2.2 Building Educator AI Awareness and Literacy
AI is reshaping how we teach, how students learn, and what technologies are becoming present in our classrooms. Understanding AI—its tools, functions, and implications—equips you to guide students with appropriate and responsible AI use for your course.
AI Awareness and Literacy
Keeping up with AI’s rapid advancements can feel challenging. New tools and updates are released frequently, and the abundance of information can feel overwhelming. Despite these challenges, building a foundation in AI literacy can help you to make informed decisions, ensuring that AI supports, rather than detracts from, your teaching goals.
Reflection Questions: Teaching Goals
- What is your current level of familiarity with assistive and generative AI?
- When in your teaching might you benefit from knowing about and being able to use AI tools?
- When will your students need guidance in understanding your expectations, and how will you support them?
- What areas of AI use in education are you most interested in exploring further?
Scenarios Highlighting the Value of AI Awareness for Faculty
Here are a few short scenarios in which knowing about AI’s functions and implications may assist you with making informed decisions in your classroom.
Scenarios Requiring AI Awareness
Student note-taking in an in-person class
During a classroom discussion, a student asks if they can use a tool to assist with taking notes in class. The notes tool may generate content that can be used in an upcoming assignment. A quick investigation of the tool by looking at its website can help you to learn more about the tool and prepare for a conversation about the benefits and limitations of note-taking tools (with and without AI technology) and set clear boundaries.
Student image generation in a synchronous online class
During a live online lesson, a student shares that they used an AI image-generation tool to represent their project concept visually. Other students express interest in using similar tools. Here, you can facilitate a conversation on the pros and cons of AI in creative processes, including a discussion of originality, attribution, and ethical concerns as they relate to your field.
Student overreliance on AI in a discussion forum
A student in an online course posts in the discussion board, providing a response that contains features that indicate AI has generated a large portion of it. Here, you can guide the class on using AI as a supplementary tool rather than a replacement for comprehension, perhaps sharing a short video or article on balancing AI assistance with active learning.
Building AI Literacy in Small, Manageable Steps
- Sign up for reputable AI in education newsletters for regular, digestible updates.
- Explore any AI guidelines or toolkits the college provides; these often include curated resources aligned with institutional goals.
- Attend workshops and micro-credential courses to learn about and share insights or tips on teaching practices.
- Use social media platforms to follow educators and experts discussing AI trends and best practices in education.
- Limit time spent on new tools to a set number of minutes per day or week, focusing on one tool at a time to avoid information overload.
Learn More
See the Faculty Learning Hub post Building AI Educator Literacy for a list of curated resources (guides, tutorials, webpages, new sites, and newsletters) to support your own learning journey.