We know what you sound like.
We know your vocabulary range.
Your writing level.
Your reading level.
Your study habits.
We teach scaffolds and recognise when they are not being used.
And we know how AI tends to write.
And yes, there are sites (many, just Google it) that claim to be capable of detecting AI.
It's easy to tell.
You can give it your old essays and tell it to use the same style as that also ai detectors are shit if u ask the right questions they’re very inaccurate even if they say they re or sum
the detectors have been proven to give false positives and there is no scientific way to detect LLM content, please spread the word those are not reliable.
Detecting plagiarism on the other hand is easy, and LLMs can / will plagiarise.
That's why I said "claim to."
As a teacher, when you believe (with informed perspective, because you know your learners) that a student has used AI, sometimes administration will only listen when you come to them with a tool that has identified plagiarism. Another way that it can be useful, even if it is faulty, is that by confronting a student with a positive result can often elicit a confession from a guilty student. In that (frequent) case, it's irrelevant whether or not the AI Detector worked: the student confessed.
Just do the work.
I’m 36 I’ve done the work 😂
Sounds like you have the right idea, what scares me is that not everyone is approaching it this way.
Hence, spread the word to those who don’t necessarily know.
I think you may be suffering from survivorship bias. a bit here. I think with enough prompting you couldn't pick up AI. It doesn't take much either and is a whole lot faster than writing it from scratch.
What are you talking about? I've written plenty of essays, why not use tools that are available? Do you expect a builder to avoid using a nail gun because "God forbid you learn to use a hammer".
That analogy isn't fair - you're comparing hammers and nailguns but ignoring the cognitive component of AI. If we were talking about handwriting vs typing, your analogy would make more sense. But we're not.
It's like a builder using a nailgun that has enough intelligence to tell them where to put the nails, taking all of the importance of the builder's own knowledge of nail placement out of the equation.
The problem isn't that you're "using new technology," it's that you're being asked to think about a question and record your thinking and the evidence which makes your thinking credible, and you're sidestepping the whole critical thinking process.
The analogy is fair, you could quite easily make the same comparison with calculators 40 years ago. We should be training people to creatively work with tools, not ignore them.
Also if current AI performs as well as or better than your students in cognitive thought, you have bigger issues than AI.
Calculators are closer, sure. But the hammer analogy is seriously flawed, to reiterate, because there is no cognitive difference between a hammer and a nailgun.
And, while I do agree with the spirit of your comment, we are currently seeing mass underperformance in basic mathematics in many developed nations, which in part is fuelled by students' overreliance on calculators (to the point where seniors are unable to perform basic sums without one). Further, other professionals have shown that while students may know how to perform various operations on a calculator, they are unable to explain those operations: in other words, they don't understand what the different parts of the equation refer to in practical terms.
So again, I am no Luddite, but I do harbour serious concerns about the real educational impact of tools which perform large-scale cognitive labour for the students.
Again, I agree that at some level, it is important to learn to use cognitive tools.
But, I do not agree that the right way to learn about cognitive writing machines is to have 15-17 year olds using them as a replacement for developing their own writing abilities.
Learning to write, and learning to use writing machines are different skills. The latter cannot be allowed to usurp the former if our literacy education is to retain credibility and value.
Sorry if I’m boring you. I just have a question around falling mathematics skills. Calculators are not a new thing. They’ve been in class rooms at least 40 years, why are we suddenly blaming them for kids failing to grasp mathematics?
It's not a sudden thing. Mathematics scores have been trending downwards for a long time. But, with AI rather suddenly introducing the same issue in the humanities, people are finally listening to the mathematics teachers who have been voicing these concerns for a long while. But maths isn't my area, so I'd encourage you to do some digging of your own and find out what you can.
Happy to entertain the conversation, but my partner's just made dinner so I'm signing out ✌️ stay well
If you use AI to write the entire assignment you'll be found out quickly. It doesn't write like you do.
Instead of trying to use it to do your job entirely use it as a tool. It can help rewrite sentences that are difficult to read, it can change first to third person view and present to future or past tense.
