How to Set Healthy AI Boundaries in the Classroom

Are your students testing the waters with AI? Perhaps you are suspicious they are using it without permission? Maybe the thought of discussing AI explicitly with students sounds a bit worrisome because…what if they haven’t thought of using it? You don’t want to plant that thought in their mind! As we say in my district, clear is kind. We have to set healthy boundaries for AI use in the classroom, and that includes explicit conversations.

But how? In this post, you’ll find my step-by-step recommendations for talking about etiquette and ethics with students to create healthy AI boundaries.

Academic Integrity

If you’re worried your students will be tempted to use AI to cut corners due to its convenience and efficiency, you’ll want to bring up the topic of academic integrity. Explain to students that academic integrity is about being honest and responsible with schoolwork. Ask them to brainstorm a variety of ways dishonesty tends to rear its ugly head – cheating, plagiarizing, cutting corners, etc. – and to identify common causes. For example, students might make unethical choices because they procrastinated or because they don’t feel like doing the hard thing.

Ethical Dilemmas

The conversation about academic integrity provides a great segway to ethical dilemmas. As with email etiquette, I love to provide students with scenarios and have them dig in. What are the gray areas? What is more clear cut? And, how are we going to approach situations like this in our classroom?

For instance, Susie used AI to brainstorm possible topics for her upcoming essay. She only intended to use AI as a creative springboard, but it actually generated an entire essay for each topic it suggested. Now that Susie has read the essay written by AI on a topic she likes, she’s tempted to use it. After all, it’s probably better than what she would write on her own, and it will save her hours of work. What should Susie do?

This type of ethical dilemma allows students to remove themselves from the situation and therefore be more open and transparent about what is right and wrong. As you discuss the ethical boundaries with students, they will be able to walk through the whole decision making process and, hopefully, be relieved that they won’t be facing the consequences artificial Susie may face.

I suggest discussing one scenario as a class and then having students move through the others in station rotation format. As students discuss these dilemmas, I like them to make a “do” and “don’t do” list with AI. After they have seen all of them, you can come back together as a whole class and synthesize their thoughts. This is a great time to create a class code of conduct that captures students’ voices and, therefore, increases ownership.

AI Etiquette

Once your class code of conduct has been agreed upon, it’s time to dig into etiquette. Will you be allowing students to use AI at all throughout the year? Some student-friendly forms exist that can be helpful with providing feedback. Our district subscribes to Magic School, which has a Magic Student side. I love some of the features available to students right now. Writing Feedback, for instance, allows teachers to attach the rubric for the assigned essay as well as to create guidelines for what type of feedback AI is and is not allowed to provide.

If your students will be allowed to use AI, you’ll want to teach them some specific etiquette rules. Because we are teaching AI as we input information, I always tell students to be polite. It’s to everyone’s benefit to use language like “please” and “thank you” and to avoid being derogatory or using inflammatory language with artificial intelligence tools.

Students also benefit from learning how to be specific (similar to adjusting Google search terms) and to be astute. AI has limitations, so we cannot take everything it produces as fact. Information must be filtered through the human brain and fact checked with credible sources.

Visual Framework

It’s important that once the initial discussions are over, we come back to whether or not AI use is ethical for each assignment. The easiest way to do this is with a framework. I’ve often used stoplights with my students – to self reflect on learning and to encourage them to check their skills with things like plagiarism.

The stoplight can effectively be used with AI, too. Begin by explaining what each color means. Red could mean that AI is not allowed. Yellow might mean a discussion needs to be had with the teacher first. And green may mean students are good to go with using AI for that particular assignment. Create a poster and display it in your classroom to make it easy to point at as you introduce new work quickly…“This is a red assignment, everyone!”

Frameworks can be developed or reinforced through activities as well. I like to create scenarios and have students rank them according to their ethical or unethical angle.

Assessment

Finally, I recommend assessing students over what you have discussed. You can use a traditional test format to collect understanding quickly. This doesn’t have to be for a grade! But you’ll want to look at the most frequently missed questions to determine where students may still not be understanding your expectations for artificial intelligence.

Healthy AI Boundaries

Whether you choose to allow students to use AI in your classroom regularly or whether you don’t allow it at all, clear is kind. Have explicit conversations with your students. Discuss scenarios. Develop easy to understand expectations and guidelines. Setting healthy AI boundaries and being consistent with them will create a safe, predictable space for your students to thrive.

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