Students will open Grok. Pretending they will not is theater. Letting them submit Grok’s work as theirs is the other failure. This lesson is the line, written so a student can follow it and a rubric can see it.
Why this matters
Two common policies, both empty. “No AI” on the syllabus, no check in the room, and a stack of fluent papers you cannot attribute. Or “AI is allowed,” no disclosure, no redesigned proof, and you are grading the model.
Academic honesty is not a poster and not a detection product. It is an operating rule: what the student may ask Grok to do, what they must still do themselves, what they must show you, and how you will score the part that is theirs. If that rule is missing, the lesson you designed yesterday will leak.
This is first-class work in this track, not an appendix. If you skip it, the capstone does not count.
Teach
Name the two acts out loud. They are not the same.
Using Grok is a student treating the model as a tool they still outrank. They ask it to explain a sentence they already read. They paste their draft and ask what is thin. They generate practice items and still sit the real check without the model. They ask it to argue against their claim. The work product is still theirs: the measurement, the rewrite, the judgment they will defend in ninety seconds.
Submitting Grok’s work is treating the model as the author. They paste the prompt and turn in the reply. They let Grok invent a methods section, a citation, a GPS point, or a reflection about “what I learned in the field.” They hide the thread. They put their name on fluency.
A third act, quieter: laundering. They generate the whole thing, then change three adjectives. That is still Grok’s work. Changing words is not authorship. Changing the claim, the number, or the structure after looking at the world can be.
Write the rule as an SOP, not as a vibe.
Allowed (typical — edit for your course)
- Critique of a draft the student wrote first.
- Practice items and self-quiz, if they still sit the real check without the model.
- Explaining a source they already opened.
- Format help: headings, a table from their numbers, a checklist from their steps.
- A disclosed first draft when you assigned that shape — and the student must mark every line they did not verify.
Not allowed
- Submitting Grok’s sentences, code, numbers, or citations as their own.
- Invented sources, invented field data, invented quotes.
- Uploading another student’s work, your unpublished key, or a paywalled exam.
- A hidden thread. If they used Grok and the assignment allows it, they show the prompt and the keep/change.
Required disclosure (put this on the card)
Grok used: yes / no
Surface and thread name:
What I asked it to do (one sentence):
What I kept from the reply:
What I changed, and why:
What I verified in the world or in the source (quote or measurement):
What I still have not checked:
If they cannot fill that card, they were not using the tool. They were shopping for a paper.
Rubrics that die. Rows like professional tone, well organized, complete, creative, uses academic language. Grok wins those by default. You will give A’s to the model and C’s to the honest student who writes like a person.
Rubrics that survive. Score what Grok cannot finish without the world:
- Local fact. A number, name, or feature that is on this photo, this file, this site visit — and a quote or screenshot that shows it.
- Process. A dated log, the first ugly draft, the keep/change turns, the disclosure card.
- Error catching. They mark one thing Grok got wrong or could not know. If they claim Grok was perfect, that row is a zero unless they prove they checked.
- Source. A page they opened, with a six-word quote. Not a URL Grok invented.
- Defense. Two or three oral questions you actually ask. Fluency collapses when they have to point at the map.
Five rows is enough. Weight the local fact and the defense heavier than polish.
Make the cheat expensive. Require a photo they took, a measurement from the lab software, or a paragraph that argues with a sentence in a reading you chose. Score the disclosure card. Honesty should be the easier path.
You, grading. Grok may draft comments from your rubric. You still read the work and sign the grade. No roster, no unpublished student writing in a thread you would not leave on a shop table. Strip names.
Detection tools are not this course. They misfire and teach paraphrase. Your defense is the assignment shape, the disclosure, the oral, and a rubric that does not pay for fluency.
Privacy sits next to honesty. No student legal names, IDs, or unpublished grades in Grok. Use “Student A.” School policy is theirs to follow; this lesson does not replace counsel. If you would not pin it in the hallway, do not paste it.
Worked example
Same Thursday lab. Students submit a 10-line drainage card. Two rubrics.
