This page helps educators rethink assessment in an AI-enabled world — with a focus on fairness, process, and reflective practice.

This is guide 3 in a 6-part series from Ako Aotearoa, designed to help educators explore AI in education — safely, ethically, and in ways that reflect our values in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Each guide offers practical steps, real examples, and reflective tools to support your journey. Whether you’re just starting or deepening your practice, these resources are here to support you.

Redesigning assessment for authenticity, integrity, and future-ready learning.

Why AI disrupts traditional assessment

The shift is here.

AI can generate essays, summaries, reports, and even creative outputs in seconds. This challenges assessments that rely heavily on traditional formats like essays — especially those that assess skills AI can now simulate, such as summarising, synthesising, or critiquing ideas.

Risks to integrity

• Ghostwriting via AI tools
• Over-reliance on generic outputs
• Misrepresentation of learner ability
  
  

Opportunity for innovation

Rather than banning AI, we can reimagine assessment to focus on what AI can’t easily replicate — critical thinking in context, lived experience, cultural reasoning, and human judgement. For example, we can design assessment to:

• Focus on process, not just product
• Reward reflection, originality, and context
• Integrate AI as a scaffold, not a shortcut

Scenario: A learner uses ChatGPT to draft an initial answer. They then reflect on its limitations, rewrite the response using their own experiences or local context, and submit both versions with a short commentary on what changed and why.

 

Strategies for authentic assessment

Design for process

 

Want a way to map these strategies across different levels of AI use?

Leon Furze’s AI Assessment Scale offers a helpful continuum — from no AI to full AI integration. It’s already being used by tertiary institutions in Aotearoa to guide both educators and students in transparent, tiered practice.

Add reflective layers

Could learners use AI to enhance their own writing — then explain what changed, why, and how they judged its quality?

Ask students to explain:

• What did AI help with?
• What did you change, and why?
• How do you know the output was trustworthy?
  
  

Use oral or live elements

• Short verbal presentations
• 1:1 discussion of written work
• Peer review with guided AI critique prompts

These strategies can be scaled. Use 1–2 reflection prompts, quick voice notes, or peer discussion to surface thinking without adding hours of marking. Tools like professional conversations or class conversations can support this.

Upholding integrity with transparency

Talk about it early

• Clarify what kinds of AI use are allowed
• Co-create class norms or contracts
• Emphasise learning, not surveillance

Use integrity declarations

Example: "I confirm that I used AI to generate a draft only, and have revised it significantly. I take responsibility for the final version."

 

Avoid over-reliance on detection

AI detection tools are inconsistent. They often:

• Mislabel non-native writing
• Fail to detect paraphrased content
• Penalise creativity

Instead:

Build assessments that invite authentic, situated responses — harder to fake, easier to trust.

Resources to explore and use

Templates + Tools

• AI Use Declarations and Rubric Samples – Blog by Graeme Smith
• University of Melbourne – Acknowledging AI Tools and Technologies
• TeacherDashboard.ai – AI Rubric Maker

Readings + Frameworks

• Assessment Redesign Blog – Ako Aotearoa (coming soon)
• OECD – Principles on Artificial Intelligence
• NZQA – Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence

Case examples

• Sydney Uni – AI-Informed Assessment
• OpenAI – ChatGPT Edu

 

Want to go deeper?

• JISC – AI in Education Maturity Model (2024)
• EDUCAUSE – (Re)Designing Assessments in the Age of Generative AI
• Turnitin – AI Writing Detection Guide

 

Printable resource references

1. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. (2024). Crafting Rubrics and Resources with Generative A.I. | https://teaching.unl.edu/ai-exchange/crafting-rubrics-and-resources-generative-ai/

2. Ako Aotearoa. (2024). Assessment Professional Learning. | https://ako.ac.nz/professional-learning/in-house-workshop/assessment

3. OECD. (2024). Principles on Artificial Intelligence. | https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/ai-principles.html

4. NZQA. (2024). Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence. | https://www2.nzqa.govt.nz/tertiary/assessment-and-moderation-of-standards/academic-integrity-and-artificial-intelligence/

5. Jisc. (2024). AI Maturity Toolkit for Tertiary Education. |  https://www.jisc.ac.uk/ai-maturity-toolkit-for-tertiary-education

6. EDUCAUSE. (2024). (Re)Designing Assessments in the Age of Generative AI. | https://events.educause.edu/annual-conference/2024/agenda/redesigning-assessments-in-the-age-of-generative-ai-separate-registration-is-required

7. Turnitin. (2024). AI Writing Detection in the New Enhanced Similarity Report. | https://guides.turnitin.com/hc/en-us/articles/22774058814093-AI-writing-detection-in-the-new-enhanced-Similarity-Report
   

 

Where to next?

Key ideas – Cultural inclusion, Te Tiriti, and AI | Go back to Practical tips