AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Research/literature review]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Brainstorming an idea]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Critiquing the student's idea]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Suggesting outline/structure]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Expanding short blurbs into full paragraphs]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Finding supporting points or objections]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Writing out sections of a paper based on notes, drafts, dictations]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Editing and copyediting]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Revising sections of a paper with instructions]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Providing critical feedback to full papers]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Creating a paper abstract]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Reusing own old writings for a new paper]

Where do you teach mostly?

Undergrads at a community college

I like AI as a conversation partner but draw the line at having it produce writing. Light editing is fine.

Undergrads at 4-year college

All of these things we used to send students to the writing lab for.

For me it’s about whether the student is the one making active choices about what goes into their writing (which is why so many of my responses are “it depends”!)

Undergrads at 4-year college

AI is trained via unconsentual theft of intellectual property, exploits real people, and is awful for the environment. Running the servers for it requires massive amounts of electricity, producing a huge carbon footprint as a side-effect. Scientists at the University Of Massachusetts have found that training a single AI can produce 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide.

It depends is the best answer to them all. Every new media recycles old narratives about the media it builds upon (Bolter and Grusin). So ideas about intellectual dishonesty largely build on existing concepts of authorship and appropriate collaboration, which vary by context. For example, I tell my students that they can typically use AI in any way that would count as appropriate collaboration in their field or context. The problem is knowing those existing, often hidden, mores of collaboration. It isn’t fair that CEOs can direct their executive assistants to write important documents, then sign their names (probably with a fair bit of direction and revision of the assistant’s work), but students cannot use AI in essentially the same way. AI discussions help us interrogate why these “rules” about authorship exist and why they vary by context and position.

Undergrads at 4-year college

It all depends on the purpose of the assignment. If the purpose is to learn how to do the skill, it can replace learning that skill. If the purpose is to manipulate content as the student learns it, it's ok as long as the instructor knows how the student used it. I teach ESL, and my students are learning how to read, write, speak and listen. They're not producing a product. They are engaging in a process of learning skills to use in academic content classes later.

Undergrads at a community college

Undergrads at 4-year college

Not a great reason but I've tried some of these and they didn't go well so it seems like more judgment is necessary in some of the tasks. Things may improve, of course, and someone else may find some of the functions I wasn't sure about more useful than I did.

It depends on the skill level of the user. If they are new to a task or type of thinking, they should learn it without AI support.

In each case, the writer is in charge and needs to know how to evaluate the product. For example, with a literature review, the writer will need to verify the sources and summaries. In a co-writing or hybrid writing model, all of these tasks can be performed with AI assistance. This is what I teach students, but I also ask them to cite and acknowledge AI use so we can continue to have conversations about what it means to be a writer.

Undergrads at a community college

Undergrads at 4-year college

I could see myself allowing any of these, depending on the assignment. Except for the last one: the student is doing nothing new so should not get credit

Undergrads at 4-year college

Students need to use critical thinking on their own

Undergrads at 4-year college

It always depends on the course learning objectives. If it undermines the LOs, it’s cheating. And always if it’s not transparent, it’s also cheating

Undergrads at 4-year college

I think most of the tasks are fine to be done by AI. For the ones I identified as "it depends", these are more complex. Like writing an abstract or full sections - I would always want students to only consider AI as part of "brainstorming" and source of ideas.

Undergrads at a community college

Most of these are specific skills students work on in my writing classes. Students must demonstrate their competence in these skills in order to pass. Delegating part or all of the work to another person, service, or computer application would constitute cheating.

Undergrads at a community college

Using AI is fine as a critical friend but not for writing sections of a paper

Undergrads at 4-year college

Each of your examples requires a separate explanation. Largely this has to do with the nature of the assignment. In some cases cool, in some cases not. Having AI write *for* you is generally not cool. Having AI recycle your previous writing is likely self-plagiarism. Where I teach mostly: combination of graduate students and undergraduates at a four year research intensive university.

Main thing is to what extent you work with the ai texts afterwards. If you just take and throw them into final text, the result will be poor.

It depends on the pedagogical goal. If I want my students to learn editing/copyediting, then using such tools would not necessarily help in the achievement of these learning outcomes.

I'd add that in every case where I chose 'cool,' the actual judgement about whether it is cheating or not depends on whether the student can evaluate the product they produced together with AI. If the student can evaluate the outcome and either accept it as good or further improve it, with or without AI, it is not cheating. However, if the student simply takes the AI's answers 'as is,' then it's useless and should be considered cheating. Therefore, I suppose I'd tweak the questions to place more emphasis on HOW they work with AI rather than WHAT their product is.

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at 4-year college

An idea that was expanded is cool, something that saves time on redundant tasks is cool. Any other thing is cheating.

Everything where AI has an opportunity to suggest facts or statements you weren't aware of is very dangerous for the research, as it tends to confirm existing biases and straight make the facts up.

Middle/Junior High School

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at 4-year college

Why what? Your critical thinking is what we gauge education and the synthesis of knowledge on. The ideas and words need to be explained by you. We are not here to teach for our own health. You are not here to let AI speak for you.

