Almost all teachers would agree that copy-and-pasting answers from an AI chatbot into an essay is cheating.
But what about asking generative AI to help brainstorm? If a chatbot offers ideas, finds relevant research and links, or helps kids refine their arguments, does that mean the end product reflects less of the student’s own thinking?
That’s the ethical and pedagogical question at the heart of a recent change to contest rules from National History Day, a history education competition for students in grades 6-12 in which more than half a million middle and high schoolers participate annually.
The organization previously permitted students to use AI as they brainstormed topic ideas or searched for sources. Now, that’s not allowed, a decision the organization says is “in the best interests of students and their development of historical thinking skills.”
“We want to make sure that AI isn’t taking away student voice and student thinking,” said Lynne O’Hara, the deputy director for education programs at National History Day. “We value their ideas, their analysis, and their conclusions.”
In leveling a total ban on AI support for the contest, the organization’s approach to AI is somewhat of an outlier in social studies education.
The American Historical Association’s guidelines on the issue say that GenAI tools “offer significant opportunities to improve teaching and student learning,” though they underscore that these tools can’t replace human teaching or historical methodology.
And the largest K-12 social studies professional organization, the National Council for the Social Studies, has held events on developing students’ AI literacy and teaching with the technology.
Still, there’s likely a difference between students using AI in the classroom with teacher guidance, and using it on their own to develop a project for a competition, said Amy Allen, an associate professor of history and social science in the elementary education program at Virginia Tech’s School of Education.
“There’s no one there who’s walking them through responsible AI use,” she said.
Students need clear parameters, contest leader says
Central to NHD’s decision is the idea of developing historical thinking skills—a core goal in social studies education in classrooms across the United States.
National frameworks and many state standards say that students shouldn’t only memorize dates, places, and names, but also learn how to analyze the past and draw conclusions. In short, the goal is to get students to think like historians.
This means that tasks like generating research questions and evaluating the strength and credibility of primary source documents and secondary sources aren’t just steps on the path to a final product. They’re also an important part of the learning process.
There are ways teachers can help students strengthen their historical thinking skills using AI, without letting AI take over all the thinking, said Allen. She and her Virginia Tech colleague David Hicks have led training for social studies teachers on those approaches, and have written a book on teaching with AI in social studies.
Students could first generate their own research questions on a topic, and then compare their ideas with what AI generates. Then, teachers could guide a discussion, Allen said: “Are there things it brought up that maybe we didn’t consider? Are there things it got wrong that we want to avoid?”
Or, students could prompt AI for feedback on their historical analysis, asking what questions or sources they could consider to deepen or refine their arguments.
In these use cases, she said, “the teacher plays a pretty significant role.”
National History Day differs from a traditional classroom setting, with a teacher as a guide. Students can work on the projects in school, but many also enter the contest as an extracurricular. Winners at the regional, state, and national level can receive cash prizes and scholarship awards to universities.
Judges want to see what students can do on their own, said O’Hara, even if it’s imperfect and less polished than what a chatbot might suggest.
“In the last two years, two contest cycles, we’ve had concerns that have been raised about projects,” she said. At least two projects that progressed to the final rounds of the competition were flagged for citing sources that AI hallucinated, suggesting that students didn’t do their own research and analysis, she said.
NHD was also implicated in a high-profile court case regarding plagiarism and AI in 2024. A Massachusetts high schooler’s parents sued his district after teachers accused him of cheating for using AI in the writing of his project. Both the parents and the district agreed to dismiss the case in 2025.
Drawing bright lines in the new policy can help avoid confusion, said O’Hara. “Students need very clear parameters about when and how they can use AI, and when and how they cannot use it.”
Of course, not every use of AI results in hallucinated citations. But it’s likely that students who didn’t do the research themselves would struggle to answer questions about the project-development process that judges are asked to pose to contestants, O’Hara said.
The organization will treat suspected violations of the new policy as they would suspected plagiarism, and it could disqualify participants.
“It’s something we use in very rare and extreme circumstances,” O’Hara said, of disqualifying students. “Most of the time when a problem is identified, we use it as a learning moment.”
Teachers want students doing the thinking—not technology
NHD’s decision only affects a small slice of history education, but the principles underlying the policy are relevant in social studies classrooms writ large, some say.
“Students in middle school are still developing a voice, … and working too closely with AI can hinder that,” said Lindsay Miller, a 7th grade social studies teacher at Anthony Wayne Middle School in Wayne, N.J.
In the past, she tried allowing students to work with GenAI when writing in response to document-based questions, or DBQs—a common history essay assignment that asks students to make an argument with a collection of preselected sources.
“Even if it was preloaded with the documents they used, sometimes it would hallucinate and make up a source,” Miller said. “At other points, the moment a student expressed struggle … it would provide an answer, even full paragraphs of answers.”
She also witnessed tools try to push students away from their own conclusions and toward ideas or writing constructions that the AI suggested. “That was a big concern for me,” she said.
Miller still uses AI in her classes, but she’s moved it into the “back end,” she said. Now, she uses it to create learning experiences, like a virtual space where students can explore different sources and perspectives from the Philippines under U.S. occupation.
AI helps set up the lesson, but students are still doing the learning, Miller said. “They’re doing the work in their heads of gaining new information, synthesizing it together, and using it to expand what they know.”
