Student learningfor Grades 6–8, Grades 9–12
AI Study Buddy Contract
Students sort AI uses that build learning from ones that replace it, then write a SMART goal, a personal AI contract, and an honest-use log they keep for two weeks.
All activities Student learning
Credit Where It's Due
After their own doodles get "borrowed" without credit, students learn to credit creators, ask permission, and write an honest note whenever AI helped with their work.
Overview
Everything students find online was made by someone: a photographer, a writer, a musician, a kid like them. And now some of what students make gets help from AI. In this lesson students feel what it's like when their work is taken without credit, sort situations into Give credit, Ask permission first, Say AI helped, and My own work, then practice writing credit lines and AI Help Notes for a fictional student's poster before writing them for their own project. The message is honest, not scary: AI can help you learn, and saying how it helped is part of owning your work.
Objectives
- Students will explain why creators deserve credit and how it feels when work is used without it.
- Students will decide whether a situation calls for giving credit, asking permission, saying AI helped, or none of these, and explain why.
- Students will write a credit line (what, who made it, where it was found) for a work they used.
- Students will write an AI Help Note that says what AI did, how they checked it, and what they did themselves.
Materials
On paper
- Handout A: Credit Sort (1 set per team, cut apart, with the sorting mat)
- Handout B: Rosa's Volcano Poster (1 per team)
- Handout C: My Credit Lines and AI Help Note (1 per student)
- Scrap paper and markers for the doodle hook; a sign reading "Art Gallery by Your Teacher"
On screen
- Optional: a generative AI chatbot your district approves, on the teacher's device, projected for the class
- Optional: a digital project students are already making (slides, a document, a class blog post) to add credits to
- Optional: an image library your district approves that shows each image's license or credit information
Before you start
- Print and cut Handout A so each team has 12 strips and a sorting mat.
- Write the two formulas on chart paper: Credit Line: "'Title' by Creator, from Where I found it." and AI Help Note: "I used AI to ___. I checked it by ___. I did ___ myself."
- Choose an upcoming or current student project for the Create step so students write real credit lines for real work.
- If you'll run the projected demo, test the prompt in the Digital section in your district-approved chatbot first.
Step by step
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10–6 min
Hook
The doodle heist
Give students 2 minutes to draw a quick doodle of an animal doing a sport, without writing their names. Collect the doodles, tape them under a sign: "Art Gallery by Your Teacher," and admire "your" work out loud: "I'm so proud of my drawings." Pause and ask: "How does this feel? What's wrong here?" Take answers, then take the sign down and add student names. Say: "Everything online was made by someone, too. Today we learn how to give them credit, and how to be honest when AI helps us."
Facilitator noteKeep it light and quick. The point is the feeling of "that's mine," which students then transfer to other creators.
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26–13 min
Model
Credit lines and AI Help Notes
Show the two formulas on chart paper. Model a credit line: "'Rainbow Over the Lake' by Dana Reyes, from our school library photo collection." Explain when to ask permission: when you want to use a friend's work, someone's photo of a person, or music or art you don't know you're allowed to use. Then model an AI Help Note: "I used AI to suggest five title ideas. I checked it by picking one I liked and making it my own. I did all the writing and drawings myself." Ask: "Why would your teacher want to know what AI did?" (So they know what you learned and what the tool did, and so everyone is honest.)
Facilitator noteStudents under 13 shouldn't have their own consumer AI accounts. Frame AI help as something that happens with a teacher or family member driving an approved tool.
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313–23 min
Practice
Credit Sort
Teams sort the 12 strips onto the four-part mat. For each strip, one teammate must say the reason out loud before it's placed. Then run a quick check: point to four corners labeled with the four categories, read three of the trickiest strips (the song, the teacher's AI poster, Kenji's fractions), and have students walk to the corner they chose and defend it.
Facilitator noteTeams often put the teacher's AI poster in "My own work." Use it: adults should say AI helped, too. Honesty rules apply to everyone.
