As generative AI makes it easier for students to produce written assignments that look polished, some college instructors are shifting their grading toward tests that require students to explain their thinking face-to-face. The Associated Press reports that the move ranges from traditional “oral defense” formats to AI-assisted voice examinations, all aimed at answering a central question educators say has become harder to assess: what students actually understand.
Cornell biomedical engineering professor Chris Schaffer said students in his class must complete an “oral defense,” an assessment that involves “no laptop, no chatbot and no technology of any kind.” In his biomedical engineering course, students also do not use “pen or paper,” and instead speak directly to an instructor in 20-minute Socratic-style questioning sessions after submitting written problem sets. Schaffer said, “You won’t be able to AI your way through an oral exam,” describing the approach as a way to make students engage with the material well enough to discuss it.
At the University of Pennsylvania, associate professor Emily Hammer said she requires oral exams alongside written papers in her seminar classes. Hammer described the change as not primarily about preventing cheating, saying, “That’s not why we’re doing this. We’re doing this because students are actually losing skills, losing cognitive capacity and creativity.” In her classes, she forbids AI use on writing assignments but said enforcement is difficult; she added that if students have not written their papers themselves, defending the material in person can become “a very stressful situation.”
Hammer’s course is part of what Penn’s faculty teaching center describes as a broader effort. Bruce Lenthall, executive director of Penn’s Center for Teaching and Learning, said the university is seeing “a massive shift toward in-person assessments,” including both written and oral components, and that Penn has begun running faculty workshops on oral exams. The broader interest, the AP reported, has grown since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 and earlier during the COVID-19 pandemic, when some schools experimented with oral exams to address online cheating concerns.
On the policy and technology side, New York University has also been moving toward more in-person questioning. Clay Shirky, vice provost for AI and technology in education, said instructors are saying, “I need to look my students in the eye and ask, ‘Do you know this material?’” The AP described a range of adjustments at NYU, including requiring more office hours, asking students to present in class, and cold-calling.
Some instructors have also tried to incorporate AI directly into oral testing. Panos Ipeirotis, a professor at NYU Stern School of Business, introduced an AI-powered oral exam last semester for a final exam in a class on AI product management, calling it “fighting fire with fire.” Students in the course log in from home at times that fit their schedules, and a voice cloned from a professor greets them and tells them, “I’m ready to conduct your exam today.” The AI agent begins by asking for a student’s name and school ID number, then runs through questions about a final group project and drills into details based on the student’s answers. If a student struggles, the agent provides clues and delivers criticism and positive feedback, while Ipeirotis grades exams separately with help from AI.
Ipeirotis said the goal is to check whether students can explain what their teams did and how much they relied on AI, saying, “We wanted to check: Do you know what your team did? Were you a free rider? Did you outsource everything to AI?” The AP reported that students are redesigning the AI agent this semester to address “some kinks,” and Ipeirotis plans to use the system across future classes.
Feedback from the first run was mixed. Business major Andrea Lui said the chatbot’s voice sounded “surprisingly human,” but she described the conversation as choppy, with odd pauses and multiple questions at once that felt confusing. She also said it was “jarring to hear a voice but not see a person,” adding, “It felt kind of awkward to be talking to what was pretty much a blank screen.” Even with those concerns, Lui agreed with educators who say AI creates pressure to identify learning rather than just output, saying, “There is no perfect world where AI exists and kids are not abusing it.”
Cornell’s oral assessments also highlight another argument for the shift: that live questioning can help reveal understanding that written work can mask, including for students who may be quieter in large classes. Schaffer requires students to sign up for 20-minute sessions of Socratic-style questioning, splitting the work with teaching assistants so they focus on the oral defenses rather than grading the written problem sets. Cornell’s Center for Teaching Innovation has offered a new “Oral Assessment Workshop,” and the AP reported other Cornell examples such as final conversations in religious studies classes and short mock interviews in large engineering sections.
While some skeptics have said oral exams can unsettle students who are shy or have anxiety, Carolyn Aslan, who leads Cornell’s oral exam training, said clarifying the format in advance and starting with easier questions can help. Aslan said, “Sometimes it’s actually good to get that quiet student one-on-one, and you finally get to hear from them. Sometimes that is the breakthrough.” Several of Schaffer’s students described nervousness at first but said the experience became more helpful as the process unfolded; Cornell junior Olivia Piserchia said she initially found the oral defense nerve-wracking but “came to value the one-on-one time with instructors.”
Piserchia said the live check-in helps her stay accountable, saying, “Having that live check-in holds you accountable,” and she added that speaking aloud about what she knows makes it harder to avoid the material. She said it is “a lot harder to look people in the eyes and say out loud, ‘I don’t know this,’” and that the moment pushes students to study: “And, that makes you realize, ‘I should study this.’”