Amanda Drexler ID Portfolio Page

Navigation links: ETAP 623 Fall 2026 | Academic Integrity Beyond the Essay

About Me

My name is Amanda Drexler and I am an 8th grade English Language Arts Teacher in Woodland Park, New Jersey. I graduated from Ramapo College of New Jersey with my Bachelor of Arts in English and Literary Studies and I completed my New Jersey Teaching Certification with Ramapo as well. This is my first year as a graduate student at UAlbany and I am studying under the CDIT program. I am currently in my second year of teaching and was recently tasked with helping my school build a new framework for the 8th Grade ELA curriculum.

I am excited to help my school rebuild the ELA curriculum in a way that will help our students develop strong and transferable communication skills. More often than not, students can lose an understanding of the importance of ELA class; even though the skills learned set a foundation for understanding in the other disciplines. I hope to pursue curriculum development further along in my career so I can help schools build curricula that are realistic, focused, and interdisciplinary. In creating my mini-course, I am approaching it with the intent of showing teachers how ELA skills can become useful habits that are built into classroom culture and instruction.

My Topic and Purpose

My mini-course is called, "Academic Integrity Beyond the Essay." It will provide teachers with a breakdown on how to make academic integrity a common practice in all subjects. This course will emphasize the importance of implementing source-checking as a daily practice in the classroom. When students are aware of how to find and determine sources as credible, they are already opening their minds to thinking more critically. It will also teach students and teachers to value the sources and media they consume based on who created them and the effort put into them. The purpose is to give teachers the tools they need to create good habits within the learning process. Strengthening this skill will help improve student literacy as well as their ability to participate in higher-ordered thinking, as it requires students to question and check sources that they may otherwise believe as factual and unbiased.

I am choosing this topic because as we progress further into the digital age, we are faced with all types of misinformation in our daily lives. Having the skills and knowledge to question and check a source's credibility bars one from believing everything they read and consume. In other words, it gives one the freedom to gain and maintain control over their thoughts. By framing this course around academic integrity, it will also foster a sense of pride within students and the work they do, as well as that of others. Media and informational materials generate a whole new meaning when one can connect the creator, academic, or author to those sources. Students need to be taught the habit of being aware of what and from whom they consume their media and information from. This will open up doors of high-ordered thinking for them as well as giving them the freedom and agency to think for themselves.

Scope of Learning Outcomes and Content

This course is all about learning how to apply source-checking to materials, information, and media beyond the traditional scopes including articles, novels, and essays. Though the traditional sources are important to learn about, they only lay the foundation for fostering a skill that can be highly transferable. Beyond source-checking, it will also provide instruction about how to make academic integrity and keystone component in building one's classroom culture. The course will provide teachers with questions and skills to help them take these skills value and apply them to their unique subject-areas, disciplines, and grade levels.

Questions to expect in the course:

• What makes a source credible?
• How can I use biased sources to foster debates and nuanced thought?
• How can I optimize my search methods to find better sources?
• What creates good habits in the classroom surrounding source-checking?
• Why should I care about where or who my information comes from?
• How do I push past personal bias to find neutral ground?
• What practices can I implement to help students take pride in maintaining credit for their own work?

Needs Assessment

The Educational Opportunity: The Digital Age has certainly changed how people think and interact; especially in the scope of education. Resources and tools at the fingertips of educators and learners have revolutionized how readily available information and learning opportunities are. The introduction of AI has been an unprecedented development that offers many pros and cons; some still waiting to be discovered. However, this influx of information and resources has blurred the lines of academic integrity. As there is much to be learned about how to navigate the new digital world, there is much to be learned about how to approach the topic of plagiarism and source-checking in the classroom. Educators are facing a shift in how resources are used, analyzed, and created, which can make certain parameters unclear in terms of how to ethically use and produce them. When students see their mentors and teachers struggle to navigate these new boundaries, they may be led to believe that anything goes. As educators, there is a responsibility to create an academic community that fosters a culture of ethical academic integrity amongst students and teachers. So, the goal is to navigate the boundaries of using and creating resources for the classroom that promote common practices of being aware of where resources come from, how they are made, and assuring credit is given properly and justly.

Learners/Participants: This course is for any educator who is looking to bring academic integrity into the classroom as a daily practice. As the Digital Age grows, we as educators should grow with it. No matter how far along in their career, any educator will benefit from learning how to navigate the new boundaries being created by recent advances in information technology.

