If a student can’t verbally defend their written assignment, they likely used AI to write it. It’s an “emergency” strategy one country is using to curb cheating.
In Denmark, high school students will now be required to verbally defend all written assignments, CNN reports. Education Minister Magnus Heunicke said the rule comes amid an uptick in plagiarism.
“In the coming period, I will be engaging with schools, teachers and students about what can be done both in the short and longer term to ensure that AI does not undermine students’ skills, academic abilities and, not least, their ability to think for themselves,” he said in a statement.
Finding a balance
Denmark’s move is a more extensive example of what some U.S. educators are doing to emphasize critical thinking in the age of AI. One Fort Worth Independent School District teacher, for example, went almost entirely analog last school year.
Class begins with journaling, and most assignments are handwritten, the teacher, Chanea Bond, told NPR.
“If you walk into almost any one of my classes today, you will see that all of my students are handwriting,” Bond told the news outlet in January, “and they are journaling, and they are constantly and consistently doing everything with a pen or a pencil.”
Higher ed is also taking action. The University of Chicago Law School banned first-year students from using phones and laptops in the classroom to curb AI usage, CBS News reports.
Students will take a required class to learn to use AI for research, revision and preparations for oral arguments, but not for writing.
“We recognize that no statement of an AI strategy or vision can be final,” the school wrote over the summer. “Technology is changing too fast. Thus, all the changes we are currently making will be subject to review, reconsideration, and revision as we learn more and as both technology and the practice of law evolve.”
Meanwhile, experts frequently tell District Administration that an outright ban on AI and other classroom technology puts students at risk of falling behind.
Schools should prioritize digital literacy to encourage students to use tech safely outside the classroom, Janice Jackson, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Education and Society Program, says in an upcoming episode of the DA Changemakers podcast.
“When we don’t teach them digital literacy, when we don’t teach them how to be more discerning and take [technology] away, we put students at a disadvantage,” she told DA.
Educators can introduce AI concepts, explain how the technology works, and differentiate by grade level, starting in elementary school.
In St. Louis, students in under-resourced elementary schools use low-cost and recycled materials—such as hot glue, cardboard, and popsicle sticks—to build Smart Motors that react to the environment, said Dustin Nadler, associate professor of psychology and associate director of the Center for Access and Achievement at Maryville University.
The system, which doesn’t require Wi-Fi, is designed to make AI and engineering more accessible and help students build self-efficacy. Researchers expect students to become active inventors rather than passive technology users.
AI education at the elementary school level should remain simple, Nadler told DA.
“Teaching a student how to code something in AI in kindergarten makes very little sense because by the time they get to college, it’ll change a hundred or more times,” he said.
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