When AI Can Write the Answer, Can Students Explain Their Thinking?

A student submits an excellent written answer. It is well-structured, grammatically correct and supported with all the right points. Then when we ask them to explain further, the conversation that follows tells us more than the written answer.

This has always been true. But in the age of generative AI, when students can produce polished essays, summaries and solutions within seconds, the ability to explain, reason and respond in one’s own words has become even more important.

Perhaps this is why two forms of oral assessment deserve greater attention today: Asynchronous Oral Assessment (AOA) and Interactive Oral Assessment (IOA).

They do not replace written examinations. They give teachers another way to see learning, where students have to retrieve ideas, organise their thoughts, communicate clearly and demonstrate ownership of what they know.

AOA: Give the Student a Question and Let Them Explain

An Asynchronous Oral Assessment, or AOA, allows a student to respond orally to a question without the teacher and student being present at the same time.

The student receives a prompt and records a short spoken response, usually within a defined time. For example, “Which consequence of urbanisation do you think has the greatest impact on a city? Justify your answer.”

The task is small, but what it demands cognitively is quite significant. The student has to retrieve, organise, connect and articulate knowledge.

Some educators who have trialled AOA alongside conventional examinations report that students find the oral format more engaging and closer to real professional communication. AOA works best as a complement to conventional assessment rather than a replacement for it. A carefully designed one-minute oral explanation used occasionally to check understanding.

IOA: When the Teacher Can Ask, “Why?”

An Interactive Oral Assessment, or IOA, goes one step further. Instead of recording a response independently, the student enters into a live conversation with the teacher. The discussion is structured around a task or scenario, but it is not completely scripted.

Interactive Oral Assessment is a two-way, unscripted conversation, often based around a real-world scenario, designed to explore deeper and higher-order understanding. The power of the IOA lies largely in the follow-up question.

Suppose a student is studying water conservation and proposes: “Rainwater harvesting and stepwells can solve water shortages.” The teacher can ask: “Would it work equally well everywhere?” The student answers. Then comes another question: “What factors would determine whether it succeeds?” And perhaps: “What would you recommend for a city that receives very little rainfall?”

Now the teacher is no longer assessing whether the student remembers a textbook sentence. The teacher is listening to the student’s reasoning unfold. So, essentially, IOAs are structured but unscripted conversations that can move students from prepared knowledge towards unfamiliar questions requiring application and reasoning. The emphasis is not just on the final answer but on the student’s thinking process.

AOA and IOA Are Not the Same

Both involve speaking, but they serve slightly different purposes. AOA gives the student space to formulate and communicate an individual response. IOA gives the teacher the opportunity to probe that response.

With AOA, we might discover if the student can retrieve and explain the idea independently. With IOA, we can go further. We can see if the student can defend the idea, apply it differently, respond when challenged, or change their reasoning when new information appears.

An AOA might ask: “Explain why biodiversity is important.” An IOA might begin there and continue: “If biodiversity is so important, should development projects ever be allowed in ecologically sensitive areas?” So we are assessing judgement, reasoning, communication and transfer of learning.

Yes, AI has made conventional take-home assessment more complicated. A polished written submission no longer tells us with certainty how much of the thinking belongs to the student. Researchers and universities are consequently examining more secure and authentic forms of assessment, including interactive oral approaches.

But the educational opportunity is bigger than academic integrity. The question is not simply about the use of AI. A far more useful question is about student learning. Students will increasingly work in environments where AI is available. Preventing all use is neither practical nor necessarily educational.

Instead, we can redesign parts of the learning process around — learn, explore or create and explain approach. A student may research using books, websites, classroom discussion and perhaps AI. They may use those resources to create an answer, presentation or project. AI can help students produce something. AOA and IOA can help us discover whether the student can think with what has been generated.

Speaking is also a form of thinking. We often treat speaking as a language skill and assessment as a subject skill, when in reality they overlap. Try explaining a difficult idea aloud. We quickly discover whether we understand it.

“If you want to really learn something, try teaching it to someone else.” — Chad Fowler

Speaking requires us to choose what matters, sequence ideas, connect one thought to another and respond to questions. In doing so, students develop not only fluency, but also coherence, vocabulary, listening, reasoning and interaction. This makes oral assessment relevant beyond the English classroom. It becomes the language through which learning is explored.

But oral assessment must be fair. The student who speaks most confidently is not necessarily the student who understands most deeply. Some students need more processing time. Others may be shy, anxious or learning through a language that is not their strongest.

Oral assessment therefore requires thoughtful design. If we are assessing science understanding, the marks should primarily reflect scientific understanding, reasoning and application, not accent or sophisticated English. If we are explicitly assessing spoken communication, then fluency, coherence, vocabulary, pronunciation, accuracy and interaction can appropriately form part of the criteria.

Students also need structured practice and preparation opportunities before a high-stakes oral assessment is introduced. We cannot teach entirely through written tests for years and then suddenly announce an oral assessment and expect every child to perform confidently. Assessment must follow opportunity.

We can begin at the end of a lesson, instead of asking “Any doubts?”, give students a question, a miniature AOA. During the lesson, ask a student to explain an answer and follow it with questions. That is the thinking behind an IOA.

The AOA shows what the student can independently explain. The IOA shows how the student can reason when the conversation moves beyond the prepared answer. Together, they provide a richer picture of learning. Used thoughtfully, they bring something deeply human back into assessment — conversation.

Because ultimately, learning should prepare students not merely to produce correct answers, but to explain an idea, listen to another perspective, defend a position, rethink an assumption and respond intelligently when the next question is not already written in the textbook.

In an age when generating an answer is becoming easier, perhaps the ability to explain, question and reason through that answer will tell us much more about whether learning has actually taken place. So, the shift is from assessing whether students can produce the right answer to discovering whether they can explain, reason and communicate their understanding.

Gayethri Mote is a Teacher Educator and an expert on Learning Skills at Coschool. To learn more, visit www.coschool.ai