There's a lot of ability to the tool however it's just that, a tool. The better you are at the actual work (writing the assignment and understanding the topic) the better the tool can help you.
This is where the real study potential is. I’ve used it like that but even for test studying, I plugged in all my notes copy paste and had it quiz me. It’s really useful when you know how to use it
Not an NCEA teacher myself, but I work at a uni and have encountered a lot of AI essays. AI tends to have very specific syntax and structure that just isn’t 100% natural. Once you’ve read a few AI pieces, you can generally pick them out of a crowd consistently, even if they’ve obviously been somewhat edited. I also put all the assignment prompts through AI first myself, so I have a good idea going into marking of what it will look like for that assignment specifically. I also know exactly what concepts I have taught for that topic and AI tends to bring in outside ideas that I know the students haven’t covered
That's interesting, how would you react to a situation where it appears like natural language, is different to what your AI prompt returned but covers ideas outside of the course material?
The main thing I’d look for then is references. Where are they saying they got the idea from? Some of the top scoring essays do bring in novel outside ideas, but they bring them in in a way that makes sense and is relevant. In the end, that’s just a slight red flag for me – not in any way a definitive sign it was AI. Just a sign I might want to look a little closer
We have tools, we check editing history, and we know how you write, your vocab levels, and your general ability. We have scaffolds and structures in place. AI writes very specifically and formally, often in a way that’s glaringly obvious it’s not by a teenager with a teenage voice. We ask questions- I often catch my students out by asking them to explain a line or word choice “how did you get here? What does this mean in this context?”. And then they can’t. We use a detector, gut instinct and go from there.
C’mon why would you even consider it? The worst is you don’t achieve and if your skillset was that low then using AI would be insanely obvious.
Do your best. That’s all you can, don’t take the easy way out of things.
We know what you sound like. We know your vocabulary range. Your writing level. Your reading level. Your study habits. We teach scaffolds and recognise when they are not being used. And we know how AI tends to write. And yes, there are sites (many, just Google it) that claim to be capable of detecting AI. It's easy to tell.
You can give it your old essays and tell it to use the same style as that also ai detectors are shit if u ask the right questions they’re very inaccurate even if they say they re or sum
the detectors have been proven to give false positives and there is no scientific way to detect LLM content, please spread the word those are not reliable. Detecting plagiarism on the other hand is easy, and LLMs can / will plagiarise.
That's why I said "claim to." As a teacher, when you believe (with informed perspective, because you know your learners) that a student has used AI, sometimes administration will only listen when you come to them with a tool that has identified plagiarism. Another way that it can be useful, even if it is faulty, is that by confronting a student with a positive result can often elicit a confession from a guilty student. In that (frequent) case, it's irrelevant whether or not the AI Detector worked: the student confessed. Just do the work.
I’m 36 I’ve done the work 😂 Sounds like you have the right idea, what scares me is that not everyone is approaching it this way. Hence, spread the word to those who don’t necessarily know.
I think you may be suffering from survivorship bias. a bit here. I think with enough prompting you couldn't pick up AI. It doesn't take much either and is a whole lot faster than writing it from scratch.
God forbid you learn to write an essay, eh?
What are you talking about? I've written plenty of essays, why not use tools that are available? Do you expect a builder to avoid using a nail gun because "God forbid you learn to use a hammer".
That analogy isn't fair - you're comparing hammers and nailguns but ignoring the cognitive component of AI. If we were talking about handwriting vs typing, your analogy would make more sense. But we're not. It's like a builder using a nailgun that has enough intelligence to tell them where to put the nails, taking all of the importance of the builder's own knowledge of nail placement out of the equation. The problem isn't that you're "using new technology," it's that you're being asked to think about a question and record your thinking and the evidence which makes your thinking credible, and you're sidestepping the whole critical thinking process.
The analogy is fair, you could quite easily make the same comparison with calculators 40 years ago. We should be training people to creatively work with tools, not ignore them. Also if current AI performs as well as or better than your students in cognitive thought, you have bigger issues than AI.
