Creating 100 percent ai-proof writing prompts can often be impossible, but that doesn't mean there aren't strategies that can limit the effectiveness of ai work. These techniques can also help ensure that more of the writing submitted in your class is human-generated.
I started to see a big uptick in ai generated work submitted in my classes over the last year and that has continued. As a result, I've gotten a lot better at recognizing ai work.but I've also gotten better at creating writing prompts that are less ai-friendly.
Basically, I like to use the public health Swiss cheese analogy when thinking about ai prevention: All of these strategies alone have holes, but when you combine layers of cheese, it creates a barrier that's hard to break through. .
The eight strategies here may not prevent students from submitting ai work, but I think they can encourage human writing and ensure that any work submitted via ai does not actually meet the assignment requirements.
Putting your writing prompt into an ai tool will give you an immediate idea of how most ai tools will handle your message. If the various ai chatbots do a good, or at least adequate, job right away, it would be wise to modify the message.
One of my classes asks students to write about a prized possession. When you put this message into an ai chatbot, it often returns an essay about a family member's finely crafted watch. Obviously now look For any essay on watches.
2. Ban the use of clichés
Probably the quickest and easiest way to reduce the use of ai is to limit the use of clichés in writing tasks. ai tools are essentially cliché machines, so banning them can prevent much of ai use.
Just as important, this practice will help your students become better writers. As any good writer knows, clichés should be avoided like the plague.
3. Incorporate recent events
The free version of ChatGPT only has access to events until 2022. While There are plugins that allow you to search the Internet. and other Internet-enabled ai tools, some students won't get beyond ChatGPT.
More importantly, in my experience, all ai tools struggle to incorporate recent events as effectively as historical ones. Therefore, connecting class material and assignments to events like a recent State of the Union address or the Academy Awards will make any use of ai writing less effective.
4. Require quotes
ai tools can incorporate direct quotes, but most are not very good at doing so. The quotes used tend to be very brief and are not as well placed in the essays.
Requesting recent citations from an ai tool can also be particularly problematic for today's robotic writers. For example, I asked Microsoft's Copilot to summarize the recent Academy Awards using quotes, and I specifically asked him to quote Oppenheimer Acceptance speech by director Christopher Nolan. Instead, he quoted something Nolan had said earlier. Copilot also quoted Wes Anderson's acceptance speech, an obvious mistake. since anderson was not at the awards.
5.Make tasks personal
Having students reflect on material from their own lives can be a good way to avoid ai writing. In-person teachers can get to know their students well enough to know when this type of personal data is being manufactured.
I teach online, but I still find it easier to know when the ai wrote a more personalized message. For example, one student presented a paper about how much she loved skateboarding that was so nonspecific that she screamed written by ai. Another submitted a post about a pair of sneakers that was also clearly written by a “soleless” ai (I noticed for the clichés and other reasons).
6.Make primary or academic sources mandatory
Requiring sources that are not easily accessible on the Internet can stop ai writing. I like to have students look up historical newspapers for certain assignments. The ai tools I'm familiar with can't incorporate them.
For example, I asked Copilot to compare media coverage of the first Academy Awards to the most recent awards show and to include quotes from historical media coverage. The comparison was not well done and there were no citations of historical press coverage.
ai tools also have difficulty incorporating journal articles. Encouraging your students to include these types of sources ensures that the work they produce is deeper than something that can be revealed by a quick Google search, which not only makes ai writing more difficult but can also increase overall quality.
7. Require interviews, excursions, etc.
Drawing on primary and academic sources, you can have your students conduct interviews or take field trips to historical sites, museums, etc.
Fortunately, ai is still unable to adopt this type of behavior. This requires too much work for each task, but it is the most effective way to truly ensure that your work is human and not computer-written.
If you're still concerned about using ai, you can even go a step further and ask your students to include photos of themselves with interview subjects or field trips. Yes, ai art generators are getting better too, but remember that Swiss cheese analogy? Every layer of prevention can help.
8. Have students write during class
As I said to begin with, none of the methods discussed are infallible. There are already many ways to circumvent these safeguards and there will be more ways to circumvent them in the future. So if you're really concerned about using ai, you might want to choose what I call the “nuclear option.” If you teach in person, you can require students to write essays in person.
This approach definitely works to prevent ai and is fine for short pieces, but for longer pieces, it has many disadvantages. I would find it difficult to write a long paper in this environment, and I imagine many students would find it difficult as well. Additionally, this requirement could create an accusatory classroom atmosphere that is more focused on preventing the use of ai than teaching. It is also not practical for online teaching.
All that said, given how common ai writing has become in education, I understand why some teachers will resort to this method. Hopefully, tips 1-7 will work, but if ai-generated jobs still can't be used in your classroom, this is a blunt method that may work temporarily.
Good luck and may your assignments be ai writing-free!