Teaching Ethics｜AI Use Literacy in the Teaching Context

With the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools in education, elementary school teachers are facing unprecedented opportunities and challenges in the classroom. From lesson preparation to grading, AI has the potential to become a powerful aid for teachers, but improper use may also undermine teaching quality and academic integrity. As students may use ChatGPT to complete assignments and teachers themselves may rely on AI to prepare teaching materials, how can we use AI responsibly? Building on the discussion in the previous article, “Generative AI Concepts and Applications,” this article focuses on AI literacy in classroom teaching contexts: including teachers’ ethical responsibilities when using AI, methods for identifying the truthfulness and bias of AI-generated content, expectations and learning responsibilities regarding students’ use of AI, and specific examples from real practice. It is hoped that through these principles and strategies, teachers can maintain professionalism, safeguard learning quality, and guide students to become future citizens who are both technologically capable and committed to academic ethics in the age of AI.

1. Teachers’ Ethical Responsibilities and Principles of Judgment When Using AI

When making good use of AI in everyday teaching, teachers must first uphold clear ethical responsibilities and principles of professional judgment. The role of the teacher is irreplaceable: AI can strengthen teaching, but it cannot replace a teacher’s care for students or professional guidance. For this reason, institutions such as the Ministry of Education have clearly stated that teachers must not use AI tools as substitutes for teaching—for example, they should not directly use ChatGPT in place of themselves to answer students’ questions or provide guidance. Teachers should actively improve their own AI literacy and understand the functions and limitations of different AI tools in order to judge when and how they should be used most appropriately. The following are several principles teachers should keep in mind when using AI:

• Maintain professional teaching authority and leadership: Generative AI must not become the dominant force in the classroom or a substitute teaching agent. Teachers should retain control over the teaching process and should not directly replace core work such as lesson preparation or explanation with AI-generated content. For example, after using AI to assist with lesson preparation, teachers still need to incorporate their own professional judgment and make adjustments to ensure that teaching materials are appropriate and reliable.
  
• Protect student fairness and privacy: Never input students’ personal data, exam questions, or other sensitive information into AI systems, in order to avoid data leakage or privacy violations. Teachers should also avoid relying on AI to grade students’ assignments or performance, because AI may contain bias, and doing so would be unfair to students.
  
• Respect intellectual property and academic integrity: Do not use AI to copy or rewrite others’ work and redistribute it without permission, as this may involve copyright infringement. At the same time, if teachers themselves use AI to generate teaching examples, they should also cite sources appropriately to avoid unknowingly committing plagiarism. This also sets an example of academic integrity for students.
  
• Strengthen professional judgment and review: AI-generated content is not guaranteed to be completely accurate or suitable for educational settings, and teachers have a responsibility to review and judge the information provided by AI. Before applying AI-generated content in class, teachers must confirm its accuracy, whether its wording is appropriate, and whether it matches the age and comprehension level of their students. If AI’s suggestions do not meet actual needs, teachers should decisively revise or discard them. In other words, AI can serve as a teaching reference, but the final professional judgment must rest with the teacher.

By following these principles, teachers can maintain professional ethics and teaching quality when using AI. Even as we integrate AI technology into education, we must always remember: the inspiration and guidance that teachers provide to students are core values that no tool can replace.

2. Identifying AI Bias and Verifying Information: Teaching Students to Check and Reflect

Content generated by AI tools often appears confident and well-structured, but it may contain errors or bias. The reason for this is that the quality of AI’s training data directly affects its output. If the training data itself contains bias or inaccuracies, the results generated by AI may reflect the same problems, and AI models cannot independently determine whether their answers are correct. At the same time, if the sources of training data are too limited—for example, confined to a particular region or culture—AI output may represent only a single perspective and may even reinforce existing prejudice. Therefore, when teachers use information provided by AI, they should develop the habit of verification: never blindly accept AI’s answers in full, but instead compare and confirm them with professional knowledge and common sense.

