With the invention of ChatGPT, turning in an essay to a teacher is now easier than ever before. In a matter of just a few minutes, very well-put-together written content can be generated that would impress just about anyone. Knowing how to check for AI writing has become paramount for educators.
Knowing how to check for AI writing empowers teachers while upholding the standard of academic integrity. By using AI technology to their advantage, educators are now able to test a student’s written content with one click of a mouse. By staying one step ahead of their students, teachers maintain control over their student’s learning.
With the new AI revolution, the way we live and work has changed significantly. AI-generated writing has become more common in classrooms, making it easier for students to cheat and pull one over on their teachers.
Ensuring the authenticity of student work has become a significant concern for educators, and the need for AI detection tools is more pressing than ever.
How to Check for AI Writing: AI Detection Tools for Teachers
Checking for AI writing in the classroom is important for teachers in order to provide a personalized learning experience for each student. The use of AI recognition tools empowers educators and discourages students from cheating with AI writers, knowing they will likely be caught.
By comparing student work to a sizable database of previously submitted work and noting similarities, AI detection tools can also assist teachers in spotting potential academic misconduct, such as plagiarism or cheating. Cheating, which can have a negative effect on the learning atmosphere, can be avoided, and academic integrity can be preserved as a result.
In this article, we will introduce tools specifically developed for educators to stay on top of the AI technology wave, a wave that is here to stay.
What is AI Writing?
Artificial intelligence (AI) writing is the process of using AI to create written content. It uses a range of AI products, such as chatbots, AI assistants, and AI modules, to automate the production of text-based content. To create new content, the technology examines user input and current content patterns, matching them.
This new AI revolution is changing not only the technology itself but will have a dramatic effect on education.
How AI Writing is Being Used in Education
AI writing is becoming more and more popular within the education sector. AI writing tools can help students improve their writing skills and offer personalized feedback. Teachers can also use these tools to detect plagiarism and ensure the originality of student work.
Grammarly offers an AI-powered writing assistant that checks for grammar and spelling errors, plagiarism, and clarity issues. OriginalityAI developed by OpenAI provides not only a plagiarism checker but also detects AI-generated and paraphrased content.
No longer is a student able to take advantage of the previous loophole of generating AI content and then simply paraphrasing with a tool such as Quillbot to pass AI detection. This loophole has been closed with OriginalityAI.
But wait…it gets better! Now there is PassedAI, also by OpenAI, specifically developed for educators. What makes PassedAI so great? Let’s take a look at some examples below:
- Educators get AI detection results with the click of a mouse
- PassedAI is 94%+ accurate in AI-generated detection
- Use within Google Docs
- “Replays” shows how a student generated their document step-by-step at 10x the speed
- Watch a demo of PassedAI here
Tools that detect AI-written content are especially valuable for teachers who have to grade a large number of assignments in a limited amount of time. Educators can now grade and detect AI at an exceptional speed.
For example, a teacher can see if the student copied and pasted large sections of text into their Google Doc document. Red flags like this are immensely helpful for teachers.
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Examples of AI Writing Tools
In addition to Grammarly, OriginalityAI, and PassedAI, there are other AI writing tools available that can be used in education. For example, Quillbot is an AI writing assistant that can help students with paraphrasing and sentence structure.
EssayBot is an AI writing assistant that can generate essays on various topics. These tools can save time for both students and teachers and help students improve their writing skills. Although, it can be argued that by using a writing assistant, the student is not required to exercise their critical thinking skills.
Although there are obvious downsides to AI-generated content when it comes to education, AI writing tools are increasingly being used to improve writing skills, provide feedback, and detect AI-generated content for educators.
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Why is it Important to Detect AI Writing?
With the popularity of AI writing tools, identifying AI-generated content is more important now than ever before. AI-generated content can contribute to online misinformation and plagiarism, and AI writers can at times spit out what reads as factual but isn’t factual at all.
With the new ChatGPT, the generation of misinformation is limited, yet it does happen. One must take care to ensure that the content an AI writer produces is accurate.
