Redesigned Ethics Essay Assignment

Garret Arcoraci, School of Information
Garret Arcoraci, Principal Lecturer, School of Information

I realized my standard ethics essay had become far too easy for students to automate using AI, resulting in "templated" papers that lacked critical thinking. To fix this, I redesigned the assignment into a two-part process that begins with a screen-free, "pen and paper" exercise in the classroom. I pass out ten different real-world scenarios, and students must first reflect individually before working in groups to reach a consensus on the most ethical path forward. While I still allow students to use AI or Grammarly to polish their final writing, my rubric assigns 30 points to how well they integrate the specific ideas and worksheets generated during that in-person session. By grounding their writing in these unique, human discussions, I’ve found the final essays are much more genuine and demonstrate that they’ve actually taken the time to grapple with the concepts.

To implement Garret's strategy for preventing AI-generated student essays, you can follow these five main steps:

Move away from general research prompts and instead develop specific, complex scenarios based on your industry experience to prevent the AI from providing stock, surface-level answers.

Conduct an in-class session where students are required to put away all technology and use only pen and paper to record their initial thoughts and reflections.

Have students use a "think-pair-share" approach, where they discuss their individual ideas in groups to reach a collective decision on the best way to handle the assigned scenario.

Instruct students to submit their handwritten worksheets alongside their final essay and explicitly integrate the unique ideas generated during their group discussion into the text.

Assign a significant portion of the grade (e.g., 30%) to the integration of in-class discussion, ensuring that any essay relying solely on AI without these human touchpoints cannot receive a high grade.

  Click here for another example of how RIT faculty have adapted their teaching methods in response to AI.