From Cheating Tool to Learning Partner: A Blueprint for PBL-AI Solutions

Tara Koehler, John Sammon

The rise of generative AI tools has significantly reshaped education, leaving many educators concerned about maintaining academic integrity. Australian educator Leon Furze, highlighted in Marshall Memo 1053, has observed how effortlessly students can use AI to complete assignments, creating a sense of vulnerability among teachers. Furze states, “I have absolutely no way of knowing whether the work I’m seeing at the end is the student’s, or has been created partially or entirely with GenAI.” His suggestion? Revise assessments to make them resistant to AI misuse.

Building on Furze’s insights, we propose Project-Based Learning as a robust framework for integrating AI as a collaborative tool rather than viewing it as a cheating threat. When students engage with AI meaningfully within PBL, they learn to use it as a tool for brainstorming, iterating, and refining their ideas. This shifts AI from being a shortcut into an empowering co-creator, allowing students to maintain ownership of their work while gaining skills that prepare them for a technology-rich world.

Embracing AI as a Collaborative Partner, Not a Substitute

Our approach to AI in education emphasizes guidance over restriction. Rather than banning AI, we teach students how to collaborate with it thoughtfully. Students find great value in using AI to enhance creativity and problem-solving rather than merely treating it as an answer provider. One student said excitedly, “Wow, this is helping me to elevate my thinking!”

With this perspective, PBL becomes an ideal environment to encourage responsible and innovative AI use. By transforming AI into a supportive tool, we can help students leverage AI to foster deep engagement and personal investment in their projects.

Examples of AI as a Learning Partner in PBL

Example 1: Empowering Creativity and Ownership through Collaborative PBL

A powerful example of meaningful AI integration comes from an interdisciplinary PBL project involving sixth and third graders. Although the projects were rooted in science, they required extensive English Language Arts (ELA) work, making them perfect for AI-assisted collaboration. Sixth graders created "choose your own adventure" novels based on space systems, while third graders developed informational texts on ecosystem interdependencies. The completed works were donated to Maria Fareri Children's Healthcare Services at MidHudson Regional Hospital, providing young patients with a thoughtful and entertaining resource during treatment.

Throughout this project, students collaborated, conducted hands-on investigations, and explored literature and media resources. They used design thinking and even participated in virtual meetings with hospital stakeholders to better understand the needs of their audience. Initially, students gathered facts, generated ideas, and drafted their content independently. As the project progressed, however, they began working with AI tools such as SchoolAI and ChatGPT. Students used AI to brainstorm alternative storylines, clarify complex information, and refine their work, but they remained in control of the creative process.

They critically evaluated AI-generated suggestions, integrating ideas only when they aligned with their unique vision. AI was used as a tool for grammar and spelling checks and for refining sentences, but students did not simply accept AI’s suggestions without thought. Instead, they analyzed each recommendation, deciding whether it truly added value. This process reinforced their ownership of the writing process, allowing them to exercise critical thinking and creativity while ensuring that the final product was authentically theirs.

Example 2: Bridging Knowledge and Communication with AI Support

In a bustling fifth-grade classroom, students embarked on a project to create scientific models explaining how matter cycles through ecosystems, intending to share their findings with the community through the Dutchess County Environmental Management Council. Their journey began by investigating the properties of matter—particles too small to see and the conservation of matter. As students grappled with these complex ideas, they turned to Brisk Tutor, an AI tool that provided guidance through moments of confusion. The AI encouraged them to connect their knowledge about invisible particles with real-world processes in ecosystems, helping them understand how gases like oxygen and carbon dioxide play crucial roles in sustaining life.

During small group discussions, students shared their newfound understanding that gases are forms of matter, which plants cycle through photosynthesis. These conversations naturally led to the role of sunlight in ecosystems, with students making connections between energy from the sun and the cycling of matter. One group excitedly concluded that solar energy powers everything, from the smallest particles to entire ecosystems, transforming their understanding of energy and matter.

Reflecting on the experience, students expressed amazement at how the AI had guided them through challenging concepts. One student remarked that Brisk Tutor’s reminders about the invisible particles helped clarify the cycling of matter, making the complex concept easier to understand. Their excitement and curiosity deepened as they prepared to explore ecosystems further, equipped with a new appreciation for the invisible processes sustaining life.

Example 3: Student and AI Innovation in Renewable Energy Design

In another PBL experience, sixth-grade students embarked on a project called Powering the Future: Innovating Renewable Energy with Forces and Motion, where they refined renewable energy prototypes for Central Hudson, a local utility company. Each team developed original ideas for Solar, Wind, Hydroelectric, Geothermal, and Biomass energy solutions. They used Brisk Boost and SchoolAI to refine their designs further, balancing creative inspiration with real-world feasibility.

Students embraced the process with enthusiasm, using split screens on their Chromebooks to compare insights from both AI tools side by side. As they analyzed and synthesized the strengths of each tool’s output, the room buzzed with energy. One team, designing a biomass-powered system, appreciated AI feedback about using recycled materials, which they saw as a way to make their project more eco-friendly. Another team working on solar power enthusiastically discussed a suggestion to use motorized solar cells that would follow the sun’s path, maximizing energy capture.

