AI as Instructional or Teaching Assistants
Generative AI opens up opportunities to create more personalization and interaction in our learning experiences! In the video below, you will hear about how educators can use generative AI to help create materials for their courses.
Creating Cases, Examples, & Activities
Case analysis and discussion is a critical part of business education. As an educator, preparing to facilitate case discussions can be a major undertaking in order to make sure the learning experience is effective and engaging.
For a helpful case study in how business professors may leverage generative AI for case learning, we recommend reading the Harvard Business Review article, Elevate Your Case Prep with ChatGPT [opens in a new tab] by Mitchell Weiss.
Generative AI can be used to create case discussion questions, simulate what responses you may receive, and provide related resources that may benefit the discussion. You can also explore using generative AI to create industry examples that relate to your course topics. See below for an example prompt that you could tailor to your context to generate examples that you may not have been familiar with previously.
Example Prompt:
“You are an expert educator who is great at transforming dry course topics into engaging, relevant lessons. Based on the lesson/activity below, create [number] real world examples of the [topic] that I can use with a class of [grade level] students. The simpler and more engaging the better. Use [interests] to guide your examples. Each topic should include a resource that I can use for students interested in this example.”
From AI for Educators – Real World Examples [opens in a new tab]
These tools can also be used in class as part of activities that require brainstorming or idea generation, and can be the basis for reflection and critical thinking about what value proposition humans bring to organizations. For an example of how one marketing professor at Northeastern University used generative AI in his undergraduate and graduate classes, check out A Generative AI Teaching Exercise for Marketing Classes [opens in a new tab].
Summaries & Explanations
Learners often benefit from explanations of difficult or core concepts within a learning experience. These explanations take time to produce, and may not always resonate with different groups of students. One of the benefits of generative AI is that you can prompt the generation of explanations or summaries for different types of audiences (e.g., undergraduate, graduate, or general public) and with different lengths or formats. These tools can even be used to create chatbots that answer your students’ questions!
Tips on how to work with generative AI to explain concepts, materials, definitions, etc. for learners
(from AI for Educators – Help Me Understand [opens in a new tab]):
- Upload an entire passage into ChatGPT to have it analyze it directly.
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Have ChatGPT identify any vocabulary words, or define any unfamiliar words.
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Use ChatGPT to help you understand how this passage relates to the main themes of the piece.
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Enlist the help of ChatGPT to prepare for potential assessments, once you understand the passage. In this example you might ask, “What are some ways my teacher might quiz me on this scene? I want to be prepared so that I can study.”
Generating Practice Questions
Retrieval practice is a powerful educational strategy that promotes long-lasting learning (Roediger & Butler, 2011). However, creating practice questions can be extremely time consuming! Using genAI to create practice questions can make this process much easier. These tools can create questions about specific topics, skills, readings, and other course materials, and provide an answer key. As with any use of genAI, it’s important for you as the expert to review these questions prior to sharing to ensure that they are correct according to what you expect learners to know.
Example Prompt #1
“You are an expert teacher with proficiency in creating and administering student assessments. Create a [type] quiz, based on the following [text/ video transcript], for [grade level, subject] students learning about [topic]. Include [insert skills]. Optional: include [pages/ seconds you wanted covered]. Provide an answer key for the teacher. ”
From AI for Educators – Quizzes [opens in a new tab]
Example Prompt #2
“You are an expert teacher and skilled curriculum writer. Generate [number] “essential questions” for my [grade level and subject] class studying [topic]. The questions should stimulate thoughtful engagement and critical thinking, and reflect real world applications. Each question should be open-ended and large in scope. The questions are intended to be continually revisited and reflected upon during this topic of study. Make sure the questions are appropriate for [grade level] students.”
From AI for Educators – Essential Questions [opens in a new tab]
For a more comprehensive overview of all these capabilities, check out the webinar “How to Use Chatbots and Intelligent Systems to Provide 24/7 Tutoring to Students” [opens in a new tab].
