Maura Hametz is a professor of history at James Madison University. She first incorporated the Wikipedia Assignment in fall 2025.
Teaching is about knowledge acquisition. AI is a tool for knowledge acquisition. So, why is generative AI the subject of so much angst for me and my students?
In my undergraduate upper division history classes, the Wikipedia Assignment is a forum to explore how, why, and where we acquire knowledge and, hopefully, to contribute to expanding knowledge available to the public. It has also become a launch pad for discussions about new and ever-expanding generative AI. AI is a tool. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. AI emphasizes process. Wikipedia focuses on content. At their core, both AI and Wikipedia disseminate information and expand access to knowledge.
Two student training modules “Using AI tools with Wikipedia” and “Large Language Models” on the Wiki Education dashboard address generative AI, explaining Wikipedia’s ban on using AI-generated content, but also opening the door to use AI for inspiration. The materials emphasize partnership, encouraging students to follow instructors’ guidelines and institutional policies to work effectively and productively to successfully publish their work to Wikipedia.
The two modules quickly became an AI life raft for me and an inspiration for discussions of sources, research, writing, and research ethics in the classroom. Wiki Education provides ethical guidelines and technical assistance that helped me to ground my thoughts as, along with my colleagues, I struggled to craft AI strategies and adjust assignments and teaching. This guidance and support also helped me to navigate the waters of new institutional policies, procedures, and guidelines to encourage appropriate uses of AI. Wiki Education’s videos, examples, policies, and review systems provide guardrails in a supported environment where professional assistance alleviates worry about lack of familiarity or discomfort with emerging technologies.
This support system allowed me to focus on the aspects of my assignment important to classroom goals and learning objectives rather than on my own anxieties about unpreparedness or uncertainty in detecting or assessing the role played by generative AI in producing specific content. The materials offer simple, but not simplistic, discussions of AI chatbots and explain how Wiki Education uses an AI detector called Pangram. The automatic check on students’ work saved me from having to assess and learn how to use detection software. It allowed me to focus on how, rather than when, to respond to potentially inappropriate use of AI. Wiki Education communicated potential problems to me and to students, taking away the guesswork.
While I recognized the piece of mind the Wiki Education resources gave me, I was not immediately aware of how the Wiki Education approach helped forge a community in the classroom, uniting me and the students as fellow travelers exploring the new technology rather than pitting us against each other trying to suss out how the technology could be deployed and what uses of it were appropriate. Headlines decry AI’s “invasion,” blaming the ready availability of generative AI for an increase in cheating, decrease in critical thinking, and cognitive off-load, conjuring dystopian visions of “professor” bots grading work generated by “student” bots. Classroom discussions revealed that students were often as uncertain, insecure, and anxious as instructors about generative AI’s use. What I found in the Wikipedia Assignment was a foundation for guided discussions of the use, abuse, or uncertainties of AI usage and practical suggestions for meeting the challenges it posed, not condemnation or unbridled praise of the technology.
The explanation of LLM’s as “pattern completion programs” explains replications of information and errors in an accessible way, spurring discussion of “loops” of suspect information and engaging students in thinking about how to “set things right” through careful work in original sources and publication in relevant Wikipedia articles. In one class, the examples of AI “Hallucinations” led students into an impromptu competition to find and correct hallucinated content on the internet, learning along the way how information was processed and distorted. Discussion of LLM’s lack of transparency related to proprietary technology and algorithms encouraged consideration of bias as well as authority and power in the dissemination of information.
Wiki Education’s fact verification messages, sent to both the student and the instructor, allowed us to figure out problems, inconsistencies, and errors in their work together, based not on my critical assessment, but on an “outside” query, presenting things to be explored and explained, not defended. The process seemed less accusatory and more collaborative. Why was the writing flagged? What about the content triggered the review? As use of the sandbox was optional for my students, in several cases the content reflected traces of use of Grammarly and other writing aids. In cases where it signaled inappropriate attribution or generated content, the discussion of the “flag” focused on the use of sources and the processes of citation and attribution, rather than on an explanation of what made me suspect the use of AI. The tools therefore provide greater accountability and verifiability, while at the same time decreasing potential for interpersonal tensions or misunderstanding.
The messages also provide concrete evidence to allow students to voice their anxieties, to share their interactions with generative AI and Wiki Education, and to discuss the benefits and limitations of technology in completing their assignments. “Hey dude, chill out, I got the same message,” followed by some version of “and this is how Dr. H and I addressed it,” prompted several discussions about how to cite sources, use direct quotes, or incorporate new material.
In my classroom, the Wiki Education materials on AI helped students to collect their thoughts and approach generative AI use from an analytical, rather than emotional, perspective. Using the materials as a foundation, they acquired a common language to discuss the advantages and limitations of AI and to share how they had used it successfully or unsuccessfully in other classes and in their daily lives.
Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia Assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.