In the classroom, teachers should also guide students to develop critical thinking skills and learn how to evaluate the truthfulness of AI-generated content. In practice, this can be done in several ways:

• Teach verification methods: When AI provides a piece of information or an answer, guide students to verify its accuracy by comparing multiple sources. For example, ask students to consult textbooks, library materials, or authoritative websites to see whether there is evidence supporting AI’s claim. If AI provides data or quotations that appear authoritative, students must carefully check the authenticity of the source, because some students have already discovered that AI-generated citations may be entirely fabricated. Through this process, students come to understand that even AI’s “confident answers” still need to be tested through traditional information literacy practices.
  
• Recognize bias and limitations: Use examples to show the kinds of bias AI may produce. For instance, students can compare AI’s responses to the same question in Chinese and English and consider whether there are cultural differences in perspective, or discuss possible gender or ethnic stereotypes that may appear in AI-generated content. Teachers can also remind students at the appropriate moment: “What kinds of bias or limitations might this AI tool have?” and guide them to ask themselves such questions and reflect. Through these discussions, students will realize that AI is not a neutral authority, but a product shaped by the limitations of its training data.
  
• Cultivate a skeptical attitude: Emphasize the importance of vigilance toward online information and AI-generated output. For example, remind students not to trust AI-generated text, images, or audio-visual content simply because it looks realistic on the surface. Especially with the development of deepfake technology, fake photos and videos may appear highly convincing, so students must maintain a questioning mindset, learn to examine the possible methods and motivations behind the content, and consult a teacher when necessary. This attitude of questioning and verification is an important part of digital literacy in the AI era.
  
• Use errors as teaching material: Teachers may intentionally look for, or even ask AI to generate, content that contains errors and use it as part of classroom activities. Students can then act as “young detectives,” identifying what is unreasonable or incorrect and explaining how they found those problems. This kind of teaching activity not only makes learning more engaging, but also strengthens students’ ability to evaluate information and reinforces both their healthy skepticism toward AI output and their habit of verification.

Through these approaches, students will gradually understand that AI’s answers are only a starting point; they must still use what they have learned to think critically and verify information. When students become accustomed to approaching AI output with caution and are willing to verify it actively, AI changes from a potential “misleader” into a support for learning. In this process, teachers play the role of planners and guides, leading students in developing the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood in the information age.

3. Regulating Students’ Use of AI: Learning Responsibility and Guidelines

As students increasingly begin to use different kinds of AI tools, schools and teachers should take the initiative to establish clear usage rules so that students understand in which situations AI may be used, as well as the requirements and prohibitions associated with its use. Establishing such a framework helps create shared understanding within the classroom and also promotes trust and open dialogue between teachers and students. Many teachers adopt a “red light, yellow light, green light” system. For example, a red light indicates that AI may not be used in tests or assignments that must be completed independently; a yellow light indicates that limited AI use is allowed in some homework or practice tasks, provided that the source or process is acknowledged; and a green light indicates that AI is permitted or even encouraged for brainstorming or idea generation. Through these clear red-yellow-green signals, students can immediately understand “when AI may be used and when it may not,” while also understanding the teacher’s reasoning, thereby reducing disputes over misuse and establishing transparent communication.

In addition to regulating when AI may be used, teachers must also emphasize the issue of learning responsibility. In other words, even if students use AI tools during the learning process, the ultimate responsibility for understanding knowledge and developing ability still belongs to the students themselves and is not reduced simply because AI is available. To help students understand this, teachers can focus on several areas:

• Reinforce academic integrity and independent thinking: Clearly tell students that presenting AI-generated text or assignments as their own is a form of plagiarism, no different from copying someone else’s work. The Ministry of Education’s latest guidelines also emphasize that students should avoid simply copying AI-generated content into assignments and must not use AI in exams or for any form of cheating. These rules set clear boundaries, reminding students that AI may assist learning, but it cannot become a “ghostwriter” that replaces their own thinking and creation.
  