Teachers observed as students discussed strategies, noting how one AI tool’s focus on energy efficiency complemented the other’s emphasis on real-world feasibility. By engaging AI as a collaborative partner, students felt empowered to refine their designs and took pride in their work, knowing their projects were shaped by their own creativity, enhanced by the tools at their disposal.

Human-AI Teaming

As schools across the world continue to integrate AI into their curriculum, human-AI teaming is becoming more than a novel experiment—it is evolving into an essential skill set.

• Research: In the research phase of various projects, we have had students use AI to quickly gather relevant information and summarize complex topics, making the initial stages of their projects more efficient. However, human-AI teaming in research goes beyond simply collecting information. We taught students to evaluate AI-generated summaries and cross-reference them with original sources to ensure accuracy, distinguishing between factual data and AI-generated interpretations. This process reinforces critical research skills, teaching students not to accept AI suggestions at face value but to validate findings using reliable sources.

• Data Analysis: Data analysis is a natural fit for AI assistance, allowing students to process large data sets and extract patterns or trends that might otherwise be missed. For example, in a multi-unit PBL project our students focused on  weather and climate and the impacts on ecosystems. AI helped students analyze climate data to identify patterns in precipitation and temperature changes over time and how it impacted various organisms. However, human insight remained crucial. Students had to decide which datasets to use, interpret AI findings in a meaningful way, and assess any biases that may arise from dataset limitations. This collaborative analysis fostered a deeper understanding of both AI’s power and its limitations, helping students balance machine-driven insights with human perspective.

• Brainstorming, Designing, and Prototyping: AI can be a powerful ally in the brainstorming and design stages, where creativity and innovation are essential. In our projects, students begin by generating original ideas and then use generative AI tools to enhance design solutions for engineering prototypes. However, because PBL emphasizes the importance of human creativity, we guided students to treat AI outputs as suggestions rather than final answers. They refined and adapted AI-generated ideas to align with their unique vision and project goals, ensuring that their original insights shaped the final design. In prototyping, students also used AI to troubleshoot and optimize designs while maintaining full control over creative decisions.

• Presentation & Real-world Products: In the presentation phase, AI can help students organize their findings, enhance visual elements, and even refine their presentation delivery. For example, we have had students use AI tools to generate visuals that complement their data or receive AI-driven feedback on their presentation script’s clarity and engagement level. However, we always insist they are in control and the human element is essential in crafting a narrative that resonates with audiences. Students practice delivering their presentations and must be prepared to answer questions that go beyond AI’s reach, demonstrating their depth of knowledge and ownership of the material. For real-world products, students integrate AI as a supportive tool, not a substitute for their expertise, ensuring that their work is authentic and reflects their unique contributions.

By embedding these human-AI teaming practices into each PBL phase, students gain the skills to navigate technology-rich environments with competence, creativity, and integrity.

How PBL Promotes Responsible AI Use

Project-Based Learning lends itself to ethical and productive AI use in several ways. Here’s how PBL can help students collaborate with AI while preventing misuse:

• Process-Driven Learning: PBL emphasizes learning as a journey, not just a product. Students engage in continuous reflection, research, and iteration. Teachers monitor progress through turning points, observing how students integrate AI into their work. This structure encourages students to use AI as a brainstorming partner while taking ownership of the entire learning journey.

• Real-World Applications: In PBL, students often work on projects tied to real-world problems, from scientific inquiries to creative writing. AI can support these projects by providing relevant data or creative suggestions, but it cannot replace the critical thinking required to connect information and develop meaningful solutions.

• Critical Thinking and Decision-Making: PBL projects encourage students to actively evaluate and refine AI-generated suggestions. In the "choose your own adventure" project, for instance, students generated alternative storylines with AI’s help but made final decisions based on their creative goals. This mirrors professional environments where AI is used as a brainstorming tool, with humans making the final calls.

Rethinking Assessment in the AI Era

PBL offers a way to reframe how AI is used in education. By incorporating AI meaningfully, students collaborate with AI to enhance their learning while showcasing critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills. PBL shifts AI from being a threat to academic integrity to a valuable tool that enriches the learning experience.

With PBL, students are required to present, reflect, and defend their work. This integration of the human element ensures authenticity, allowing teachers to assess creativity, thought processes, and personal investment—qualities that AI cannot replicate. While AI can enhance learning, it cannot replace the genuine engagement and ownership demonstrated by students in a well-crafted PBL experience.

Toward a Collaborative Future

AI will undoubtedly continue to shape education, but we do not believe it has to be a battleground for academic integrity. By incorporating AI as a collaboration tool within PBL, we open doors to innovative and meaningful learning. Students can take pride in knowing they’ve created something uniquely their own, with AI serving as a supportive tool rather than a substitute for their efforts.

In this way, PBL doesn’t just prevent AI-enabled cheating—it embraces AI as a means to enhance learning, fostering a future where human creativity and technological innovation work together, hand in hand.