Using AI

Know and follow the school’s Acceptable Use policy

Students should be aware of the school's official policy regarding AI tools. This includes understanding what types of AI use are permitted, restricted, or prohibited. Knowing the boundaries helps students stay within ethical and academic expectations.

"AISL uses critical and reflective thinking to learn with technologies, including AI tools, in order to advance our vision of ensuring Every Student Thrives. Our school-wide, scaffolded approach integrates personalized, ethical, and transferable learning experiences grounded in innovation, inclusion, and imagination, while always prioritizing human relationships, curiosity, and compassion." (Approved 2025)

Ask your teacher:

"What level of AI can I use on this assignment?"

Click on the image to see the complete AI Use Spectrum

Acknowledge AI assistance in any work

Just like any resource, students must acknowledge when and how they use AI.

With Flint, they are able to cite their chats by clicking the quotation mark:

How to Attribute AI Responsibly

Be transparent about your AI use with an icon, a citation, or an acknowledgement

Plus you must save all your chat transcripts!

Use this AI icon to be transparent about your AI use in casual contexts.

Download as a PNG file and check "Transparent background." Then add it to slides, images, or non-academic documents as a way to acknowledge AI use.

If you're writing an academic paper, follow the acknowledgement statements or citations in the slideshow above.

Using AI for Assessments sent to the IB

Use AI as a learning tool, not a shortcut

AI tools like Flint are designed to support and extend student thinking, not bypass it. Students should be encouraged to use AI to ask questions, gather feedback, and deepen understanding. Reinforce that using AI should enhance their learning process and critical thinking, not undermine it.

Mr. Simonet's rule of thumb for DP:
"Treat chatbots as a DP teacher: students shouldn’t ask chatbots questions that a DP teacher wouldn’t answer."

Typically, on the AI Use Spectrum, you will stay in AI Planning.

This means that you can use AI to:

✅ point you to sources
✅ outline or create a template for the structure of an essay
✅ identify counter-arguments
✅ check your grammar (except in language acquisition classes where sentence structure must be your own)
✅ plan
✅ ideate
✅ create examples

You then need to critique and fact-check the output, and develop and refine it using your own critical thinking.

You may not use AI to:

❌ develop your research questions or thesis (use conversations with teachers for this)
❌ translate your essay
❌ grade or give you feedback on your essay (IB allows only “one set of written feedback” by your teacher)
❌ write or rewrite your essay
❌ generate reflections

• If you use AI-produced text (or any other product)-- whether by copying or paraphrasing that text or modifying an image--you must reference the AI tool in the body of your work and add it to the Works Cited.

• The in-text citation should contain quotation marks, and the citation should include the prompt and the date the AI generated the text.

For further advice/help, see your teacher. See also AI Scenarios by the IBO.

Maintain academic integrity

Plagiarism and misrepresentation can occur when students submit AI-generated content as their own. Students should understand that academic integrity still applies when working with AI. What they submit must reflect their own thinking, and AI use should never be hidden or deceptive.

Be transparent about AI usage

Transparency is key to building trust in academic environments. Students should be comfortable discussing how they used AI in their work, what kind of help they received, and how they applied it. Teachers may ask for statements in which student describe their process, and students should save drafts and AI transcripts to verify this process if requested.

AI Tools for Research

AI

Ask your teacher to what extent you can use AI on your assignment. Typically, when you type a question into Google, the first answer is AI generated by Google Gemini.

Perplexity.ai

If you're allowed to use AI, this is a search engine especially designed for research for ages 13+. It will generate an answer that is like a customized Wikipedia page with links to all its sources, so you can access them and read them directly.

Note: not permitted for under age 13. If you are between 13 and 18, you are legally required to have parental or guardian consent to use the tool. Also, be sure to protect your data by Opting-Out of Training: Go to Account > Preferences and toggle off "AI Data Retention."

Remember not to quote AI words in your academic work, but instead use the links to find sources that you can cite.

How do I cite use of an AI tool that I used for background information on a topic?

Click here for full details on how to cite AI in MLA.

NOTE: MLA asks you to use your prompt on the Works Cited page. However, it recognizes that "since you are describing something that mimics a conversation, which could have various prompts along the way," so it will also accept a shorter and more general description of the prompt instead (i.e., Recent studies on AI as effective and ineffective for educators prompt).

How do I cite an AI chatbot answer?

Click here for full details on how to cite AI in MLA

How do I cite an AI-generated image?

You will likely need to create a caption for it following the guidelines for Figures. Use a description of the prompt, followed by the AI tool, model name or version, and date created:

You can use this same information if you choose to create a Works Cited entry instead of including the full citation in the caption (Source: https://style.mla.org/citing-generative-ai-updated-revised/).

Should AI conversations be included in full, for instance, in an appendix?

Students must keep copies of their chats. Teachers may choose to have students include them in an appendix, on an additional tab on their Google document, as part of a process journal, etc.

However, for submissions to the IB, the AI chat should not normally be included in appendices unless instructed otherwise.

If I use AI as a tool but didn't use its information directly in my product, do I need to acknowledge the tool?
Do I need to cite it?

When AI has been used as an assistive tool, it may be appropriate to mention its use, for instance in the methodology section of a research essay. This holds for other assistive tools used, for example, mapping or sampling software.

Citations are expected if the tool has provided material which has been quoted or paraphrased.

If I use AI-generated information that I verified on other sites, do I cite the AI tool itself, or do I site the sources I used to verify the information?

The use of the AI tool should be acknowledged (perhaps in the paper as part of the methodology or in an endnote or elsewhere so that the teacher knows), but only the source used to verify its output should be cited.

Think of this in terms of Wikipedia. You don't cite Wikipedia, but instead follow its lead to the sources that you can cite. However, IB does want you to acknowledge AI use, whereas Wikipedia use does not need to be acknowledged as your jumping off point.

If AI has provided quotations or data that I can't verify, do I cite the AI tool or the sources that the AI tool claims to have used?

You should always cite the actual source you used. If you cannot trace the original source that AI got the information from, talk to your teacher. AI is typically not a reputable source to cite in academic work, but if your teacher allows it, and you use it, you must cite it.

This assessment takes 20-25 minutes, with multiple-choice questions that vary in difficulty and cover Units 1-5 of the Student AI Literacy Certification course. Scores 85% or above earn a certificate.

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