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How can you tell when students are using AI for legitimate purposes, or using it to cheat?
Teachers are grappling with this question, as Jocelyn Gecker discussed in her article for the Associated Press. It was published in the September 15, 2025, edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
She quotes high school and college educators, who say that assigning writing outside the classroom is like asking students to cheat.
“Anything you send home, you have to assume is being AI’d,” she quotes Casey Curry, who has taught English for 23 years and was a 2024 California Teacher of the Year.
His students, Gecker says, do most of their writing in class.
The reporter also points out that students are uncertain when AI usage is out of bounds. After all, students want to use all tools available to them, but not be accused of cheating.
Before AI, writing came easily to some students, but painfully difficult for others.
Also, there are students in many American schools for whom English is not a first language.
Gecker talks about one student who wrote his essay in his first language, and used a translation app to convert it to English. The app, she writes, improved some phrasing. Is that cheating?
Students have also used Grammarly, a popular AI writing assistance app, she writes.
Most good teachers want students to write what they know. Some are less concerned with creative phrasing and much more concerned with the knowledge the student imparts from his or her studies.
English and creative writing classes are different. They want to see the clever phrasing and catchy metaphors.
Most importantly, they want students’ work to be original.
Math teachers adapted to the use of calculators. Students are not learning cursive writing as much anymore because of the widespread use of electronic devices.
So, teachers must find ways to employ AI – students will use it whether or not it is forbidden – in ways that students can still impart what they have learned, but do it in a way that incorporates the modern world.
To those students for whom writing is difficult, AI could be a godsend. Making students struggle needlessly does not make for good teaching.
For those that can write easily, they will continue to write and perhaps use AI for research.
AI can be used for good, but it can also be used for sinister purposes.
It behooves teachers and students to find the good, and not the sinister. The sinister, eventually, will get caught, because there will be tools developed – or have already been developed – for teachers to discern real from fake.
The blessing here is that some teachers are requiring students to do their homework in school, and not at home. What student would not want less homework?
Peter