Rubric A (dies): Organization 20. Professional language 20. Completeness 20. Creativity 20. On time 20. A student pastes the PNG into Grok, gets three elegant questions and a fake “14.2-acre contributing area,” and scores a 96.
Rubric B (holds):
| Row | Weight | 0 | 1 | 2 |
|---|
| Local feature | 30 | No feature from this clip | Feature named, not pointed at | Feature + where on the clip |
| Next measurement | 25 | Invented quantity | Named, no tool | Named + tool/layer they have |
| Error / limit | 15 | None | Vague | One thing they must not claim |
| Disclosure card | 15 | Missing or “I didn’t use it” when the prose is not theirs | Partial | Complete and matches the thread |
| 60-second point | 15 | Cannot find the feature | Finds, cannot explain | Finds and defends |
A student who used Grok well still has to point at the slough on the south line, refuse the acreage, and name the GIS measurement. A student who submitted Grok’s card fails local feature and the oral. That is the line.
The instructor then asked Grok to beat rubric B while hiding the tool. Grok offered a plausible slough and a fake disclosure. The patch: a screenshot with their three arrows on the class PNG, filenames matching the LMS drop. The cheat got more expensive. That is the loop.
Your turn
Open grok.com. New thread named integrity — [assignment]. Bring the job from lesson 1, or a real assignment you already run. You will write the rule, write the rubric, then ask Grok to cheat.
Exercise d-edu-l02-e1
| Field | Value |
|---|
| whereToDo | grok.com |
| time | 25 min |
Copy-ready prompts
Message 1:
I am in Grok Mastery (Russell Tech), Pathway D, Education, lesson 2 — rubrics and academic integrity.
This is a real assignment. Do not invent a different one.
Course:
Assignment job (what they submit):
Minutes they have:
What they can look at (files, site, tools):
What I already decided Grok may be used for (or "undecided"):
What I will not allow:
Write a student-facing Integrity Card, one page or less, with:
- Allowed
- Not allowed
- Required disclosure (use the seven-line shape from this course unless I gave another)
- What happens if they hide the thread or invent a source/measurement
- One sentence in plain language: "Using Grok is not the same as submitting Grok’s work."
Do not write legal threats. Write a shop rule.
Then stop.
Message 2 — same thread:
Write a 5-row rubric for this assignment that survives Grok.
Rows must score judgment, local fact, process/disclosure, a source or measurement, and a short defense.
No rows for tone, creativity, or "professionalism."
Use a 0–1–2 scale and weights that add to 100.
Then list two rows you refused to include, and why they would pay the model.
Message 3 — same thread:
Now try to cheat. Role: a student who wants full marks and will hide Grok if they can.
Do not write a full submission. Write a Cheat Sheet:
- How you would finish this assignment with Grok in under 10 minutes
- Which rubric rows you would still fail
- Which rows you might fake
- The cheapest patch I could add so this cheat dies
After the cheat sheet, reprint the Integrity Card and rubric only if a patch changes them.
Session stamp: today's date and "Integrity pack written by Grok in this thread."
Artifact to paste
- The Integrity Card.
- The 5-row rubric and the two refused rows.
- The Cheat Sheet (including which rows still fail).
- The session stamp.
- One sentence from you: the patch you will actually add, or why the cheat already dies.
Rubric
- Pass: Card names allowed vs not allowed and requires disclosure. Rubric has no tone/creativity row. Cheat sheet is Grok-authored and points at a real hole or honestly says the cheat fails local fact/defense. Stamp present. Assignment is yours.
- Fail: “Don’t plagiarize” as the whole policy. A rubric that scores fluency. A cheat sheet you wrote without Grok. No disclosure line. You banned Grok and offered no redesigned proof. Invented assignment.
Common failure
The common failure is detection as a substitute for design. You run a checker, argue with a student about a percentage, and leave the assignment unchanged. The next cohort paraphrases. You taught hide-and-seek.
The twin failure is permission without a card. “You may use AI” with no allowed list, no disclosure, and a rubric that loves polish. You just outsourced the course.
What’s next
You have a rule and a rubric that can see. Next: the classroom lab operating system — how the period actually runs when eighteen people open grok.com at once.
