Redesign the assignment. When a task asks for personal connection, visible process, or specific context, students have real thinking to do and you have real thinking to see. You don't need to catch AI use to change what AI is useful for.
Students can paste most prompts into a chatbot and get a decent answer in seconds. The data says 84% of high school students use AI for schoolwork. Teachers are caught between banning tools they can't control and policing work they can't prove.
You don't have to choose between those. You can change the assignment.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS
Instead of a generic essay on a novel, ask students to connect a scene to something from their own lives and show their drafting process. (Make it personal, build in process.)
SCIENCE
Instead of a lab summary anyone could write, have students explain what went wrong in their own data and defend a revision. (Add specificity, shift to performance.)
SOCIAL STUDIES
Instead of a report on a historical event, have students use local sources or community voices and present their argument in conversation. (Add specificity, shift to performance.)
MATH
Instead of answers alone, ask students to explain a choice in their own words, then critique a chatbot's solution. (Build in process, integrate AI intentionally.)
More before-and-after examples are inside the Makeover Manual.
Over 20 pages of actionable instructional design tools. No fluff, no tech jargon. Just practical execution.
Three questions that reveal exactly how vulnerable your current prompts are to tools like ChatGPT.
How to clarify and isolate the exact human skill or critical thinking element you need to protect before you change a single sentence.
The engine of the framework. Five proven instructional strategies for making assignments AI-intentional, packed with real examples and reflection space.
How to adjust your rubrics so you are grading the process of learning and human iteration—not a polished final output.
Fill-in-the-blank templates and real, worked examples mapping out transformations for essays, long-form writing, research papers, and literature reviews.
Real classroom conversation scripts to talk to students openly about AI boundaries without destroying classroom trust.
PD in a Box gives principals and coaches a complete, ready-to-run workshop with a K-12 track. Or invite Mark to lead it.