a writing prompt and say, ‘In two weeks, I want a five-paragraph essay,’” says Gibson. “These days, I can’t do that. That’s almost begging teenagers to cheat.”

Take, for example, a once typical high school English assignment: Write an essay that explains the relevance of social class in “The Great Gatsby.” Many students say their first instinct is now to ask ChatGPT for help “brainstorming.” Within seconds, ChatGPT yields a list of essay ideas, plus examples and quotes to back them up. The chatbot ends by asking if it can do more: “Would you like help writing any part of the essay? I can help you draft an introduction or outline a paragraph!”

Students are uncertain when AI usage is out of bounds

Students say they often turn to AI with good intentions for things like research, editing or help reading difficult texts. But AI offers unprecedented temptation, and it’s sometimes hard to know where to draw the line.

College sophomore Lily Brown, a psychology major at an East Coast liberal arts school, relies on ChatGPT to help outline essays because she struggles putting the pieces together herself. ChatGPT also helped her through a freshman philosophy class, where assigned reading “felt like a different language” until she read AI summaries of the texts.

“Sometimes I feel bad using ChatGPT to summarize reading, because I wonder, is this cheating? Is helping me form outlines cheating? If I write an essay in my own words and ask how to improve it, or when it starts to edit my essay, is that cheating?”

Her class syllabi say things like: “Don’t use AI to write essays and to form thoughts,” she says, but that leaves a lot of grey area. Students say they often shy away from asking teachers for clarity because admitting to any AI use could flag them as a cheater.

Schools tend to leave AI policies to teachers, which often means that rules vary widely within the same school. Some educators, for example, welcome the use of Grammarly.com, an AI-powered writing assistant, to check grammar. Others forbid it, noting the tool also offers to rewrite sentences.

“Whether you can use AI or not depends on each classroom. That can get confusing,” says Valencia 11th grader Jolie Lahey. She credits Cuny with teaching her sophomore English class a variety of AI skills like how to upload study guides to ChatGPT and have the chatbot quiz them, and then explain problems they got wrong.

But this year, her teachers have strict “No AI” policies. “It’s such a helpful tool. And if we’re not allowed to use it that just doesn’t make sense,” Lahey says. “It feels outdated.”

Schools are introducing guidelines, gradually

Many schools initially banned use of AI after ChatGPT launched in late 2022. But views on the role of artificial intelligence in education have shifted dramatically. The term “AI literacy” has become a buzzword of the back-to-school season, with a focus on how to balance the strengths of AI with its risks and challenges.

Over the summer, several colleges and universities convened their AI task forces to draft more detailed guidelines or provide faculty with new instructions.

The University of California, Berkeley emailed all faculty new AI guidance that instructs them to “include a clear statement on their syllabus about course expectations” around AI use. The guidance offered language for three sample syllabus statements — for courses that require AI, ban AI in and out of class, or allow some AI use.

“In the absence of such a statement, students may be more likely to use these technologies inappropriately,” the email said, stressing that AI is “creating new confusion about what might constitute legitimate methods for completing student work.”

Carnegie Mellon University has seen a huge uptick in academic responsibility violations due to AI, but often students aren’t aware they’ve done anything wrong, says Rebekah Fitzsimmons, chair of the AI faculty advising committee at the university’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy.

For example, one student who is learning English wrote an assignment in his native language and used DeepL, an AI-powered translation tool, to translate his work to English. But he didn’t realize the platform also altered his language, which was flagged by an AI detector.

Enforcing academic integrity policies has become more complicated, since use of AI is hard to spot and even harder to prove, Fitzsimmons said. Faculty are allowed flexibility when they believe a student has unintentionally crossed a line, but are now more hesitant to point out violations because they don’t want to accuse students unfairly. Students worry that if they are falsely accused, there is no way to prove their innocence.

Over the summer, Fitzsimmons helped draft detailed new guidelines for students and faculty that strive to create more clarity. Faculty have been told a blanket ban on AI “is not a viable policy” unless instructors make changes to the way they teach and assess students. A lot of faculty are doing away with take-home exams. Some have returned to pen and paper tests in class, she said, and others have moved to “flipped classrooms,” where homework is done in class.

Emily DeJeu, who teaches communication courses at Carnegie Mellon’s business school, has eliminated writing assignments as homework and replaced them with in-class quizzes done on laptops in “a lockdown browser” that blocks students from leaving the quiz screen.

“To expect an 18-year-old to exercise great discipline is unreasonable,” DeJeu said. ”That’s why it’s up to instructors to put up guardrails.”

AI is transforming the way we work but without a clear policy in place, even the smartest technology can lead to costly mistakes, ethical missteps and serious security risks

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in All Business

Artificial Intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept. It’s here, and it’s everywhere. From streamlining operations to powering chatbots, AI is helping organisations work smarter, faster and more efficiently.

