AI in Education

Why Course Marking Must Evolve Beyond Essays

Oral Assessments May Be the Key to Tackling AI-Generated Coursework

There’s been no shortage of debate around the impact of artificial intelligence on education. From worries about cheating to fears of eroding creativity, schools and policymakers are scrambling to catch up with the digital tide. But while most of the attention has focused on how students might use AI, a much bigger question is being overlooked: How will we fairly and effectively assess student work in the AI era?

As AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini become more powerful and accessible, they’re also becoming adept at generating unique, context-aware, and grammatically flawless essays. In many cases, even advanced plagiarism detectors struggle to confirm whether a piece of work was written by a student or by a language model.

This presents a profound challenge for educators. If AI can create original content that avoids detection, how can markers maintain academic integrity without penalizing students unfairly?

The Real Problem Isn’t Cheating—It’s Marking

Let’s be honest: some students will use AI to cheat. But many will use it the way professionals already do—as a thinking partner, a co-writer, or a productivity tool. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

What’s truly at stake is how we judge learning in an age where producing polished coursework is no longer a reliable indicator of understanding. If a student submits a brilliant essay, but can’t explain a single part of it in conversation, can we really say they’ve learned?

A Proposed Solution: Coursework + Oral Assessment

Here’s a radical but necessary shift in thinking: allow students to use AI, but require them to orally defend and explain their work.

Under this model, a student would still submit coursework, but their final grade would depend on a comprehensive oral test that assesses:

• Their understanding of the subject matter
• Their ability to explain and critique the AI-generated content
• Their process of fact-checking and verifying the work
• Their reflections on what they learned in the process

This system doesn’t just detect misuse of AI—it rewards genuine engagement with it. It promotes deeper learning, critical thinking, and personal accountability. If a student can speak fluently and confidently about the ideas in their paper, then it hardly matters whether they wrote the first draft with or without AI.

The Future of Learning Requires New Tools of Assessment

This approach won’t be without challenges. It will require more time from educators, better training in oral assessment methods, and possibly new infrastructure for recording or reviewing these evaluations. But as AI continues to evolve, education must follow suit.

The solution isn’t banning the use of AI; it’s redefining what mastery looks like in a world where information is cheap, but understanding remains priceless.

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