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at a community college

AI can assist with all those tasks, but the final product still requires the student to master the subject and used that mastery to produce the final product.

Undergrads at 4-year college

1. Overall, AI use allows for improving product quality, in this case, text: structuredness, analytics, coherence, correctness. 2. It requires the student to make an effort to improve their work multiple times, which might not have happened without AI involvement. 3.It provides students with a personal tutor, critic, and mentor, which means it gives them the opportunity to grow and develop.

Middle/Junior High School

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at a community college

Undergrads at 4-year college

The machine should do what the machine can do and we should do what the machine can't do

Undergrads at 4-year college

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Research/literature review]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Brainstorming an idea]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Critiquing the student's idea]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Suggesting outline/structure]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Expanding short blurbs into full paragraphs]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Finding supporting points or objections]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Writing out sections of a paper based on notes, drafts, dictations]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Editing and copyediting]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Revising sections of a paper with instructions]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Providing critical feedback to full papers]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Creating a paper abstract]

AI can do several different tasks associated with producing a written assignment. Which kinds of assistance are OK, and which are not? [Reusing own old writings for a new paper]

Where do you teach mostly?

Undergrads at a community college

I like AI as a conversation partner but draw the line at having it produce writing. Light editing is fine.

Undergrads at 4-year college

All of these things we used to send students to the writing lab for.

For me it’s about whether the student is the one making active choices about what goes into their writing (which is why so many of my responses are “it depends”!)

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at 4-year college

Most of my responses are "it depends" because I believe the details matter. Overall, I'm in favor of finding ways to capitalize on this technology for students in a thoughtful manner.

Middle/Junior High School

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at 4-year college

AI is the most amazing tool that we can learn and teach how to use

Undergrads at 4-year college

Flexibility is paramount as students are savvy and will use AI notwithstanding

Undergrads at 4-year college

I think there's significant variability in what AI can or should do. It depends on the pedagogical purpose of an assignment. We already heavily rely on computers to help us with research and this seems like something AI can and should excel at. However, assuming that a target audience will always be a real person (not a computer), feedback should always come from a real person.

Undergrads at 4-year college

For me, putting sentences together and coming up with ideas the key parts that need to be the student's work. AI should serve as a discussion partner.

Undergrads at a community college

Undergrads at 4-year college

It depends. The learning goals determine what is appropriate or inappropriate use of AI tools.

Undergrads at 4-year college

It depends on the nature of the course

Undergrads at 4-year college

Part of it depends on what the purpose of the assignment is. Getting ideas is fine, if you document the prompt you use. Editing is fine, as long as it doesn't extend to rewriting whole sentences. Pretty much everything else is either a no for me, as a writing instructor, but it's possible that for an instructor in science or history the writing itself matters less than the ideas and analysis and as long as that's original, it's fine. But the more we outsource writing and research, the less we are doing to encourage clear communication and critical thinking skills.

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at a community college

Depends on so many things: context and purpose of assignment, where students are in the writing process, instructor’s policies, and more.

Undergrads at a community college

1) The learning experience is undermined if the student relies too heavily on AI; 2) The result of overuse of AI is a mediocre paper that would not meet the learning objectives.

Undergrads at 4-year college

Really all of these fall into the it depends, because so much is dependent on what is being reported as assistance, and what is used verbatim, and how much of it is being checked by the student, and how much is agreed to buy the instructor or peer?

Undergrads at 4-year college

I have a lot of ‘totally cools’ and a few ‘depends’ and zero ‘cheating’ because it’s clear to me cheating is actually ill defined even in institutional policy and is tacit around all the areas asked about here though many are trenchant hills teachers are willing to die on especially in higher Ed

This all depends on what you are teaching. In my business management courses I'd expect them to use AI anywhere it could help. BUT in a lesson on writing I'd call it cheating for writing, not for brainstorming. I've been trying lots of stuff out in this area, let me know if you would like to chat about what I've found out.

Undergrads at a community college

Why not? It is 2024 and electricity exists.

For the most part these items are part of the required course outcomes. So I'm evaluating a student's ability to meet objectives. AI shouldn't be used instead of the student's own work.

Undergrads at a community college

Undergrads at 4-year college

These are all activities we engage with other humans.

AI should never replace the writers original voice

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at 4-year college

Use for research very questionable given that databases used for LLM generation are fixed in time. Also history of making content up.

Context matters but most of these tasks outsource basic thinking. That’s not appropriate

Undergrads at 4-year college

I think AI should be a support but the student needs to interact significantly and ultimately provide end edits to anything fully created by AI to add there own voice and fact check/add sources.

Undergrads at 4-year college

Undergrads at 4-year college

Students when generally using these new AI tools don't use the way professors would like but simply to complete a task with no critical thinking skills or writing skills. I'm not the best writer but I have the skills. Research skills are valuable in all fields.

Undergrads at a community college

I think framing this as cheating or not cheating misses the important question of learning--I am not very interested in whether or not something is cheating but rather in what students may lose that matters if they use LLMs at different points in the process.

Undergrads at 4-year college

Context matters a lot. What were the expectations, what were the assignment constraints, etc.

Undergrads at a community college

Undergrads at 4-year college