According to Gold Penguin, determining whether the text is AI-generated can help determine whether the quality of the material meets our human standards.
Particularly in the academic and journalism sectors, where accuracy and dependability are required, AI detection should be required.
Businesses can also use AI writing recognition to determine whether to spend money on AI writing services or tools. When human creativity isn’t needed for a job, purchasing AI writing tools might be more cost-effective.
Academic institutions and instructors need to be able to recognize AI writing. As previously stated, students may likely try to mislead teachers by using AI writing tools for an easy grade.
Teachers have a responsibility to help uphold academic integrity and can identify and stop academic dishonesty with the aid of AI-generated content detection.
When students know their work will be tested for AI-written content, they are more encouraged to process and turn in their own original work.
Detecting AI writing will become more and more important as AI technology develops, and businesses and educators alike will need to adopt efficient AI writing detection tools and strategies to preserve the quality and accuracy of written content.
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The Implications of AI Writing for Academic Integrity
According to The Conversation, AI writing has a major impact on academic honesty. Plagiarism is one of the main issues, where students may use AI writing tools to create material that is not their own. AI writing should be discouraged for students who are still developing the writing skills necessary to effectively function in today’s world.
The ability to identify AI-generated content was becoming harder to detect with a loophole called “paraphrasing”. Students would generate their written content with an AI-generated tool such as ChatGPT.
Then they would simply use a free tool such as QuillBot to paraphrase that content, which would in turn give them a passing score with AI detectors.
OpenAI has closed that loophole, upgrading its OriginalityAI detector tool to not only detect AI content and plagiarizing but can now detect paraphrased content. No longer can a student spin content to trick an AI detector.
Contract cheating, in which students pay others to compose their papers, is another issue. With AI writing, students can produce more convincing and complex papers that closely resemble their writing style, making it even harder for teachers to identify deliberate cheating.
In today’s world of AI writing, instructors are encouraged to support academic honesty and employ a variety of plagiarism detection and prevention techniques.
According to Academic Technology Solutions at the University of Chicago, it can be much more difficult for students to submit an AI-generated final copy and get away with it when instructors make it very clear to their students that they are aware of AI generation and will be testing for it.
Promoting library resources and instilling the value of academic integrity in students can also prevent academic dishonesty.
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in writing has important ramifications for academic honesty, especially in relation to plagiarism and contract cheating.
By monitoring students’ writing processes, promoting library resources, and educating students about academic integrity, educators must be on top of identifying and preventing academic dishonesty.
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The Negative Impact of AI Writing on Learning Outcomes
Although AI writing tools have a lot to offer in terms of productivity and efficiency, they also have the potential to have a negative influence on academic results. Students might be concerned about discrimination with regard to the gathering and analysis of their information by AI systems as a violation of their privacy, according to the Educational Technology Journal.
Excessive dependence on AI writing tools can lead to a lack of writing and critical thinking abilities, both of which are crucial for academic success.
Even with the use of AI writers at our fingertips, the value of knowing how to write well without the help of an AI assistant cannot be stressed enough.
Although the impact of AI on writing results has been studied, less is known about how AIs influence learning behavior. This implies that while the use of AI writing tools may enhance writing outcomes in the short term, the effect on learning outcomes over the long term is unknown.
Excessive dependence on AI writing tools can lead to a lack of writing and critical thinking abilities, both of which are crucial for academic success.
In order to promote academic integrity and critical thinking in the era of AI writing, more research is required to comprehend the long-term effects of AI writing tools on learning outcomes.
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How to Detect AI Writing
As AI-generated text can mimic human-written text and, frankly, produce a brilliant piece of work, spotting AI writing can be difficult. To identify AI writing, however, researchers and educators have created a number of techniques and tools.
Using software to analyze the text’s various characteristics is one frequent technique for spotting AI-generated text. Software research can reveal whether AI-generated text has a unique writing style, grammar, or syntax.
Software analysis can also discover patterns or discrepancies in AI-generated text that aren’t present in human-written content.
