A practical guide to distinguishing helpful AI tutoring from having AI do the work.
1. Observe patterns, then check understanding
Possible red flags include work well beyond the child's independent ability, answers they can't explain, methods or vocabulary they're unfamiliar with, and, of course, going straight to AI when they're stuck. None of these prove cheating.
Instead of opening with “Did you use AI?”, ask the child to:
2. Set a clear family rule
AI can help you to understand your work; it shouldn't do it for you.
Helpful uses: asking for hints, hearing a concept explained differently, checking your own completed work, doing similar problems, and being quizzed.
Problematic use: having the AI do the assigned work and then submitting it as if it were your own independently produced work.
3. Apply this to the math example
The question says: “There are two numbers twice as far from 14 as they are from 20.” The student's written answer appears to be 8 and 18.
Let x be one of the numbers. “Twice as far from 14 as from 20” means: |x - 14| = 2|x - 20|
Solving gives x = 18n or x = 26. For 18n, the distances are 4n from 14 and 1n from 20. For 26, the distances are 12 from 14 and 6 from 20. In both cases, the distance from 14 is twice the distance from 20.
Neither 8 nor 18 is a correct answer to the problem as written. The photograph alone does not show whether AI was used.
4. Keep the goal in view
Two issues: is AI replacing learning, and is its use masking what the child actually knows? They're intertwined, but may require different approaches.
The key question is: can the child demonstrate independently that they have the understanding that the homework is designed to develop?
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