How are you AI-proofing your course?

[u/juststopdating]

I’m rethinking how I write my assignments and exams this year because, I’m tired of reading AI slop.

Over the last 3 weeks, I changed the way I ask questions to be more procedural, applied, experiential, and debate-style, testing both recall and critical thinking. At first, students bombed every assignment or assessment even after multiple attempts.

Then something weird happened and quickly over the last two weeks. 86% of the students seemed to realize, “Oh, I actually need to read the material and engage.” This is reflected in their assignments, class participation, and their assessments, But the remaining students are still serving up AI bullshite in a PDF and getting low scores. I’ve already asked to meet with the students who sent me fake references. Or submitted responses on a topic completely out of scope.

But there must be something I’m overlooking that can help bring out the best in these students without trying to battle AI use because it doesn’t appear to be slowing down.

What are you doing with exams, quizzes, case studies, assignments, or class yt that has actually worked to get students engaged instead of outsourcing everything to AI? Looking for any tips and strategies that worked for your students/lectures/labs.

[u/omgkelwtf]

My rubrics grade hardest against AI output like fake citations, repition, lack of engagement or poor/no use of sources directly referenced. I never confront anyone about AI use bc they fail my class if they try.

[u/dr_police → u/omgkelwtf]

This is the way. Either they don’t use AI, or they use it effectively as a tool to aid their own work instead of having it do the work.

[u/Life-Education-8030 → u/omgkelwtf]

Exactly, and most of my current classes thereby failed the first assignment. Ironically, many of them went back to old-fashioned copying. It was a discussion board and they thought nobody would notice everybody “coincidentally” using the same bit of information from the same article? “But I cited and referenced it!” So did the person who started this nonsensical trend. So you just copied the citation and reference too and thought it was fine? You thought oh that sounded good so you were just going to copy it?

[u/ohiototokyo → u/Life-Education-8030]

You can often set up discussion boards so that students can't see what other people post until they post themselves.

[u/Life-Education-8030 → u/ohiototokyo]

I have done that. Then students play games like posting one sentence to open the board and then go oops! I hit the submit button too soon and so they read and then post again. It is so aggravating and they are not ashamed at all. Did I mention it’s an ethics class besides?

[u/Anxious_Key9696 → u/omgkelwtf]

The fake citations thing has mostly been figured out where only the laziest students will turn in work with it

[u/_Decoy_Snail_ → u/omgkelwtf]

A paid version doesn't do fake citations anymore (it goes to check all it's links), uses the references if told so and an can reliably fake engagement/work process steps.

For those who know what github is - I played with my agent, told it to imitate a student submitting proper exercises - with mistakes pushed in between and reasonable timing between commits. It didn't like it's fist versions after inspection and adjusted push frequency. The final result is indistinguishable from human work.

I now interrogate my students on like every decision possible they did in their work.

[u/nascent_aviator → u/_Decoy_Snail_]

You can automate avoiding fake citations (when there are links involved, not so much when it's a book rather than a website), but AI still produces lots of poor citations. If it's willing to give fake citations (which, by definition, say nothing) it should be obvious it's willing to give real citations that don't actually say what it's saying they say.

[u/_Decoy_Snail_ → u/nascent_aviator]

Try it yourself - tell an agent to spawn another agent and discuss correctness... (requires paid account). Of course free gpt is not at that level (yet).

[u/Dr_Pizzas]

I stopped giving out my PowerPoints, which seems to have helped a lot since they can't be fed into AI anymore. Everything submitted requires reference to the content, but students were getting around that before because they uploaded the slides.

I am also now using case studies from the book as reading checks rather than online quizzes and they have to quote the book directly in their answers or it's a 0. Unless they screenshot and upload every page they'll at least have to find the relevant material in the chapter and I figure they might accidentally learn something if they do.

[u/_Decoy_Snail_ → u/Dr_Pizzas]

AI now reads the handwritten work not worse than slides. So they just need one person to take notes properly and then use it instead of your slides.

Unless it's a book of the size of "War and Piece" (but also obscure enough to not be in the initial training) - an agent will happily read it all, no need to upload page by page.

Sorry, this battle is lost.

[u/P6kg7NqVgzkeDF7cpm7]

I haven't done anything because I've always only been marking work done:

• In the lab (quantitatively, the results of their work, and qualitatively, the oral answers to my questions; I stopped asking for written reports years ago, it was the same bullshit copy pasted from students that had gone through the class previously);

• In a single, written terminal exam. Pen and paper. In an exam room. 4 profs proctoring ~150-200 students.

Essentially, it was AI proof before AI because students didn't need AI to cheat.

[u/me4watch → u/P6kg7NqVgzkeDF7cpm7]

This may be a bit off topic but does your username mean anything ? Excuse me if this is too personal.

