Join the Discussion! AI in Education: Exploring Responsible Use Together (#AskTurnitin x ACUE)
Join Turnitin in collaboration with the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) for an #AskTurnitin event on “AI in Education: Exploring Responsible Use Together.”
This 2-week asynchronous Q&A on the Turnitin Educator Network (TEN) begins on March 9, 2026, kicking off with a 1-hour live Q&A where pedagogical experts address pressing questions about AI in teaching and learning.
Our educators will continue answering questions asynchronously for two weeks, giving educators around the world the opportunity to engage on their own schedule.
Whether you’re concerned about student authorship, unsure how to interpret AI-detection results, or seeking ways to balance innovation with integrity, this Q&A provides practical guidance you can apply in your classroom and across your institution.
Meet our pedagogical experts:
- Patti West-Smith – Senior Director of Customer Engagement at Turnitin
- Stephanie Speicher, PhD. – Academic Director at ACUE, Digital Fluency Faculty in Residence at Weber State University
How it works:
#AskTurnitin will be open for 2 weeks, giving you plenty of time to post your questions and join the discussion. Our educators will be checking in regularly to respond and share their insights.
Ask about:
- Practical strategies for responsible AI use in teaching
- Identifying when AI tools enhance learning versus when they create risks
- Success stories or challenges from educators using AI tools
- What support or resources would help in your context
#AskTurnitin Guidelines:
- Be respectful: Treat all participants with kindness and professionalism.
- Stay on topic: Focus on AI, teaching practices, and classroom experiences.
- No product support requests: Direct technical or account issues to Turnitin Support.
- Protect privacy: Do not share personally identifiable information.
- Engage constructively: Ask thoughtful questions and build on shared insights.
Helpful resources to support your participation:
- Turnitin Clarity: An annotated hotlist for educators
- Strengthening the reading-writing connection with AI
- Guide for approaching AI-generated text
- Responsible AI use checklist [Students’ Guide]
- Getting started with AI writing at Turnitin [Instructors Guide] [Administrators Guide]
- Diving deeper with AI writing at Turnitin [Instructors Guide] [Administrators Guide]
Start the conversation:
Reply to this post with your questions and join educators around the world in exploring responsible AI use together. We look forward to learning with you.
34 replies
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We received another question from TEN member who asks:
“I teach technical and business communication at the University of Texas at Dallas, and I'm eager to hear ideas on keeping students' attention on original work. Thanks in advance!”
and educators who are reading this – do you have any resources or insights you could share with Jaitch4?
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Wanted to give a quick shoutout to this month's Top Turnitin Clarity Explorers!
We’ve noticed you’ve been exploring tons of Turnitin Clarity–tagged resources here on TEN, and it’s clear your curiosity is earning you that Turnitin Clarity Explorer badge! We’d love to hear how you’re navigating AI in your classroom.
There’s no right or wrong answer. AI is such a hot-button topic, and we want everyone to feel they’re not alone and that we can all learn from each other
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In my previous role as an educator, technology was always evolving, and the rapid rise of GenAI has introduced a whole new layer to the conversation.
Now that I speak with instructors regularly for Turnitin, I often hear concerns about balancing AI tools with meaningful student learning.How are you thinking about the role AI should play in supporting learning rather than replacing it?
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As a former educator myself, I completely relate to this. Every few years, it felt like a new technology arrived that promised to “change everything,” and GenAI has definitely accelerated that conversation.
What I hear from my friends now who are still instructors is less about whether AI will be used and more about how we guide students to use it well. One approach that’s been helpful is shifting the conversation from AI as an answer-generator to AI as a thinking partner. For example, encouraging students to use AI for brainstorming ideas, asking clarifying questions about a concept, or getting feedback on early drafts, while still requiring them to make the key decisions, interpretations, and revisions themselves.
In other words, the learning still lives in the student’s thinking process. AI can support that process, but it shouldn’t replace it.
I’m curious how others are approaching this in their courses. Are you setting specific guidelines for when and how students can use AI? or : what do you two think?
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Setting specific guidelines is so important...as we all need guardrails. In my own work with teacher‑education students, I’ve found that setting AI guidelines is most powerful when it becomes a shared, reflective process rather than a list of prohibitions. I come in with a few non‑negotiables…such as the expectation that AI can support thinking but cannot replace the student’s intellectual work; however, the rest of our norms are co‑constructed as a class. That collaborative conversation is a teachable moment in itself: students articulate their values, debate what responsible use looks like, and begin to see how they might facilitate similar discussions with their future learners. I’m intentional about framing our guidelines around what we want to see, ie, curiosity, transparency, critical thinking, vs. centering the “don’ts,” because that shift helps students view AI as a tool for learning rather than a trap to avoid. In many ways, the process models the pedagogical stance I hope they’ll carry into their own classrooms. A win-win!
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A while back, TEN member raised an important question that we’d love to bring back into the conversation:
Hi all, I'd like to hear how your HE institution treats self-plagiarism (or double submission) at PG level.
In some subjects, we may scaffold our assessments (e.g., where a proposal leads into a project) and therefore, students may be required to repeat some information across assessments (e.g., company information). For this reason, we tend to be reasonable when interpreting our TII reports. However, there are some cases where students may use recommendations from one assessment (e.g., strategic HRM) in another relevant subject (e.g., L&D) because one subject builds upon the other. It's these particular cases that I'm curious to explore best practice further.
I've read the TII white paper (Is Recycling Your Own Work Plagiarism?), but this refers to academic self-plagiarism (i.e., breaching copyright laws or ethical misconduct), rather than student submissions, which are not in the public domain. Others’ thoughts?
Educators in our community, we’d love to hear your thoughts on this!