| Presentation Proposal - NACADA Annual Conference |
| Presentation Info and Handouts |
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Code=219
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Conference Year:
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2026
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Session #:
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()
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Title:
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Cheating Is Structurally Generated: Designing Safe-to-Fail Learning Environments in the Age of AI |
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Lead Presenter:
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Stephanie Weaver |
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Date:
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December 31, 1969 Time: 6:00 pm - 6:00 pm |
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Room:
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Abstract:
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As AI tools proliferate, higher education is increasingly consumed by conversations about cheating, integrity, and academic decline. But what if student optimization behaviors are not moral failures, but structurally generated responses to high-stakes design?
This session argues that contemporary assessment environments, compressed timelines, irreversible grading, performance metrics, and cognitive overload produce optimization strategies by design. When failure threatens identity, financial aid, or academic progression, students rationally minimize exposure rather than pursue mastery.
Rather than focusing on detection and enforcement, this session reframes academic dishonesty as a signal of misalignment between institutional incentives and developmental goals. Participants will explore the Safe-to-Fail Lab model as a gateway-course design intervention that reduces identity collapse, normalizes iteration, and shifts assessment from solitary proof to visible cognitive development. By decreasing artificial risk compression and supporting metabolically sustainable learning environments, this framework positions persistence and retention not as downstream metrics to be managed, but as natural outcomes of structurally aligned design. |
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Handouts
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Note: Handouts (if offered for this session) are accessible via the conference app. |
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