These teachers fight AI cheating with classes that force students to show they are learning; The Washington Post, September 6, 2026

Nitasha Tiku, The Washington Post; These teachers fight AI cheating with classes that force students to show they are learning

"Teachers and professors are throwing out old assignments, installing new policies and protocols, and incorporating AI built for the classroom, rather than feeling forced to choose between returning to pencil and paper or acting like the AI police.

Zeleny spent months transforming the university’s advanced writing curriculum for the ChatGPT era. Her goal was to deter AI cheating and create assignments that generate a more reliable record of a student’s learning process than a final product like an essay. 

Her new lesson plan even incorporates generative AI in a controlled way to let her evaluate students’ critical thinking skills. She created chatbots using BoodleBox, the university’s AI vendor, that allow instructors to see both sides of the conversation...

Christopher Ostro, a writing and rhetoric professor in the University of Colorado Boulder’s Division of Continuing Education, has been watching the evolution of educators’ feelings about AI. He hosted a workshop in April based on conversations with colleagues titled “Exploring the AI Grief Cycle: ​Finding a Path Forward for Faculty.”

Ostro now sees fewer peers in denial than over the past two years and more approaching bargaining and acceptance, he said.

“Some people quit. … Some people scrap their whole class and start over. Some people look for magic bullets,” but there is no technical solution that can roll back the clock, he said.

Last week, Ostro started the first session of a class called “Writing in the Age of AI” by sharing a detailed account of how he uses AI as an instructor. He aims to encourage students to make that kind of disclosure themselves."

We asked people about using AI to make the news. They’re anxious and annoyed; Poynter, June 27, 2024

 Jennifer Orsi, Poynter; We asked people about using AI to make the news. They’re anxious and annoyed

"Sometimes, when it comes to using artificial intelligence in journalism, people think of a calculator, an accepted tool that makes work faster and easier.

Sometimes, they think it’s flat-out cheating, passing off the work of a robot for a human journalist.

Sometimes, they don’t know what to think at all — and it makes them anxious.

All of those attitudes emerged from new focus group research from the University of Minnesota commissioned by the Poynter Institute about news consumers’ attitudes toward AI in journalism.

The research, conducted by Benjamin Toff, director of the Minnesota Journalism Center and associate professor of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication, was unveiled to participants at Poynter’s Summit on AI, Ethics and Journalism on June 11. The summit brought together dozens of journalists and technologists to discuss the ethical implications for journalists using AI tools in their work. 

“I think it’s a good reminder of not getting too far ahead of the public,” Toff said, in terms of key takeaways for newsrooms. “However much there might be usefulness around using these tools … you need to be able to communicate about it in ways that are not going to be alienating to large segments of the public who are really concerned about what these developments will mean for society at large.”

The focus groups, conducted in late May, involved 26 average news consumers, some who knew a fair amount about AI’s use in journalism, and some who knew little. 

Toff discussed three key findings from the focus groups:"