According to G-P’s AI at Work Report, a staggering 91% of executives are planning to scale up their AI initiatives. But while AI offers undeniable advantages, it also comes with significant risks that organisations cannot afford to ignore. As AI continues to evolve, it’s crucial to implement a well-structured AI policy to guide its use within your school.

Understanding the Real-World Challenges of AI

While AI offers exciting opportunities for streamlining admin, personalising learning and improving decision-making in schools, the reality of implementation is more complex. The upfront costs of adopting AI tools be high. Many schools, especially those with legacy systems, find it difficult to integrate new technologies smoothly without creating further inefficiencies or administrative headaches.

There’s also a human impact to consider. As AI automates tasks once handled by staff, concerns about job displacement and deskilling begin to surface. In an environment built on relationships and pastoral care, it’s important to question how AI complements rather than replaces the human touch.

Data security is another significant concern. AI in schools often relies on sensitive pupil data to function effectively. If these systems are compromised the consequences can be serious. From safeguarding breaches to trust erosion among parents and staff, schools must be vigilant about privacy and protection.

And finally, there’s the environmental angle. AI requires substantial computing power and infrastructure, which comes with a carbon cost. As schools strive to meet sustainability targets and educate students on climate responsibility, it’s worth considering AI’s footprint and the long-term environmental impact of widespread adoption.

The Role of an AI Policy in Modern School

To navigate these issues responsibly, schools must adopt a comprehensive AI policy. This isn’t just a box-ticking exercise, it’s a roadmap for how your school will use AI ethically, securely and sustainably. A good AI policy doesn’t just address technology; it reflects your values, goals and responsibilities. The first step in building your policy is to create a dedicated AI policy committee. This group should consist of senior leaders, board members, department heads and technical stakeholders. Their mission? To guide the safe and strategic use of AI across your school. This group should be cross-functional so they can represent all school areas and raise practical concerns around how AI may affect people, processes and performance.

Protecting Privacy: A Top Priority

One of the most important responsibilities when implementing AI is protecting personal and corporate data. Any AI system that collects, stores, or processes sensitive data must be governed by robust security measures. Your AI policy should establish strict rules for what data can be collected, how long it can be stored and who has access. Use end-to-end encryption and multi-factor authentication wherever possible. And always ask: is this data essential? If not, don’t collect it.

Ethics Matter: Keep AI Aligned With Your Values

When creating an AI policy, you must consider how your principles translate to digital behaviour. Unfortunately, AI models can unintentionally amplify bias, especially when trained on datasets that lack diversity or were built without appropriate oversight. Plagiarism, misattribution and theft of intellectual property are also common concerns. Ensure your policy includes regular audits and bias detection protocols. Consult ethical frameworks such as those provided by the EU AI Act or OECD principles to ensure you’re building in fairness, transparency and accountability from day one.

The Bottom Line: Use AI to Support, Not Replace, Your Strengths

AI is powerful. But like any tool, its value depends on how you use it. With a strong, ethical policy in place, you can harness the benefits of AI without compromising your people, principles, or privacy.

Artificial intelligence can become a tool in the development of education, in particular, to help create individual learning paths for Ukrainian students, but it is important to be aware of the risks of its incorrect use. Yevhen Kudriavets, First Deputy Minister of Education and Science, told UNN correspondent about this.

Details

“I think that first of all, we should say that any technology definitely contributes to the development of systems, including the educational system. But the question is how we will use it, positively or negatively. Positively, artificial intelligence can definitely help analyze a lot of information and get exactly what you need at the moment to acquire knowledge. But at the same time, the advantage that intelligence gives is that it can help build individual educational trajectories faster than a teacher would do it separately. Because we understand that, for example, for 3.5 million students in Ukraine, an individual trajectory is needed for everyone,” Kudriavets said.

According to him, today it is difficult to build with human efforts, but artificial intelligence can help with this.

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“Of course, there are downsides, negative aspects. This includes the issue of ethical use of artificial intelligence, so that it does not directly replace the educational process. And here we just need to look for ways to combat and resolve this,” Kudriavets added.

He emphasized that schoolchildren themselves must understand why they need to use artificial intelligence.

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“It seems to me that they can still give us advice on how to use artificial intelligence correctly. But the key is to answer the question of why and for what purpose I am using it. That is, it is not about prohibiting or giving some rules on how to use it. It is about why, because if you have a goal, and you do not use this research after that for this goal, you achieve your goal, great. If you cheat and deceive, and as a result your goal is to get a grade and not get knowledge, then of course, you will not achieve your goal in getting an education,” Kudriavets emphasized.

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