AI Uses in the Classroom
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AI can enhance learning experiences, provide personalized feedback, and streamline repetitive tasks, freeing up time for students to focus on the content and mastering your learning objectives. Purposefully integrating AI into your class help also help students to prepare for their futures. This subpage offers a variety of prompts design to inspire creative ways to incorporate AI into your courses. You’ll find examples of how AI can be utilized in a variety of ways.
If you'd like to consult about the possibilities of AI in your course, feel free to email ctl@kent.edu. You may also want to come to a workshop on AI policy - check out our AI workshops here.
General Implementation Strategies
Clarify AI Use Expectations
- Provide a brief introduction to AI (general)
- This slide (coming soon) can be a starting place for introduction in your course. It provides basic information about what it is, its capabilities and its limitations.
- Define how it can be used in your course
- Rationale for why/when
- May include limitations/challenges related to capabilities
Define Goal for AI Use
- Brainstorming
- Peer reviewer
- Tutor
- A mentee
Design for Responsible Use / Promote Critical Thinking
- Design/go through an ethical AI Use checklist or agreement with students
- This document has a checklist-agreement related to ethical AI use and reflection questions for students to use before, during and after using AI
- Prompt reflection and critical thinking throughout use of AI
- Before use reflection prompts:
- Have I been given permission to use the tool in this specific context?
- Is my intention to learn or just get a grade?
- Do I kno who to use this tool?
- Do I understand the strengths and limitations of the AI?
- During use reflection prompts:
- Am I using the tool according to instructions?
- Is the output bias/accurate?
- Have I vetted alternative perspectives?
- Is there a better prompt?
- Are there other ways of doing this without AI tools?
- After use reflection prompts:
- Have I been transparent about my use of AI tools?
- Are my original ideas present in this work?
- Am I spreading misinformation or perpetruating harmful ideas, biases, etc?
- Have I properly cited authors and sources?
- How did using AI help me learn/advance my understanding?
- Before use reflection prompts:
- Engage students in discussion
- personal values & experiences with AI
- how it can enhance learning vs. what may be lost
- differences between tools (Grammarly vs. ChatGPT)
- I do, we do, you do activity (document COMING SOON)
- Require a reflection about their AI use
- Short & Sweet Example: Add a note indicating which AI tool you used and how you used it, including the prompt(s) you used and the date(s)
- Learning Focused Example: 1) In what ways did AI help you achieve your learning goals for this assignment/project? What aspects of the learning process were not assisted by AI? Explain why
- Critical Lens Example: What steps did you take to ensure the ethical use of AI in your work? How could you improve your use of AI tools in the future?
- Use & Authorship Focused Example: Write a brief paragraph at the end of your work (1) explaining how and why you used ChatGPT. Include the prompts you used, and answer this question: Who is the author of this work? Then explain your answer.
Below, you will find helpful information on language generation AI tools. To learn more about other AI tools, check out these links:
Information Extractions & Quantitative Analysis
Artificial intelligence generative language tools, also referred to as Generative AI, are systems that can generate text in response to prompts. These large language models are “trained” on a vast array of text to understand typical patterns in human speech and writing. The tools then generate their own texts by predicting the word that is most likely to come next in a sequence. For example, if some said, “not all heroes wear...” you may assume that the next word will be “capes.” By using this predictive technique, and after being fed a huge amount of data, these language generation tools are able to produce texts that mimic natural human speech patterns.
Although language generators have been around for a while in the form of chatbots and spellcheck, the 2022 release of ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, has rapidly advanced the capabilities of this technology. ChatGPT, as well as similar tools such as Bard by Google, utilize an adaptive and conversational approach to generate responses. This allows the technology to respond to follow-up questions, edits, and revisions. These tools are now widely and freely available to all.
Summary of Language Generation Tools
Language Generation Tools and Students
This sections provides additional information about how to communicate with your students about the responsible use of AI and opportunities for incorporating AI into their coursework.
Language Generation Tools and Instructors
AI isn't just for students! Check out a few quick tips on how you can make your own work easier through the power of AI.