In the present generation, students have access to tools that make cheating easier than ever. Teachers are going to face some real challenges.
Modern schools developed before the internet and make use of practices that made sense in the 1980s, but are now obsolete. When I was in school, if you didn’t do your homework, you could copy your friend’s answers before class. Copying in that way was difficult and risky. A teacher could assign a reading, and the only way a student could know the answer was to do the reading. This is no longer the case today.
In my online courses, I cannot ask students simple comprehension questions, because they will skip the reading, enter the questions into a Google search and have answers in seconds. The answers may not be good answers, but they will be good enough to give an appearance of study and will put the burden onto the teacher to catch the cheaters. A busy teacher, with shallow knowledge of the subject will have no chance. Before the internet, teachers checked on student’s content knowledge. Today, such checks are useless.
What is happening in the information age is that intellectual honesty is becoming the principal quality of good students. (It probably always has been so.) This is a virtue that deserves greater recognition than ever before. Teachers cannot allow students to use AI tools instead of studying, but they also cannot demonize these tools as Math teachers used to demonize calculators. When we make calculations in “real life” circumstances, we will use calculators. Likewise, when we’re looking for information, we will make use of search engines and artificial intelligence. After all, encouraging students to concentrate on Math and Science makes no sense if the technology being developed by the Math and Science is “bad”.
Again, the problem with using AI is not that students get their answers from other sources, but that they do not admit when they do so. This is plagiarism.
Consequently, correct answers are no longer the real test of learning any more than an abundance of money is the test of real skill in work. The goal in modern education is to identify intellectual honesty as more important than “correct answers”. An imperfect answer that is honest is better, at present, than a perfect answer that has been dishonestly copied from another source.
Thankfully, honesty is easy to measure. Students can be required to answer questions and provide support for their answers. If a student knows the answer and its reason, he can simply say so. If a student is taking an answer directly from an assigned reading, he can simply say so. If a student finds an answer in another source, he can simply say so. Providing both answers and support for them allows intellectual honesty to be measured. Lazy students who do not study may be able to find answers, but providing support or sources for those answers will challenge them. (After all, they’re lazy.)
Grading can also be based on support for answers given. Answers drawn from the assigned reading can earn the highest scores. Answers drawn from internet searches or Chat GPT, honestly cited, can be given partial credit. Answers with no evidence can be denied any credit.
Students must also be held accountable for evaluating the truth of any sources they draw answers from. An answer that is properly cited, but wrong, is wrong. Google and ChatGPT can’t be blamed for wrong answers that a student presents as his own.
Of course, teachers may insist that answers be provided, with support, from only the assigned readings. This is my policy in the Classical Liberal Arts Academy because I am seeking to help students become comfortable with the most authoritative authors and texts. I don’t want my students wimping out and running to secondary sources. After all, how does a student know that the other source is right? We’re all accountable to the authoritative sources: that’s what’s most important about classical Catholic studies.
In the information age, information is not enough. Students must also learn to take responsibility for the quality of the information and the authority or credibility of the sources they use. Students must learn that we seek not answers, but answers with proof. When we do borrow words or ideas from others, we must give them credit, for neglecting to do so is a form of stealing, or lying, or both.
Teachers must think more carefully when designing assignments, quizzes and exams and take these issues into consideration. Instead of asking a student, “When was the Hebrew Exodus?” students need to be asked to “Prove the date of the Hebrew Exodus,” I ask students personal questions about the readings, such as, “What was something new that you learned in this lesson?” or “What did you find interesting in today’s reading? “. Asking students to outline or paraphrase readings is also effective.
Most importantly, however, in this age of easy answers, is the demand that students prove their answers to be true. The burden is not on teachers to catch cheaters, but on students, to prove that they have actually studied. Answers are no longer sufficient. Anyone can provide answers, but only good students can provide proof for the answers. If a student doesn’t prove that he has studied the lesson, don’t give him credit. Tell him that he has more proving to do if he wants credit. He’ll understand.
Perhaps the internet age has actually saved education from cheating by forcing these new approaches to assessment.
The greatest challenge to intellectual honesty is going to come from teachers who don’t want to do the work necessary to hold students accountable. I have seen many teachers giving students assignments that are easily cheated on and simply ignoring the cheating for their own convenience. One said, “That’s the student’s problem.” What are we teaching our students if not good morals?
Good assessment in the 21st century requires long-form written answers that must be manually graded by teachers. Good teachers will be eager to do it. Hirelings will not. While the idea of creating online quizzes that are automatically graded may sound attractive to teachers, the difficulty and time required to make quality quizzes that actually assess student mastery, and the trouble caused by mindless machine-grading according to the letter of the answer keys, causes more problems than these quizzes solve. Written assignments are better.
In the CLAA, I have been moving almost exclusively to written assessments and am happy with the quality of my students’ work. After a few bad scores, they realize that they’re going to have to study carefully and write clearly and their studying, thinking and writing all improve. I am constantly evaluating the quality of questions and believe that intellectual honesty can be effectively assessed and rewarded today. A most important part of this assessment is allowing students to re-submit work. Where second chances are always available, there is no reason for cheating.
Mt. William C. Michael, O.P.
Headmaster
Classical Liberal Arts Academy
