Assessment Design

Stop using AI detectors: what works instead

A detector gives you a number you can't explain, a conversation you dread, and a student who may or may not have cheated. Here's the position to take instead, and the evidence that protects you when the meeting gets difficult.

Why the detector fails you

The conversation in schools since 2023 has largely centred on detection: how do we catch (and punish) students using AI? The answer, by now, is that we can't (reliably), we are often not permitted to act on it alone, and catching and punishing shouldn't be the goal. AI writing is good enough that no tool detects it dependably, and false accusations built on detection software have already done real harm to students across North America.

There's also a professional risk that's easy to underestimate. The moment you put a percentage in front of a parent, the meeting becomes a debate about software you didn't create and can't defend. You will lose that debate, because the parent is right about the tool.

The better question

The useful question is not "did this student use AI?" It's "can this student demonstrate their own thinking in front of me?" That reframe changes the design of the assessment rather than the intensity of the policing, and it's the only version of this problem you can solve.

What to collect instead

Three kinds of evidence do the work a detector can't.

• 1
  ProcessCollected in stages and dated, so that a finished piece has visible drafts.
• 2
  In-class CognitionAny thinking done in front of you: a timed write, a cold read, an exit conversation, and/or an oral defence.
• 3
  SpecificityThe student's own material, the reference to Tuesday's discussion, or the moment their reading changed and why.

None of this requires new software and none of it requires an accusation. It requires the assignment to ask for things a chatbot can't supply.

The conversation, when it comes

If a meeting does happen, the move that works is to take the detector off the table in your first sentence. You agree that detection software isn't definitive. You say that it's not the basis of the decision. Then you put the draft stages on the table and talk about the gap between the process observed in class and the work that was handed in. The parent arrived prepared to fight about the detector. You've declined the fight and moved to ground where the evidence is yours.

Where to start

Take the assignment that worries you most and run it through the audit. Then add the weakest pillar back in. One assignment, one change, starting tomorrow.

Questions teachers ask

Put one assignment through the audit

Eight questions, five minutes, and the one change worth making first.

Audit an assignmentRead the framework