A grade carries a claim about a learner. Someone reading it should be able to understand what that learner knows and how the work demonstrates it. When an assignment permits help from generative AI, the meaning of the result deserves careful attention.
UNESCO’s September 2023 guidance calls for a review of learning outcomes and how they are assessed as generative AI becomes available. Section 6.5 places that discussion within the purpose of education and the evidence used to validate learning. Read the 2023 guidance.
A useful starting point is the claim behind the grade. Once a school states what it wants the result to demonstrate, it can choose suitable tasks and explain the permitted assistance before students begin.
Define the claim behind the grade
Consider a history assignment asking students to explain the reasons for a policy change. The teacher might want to assess the selection of evidence and the reasoning that connects it to a conclusion. A marking scheme should give those decisions enough space to be examined. If most marks reward fluent prose, the result is harder to interpret when a tool helps write it.
For this hypothetical assignment, we would ask students to attach a short account of how they select a source. The teacher could discuss an uncertain passage with them during class. That creates a specific opportunity to examine judgment, with the conversation tied to material familiar to the student.
Such an approach needs care. A spoken explanation can introduce its own demands, including confidence in the language of instruction. Teachers should choose a response format that lets each learner demonstrate the intended knowledge, with appropriate support. The assessment should explain how that support affects the interpretation of the result.
Make the conditions visible
Schools should distinguish the conditions under which learners produce evidence. Work completed with permitted AI assistance can be assessed against an appropriate purpose, such as evaluating and revising suggestions. An assessment of independent reasoning needs conditions that let the teacher observe that reasoning.
We would record those conditions alongside the task. Students need a concrete explanation of what help is permitted and how to acknowledge it. A vague instruction to use technology responsibly leaves too much for each learner to guess.
Teachers also need time to compare how they apply the criteria. A small selection of completed work can support that conversation, especially when colleagues disagree about what an explanation demonstrates. Schools should revise unclear tasks as they learn from those discussions.
When reporting results to a family or another institution, a short description of the assessment conditions would make the grade easier to understand. It would explain the evidence available to the teacher and the scope of the judgment being made.