• Emphasize that AI is a tool and learning depends on the student: Help students develop a correct understanding of AI’s role—AI is a helper, not a substitute. In class, teachers can repeatedly ask students questions such as: “Does using this AI tool actually improve your learning? If you rely entirely on AI without thinking for yourself, can the learning goals still be achieved?” Through discussions like these, students will understand that if AI does all the work, they lose the opportunity to think and practice for themselves. As experienced teachers have pointed out, AI can help clarify structure and provide inspiration in writing tasks, but if students rely entirely on AI to generate the content of an essay, the core learning value of that assignment is lost. Therefore, students must take responsibility for their own learning outcomes and cannot treat AI’s output as their own ability. Leading universities around the world, such as Cambridge and Harvard, have issued similar principles: any AI-generated content must be clearly acknowledged in student work and cannot be treated as personal original work; at the same time, even with AI assistance, students must still carry out their own analysis, critical thinking, and integration of what they have learned. AI is by no means an “autopilot” for learning. These shared principles all communicate the same message: learning is your own responsibility. AI cannot learn for you; it can only help you learn.
  
• Establish student guidelines for AI use: As part of classroom management, create a “Student Guidelines for AI Use” that includes both permitted and prohibited practices. Drawing on the Ministry of Education’s “Guidelines for the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence by Primary and Secondary School Students,” teachers may summarize key points for students, such as:
  
  • Do not plagiarize: Students must not directly copy and paste AI-generated answers into assignments. Text or code generated with AI should be treated like quoted material from another source and must be properly acknowledged.
    
  • Do not cheat: Students are prohibited from using any AI tool to find answers during exams or tests. This not only breaks the rules, but also deprives them of the chance to assess their own learning.
    
  • Preserve originality: Avoid overusing AI in assignments that require creativity or personal viewpoints. For example, in reflective journals or art projects, overreliance on AI will only make the work lose authenticity and personal style. Teachers can clearly indicate which assignments are expected to be completed independently in order to protect each child’s space for self-expression.
    
  • Principles for information lookup: Students should not rush to use AI to obtain factual answers before first consulting textbooks or authoritative sources. In other words, no matter how large AI’s knowledge base may be, it cannot replace the value of textbooks and libraries. Encourage students to first use traditional resources, and then use AI as a supplementary tool, thereby developing solid research skills.
    
  • Privacy and legal awareness: Remind students not to enter personal privacy or sensitive information into any AI conversation, in order to prevent data leakage. At the same time, students should be prohibited from using AI to generate or distribute copyrighted content—for example, entering the text of a novel into AI and then sharing its summary with classmates, which may already constitute copyright infringement.

These guidelines should be repeatedly explained to students and consistently enforced in everyday assignments. Once improper use of AI is discovered, teachers should intervene promptly and provide guidance so that students recognize their mistake and accept appropriate consequences, such as redoing the assignment or receiving a grade deduction, in order to maintain the seriousness of the rules. At the same time, positive reinforcement should not be forgotten: when students follow the guidelines and use AI responsibly to achieve good learning results, teachers should praise them and set them up as examples, so that other students can see the benefits of responsible AI use. Through clear rules and patient guidance, we can allow AI to have a positive effect in the classroom while also teaching students to take responsibility for their own learning.

4. Practical Cases: Teaching Students to Properly Acknowledge AI Content and Avoid AI-Assisted Plagiarism

To help put the principles above into practice, the following are several concrete examples that teachers can use to guide students in using AI tools well without abusing them:

• Case 1: Teaching students to acknowledge and cite AI-generated content. Suppose a student uses ChatGPT to help gather information or polish wording while writing a report. In that case, the teacher can clearly require the student to mark the parts where AI was involved and cite the source appropriately. For example, some teachers require students to include a statement in the appendix describing the specific steps they took with the AI tool and their own thought process, while indicating which parts were generated by AI and which parts were written by the student. At the same time, students can be introduced to appropriate academic citation formats such as APA or MLA so that they learn how to formally cite AI-generated output in their references. This approach not only helps teachers assess students’ actual level of engagement and learning process, but also greatly strengthens students’ awareness of academic integrity. Students come to understand that citing AI is not shameful, as long as it is done openly and honestly—just like citing books or academic papers. This helps cultivate an honest attitude toward their own learning process and prepares them to handle AI-generated material properly in future academic research and writing.
  