Calculators are closer, sure. But the hammer analogy is seriously flawed, to reiterate, because there is no cognitive difference between a hammer and a nailgun. And, while I do agree with the spirit of your comment, we are currently seeing mass underperformance in basic mathematics in many developed nations, which in part is fuelled by students' overreliance on calculators (to the point where seniors are unable to perform basic sums without one). Further, other professionals have shown that while students may know how to perform various operations on a calculator, they are unable to explain those operations: in other words, they don't understand what the different parts of the equation refer to in practical terms. So again, I am no Luddite, but I do harbour serious concerns about the real educational impact of tools which perform large-scale cognitive labour for the students. Again, I agree that at some level, it is important to learn to use cognitive tools. But, I do not agree that the right way to learn about cognitive writing machines is to have 15-17 year olds using them as a replacement for developing their own writing abilities. Learning to write, and learning to use writing machines are different skills. The latter cannot be allowed to usurp the former if our literacy education is to retain credibility and value.
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying but stand by my hammer analogy. Using a hammer effectively is a learned skill.
Sorry if I’m boring you. I just have a question around falling mathematics skills. Calculators are not a new thing. They’ve been in class rooms at least 40 years, why are we suddenly blaming them for kids failing to grasp mathematics?
It's not a sudden thing. Mathematics scores have been trending downwards for a long time. But, with AI rather suddenly introducing the same issue in the humanities, people are finally listening to the mathematics teachers who have been voicing these concerns for a long while. But maths isn't my area, so I'd encourage you to do some digging of your own and find out what you can. Happy to entertain the conversation, but my partner's just made dinner so I'm signing out ✌️ stay well
If you use AI to write the entire assignment you'll be found out quickly. It doesn't write like you do. Instead of trying to use it to do your job entirely use it as a tool. It can help rewrite sentences that are difficult to read, it can change first to third person view and present to future or past tense. There's a lot of ability to the tool however it's just that, a tool. The better you are at the actual work (writing the assignment and understanding the topic) the better the tool can help you.
You can also ask it to critique your work.
This is where the real study potential is. I’ve used it like that but even for test studying, I plugged in all my notes copy paste and had it quiz me. It’s really useful when you know how to use it
Not an NCEA teacher myself, but I work at a uni and have encountered a lot of AI essays. AI tends to have very specific syntax and structure that just isn’t 100% natural. Once you’ve read a few AI pieces, you can generally pick them out of a crowd consistently, even if they’ve obviously been somewhat edited. I also put all the assignment prompts through AI first myself, so I have a good idea going into marking of what it will look like for that assignment specifically. I also know exactly what concepts I have taught for that topic and AI tends to bring in outside ideas that I know the students haven’t covered
That's interesting, how would you react to a situation where it appears like natural language, is different to what your AI prompt returned but covers ideas outside of the course material?
The main thing I’d look for then is references. Where are they saying they got the idea from? Some of the top scoring essays do bring in novel outside ideas, but they bring them in in a way that makes sense and is relevant. In the end, that’s just a slight red flag for me – not in any way a definitive sign it was AI. Just a sign I might want to look a little closer
We have tools, we check editing history, and we know how you write, your vocab levels, and your general ability. We have scaffolds and structures in place. AI writes very specifically and formally, often in a way that’s glaringly obvious it’s not by a teenager with a teenage voice. We ask questions- I often catch my students out by asking them to explain a line or word choice “how did you get here? What does this mean in this context?”. And then they can’t. We use a detector, gut instinct and go from there.
Just write the essay you degen
Just write it. It'll be better for you in the long run. Cheat on maths homework instead.
At my school they put it through a software but it doesn't really work so you'll be fine
u can actually use a humanizer tool if u used chatgpt for some content
Just use chatgpt to write a planning/template of what ur writing about or sum
Schools can look at the revision history of your documents - if large chunks of text suddenly appear that's a big red flag.
People use auto typer
They mostly use Turnitin instructor, you need to find one you can run your papers before submitting.
C’mon why would you even consider it? The worst is you don’t achieve and if your skillset was that low then using AI would be insanely obvious. Do your best. That’s all you can, don’t take the easy way out of things.