Surveillance and oral defense in high school must put an end to cheating with AI

It must no longer be possible to cheat one's way to a higher grade by asking artificial intelligence for help when taking exams at a general upper secondary school or other youth education programme.

Today, Education Minister Magnus Heunicke (Social Democrats) is presenting an "immediate package" to tackle the problem.

- Unfortunately, we can see that AI is being misused and that cheating with AI is happening at our upper secondary schools. So we have to step in and ensure that AI cannot be used to cheat one's way to better grades. Because in the end, you are only cheating yourself, says Education Minister Magnus Heunicke (Social Democrats).

> I miss that something more fundamental is being done about how we use AI in upper secondary school.

> Oscar Tønsberg Hoffmann, Chair, Danish Upper Secondary School Students' Association, DGS

The emergency package rests on three pillars.

Firstly, upper secondary schools are encouraged to monitor students' screens during written exams using monitoring tools. There are currently no guidelines for this.

Schools are also encouraged "to a greater extent" to ask students to complete assignments at school, so that teachers have a better opportunity to follow along and provide feedback on how students solve the tasks.

And finally, HF students (the two-year higher preparatory programme) must give an oral defence of their SSO assignment (a major written assignment). Students at general upper secondary schools (STX), HHX, HTX and EUX programmes already do this today.

The emergency package comes after numerous upper secondary schools across the country have reported cheating with AI, and that students have become worse at writing, calculating and thinking for themselves because they have used AI for their school assignments.

Read also: Generation AI becomes graduates - and it seems they have more difficulty with written exams (https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/generation-ai-bliver-studenter-og-det-lader-til-de-har-svaerere-ved-skriftlige-eksamener)

This prompted, among others, Danske Gymnasier, which represents the country's general upper secondary schools and the two-year HF programme, to call for political action.

The fact that something is now coming from the education minister makes Maja Bødtcher-Hansen happy. She is chair of Danske Gymnasier and principal of Frederiksberg Gymnasium.

- All three things are things that can be done here and now, she says, pointing especially to the proposal that HF students must in future give an oral defence of the SSO assignment.

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Will create more peace of mind

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It will create more peace of mind around that exam, Maja Bødtcher-Hansen believes.

- Because teachers are currently sitting with assignments where they do not know whether the students wrote them themselves. Meanwhile, students who actually wrote the assignment themselves are afraid that the teacher might not believe they wrote it themselves.

The Danish Upper Secondary School Students' Association, DGS, which represents upper secondary school students, also welcomes the package, but believes the minister has focused too narrowly on cheating.

> It might be a good idea. It is probably necessary that we get some slightly stricter rules, because you also have to learn something.

> Mohammed Hassan, student at Aalborg Katedralskole

- It is of course a problem. But we cannot organise upper secondary school so that we only focus on cheating and not focus on using artificial intelligence in a responsible way, says Oscar Tønsberg Hoffmann, chair of DGS.

He also points out that these are "three relatively small changes".

- I miss that something more fundamental is being done about how we use AI in upper secondary school, he says.

At Aalborg Katedralskole, which houses both a general upper secondary programme and an HF programme, the minister's plan divides opinion among the students.

Mohammed Hassan. (Photo: © Frederik Thulesen)

- It might be a good idea. It is probably necessary that we get some slightly stricter rules, because you also have to learn something, says Mohammed Hassan, a student at the school.

But another student, Marie Nielsen Buje, sees it differently.

Marie Nielsen Buje. (Photo: © Frederik Thulesen)

- I already think it is a bit strict in terms of what you are allowed to use it for, she says.

- It is fair enough that you should not use it when you are taking an exam. But I don't see anything wrong with using it as a tool, she says.

The prospect of having to spend more time at school doing assignments is not warmly welcomed by Linn Van Zanden, who also attends the school.

Linn Van Zanden. (Photo: © Frederik Thulesen)

- I can't concentrate as well at school as I can at home, so I do a lot of my assignments at home. For me, it would be a bit stressful if I had to start doing my assignments at school, she says.

In addition to the new immediate package, the government also plans to develop an overarching national strategy for AI in the entire school and education sector in the coming period.

Warning: This article was translated by a Large Language Model, in case of doubt, you can always visit the original source.