What students should disclose about AI use

"Disclose your AI use" is an incomplete instruction. It leaves students to decide which assistance counts, how much detail to provide, and whether acknowledging it will affect their grade.

A useful requirement makes those expectations explicit. It gives teachers information about how students completed the work and gives students practice accounting for the assistance they used.

What disclosure contributes

A disclosure helps a teacher distinguish the student's contribution from the tool's. It can also provide a starting point for discussing choices: why the student sought assistance, how they evaluated the response, and what they decided to use.

Disclosure is a student's account of the process, not proof that every requirement was met. Teachers should consider it alongside the work itself and other evidence of learning.

What students should include

A basic disclosure should answer three questions:

• Which tool did you use?
• What did you ask it to do?
• How did you use, change, or reject its response?

For example:

I used ChatGPT to suggest counterarguments to my position. I selected two, checked them against our assigned readings, and wrote the responses myself.

That account gives the teacher something to assess against the assignment's expectations. "I used AI for help" leaves the nature and extent of the assistance unclear.

Teachers should also explain whether features such as grammar suggestions, translation, and AI-assisted search require disclosure. Students should not have to infer where the school draws those lines.

Keep the requirement proportionate

For routine work, a sentence may be sufficient. A substantial assignment may warrant a fuller explanation, selected prompts and responses, or drafts showing how the work developed.

Request records that serve a clear purpose. A complete conversation history can create considerable paperwork without helping a teacher assess the student's understanding. The appropriate level of detail depends on what the assignment is intended to teach and assess, as well as its importance to the grade.

State the requirement before work begins. Students cannot reliably reconstruct a process they did not know they needed to document.

Establish a consistent place for it

Use a common submission convention wherever practical: a note at the end of the work, a designated field, or an attached statement. If different formats require different approaches, make those differences predictable.

Consistency reduces the effort students spend remembering administrative details. Teachers can still ask for additional information when an assignment warrants it.

Explain how teachers will respond

Students need to understand what happens when a disclosure reveals use beyond what the assignment allowed.

Disclosure does not make prohibited assistance acceptable. It should, however, inform the response. Teachers should consider whether the instructions were clear, whether the student had been taught the distinction, the extent of the assistance, and the student's willingness to account for it.

Where a student has misunderstood an expectation, clarification and an opportunity to demonstrate learning may be appropriate. Deliberate or repeated misuse may warrant a different response under the school's academic integrity procedures.

Schools should make these distinctions explicit so teachers can respond consistently and students understand the value of being candid.

Teach students how to disclose

Show students examples that provide enough information and examples that leave important questions unanswered. Ask them to write a disclosure for a practice task, then check whether a reader can distinguish their contribution from the tool's.

Discuss borderline cases, including assistance built into tools students already use. These conversations help identify ambiguities before they become disputes.

The requirement should produce an account that helps a teacher understand the work. Students need instruction and practice to write one.