• Case 2: Designing assignments and assessment methods that reduce AI plagiarism. Given the reality that AI may be used by students as a shortcut, teachers can be thoughtful in assignment design to reduce the temptation to rely on AI as a substitute for real work. Educational experts in Taiwan and abroad have offered many suggestions, for example:
  
  • Increase oral presentations or live demonstrations: In addition to written assignments, create more opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding through oral expression or other forms of presentation. For example, after submitting a written report, each student might give a short in-class presentation or participate in a question-and-answer session. In this way, even if a student used AI to complete the written portion, teachers and classmates can still examine through follow-up questions whether the student genuinely understands the material. If the student cannot answer questions related to their own report, this may reveal an overreliance on AI and serve as a deterrent.
    
  • Emphasize process and drafts: Require students to submit drafts, revision records, or other evidence of process along with their final assignment. For instance, in a writing class, students could be required to submit their first draft, revised draft, and screenshots of the AI conversation in which they received suggestions. By examining the student’s thinking and revision process, the teacher can distinguish between the student’s original ideas and AI’s suggestions, and can therefore assess the work more fairly. At the same time, because students know they must submit evidence of the process, they are less likely to rely entirely on AI to generate a finished product all at once. This type of process-tracking design has already been adopted at institutions such as
  • Harvard to help students avoid overdependence on AI when completing assignments.
    Use creative or personalized tasks: Carefully designing assignments that are difficult for AI to complete well is also an effective strategy. For example, ask students to write based on their own personal experiences, conduct field investigations in the school or local community, or design experiments and analyze real data. These tasks require first-hand materials and genuine experience, which models such as ChatGPT cannot provide. In addition, teachers can encourage students to complete project-based tasks rather than simply writing text-based responses. For example, students might conduct a small research project and create a poster, or carry out a service-learning activity and write a reflection report. Research shows that through project inquiry, case analysis, and problem solving, students have more room to demonstrate unique insight and creativity, and are therefore less likely simply to submit generic AI-generated answers. When a task itself is open-ended, allows multiple solutions, and is connected to students’ real lives, each student’s final work should be unique, naturally reducing the possibility of copying machine-generated content.
    
  • Use technology as support, but do not rely on it: In response to concerns about AI-assisted plagiarism, AI can also be used to counter AI. There are already AI writing detectors that can help screen suspicious content, and teachers may incorporate such tools into the grading process as a supporting reference. However, it must be emphasized that AI detection is not foolproof, and teachers must never mechanically decide a student’s performance solely on the basis of a detection result. A more constructive approach is still to begin with instructional design and the cultivation of integrity, so that students either choose not to misuse AI or understand why they should not. On that basis, technical detection tools can serve as an additional support, making the overall strategy more effective.

Through these measures, teachers can create a classroom culture in which “AI use is allowed, but it must be openly acknowledged.” Students understand that the teacher does not impose a blanket ban on AI, but instead welcomes everyone to make good use of new tools—provided that each person remains honest about their learning process and responsible for their outcomes. In the long run, this kind of culture will allow students to enjoy the convenience that AI brings while still remembering the true purpose of learning and the importance of integrity, so that AI genuinely becomes an enhancer of learning rather than a shortcut for laziness.

Conclusion: Embracing the AI Era While Staying True to the Core of Education

As AI tools become increasingly widespread, a small number of improper use cases may inevitably cause teachers to worry about a crisis of trust in the classroom. However, banning AI from the classroom is neither realistic nor effective. A wiser strategy is to teach students how to approach it with the right mindset. As educators, we should view AI as an educational opportunity in a new era, not as a threat: by setting clear rules, providing appropriate guidance, and encouraging thoughtful reflection, we can help students use AI responsibly in both academic and ethical terms. In this process, teachers not only help students face the challenges brought by AI, but also inspire new ideas for innovation in their own teaching. The emergence of AI has not weakened the mission of education; on the contrary, it offers us new possibilities—for example, more personalized learning support and richer information resources. As long as we embrace this new era with openness and critical awareness, and accompany our students with wisdom and enthusiasm as they navigate its waves, we can certainly transform AI into a positive force in the classroom and cultivate a new generation of thoughtful citizens who are both technologically capable and ethically grounded.

The role of the teacher has never been to provide technology, but to awaken wisdom. No matter how the times change, this will not change. We have every reason to believe that, under your guidance, students will learn to navigate the vessel of AI responsibly and sail toward a brighter future across the sea of knowledge.