AI Checkers for Teachers: Why Schools Need AI Detection Tools

Would an AI checker for teachers be helpful in the classroom?

I meet a lot of teachers who have the same perspective regarding student AI writing. I often hear, “I know my students' writing; so I don't need AI detection software. It's a waste of time.” I fully sympathize with such a perspective, since I, too, have a good sense of my student writing, and, for more than twenty years, I have refined my sense for detecting plagiarism and student cheating.

Over a decade ago, one of my students submitted a paper that was definitely a student submission, but it wasn't my student's writing. I assign a lot of writing, so I get a sense early in the year what each of my students' voice is like and what hiccups are in their writing. This paper was not his own. After some digging, I discovered that the student had borrowed his paper from his cousin from another school who was writing a similar paper (how many papers on Gatsby and the American Dream exist in the world?). He submitted his cousin's paper, and assumed I wouldn't notice. To his dismay, I noticed.

I noticed this for good reason... more than four in ten K-12 teachers in the U.S. (44%) say that 90% of students are using AI for assignments.

AI detection can give teachers’ mental bandwidth back

So, why use AI detection? First, AI writing is becoming ubiquitous, and it is only going to get better. More importantly, though, as AI writing encroaches even further into our classrooms, the simple bandwidth it takes to monitor it is exhausting. There has always been a little fun (and healthy) cat-and-mouse game going on among teachers and students. In some ways, it's good for both the teacher and the student. Teachers must stay on guard as students employ a great amount of critical thinking, exploring ways to evade detection. But there is a point of minimal return.

There is a point where trying to monitor student cheating takes away from actually teaching students the craft of writing well. AI detection that works gives bandwidth back to the teacher to employ their energies more meaningfully elsewhere (and the student still can have as much fun as they want trying to break the rules).

AI detection is the new “cell phone” of the classroom

We wouldn't need policies if the management of cell phones were effective, but they are not. It is exhausting for teachers to police cell phone usage in a classroom, despite the fact that it is so easy to detect. The mental energy, interruptions, and negative interactions with students add up. That's the point: the ease of detection is no reason to avoid having a policy/detection in place. It might be easy to detect AI writing for some teachers, but there is still good mental economics behind using software to eliminate the waste of energy in the chase. It simply takes up too much time and energy to monitor for AI.

How do teachers check for AI?

The biggest obstacle to teachers using an AI checker for the classroom is accuracy. There are instances of students blatantly cheating, using common AI writing patterns, or formatting that is typical of LLMs.

As previously mentioned, teachers often know their students' writing style and can use that to know when an assignment is not their original creation. This is simply not enough evidence for some schools to have a conversation about academic integrity with a student.

Pangram is setting the industry benchmark for AI detection for teachers, with a false-positive rate of 1 in 10,000 checks. Teachers can simply copy and paste text into an easy-to-use interface (try putting an essay through our ai checker here) in any browser tab. We have also integrated into teacher workflows, including Google Classroom, Google Docs, Canvas, Moodle, and all web-based LMS systems through our AI checker Chrome extension.

Feedback on Pangram from real teachers

If you don’t want to take our word for it, here’s what real teachers have to say about using Pangram in the classroom for AI detection.

*"Instead of detection being an additional layer I have to negotiate, Pangram is straightforward and makes verifying student work smooth."

J. Juelis New Roads School

"We compare human experts with five AI detectors, including Pangram and GPTZero. Among automatic detectors, Pangram significantly outperforms the rest."

Jenna Russell University of Maryland

"Pangram is pretty incredible. Much better than other AI detection tools (by a country mile). I've used it and tested it thoroughly and seen minimal false positives and negatives."

Alex Imas Chicago Booth

"My students are so convinced of its accuracy that it seems to be an even greater deterrent than anything else. It is a great tool for a teacher to have in their arsenal."

Jarred Phillips New Roads School*

Trusted AI detection tools give teachers peace of mind

The Walton Family Foundation-Gallup Teaching for Tomorrow study shows that teachers who leverage AI regularly save time and improve the quality of their many work tasks. Teachers aren’t going anywhere, and AI isn’t either. Efforts to detect AI aren’t about waging war on technology; it’s an effort to integrate it into a classroom in a way that holds students accountable and teaches them when it is appropriate to leverage AI in their day-to-day tasks.

Our commitment to teachers, schools, and universities is to make the detection part of that puzzle as simple as possible.

If you would like to explore our offerings for the classroom or entire universities, visit our AI Detector for Teachers use case page.