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a ready-to-run workshopDesigning for Assessment Integrity
Assessment · Workshop

Designing for Assessment Integrity (Workshop)

Everything you need to lead this with your staff or PLC: a minute-by-minute run-of-show, what to say, what to hand out, and how to make it stick. Pick the length that fits your slot.

Key takeaway

In an age of easy copying and capable AI, trying to police cheating after the fact is a losing battle, so the stronger move is to design assessments that are naturally resistant to shortcuts, tasks that require personalized, visible, in-process thinking that cannot simply be copied or generated, so integrity is built into the assessment rather than enforced around it.

Format
PLC / team meeting
Length
45 minutes
Group size
Any (works 4-40)
Who can run it
Any teacher-leader
You will need
Slides (5)Printed handoutAn assessment to redesignA timer
Aligned to
Learning Forward: Rigorous ContentInTASC 6: AssessmentResearch on assessment design, integrity, and authentic tasks
Share / assign

Why it works

Academic integrity has always been a concern, but easy digital copying and now capable AI have made it acute: for many traditional assignments, a student can obtain a finished, plausible product without doing the thinking the assignment was meant to develop. The common response is to intensify policing, detection tools, surveillance, harsher penalties, but this is largely a losing battle, because detection is unreliable, surveillance is adversarial and corrosive, and the shortcuts keep improving. The more durable response is to shift effort from policing integrity after the fact to designing assessments that are naturally resistant to shortcuts, so that the easy way out does not produce the work the assessment asks for. The principle is to make the task require genuine, personalized, visible thinking that cannot simply be copied or generated. Several design moves accomplish this. Make it personal and specific: tasks tied to the student's own experience, a class discussion that happened, a specific local context, or their own earlier work are hard to outsource because the source material is not generally available. Make the thinking visible and in-process: assess drafts, reflections, revisions, and the reasoning along the way, not just a polished final product, so the process (which is hard to fake) carries weight. Assess in ways that require the student present: discussion, oral explanation or defense of work, in-class writing and problem-solving, and presentations put the thinking where it can be seen in real time. Ask for application and higher-order thinking on novel material rather than reproducible summaries, since analysis of something specific is harder to shortcut than a generic report. Build in process checkpoints so work develops visibly over time rather than appearing finished from nowhere. And, importantly, engage AI honestly rather than only defending against it: for many tasks the right move is to teach students to use AI as a tool and then assess what they add, critique, and judge beyond it, which both reflects the real world and makes the human thinking the object of assessment. None of this means surveillance has no place or that integrity expectations should be dropped; it means the first line of defense is design, not detection, and that integrity-resistant design usually produces better assessment anyway, because the same features that resist shortcuts, personalization, visible process, higher-order thinking, presence, are features of authentic, meaningful assessment. The workshop helps teachers take an assessment vulnerable to copying or AI and redesign it so that doing it honestly is the path of least resistance.

The research: Research on assessment design, academic integrity, and authentic assessment in the age of AI.

The run-of-show

Choose your slot. The agenda, timings, and length update to match.

    The core activity: design assessments that resist shortcuts

    The heart of the session is redesigning a vulnerable assessment so that doing it honestly is the path of least resistance.

    Design integrity in, do not police it afterPolicing a world of easy copying and capable AI is a losing battle. Design tasks that require personalized, visible, in-process thinking that cannot be copied or generated, and doing the assessment honestly becomes the path of least resistance.

    Facilitator notes

    Make honesty the path of least resistanceWhen the assessment requires thinking that cannot be outsourced, the shortcut simply does not produce the work asked for, so integrity is built into the task rather than enforced around it.

    Adapt it

    Participant handout

    One page for every teacher. Print it, or save it as a PDF.

    K12 Academics · Professional Learning

    Designing for Integrity: resist shortcuts by design

    Make honesty the easiest path: design assessments that require personalized, visible, in-process thinking, and engage AI honestly rather than only policing it.

    1. An assessment of mine vulnerable to copying or AI:
    2. How I make it personal and specific (hard to outsource):
    3. How I make the thinking visible and in-process:
    4. An element that requires the student present (discussion, oral defense, in-class work):
    5. How I engage AI honestly and assess what the student adds beyond it:

    Make it stick

    Integrity-resistant design also makes better assessment. Close by setting the follow-up:

    Common questions

    Shouldn't I just use AI-detection tools to catch cheating?
    Detection is an unreliable and ultimately losing first line of defense, which is why the emphasis here is on design. AI-detection tools are notoriously inaccurate, producing both false positives that wrongly accuse honest students and false negatives that miss real misuse, and they create an adversarial, surveillance-heavy climate that corrodes trust, all while the tools students use keep improving faster than detection can keep up. None of this means integrity expectations disappear or that monitoring never has a place, but relying on detection as the main strategy is building on sand. Designing assessments so that the shortcut does not produce the work you asked for, tasks requiring personalized, visible, in-process thinking, is far more durable, because it removes the vulnerability rather than trying to catch its exploitation after the fact.
    Doesn't designing around AI mean I have to make every assessment in-class and handwritten?
    No; in-class and present elements are valuable tools, but they are not the only way and should not be the whole strategy. There are many design moves that resist shortcuts without reverting entirely to handwritten exams: tying tasks to students' own experiences or specific class discussions that are not generally available, assessing drafts and process and revisions rather than only a polished product, asking for application and higher-order analysis of novel material, and building in process checkpoints so work develops visibly over time. Some of these work perfectly well for out-of-class work. In-class discussion, oral explanation, and in-class writing are powerful because they require the student present, so they belong in the mix, but a thoughtful integrity-by-design approach uses a range of moves suited to different assessments rather than collapsing everything into proctored handwriting.
    Should I treat AI purely as a threat to defend against?
    For many tasks, no, and engaging it honestly is often the stronger move. AI is now part of the real world students will work in, so teaching them to use it as a tool and then assessing what they add, critique, and judge beyond it both reflects reality and puts the genuinely human thinking at the center of the assessment. A task that has students generate something with AI and then evaluate its accuracy, improve it, apply it to a specific context, or defend their choices assesses exactly the judgment and understanding that AI cannot supply, and it is far more robust than a task that simply forbids AI and hopes. Defending against AI misuse through design still matters where appropriate, but treating AI only as a threat misses the opportunity to design assessments that are both integrity-resistant and more authentic, by making the human contribution the thing being assessed.

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