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423–33 min
Apply
Fix Rosa's poster
Teams read Handout B, the story of Rosa's volcano poster. They find every place Rosa used someone else's work or AI help, then write her credit lines and her AI Help Note on the back of the handout. Ask teams to underline the one thing Rosa should double-check (the AI's fact about the tallest volcano) and explain why.
Facilitator noteThe key insight: Rosa's AI Help Note must include how she checked the AI's facts, because the chatbot stated one fact with no source.
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533–41 min
Create
My own credits
Students complete Handout C for a current class project: list what they used that someone else made, write a credit line for each, and, if AI helped (for example, during a teacher-led brainstorm), write an AI Help Note. If no AI helped, they check "No AI helped" and explain what they did themselves. Partners swap and check each other's credit lines against the formula.
Facilitator noteLook for AI Help Notes that name a real checking move. "I checked it" alone isn't enough; ask "How?"
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641–45 min
Reflect
Why credit matters
Students answer the last two prompts on Handout C: how they'd feel if someone took credit for their work, and why saying AI helped is part of being a good learner. Share two or three answers aloud.
Facilitator noteConnect back to the doodle gallery. Many students will mention it on their own.
Paper or screen
Unplugged
The whole lesson runs on paper: the doodle heist, the sort, the Rosa reading, and the credit worksheet. Students can practice credit lines using library books and posters in the room as the "works" they used.
Digital
During the Model step, project a district-approved chatbot and, as the class watches, type: "Give me five fun title ideas for a fourth grader's poster about volcanoes." Pick one as a class, change it to make it your own, then write the AI Help Note together on the board. In the Create step, students add a "Credits" slide or section to a digital project they're already making, including any AI Help Note. If your district provides an image library that shows credit information, show students where to find it. Students under 13 don't use their own AI accounts; the teacher drives any AI tool.
Does it need a screen? The projected demo turns the AI Help Note from an abstract rule into a real move: students see exactly what the tool did and write an honest note about it together. Adding a credits slide to a real digital project makes the habit part of the work, which a separate worksheet can't guarantee.
Evidence of learning
What you should be able to see or collect if it worked.
- Teams give a reason for each sort decision, especially that adults and teachers should also say when AI helped.
- Rosa's credit lines include what, who, and where, and her AI Help Note names how she checked the volcano fact.
- Students' own AI Help Notes name what AI did, a specific checking move, and what they did themselves.
- Students connect giving credit to how they felt when their doodles were taken.
Adaptations
- Grade 3
- Use three categories (Give credit, Ask permission first, My own work) for the first pass, then add "Say AI helped" with strips 3, 6, 9, and 12.
- Grade 5
- Introduce free-to-use and Creative Commons licenses in simple terms and have students find the license information for one image your district's library provides.
- Emergent bilinguals
- Provide the credit line and AI Help Note formulas as sentence frames in both languages.
- Students who need support writing
- Let students dictate their AI Help Note to a partner or use a fill-in frame with word choices (brainstorm, check spelling, explain an idea).
Standards connections
Students write credit lines and AI Help Notes for work they used, the grades 3–5 intellectual property and citing expectations in digital citizenship and ELAR research.
- TEKS
- ethics and laws (c)(9)inquiry and researchTEKS sections: Technology Applications §126.8–§126.10; ELAR §110.5–§110.7
Reflect
- Am I trying my best to learn on my own? How does being honest about AI help show that? (Student ELE guiding question)
- How did it feel to see your doodle in someone else's gallery?
- When is AI help OK, and how do you show what you did yourself?
What comes next
Students teach a family member the credit line formula and, if the family uses an AI tool together at home, write an AI Help Note for something they made together. In class, require a credit line and, when relevant, an AI Help Note on every project this year.
Pairs well with
- Gen AI Literacy Breakouts (K–8)A teacher-led digital follow-up on using AI responsibly.
- Digital Citizenship Breakouts (K–8)A digital breakout follow-up on digital citizenship, including respecting creators.
