As a staff, we have been exploring how we can develop a best practice for the opportunities and challenges of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is a fantastic tool and we want students to embrace it but also be aware of the challenges.

Staff are exploring ways to teach students how to use AI to help them formulate ideas and as a reference tool.  Staff are also being clear about when using AI becomes plagiarism (presenting work or ideas from AI as their own). We have reviewed our process around assessment tasks and this is where we are currently at as a College.

When setting an assessment task:

1. Pre-assessment analysis

A lot of assessments contain components where students are being asked to define established information. Students in doing this will be ‘copying’ someone else's ideas, albeit in their own words. This section of an assessment should not be weighted when looking at originality. Often these are set by NZQA and are a requirement but difficult for teachers to assess originality.

Teachers can however weight aspects of the assessment components that require more originality, such as analysis, wider implications, applications and evaluations, as this is where students apply their knowledge and own ideas further.

1. Plagiarism Declaration

On the assessment document, all students are required to read and sign the declaration. We have recommended the following:

‘I declare that all work done on this assessment has been completed by myself. All ideas of others are referenced, including the use of AI. All evidence of my working and history will be available for my teachers.’

1. Students must show their working

When setting a research/essay/analysis task, we generally use the Assessment tool on Google Classroom. In signing this agreement all students are then required to work exclusively within the documents that you have set. Working outside of these will result in Not Achieved.

In doing this, this allows us to look back at version histories to see prior working. It eliminates an instant cut and paste, which is the telltale sign of plagiarism.

Any non-digital working needs to be collated by the students and readied to show ‘all evidence of working and history’.

1. Interview the Student if you have an originality concern

If a student's working cannot be shown and their submitted work does not line up with what has previously been shown in class, a tool to use would be for the student to explain a section of their assessment back to you. Students using vocabulary and phrasing beyond their in-class capabilities should have these read back to them and asked for clarification. All students found to have plagiarised will need to have a conversation with their parents and the school.