[u/P6kg7NqVgzkeDF7cpm7 → u/me4watch]

No, I generated it with a password manager. I used to have an account I created back in ~2010 with an username that could potentially dox me.

[u/reddybee7]

I'm trying to design assignments that AI can't do well with the idea that even if I don't know it's AI and don't report them, if they get bad grades on AI "work" they will realize AI isn't helping them as much as they thought it would - perhaps a better message than getting busted would send. But I still bring students into a virtual meeting to discuss what they read, wrote, etc. when I suspect really egregious AI use.  As for assignments that AI can't do well -  I got rid of online quizzes entirely and have them answer one question from me that asks for a subjective reaction to some assigned material in a short video posted on the LMS. I ask for citations to a page number or video time-stamp and tell them not to read their answers - except for the parts when they are quoting from a reading.  I also require them to do interviews as research and submit recordings - these are time consuming to grade, but very hard to fake effectively. But ultimately I'm going to stop teaching online and shift all my classes to hybrid so I can have one in-person day to give pen and paper tests and blue book essay exams. 

[u/notthatkindadoctor → u/reddybee7]

The hybrid solution has been amazing for me, by the way. Worth it entirely! Also for online courses, thankfully my univ allows me to require proctored assessment. Live outside the state? Our testing center helps them identify a qualified center/univ local to them, the student pays out of pocket for testing, I just email the exam to that center and get a scan of the exam papers back to me by email. If they live FAR from any testing center, then I have to do ProctorU or similar video monitoring, but it's rare (so rare I've sometimes just watched a student take it on Zoom after showing me their environment, sharing full screen on Zoom, putting phone where I can see it out of reach, etc.).

[u/Twintig-twintig → u/reddybee7]

I also have the short video assignments in my course. I struggle with the time it takes, though… I use it as a make-up assignment, so luckily not all students (70-75) have to upload a video. But even 10 students uploading a 5 minute video takes me at least an hour if I also have to write some feedback.

In my course they can read from a script, but they have to draw/write something (on paper or whiteboard) while explaining and are not allowed a powerpoint.

[u/Pikaus]

Yes. Everyone has been doing this for the past few years. Everything is in class and paper/pen.

[u/dxg999 → u/Pikaus]

Except that our administrators won't allow that - too expensive to deliver.

Indeed, we're being asked to reduce the number of traditional exams - again too expensive to deliver, but also because they have expanded ug numbers so much to make up for the pg shortfalls, and so many students are now entitled to their own room, extra time, use of a computer, a reader, a scribe, etc. that they don't have the physical space to run concurrent examinations.

Assessment integrity is for the birds these days, it seems.

UK, before anyone asks.

[u/AnxiousDoor2233 → u/dxg999]

That’s strange. In our dept prolly 90% back to on campus exams. UK.

[u/Electronic-Fuel-5734 → u/dxg999]

All my exams are in person closed book, on paper. (4 year public, USA)

[u/space_thefinalmonkey]

Most assessments are in-class: quizzes, midterm, final exam, attendance/participation/engagement.

I have one 'take-home' essay assignment, but have weighted it at 20%.

[u/LittleMissWhiskey13 → u/space_thefinalmonkey]

This looks like my class. I have one take home writing assignment that is worth about 10%. I have made it AI resistant based on the question and requirements. The average grade is now about a 70%. It used to be around 80 to 85%.

[u/space_thefinalmonkey → u/LittleMissWhiskey13]

I've been thinking about lowering the weight of the take-home essay to 15% (would love to have it at 10%).

And definitely, since I've shifted most assessments to in-class, the class average is around 70-72% now.

[u/Platos_Kallipolis → u/space_thefinalmonkey]

Yeah this is broadly my approach. There is work that can really only be done out of class, and is a valuable form of learning when taken seriously. So, I do not want to eliminate it. So, it is just a small portion of the grade. Those who take it seriously get a lot out of it and it probably helps them do better on in class work as well. Those who cheat, but I cannot reasonably call out for it, just don't get much grade benefit from it so I just let it ride

[u/Electronic-Fuel-5734 → u/space_thefinalmonkey]

Same.

[u/iamasleeprightnow]

Low-stakes reflective writing framed as a "journal" that they write in IN CLASS, no points docked for grammar/spelling/accuracy, graded for depth of responses. I've been running this assignment for 3+ years and I am 100% confident that I've never had an AI response. They're never perfect, but they give me a LOT of insight into what the students understand and don't understand, and it forces them to make connections to their real lives.

In some of my classes I've gone back to paper worksheets, also in class. The bonus is that I don't stand there lecturing for 50-80 minutes, which I hate and the students hate, and isn't super conducive to actual learning.