Analysis of Gaps: Most learners will enter this course with a good sense of what academic integrity is and how they practice it in their careers. Some may know that proper citations are necessary in published or submitted academic work. However, based on research, many struggle to apply academic integrity as a daily practice. This lack of knowledge can allow academic integrity to lose its importance and relevance in the classroom. Studies also show that the introduction of AI has left many educators stuck on how to approach using it ethically as a tool and a resource.

Existing Efforts to Address this Gap: Many strategies studied in this course have been developed by different educators to help make source-checking and academic integrity daily practices in the classroom. However, research about ethically approaching AI in the classroom is still emerging and it is currently a topic that professionals are approaching with great caution, skepticism, and optimism.

Statement of Intent: This mini course will help learners with strategies on how to incorporate academic integrity into the different age groups and disciplines they teach. It will also show them how to approach using AI whilst being aware of the blurred boundaries being explored concerning the information it uses to create resources and source information.  This course will help learners step fully into the Digital Age and promoted a classroom culture that celebrates the ethical usage of resources and information for meaningful learning.

Analysis of the Learner and Context

The Learner: The learner is any educator looking to improve their understanding of academic integrity in the context of the Digital Age. This learner will be looking for strategies to navigate using AI in the classroom in a way that does not interrupt the learning of the student as well as how to use AI resources whilst citing its content properly and ethically. This learner will also be looking for ways to build a classroom culture making academic integrity a daily practice. This means that students will be able to know from who and where their resources come from (beyond articles, stories, and novels) and how this information affects their interpretations of the content. The learner will likely have some background in using academic integrity and citing resources, but they may not know how to model these skills to their students; especially in disciplines outside of English, Social Studies, and History as well as elementary educators.

Instructional Context: Learners will use the KNILT platform to take this course and may do so at their own pace. Instruction will be built with usage of multimedia resources and strategies that promote reflective learning. The skills and strategies taught in this course are applicable to all classroom settings; no matter what age or level of their students as well as the content being taught. Learners may return to the course content at any time for future reference.

Time and Resources: This course is self-paced and can be done as quickly or as slowly as the learner needs. After the course is completed, it is intended to be used as a resource for learners to come back to as they apply what they learned to their own students. Students will have access to course materials including videos, visuals, writing activities, and texts for their reference. Students will also have access to any assignments they complete and save as personal documents.

Performance-Based Objectives

After completing this mini-course, learners will be able to:

• Optimally search for and assess credible sources.
• Make their students aware of from where and who they get their sources and materials from, thus bringing real-world connection and relevance to the classroom.
• Identify the differences between biased and unbiased sources and explore how they can use both in the classroom.
• Use strategies to help them foster a classroom environment that praises prideful student work.
• Design a lesson plan that includes academic integrity practices without compromising course work.

Task and Content Analysis

Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills

Before taking this course, the participant should:

• Be able to conduct source analysis to some extent.
• Be familiar with lesson planning and the UbD model.

Unit 1: Introduction to Source Analysis and Decoding

After this unit the participants will be able to:

• Decode sources and media they would use in their classrooms for their respective grade levels and content areas.
• Understand how bringing decoding and analysis into disciplines beyond English and History/Social Studies makes course content more relatable and meaningful.
• Add decoding and analysis exercises to existing lesson plans.

Unit 2: Building a Culture of Integrity in the Classroom

After this unit the participants will be able to:

• Integrate academic integrity into the classroom through daily procedures and expectations.
• Use discussion methods that promote class discussion about sources, data, and media being used in the classroom.

Unit 3: How AI is Transforming Academic Integrity

After this unit the participants will be able to:

• Understand AI's impacts on how professionals and society view academic integrity.
• Identify the differences between conducting research using AI as opposed to traditional search engines and databases.
• Integrate practices into their classrooms that allow them to teach their students about AI and its effects on research and Academic Integrity.

Unit 4: Piecing it All Together: Lesson Planning with Academic Integrity in Mind

After this unit the participants will be able to:

• Write or revise an existing lesson plan that includes space for building a classroom culture of academic integrity.
• Include academic integrity-based practices without compromising existing course work and pacing.

Curriculum Map

References and Resources

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