Instructional Approaches to Combat Misuse of AI Writing in 7-12 Classrooms

Purpose & objective

-Educational or infrastructure challenge/situation.
How to use ChatGPT ethically and responsibly. How to combat misuse of AI and empower students to write authentically. How to communicate AI writing expectations with students and families.
-Technology intervention (include specific names/titles and descriptions if tools are not widely known and available).
ChatGPT: AI chatbot that can respond to questions and compose written content
Bard: AI chatbot developed by Google that has conversational queries and responses, that
suggests new things to add to a search
-Models employed (include a brief description).
Direct instruction- Presenting information using Canva presentation
Team teaching- Co-presenters teach together
Audience participation- think-pair-share, polls
-Lesson plans or instructional activities/strategies employed (include a brief description of your instructional electronic resources or tools used).
See lesson plan in outline below.
We will be using a Canva presentation and polls
-Evidence of success.
Participants will play with the chatbots to try different requests
Participants will be able to communicate ethical use of AI to stakeholders
Participants will report on an exit ticket what they learned and what they have questions
on

Outline

Introductions (2 minutes)
Poll asking participants for their experience with AI writing (1 minute)

What is AI generated writing? (2 minutes)
Define: AI tools are used to create and edit written content.
List current AI generated writing like chatGPT, Rytr, Zapier, and WriteSonic

Give some examples of AI generated writing (one serious, and one humorous) (1 minute)
Have participants use a chatbot to write a silly poem and share with a partner. (2-3 minutes)

Learning Objective: Participants will learn skills to combat misuse of AI writing tools, and how to use AI tools to help students during the writing process. (1 minute)

Why do students plagiarize and feel tempted to use AI generators for writing? (2 minutes)
Feeling overwhelmed with the topic or time needed to complete it
Lack of confidence in their writing ability
Previous trauma with writing
Sometimes they are just lazy
Something going on in personal life or have a major life event
Outside responsibilities prevent time to work on it (watching siblings, working, sports)
Poverty—no wifi or safe space to work
What is considered “cheating” when using AI?

Humans are still in the loop—teachers are not being replaced by AI (3 minutes)
Reference AI model from tech.ed.gov

Spin on Back to Basics (15 minutes)
Writing Process (show steps of writing process)
Rhetorical Precis: Using this as a brainstorming tool to highlight main points of the essay and strategies to be used to convince the reader
Mini-Socratics: How to use them for students to get ideas on their writing
Utilizing a question-based outline for writing–here is an example of an argumentative body paragraph:
1. What is the quote basically saying?
2. Why is that information significant?
3. Lead-in with a direct or paraphrased quote
4. So what? Why should anyone care about this?
5. What are you talking about in your next paragraph?

Brain Dump
Give students 3-5 minutes to brain dump their knowledge of the topic. It will be unorganized, but that’s okay!

Reconsider the order in which students write essays. How can they write an introduction before writing their body paragraphs? Students should have a “working thesis” that can evolve with their writing.

Utilize AI writing tools for ideas and editing
Ask ChatGPT
1. Is my tone neutral?
2. How can I vary my sentence structure to include compound complex sentences?
3. Is there bias in my writing?
4. Help me fix my grammar errors.
5. Articulation for writing barriers (ELL, SPED)
EX: I’m trying to say something about how the environment needs to be saved from all the plastics in the ocean.”
Where can I find a good source for my research essay on climate change?

Ways to use ChatGPT for student learning
1. Anticipate the response you would get from AI
2. Debate the bot
3. Add to think-pair-share routine
4. Grade the bot
5. Remix student work
Give participants 3-4 minutes to try one of these ideas for writing

Use of AI with students with special needs and ELL (5-10 minutes)
Tool to create a writing prompt or writing sample that allows students to generate more individualized detail
1. Simplify language/directions
2. Language Translation speech-to-text/text-to-speech
Idea generation
3. Communication about AI Writing: (4 minutes)

How to approach a student who submits an AI generated essay
How to communicate with families about AI generators
Example of AI generated writing procedures/policies in a course syllabus

Supporting research

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-ai-revolutionizing-special-education-jamie-culican
Can help with visual comprehension of material
Help individuals w/ autism recognize and understand emotions [in writing, particularly]

https://www.edweek.org/technology/opinion-ai-is-helping-us-with-our-instructional-practice-heres-how/2023/07
Use AI to simplify language (tier 2 & 3) for ELL
Provide already-composed text that the students needs to further break down or add detail to
Idea generation
Can help locate text
“my students learned that it’s less valuable to think of it in terms of accuracy and more valuable to think of it as a way to reflect and develop their own critical-thinking skills. As a hidden bonus, they never even thought about the language learning that was inherent in the tasks: reading complex ideas in English, writing clearly, editing sentences, discussing deep literary concepts, and more.
Perhaps we can all benefit from the lessons my students learned: AI should not be viewed as a fire ladder that you go up and down, using it in ways that are “right” or “wrong.” Instead, it should be seen as a body of water that we can dip our toes into, splash into for a quick refresh, dive deeply to explore, and move any direction we are compelled to at any given moment.”

https://ditchthattextbook.com/ai
Brain dumps

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/12/technology/chatgpt-schools-teachers.html
“Large language models aren’t going to get less capable in the next few years,” said Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “We need to figure out a way to adjust to these tools, and not just ban them.”
That’s the biggest reason not to ban it from the classroom, in fact — because today’s students will graduate into a world full of generative A.I. programs. They’ll need to know their way around these tools — their strengths and weaknesses, their hallmarks and blind spots — in order to work alongside them. To be good citizens, they’ll need hands-on experience to understand how this type of A.I. works, what types of bias it contains, and how it can be misused and weaponized.