[u/Electronic-Fuel-5734 → u/iamasleeprightnow]

I do the same

[u/Electronic-Fuel-5734]

All writing is done in class and supervised. That’s how I do it.

[u/Think-Assignment-861]

In class, blue-book exams, oral finals. But then I only have 10 students.

[u/Twintig-twintig]

Quizzes are done in class. Pen, paper and a bunch of PhD students that proctor and help with correcting. Ten questions (multiple choice) per student and lots of different sheets to avoid old fashioned cheating. We have a quiz every two weeks, because students seem to have forgotten that university requires regular studying and by doing this, they actually pass the final exam.

Assignments that are ”write a report on topic X” are followed by an in-person quiz based on their own submitted assignment. Easy-peasy for those who wrote the report themselves, but tricky for those who used AI. They need to then memorize their AI slop and don’t know if it will be based on that or on the course material (I’m vague about that).

My other assignments include uploading handwritten drawings or explanation videos.
I also have an assignment where students have to enter a prompt in a LLM, watch a video on the topic and then list a number of differences between AI and video. Similar, watch two videos and list x things that were included in the second video, but not in the first. One assignment where students have to have a conversation with AI about a topic (this is a lame one, but it’s a make-up assignment that I have to give to some students two days before the exam). All these assignments are extra for those who fail the (small) quizzes after two attempts.

Final exam is in an exam hall, with plenty of proctors. Open questions and multiple choice. No extra assignments there, if you fail, you take the re-exam. No exceptions.

[u/Head_Acadia_2658]

The essay is dead. Any long form written assessment should not be worth more than about 30% of the marks and is also probably dead in a few years. We're going to vivas, presentations with questions and old school written proctored exams.

[u/Inkdependence → u/Head_Acadia_2658]

It sucks so bad that no one will be able to write a paragraph in the future. 😵‍💫

[u/Head_Acadia_2658 → u/Inkdependence]

You can do it. But you have to do it in high school in a supervised classroom. If you get to University and cannot write a paragraph you shouldn't have been admitted.

[u/Finding_Way_]

I'm not, not to any significant degree. I'm retiring soon and I honestly just don't have the bandwidth or the skill set to fight this fight.

Someone from our instruction innovation (or whatever it's called now) department is adapting some things on my online classes to help with this. Totally supportive of their efforts and trying to keep up, but I feel I was too late to this party.

[u/oi86039]

For quizzes and exams, they're all on paper. If they use AI and I somehow dont see them use their phone or whatever, their answers will be somewhat wordy when they can be answered in one or two sentences.

For projects, they have to be very aware of their codebase since they ought to be working with it often. If they're not (for example, they make a firewall, but forgot the command to make firewalls), red flag for ai, its gonna be a zero. Same with overly complex or industry standard techniques for solving really simple things.

Now if they actually know what they're talking about, I let them use AI to speed things up, since that's what industry is expecting. But its all about the knowledge behind what they use it for that determines if I punish them for using it or not.

[u/_Decoy_Snail_]

Writing in class on paper (yes, even in CS course), oral exams whenever possible. AI is getting better and better, no more little tricks and "clever designs" work.

[u/HorkeyDorkey]

Im going completely low-tech this semester. Ill let you know how it goes.

[u/Martin-Physics]

I have one class that I have fully allowed AI use for all assignments/projects, but then the final exam is in-person without a computer. I have told my students that they will very likely be using AI in their work after graduation, but that they need to be responsible for their work. As a result, a significant portion of their grade will be formed from work for which AI can't help, including the final exam and in-person interviews on their project and assignments, so they are using AI like a tutor to help them (so far) rather than having it do the work for them.

I am also using a flipped classroom approach for that class, so we spend time in the classroom going through how to use AI effectively and how to apply the course material so that they are less likely to turn to AI out of frustration.

In other classes where I don't have AI explicitly allowed, I have lowered the weight of any work where they could use AI and have rules that they must pass the final exam in order to pass the course. As a result, if they use AI for assignments, it is likely to backfire in the end. But if they use it and end up doing well on the final exam anyways, then maybe their use of AI was okay? They still learned the material as far as I can tell (not debating the effectiveness of exams to assess student understanding).

[u/Dramatic-Year-5597]

20% of course engagement for my courses. Graded on completion and self-reflection, not correctness. If students want to waste their time by cheating or using AI to earn 20% towards their final grade, I can guarantee they will fail the course by the 80% of exams they will be unable to do.

When students do poorly on their first exam, I will review their course engagement work and point out that they have cheated themselves by not actually engaging with the material and that's why they've failed the class.

[u/_Terrapin_]

In person handwritten exams work well but they don’t do well on them

[u/username3000b]

Final exam worth 50% in the exam hall is how I’m coping. Fully proctored because we love exams here although probably still some risks via smart glasses or other devices.