How Do I Redesign Assessment So That a Grade Still Tells Me Something Defensible About What the Student Knows or Can Do?

Begin by stating explicitly what capability the grade is supposed to represent. Are you assessing what a student can do independently, what they can accomplish appropriately with AI, their ability to evaluate and direct AI, or some combination of these? The knowledge base's Assessment Validity treats this as a validity problem: a polished artifact is no longer sufficient evidence that the student possesses the capability apparently demonstrated by that artifact.

The risk of construct substitution

The article From Authentic Products to Authenticated Processes calls the resulting risk construct substitution: the assessor attributes an AI-mediated product to the student and inadvertently measures the tool's capabilities rather than the student's. Its recommended response is to make the student's reasoning, judgment, verification, iteration, and responsibility visible through such approaches as staged submissions, annotated decision rationales, process records, feedback-use statements, oral defenses, and other forms of authenticated process evidence.

A strong assessment architecture

In practice, a strong assessment architecture often combines an AI-enabled authentic task with some form of independent verification. Depending on the discipline, that might include a brief oral explanation, in-class application, live demonstration, annotated portfolio, short unassisted component, or questioning about key decisions.

The Authentic Assessment concept also stresses realistic intellectual work, cognitive challenge, student agency, feedback, and social or professional authenticity — not merely making conventional assignments harder for AI to complete. Oral and live components need careful attention to anxiety, disability accommodations, linguistic differences, and assessor bias.