The Human Decides Clause

A HARVEST KERNEL WORKING SESSION

The Human Decides Clause

Bring one assignment you already teach. In about 25 minutes you will leave holding a two sentence syllabus clause that says where AI may recommend and where a person decides, on the student’s side and on yours, plus the map behind it. You do the thinking. Nothing here writes it for you.

Why this exists. On October 4, 2026, the Anchorage Daily News reported that the University of Alaska Board of Regents will consider systemwide AI principles in November. The draft defines human in the loop in one sentence, in the words of the official who presented it: AI could recommend but a human decides. AI cannot act alone. Most syllabus AI policies cover what students may do. Few say where the instructor’s own tools recommend and where the instructor decides. This session writes both halves for one assignment.

SEED

Pick the assignment and list every touch point

Choose one major assignment you will grade this term. Then list every place AI could touch it. Do both sides. The student’s side runs from choosing a topic to fixing the last comma. Your side runs from a checker to a feedback draft to a reminder email. Most instructors find more on their own side than they expected.

SPROUT

Mark each one: recommend, or not used

Go through both lists. For every touch point, choose one of two answers. AI may recommend here, or AI is not used here. There is no third answer where AI decides. That is the whole test: AI could recommend, a human decides, and AI never acts alone.

GROW

Name the decisions only a person makes

Every recommendation needs a decider. Write the decisions in this assignment that a person makes, and say which person. A grade, an extension, an integrity flag, a referral. Then write what you will look at before any integrity decision, besides a score. If the honest answer to any of these is the software, that step needs a person before you go any further.

HARVEST

Write the clause, then build it

Two sentences. The first is about what students do. The second is about what you do. Keep both plain enough that a first year student understands them on the first read, and put them in the syllabus before the first submission, not after the first conduct referral.

Before you copy it out, one observation.

That is one assignment.

The same map belongs on every major assignment in the course, and the clause belongs in the syllabus for every section you teach, because a student in your last section is owed the same two sentences as a student in your first. Doing it by hand works, and it took real attention for one assignment. That is the whole problem with the method. It is a scale problem, not a quality problem.

When one assignment is not the problem

The Syllabus Generator builds a student centered, accessibility first syllabus, in 19 languages, grounded in your Course Record: your course, your outcomes, your policies and your voice, planted once and used by every tool in the toolkit. Put the clause you wrote here into your Course Record and every syllabus you build from it carries the same two sentences. Do the first one by hand anyway. Then you will know exactly what the clause has to say.

See the Syllabus Generator