During the Fall 2025 semester, Instructional Design & Technology and several Rutgers–Camden faculty members met to discuss strategies presented in The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI. Below are the key takeaways about why students cheat and how instructors can design courses that prioritize integrity.

Understanding Why Students Cheat

Students (and humans, in general) cheat for a variety of reasons, most often to survive or because of an error in judgment. Whether students believe they can do the work (self-efficacy) or whether they know they’re cheating (expectations, awareness) are among the reasons students may engage in academic integrity violations. Other reasons students cheat include (but are not limited to):

• Values
• Moral disengagement
• Messages students receive about cheating and academic integrity
• Peer effect (if my peers are doing it, why shouldn’t I?)
• Motivation
• Procrastination
• Cost-benefit considerations

Understanding why people cheat can help instructors design integrity into their courses. For example, if instructors know procrastination contributes to cheating in their class, they might plan class time for students to work on assignments or break the assignment into smaller pieces with more frequent due dates.

Planning for Integrity

The lack of a universal definition and/or the absence of a universally applied approach to academic integrity can cause student confusion, potentially leading to unintended acts of academic integrity violations. Instructors should aim to be clear and transparent with students from the beginning of their course(s) about what academic integrity looks like in their classroom and discipline. Doing so is key to initiating open communication about integrity and clarifying any confusion or lack of knowledge students may have regarding academic integrity and its meaning in each course.

Communication

The syllabus is a great place to start communicating about expectations around integrity and acceptable/unacceptable AI use. However, communication should not stop at the syllabus; it should be a continuing and nuanced conversation throughout the semester. Ongoing communication enables the instructor and students to define and refine their shared values and actions related to academic integrity.

Designing Courses and Assessments for Integrity

Transparency around acceptable and unacceptable AI use in the classroom, as well as statements about general academic integrity, are wonderful starting points for addressing integrity in the classroom.

Practical Strategies:

Nudges

Nudges are small environmental cues designed to influence a person’s behavior toward a desired outcome without using punitive influences or limiting overall choices to affect the desired behavior. Some examples of nudging are:

• Putting healthier food choices at eye level in a cafeteria
• Making public trash cans brighter so they’re easier to spot
• Simplifying forms so people are more likely to finish them

Most, if not all, of the strategies presented in The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI, exemplify the use of nudges to steer students away from academic dishonesty. These strategies include:

Cheat-Proof vs. Preventative Design

While it is impossible to completely “cheat-proof” a class, assignment, or assessment, it is possible to design cheating into classes. Making assessments too difficult, putting emphasis on grading over learning, and making cheating seem easy or low-risk are all ways to design cheating into a course and should be avoided.

Articulate Learning Objectives

Learning objectives frame the course and give students a way to access the course in manageable ways and provide an important piece for helping instructors enhance integrity in four ways:

1. They establish meaningful goals and provide direction. 
2. They focus on goals, which help students strategize for success in the course. 
3. They help students understand how their grades will be determined, which strengthens their perception that the course is fair. 
4. Using a learning taxonomy, like Bloom’s Taxonomy and Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning, helps engage students, especially when higher levels (create, evaluate, and analyze) are implemented throughout the course. 

Construct a Learner-Centered Syllabus

A learner-centered syllabus emphasizes the learning actions students must take to meet learning objectives and focuses less on the arbitrary “rules of the road” content. Learner-centered syllabi employ a positive, learner-centered, and encouraging tone, addressing community, power, and control, as well as evaluation/assessment.  

Reduce Either-Or Decisions by Implementing Flexible Deadlines

The book encourages instructors to reflect on the reasons and purposes for deadlines, determining whether those deadlines are related to learning objectives or purely administrative. If the purpose of deadlines is only administrative, is there room for some flexibility? For instance, if an instructor is not going to grade an assignment over a weekend, but has set the deadline for Friday at 5 pm, could the deadline be extended?

Focus Away from Grades and Grading

A common refrain throughout the book is that authentic learning promotes academic integrity. Emphasizing learning rather than grades encourages students to focus on the process of learning rather than only the outcome. Avoiding all-or-nothing grading on large assignments is recommended, as it overlooks the effort students invest in completing the assignment, even if the final answer is incorrect. Another suggestion is not to give points for attendance, as it can lead students to enjoy the class less, and it reinforces the idea that accumulating points matters more than attending class because the student is enrolled in it.

Design Metacognition into Courses

Providing students with opportunities to reflect on their own thinking (metacognition) can enhance overall performance. For example, better metacognition can lead to better time management skills. Poor time management skills (e.g., procrastination) are one reason students might turn to cheating.

Use Scaffolding to Break Down Big Projects

Scaffolding large projects not only nudges students to complete the project on time, but it also helps students master novice-level skills to higher-level skills in a sequential and meaningful way.

Rethink Grading

Standard grading practices are often arbitrary. There are several more meaningful grading options to consider:

• Mastery grading focuses on a student’s mastery of course concepts. Often, students are required to meet a threshold (e.g., 80% on each assignment) and are then given credit for meeting those standards (e.g., complete/incomplete, pass/fail, or progress to the next concept).
• Specifications grading allows students to choose their assessment, which is often bundled around a skill or concept that needs to be mastered by students.
• Ungrading focuses on student self-evaluation rather than faculty evaluation.

Honing the Teacher-Student Relationship

Throughout the book, the authors stress the importance of building a teacher-student relationship in the classroom. Strong teacher-student relationships foster trust, reduce cheating, and enable students and teachers to openly discuss academic integrity in the classroom. Furthermore, the authors encourage teachers to use instances of academic integrity violations as ethical lessons for students who engage in dishonesty, so that they can learn how to become better scholars and citizens.

Interested in Learning More?

A digital copy of The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI is available to read through the Rutgers Library.