Research for Teachers

There was a period this year when I spent a significant amount of time sitting beside students as they revised or rewrote portions of assignments that had been flagged for high levels of AI-generated writing.

The process was rarely simple.

Some students arrived nervous before we had even started talking. Others were defensive at first, trying to explain what had happened or insisting they had only used AI “a little.” A few seemed genuinely confused about where brainstorming support ended and academic dishonesty began. Most looked exhausted.

What struck me almost immediately was how emotional these conversations became.

Educational discussions about AI often focus on policy, detection software, academic integrity procedures, and consequences. Those conversations matter. Schools need clear systems and expectations, particularly as generative AI becomes increasingly integrated into students’ daily lives.

But sitting in those supervised rewrite sessions, the experience felt far more human than procedural.

Students had to revise or rewrite portions of their work because our DP IB submission policy does not allow any work flagged by Turnitin at 20% AI-generated content or higher to be submitted. The rewrites were necessary to ensure that the final work authentically represented the students’ own thinking, writing, and learning process while maintaining the integrity expectations of the program.

The accountability piece was non-negotiable.

At the same time, I became increasingly aware that how students experienced the process also mattered deeply.

I remember asking several students the same question after their rewriting sessions:

“Did you feel supported through this?”

To my surprise, the answer was consistently yes.

That response stayed with me because I think schools sometimes frame accountability and compassion as if they exist in opposition to one another. Either we hold students accountable, or we prioritize care and wellbeing.

But this experience made me realize that ethical leadership requires both.

One student admitted they had panicked because multiple deadlines had converged at once. Another explained that they had started using AI to help organize ideas but gradually relied on it more heavily than they intended. One student simply said, very quietly, “I knew it was wrong while I was doing it.”

Those moments changed the tone of the process for me.

Not because the students were avoiding responsibility. In fact, most eventually accepted responsibility quite openly. But once students realized the goal was not humiliation, many became far more honest and reflective about the decisions they had made.

That distinction matters.

I kept thinking about the difference between shame and responsibility throughout the process.

Shame often shuts learning down because students become consumed by embarrassment, defensiveness, or fear. Responsibility, however, creates the possibility for reflection, repair, and growth. The students still experienced consequences. Rewriting under supervision required time, effort, accountability, and discomfort. But the process also gave them an opportunity to rebuild trust and reconnect with their own learning.

Research on ethics of care helps explain why relational approaches matter so deeply in educational settings. Noddings (1988) argues that ethical teaching begins with caring relationships in which students feel genuinely seen, respected, and supported as human beings. Care does not mean removing expectations or abandoning standards. Rather, it means maintaining those standards while responding to students with dignity and humanity.

That framing resonated strongly with me during these conversations.

Students are still learning.
They are still developing judgment.
They are still navigating pressure, identity, stress, and decision-making.

Holding students accountable should not require stripping them of dignity in the process.

This also connects closely to restorative approaches within schools. Gregory, Clawson, Davis, and Gerewitz (2016) found that restorative practices can strengthen accountability and school connectedness by emphasizing dialogue, reflection, and repair rather than relying solely on punishment.

I found myself returning repeatedly to the idea that the purpose of the rewrite process was not simply to catch students violating policy.

The purpose was to restore learning.

That changed how I approached the conversations.

Instead of focusing only on what students had done wrong, we often talked about writing, pressure, decision-making, and what authentic learning actually looks like. Some students spoke honestly about feeling overwhelmed by academic expectations. Others reflected on how quickly convenience can override judgment when deadlines and stress collide.

Interestingly, many students seemed relieved once the process began.

Not happy, of course.
Not comfortable.

But relieved that someone was willing to work through the situation with them rather than simply deliver punishment from a distance.

I think students can often tell the difference between adults who are trying to exercise power over them and adults who are trying to help them grow through mistakes.

That does not mean the process was easy.

There were difficult conversations.
There was frustration.
There was emotional labor involved for everyone.

But I left many of those sessions thinking carefully about what ethical leadership actually looks like in schools during moments of accountability.

Leadership is often discussed through the language of systems, enforcement, and compliance. Those things matter. Schools need clear expectations around academic integrity, particularly as AI technologies continue evolving rapidly.

But leadership is also relational.

How adults respond to students during moments of failure communicates something important about the culture of the school itself. It communicates whether accountability exists primarily to punish or whether it exists to protect learning, integrity, and growth.

I still believe strongly in maintaining academic standards.

If anything, this experience reinforced their importance.

But I also left the process more convinced that compassion strengthens accountability rather than weakens it. Students are far more likely to reflect honestly, rebuild trust, and learn from mistakes when they feel respected throughout the process.

The rewrites mattered.

But so did the relationships surrounding them.

And increasingly, I think both are necessary if schools want accountability to remain genuinely educational rather than simply punitive.

References

Gregory, A., Clawson, K., Davis, A., & Gerewitz, J. (2016). The promise of restorative practices to transform teacher-student relationships and achieve equity in school discipline. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 26(4), 325–353. https://doi.org/10.1080/10474412.2014.929950

Noddings, N. (1988). An ethic of caring and its implications for instructional arrangements. American Journal of Education, 96(2), 215–230. https://doi.org/10.1086/443894