CheatGPT? How some high school kids are using tech to get an edge on exams

An Ottawa high school is sounding a note of concern about student cheating — including the suspected use of artificial intelligence to answer test questions — as senior students prepare to write exams this week.

Last week, Glebe Collegiate Institute sent an email to parents stating Grade 11 and 12 students will begin writing final exams on Tuesday. Many classes were already in final evaluations last week.

"The purpose of this memo is to not only inform you of that but to bring to your attention our growing concerns about academic integrity around tests and other evaluations," the memo from school staff said.

Teachers have reported students cheating, according to the memo, and have also outlined suspected cheating methods.

Examples include looking at pictures of notes on Apple Watches, talking to each other via AirPods to share answers during tests, and using ChatGPT, the emerging artificial intelligence tool, to help answer questions when using assigned laptops.

According to the memo, school officials are working to address the issue for this semester and future exams, while teachers are doing their best to police the situation. The school is also asking parents to talk to their kids ahead of exams about the possible consequences of being caught.

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) did not make a board member or the school principal available for an interview.

But a spokesperson for the board said in an email the memo was meant in part to tell students "staff are aware of ways technology may be used to cheat on assignments."

"We trust the overwhelming majority of students will not engage in this type of behaviour," the spokesperson added.

AirPod example sounds impractical to students

CBC News spoke to six Glebe Collegiate Institute students when school let out Friday afternoon. The students are not being named to protect their online reputations.

Some said they'd heard of or seen others using Apple Watches or ChatGPT, including for assignments such as English essays.

But AirPods? Not so much.

The first student, from Grade 11, said that approach sounded impractical, as it would require talking to each other.

The fourth student said teachers have allowed students to use AirPods to listen to music during tests, but he hadn't heard of peers using them to communicate.

All the examples cited by the school are more complicated than just studying, he added.

Teachers have already warned students about using ChatGPT, said the sixth student, who is in Grade 9.

'The mode has changed'

Tasha Ausman, a high school teacher in Quebec who also instructs in the University of Ottawa's faculty of education, said the school memo didn't come across as "entirely accusatory," but rather as a heads-up the school has its finger on the pulse of new technologies.

"[Twenty] years ago, people [were] writing stuff on their wrist or on the inside of their shirt or ... on their calculator case," Ausman said. "I just think the mode has changed, but it's not leading to a moral degradation of students."

The Glebe Collegiate Institute note does raise the issue of how the use of phones and other items are monitored by staff, she said.

"Unless required for accommodation needs, students are not allowed to use electronic devices such as earbuds or phones during exams," the OCDSB spokesperson said.

The first student CBC spoke to said he had just gotten an Apple Watch but was told by a teacher to take it off during a recent test.

Teachers usually collect phones, the fourth student said, adding he's "too broke" for an Apple Watch.

Learning to work with new tech

Ausman said teachers could still find ways to integrate new technologies.

Teachers can detect the grammatical peculiarities of ChatGPT texts, she said, because they either don't sound like people or "they're wrong."

So why not put an AI-generated essay right on the smart board and have the students pick it apart, she said.

"Students still look at their teachers as a kind of human encyclopedia where they ask, is this real?" Ausman said.

Joel Westheimer, a research chair in democracy and education at the University of Ottawa, said many schools are issuing notes like the one from Glebe Collegiate Institute.

"There was a kind of panic when calculators came out that no one would learn to do math anymore and that there would be rampant cheating and so some people are saying this is the next calculator," said Westheimer, who previously taught in New York City's public education system.

"I do think, once you have these large language models, it is a little different because mastering language is kind of a different level of engaging with material than, say, calculating numbers," he said.

The best approach, according to Westheimer, is to discuss the issue school-wide or even reform the education system to place less emphasis on ranking and more on pure learning.

"What we really need to be focusing on is thinking about how to change the incentives in schooling so that the incentive isn't to cheat but to learn," he said.