This is a framework that I started building in the fall of 2025 in response to student complaints I heard around campus - that teachers said "don't use AI" but clearly were using AI themselves. This seemed like a valid complaint, and I highly value transparency in my teaching, so I wanted to do something to contribute to a solution, not be part of the problem. I use AI at work (and at home) extensively. But I'm intentional about my use and try to structure it well. This framework is an attempt to encode the ideas behind how and why I use AI myself, as a first pass at a moral compass for AI use.
You (as a student, teacher, or other community member) are building your own ethical relationship with AI, and that's part of becoming an independent thinker and adapting to changing technology. It can also be really hard!
As a student in my classes, you'll be asked to take on this framework and live with my moral code for the trimester. That might feel uncomfortable, or it might help provide clarity. In either case, I encourage you to be open with me about feedback and where it challenges you. Recall, however, that while personal ethics can evolve, academic integrity is a community standard, and your actions must meet that standard.
Creativity begets creativity. When you engage in creative work, it builds your intuition, taste, and problem-solving instincts. Unused creative muscles atrophy. To develop yours, and use your own unique taste for writing, design, and structures, generate your own idea or attempt first, even if it's incomplete. Afterward, AI can help expand or refine what you've already created.
Work that falls into this category might include brainstorming, sketching ideas, modeling, exploring patterns, ideation, generating multiple approaches, trying something before you know it works. Writing almost always falls into this category.
Side note - there are some instances where you as a person don't want to own the creative authorship for your project. This is likely okay on personal projects, but don't assume it's acceptable in class.
Core skills are the discipline learning for a student or the expertise of the teacher. They are the core aspects that make it worthwhile to show up in the classroom each day. For these skills, you must make an honest first attempt before turning to AI, but you do not need to work to exhaustion. Even after turning to AI, you are still responsible for auditing AI's response using your own understanding and checking its validity. These skills cannot be fully outsourced.
Work that falls into this category might include writing code, reasoning through multi-step problems, analyzing data, building mathematical arguments, debugging your own logic, designing an experiment, working through a procedure or algorithm.
A good check if you've put in an honest attempt is whether you can fill in the following blanks:
"I am trying to do [skill or action]. I tried and expected [desired result] but instead got [actual result]. I then attempted these things: [list three revisions or additional actions, like research]. I saw the following results [list results from revisions]. Can you help me?"
Clarifying issues is a specific sort of skill - it is locating the place where you have gone wrong. We can use AI to help us see more clearly where the issue might be, but it shouldn't be used to do the actual identification or diagnosis, or choose a solution for you.
Work that falls into this category might include interpreting error messages, understanding unexpected output, clarifying confusing terminology, unpacking instructions, identifying what "could" be causing a problem, understanding a surprising result in code or math.
The same sentence starter from C2 applies here, but so does this one: "I was doing [action] and got an unexpected result I cannot understand: [error or crash], can you help me interpret the meaning of that output, without knowing what my code or solution looks like?"
Side note: At some points in a course or project, clarifying issues might be a core skill. But for the most part, this is its own category.
Correcting issues is a core skill, always. When you arrive here, you can always Clarify (C3) but you must use your Core Skills (C2) to actually make a revision.
Work that falls into this category might include determining the cause of an error, performing tests, choosing a debugging strategy, updating your code or reasoning, verifying which hypothesis is correct, or repairing a flawed argument.
Side note: the C3-C4 boundary can be a fuzzy one, and AI agents like to help. Sometimes this means they volunteer to take over and do the diagnosis or the fix for you. If this happens, acknowledge it and revise your asks for next time - be proactive about fending off AI's corrections. If it continues happening, then your core skills are not growing! Seek help!
Yes Questions:
No Questions:
Overwhelmed? Not sure how to step forward or what the first step is? AI is welcome to support your executive functioning and study skills - this is a great use of technology. Just be sure you still get the practice in breaking down tasks by yourself some of the time, or you will find yourself overwhelmed by more and more simple tasks. Remember, unused muscles atrophy!
This includes planning projects, organizing multi-step work, generating checklists, mapping out your week, breaking down large assignments, prioritizing tasks, structuring a study plan.
If your task doesn’t clearly fit any of the 5 C’s, it is likely reflection.
This includes personal insights, metacognition, “what I learned,” documenting your process, evaluating your growth, or any writing that requires your own perspective.
Remember, AI cannot know what lives inside your head unless you say it in your own words. That putting experience into words is what builds your mental models. And... once it's out there, use it! Do not let AI abstract out all personality and experience from your words.
Using AI, in my view, is almost always allowed, and sometimes even encouraged. However, in every case we should be using AI with integrity and that includes the following Three O's
Use AI intentionally. Know when you're asking AI to do something and what you're asking for. Specifically, what verb do you want AI to be doing for you?
An example - I asked ChatGPT to help me organize some bulletpoints when I was building this framework, without changing any words: that's organizing. I also asked Claude code to "... build me out a static page for the AI framework that has a design similar in feel to the other pages ... and has placeholders for ... Please hook it up in all of the sane places and then I will fill in the text." That's Claude building and designing for me. [1]
Be transparent about when and how you use AI. That means naming the work done by AI, even if you feel like it didn't show up in the final project.
Continuing the example: I used ChatGPT to process my thoughts in August of 2025 when I was distilling these ideas. However, the AI did not come up with any categories and the text on this page is all mine. The webpage itself was primarily built with Claude Code (and a lot of back and forth).
It should always be clear who owns what part of the work you are presenting, and what you are claiming as yours.
Again, an example. The ideas on this page are mine, full and clear. The design of the webpage is shared ownership between AI (ClaudeCode) and myself. I'm comfortable with this, because I am not building my webdesign skills right now.