Through manual research, AI writing can also be identified. For instance, teachers can spot differences in a student’s writing style or patterns by comparing their old work to their new work. This approach should be pretty obvious when you compare the two pieces of writing.
They can also keep an eye out for indications of plagiarism or other breaches of academic ethics, such as abrupt changes in the student’s writing style or the use of unusual words.
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How to Address AI Writing in the Classroom
Having candid conversations with students is an important step for teachers as the use of AI-generated material increases. Addressing AI writing can support scholastic integrity and foster students’ critical thinking. Here are some ideas for teaching about writing with artificial intelligence.
- Most teachers already have statements about academic integrity in their syllabi, and adding information about AI generation is recommended. Teachers can clearly communicate to students that AI-generated text is unacceptable by expanding those practices to explicitly exclude Chat-GPT and other types of AI-generated text
- Educators don’t just have to emphasize the negative effects of academic integrity breaches; they can also draw attention to the advantages of academic integrity. They could, for instance, stress the value of originality, critical thought, and autonomous thought
- Teachers can try out AI writing platforms to learn more about their strengths and weaknesses. They can learn more about how AI-generated text is created and how to recognize it by utilizing these tools. Additionally, they can use these platforms to demonstrate to students how artificial intelligence (AI)-generated text differs from human-written text
- Teachers can design assignments that are more resistant to AI-generated content. Rather than just repeating information from a textbook or online source, they can create tasks that call for critical thinking, creativity, and independent thought
It takes a mix of awareness, instruction, and experimentation to address AI writing in the classroom. Educators can support academic integrity and foster critical thinking in their students by facing the AI revolution head-on while communicating openly with them.
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Educating Students About the Importance of Academic Integrity
To maintain an atmosphere of truthfulness, fairness, and respect in the academic community, teaching students the value of academic integrity is vital. Being honest, fair, respectful, and responsible in your studies and academic work is referred to as having academic integrity.
This definition pertains to both faculty and students. Here are some strategies educators can use to convey to pupils the value of academic integrity:
- Teachers can set clear expectations and guidelines for academic integrity in their lesson plans, homework, and conversations in the classroom. This includes giving students concrete examples of academic misconduct, outlining its negative effects, and offering tools to help them comprehend and steer clear of it
- Encourage students to behave honestly, fairly, and respectfully in order to promote a culture of integrity. Educators can do this by stressing the value of academic integrity. This can involve encouraging students to participate in an open discussion about issues related to academic integrity and fostering a learning environment that values original thought and critical analysis
- Teachers can teach students proper citation techniques to help them stay away from plagiarism and other types of academic dishonesty. Teaching students how to correctly cite sources, prevent unintentional plagiarism, and stay away from biased or unreliable sources is part of this
- Teachers can talk about academic integrity with students to help them realize how important it is for both their academic and professional lives. This may involve talking about examples of academic dishonesty and encouraging students to consider the ethical ramifications of their academic work
Honesty, fairness, and respect in the academic community depend on students’ understanding of the significance of academic integrity. To encourage academic integrity among students, educators can set clear guidelines and expectations, cultivate a culture of integrity, instruct students on proper citation techniques, and involve them in discussions about academic integrity.
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Final Thoughts
It is important to hold students to a high standard and not allow the AI generation to think for them. We must empower our teachers with the tools they need to ensure academic integrity, guaranteeing the authenticity of student work.
Educators must take proactive measures to address the problem, given the negative effects of AI writing on learning outcomes and the possibility of increased academic misconduct.
Teachers can encourage a culture of honesty, fairness, and respect in the academic community by putting AI detection tools into use and teaching students the value of academic integrity.
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Trina Greenfield, Author
SmackDown Media LLC
LinkedIn
About the Author:
Trina Greenfield, the owner of SmackDown Media LLC, is passionate about providing information to those considering their educational options. Trina is a seasoned writer, content creator, and website owner with a passion for unbiased research, educational platforms for children and adults, as well as all things family-related.