In recent years, schools around the world have faced a new challenge that has never been encountered before: AI-generated writing on assignments.

Despite this challenge, English teachers in New Ulm High School find themselves unchallenged by these generated answers.

AI-generated writing contains certain words that raise alarms, according to Ms. Cowles. “You can tell at first glance,” Ms. Cowles said, who has been teaching high school English for eight years.

This gut feeling English teachers have for detecting AI is most likely thanks to experience.

Experience plays a role in determining whether students are using AI on their assignments.

“You get to know students pretty well – what their capabilities are, what skills they have,” said Mr. Van Leeuwe, who has been teaching for 18 years.

Sometimes student writing is too perfect and above the skill level of high school students. “This doesn’t match what I’ve seen in the last 18 years that students are capable of,” Van Leeuwe said.

Despite these challenges, there are ways to ensure that AI is not being used.

“We’ve come up with a lot of ways to kind of circumvent students using it, and so by going back to paper and pencil or locked mode with Hapara,” Ms. Cowles said.

Looking toward the future, it will be interesting to see how AI will evolve and how this will affect the education of future generations.