3. Applying Teaching & Learning Strategies

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence

Since the release of ChatGPT in the fall of 2021, there has been a flurry of articles written on the pros and cons of using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in the classroom. While many embrace the changes that GenAI has the potential to bring to our understanding of authorship, plagiarism, and assessment (e.g., Compton, n.d.), the International Centre for Academic Integrity’s Statement on Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence [PDF][1] highlights many of the concerns raised in the literature. The use of text-generating tools in the classroom generally, or for writing activities more specifically, is an on-going debate worth considering.

When used with caution and discretion, however, introducing students to appropriate uses of GenAI tools may be helpful for mitigating academic integrity breaches and teaching core critical thinking and literacy skills. Consider how you might use GenAI to help students:

  • Brainstorm topics
  • Identify keywords
  • Create or critique an outline
  • Identify sources (e.g., organizations, individuals, etc.)
  • Summarize
  • Revise
  • Fact-check
  • Give or receive feedback
  • Develop metacognition & self-regulation (e.g., Brett D. Jones and David Hicks example[2])

Strategies for Success

  • Discuss or demonstrate both the strengths and limitations of using GenAI.
  • Demonstrate and guide students in the permitted uses of GenAI for the assignment, if any (e.g. provide example prompts for brainstorming or identifying keywords).
  • In your assignment instructions, clearly reference the learning outcomes for the assignment in your rationale for inappropriate uses of GenAI.

Helpful Resources

AI Pedagogy Project[3]
A collection of assignments and materials for educators curious about how AI affects their students and their syllabi. By metaLAB (at) Harvard.

Exploring AI Pedagogy: A Community Collection of Teaching Reflections[4]
This site posts timely reflections on AI teaching experiments. Provided by the MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI[5].

Generative AI Activities for the Writing and Language Classroom[6]
A presentation by Anna Mills that includes a number of ideas for micro lessons and other options for incorporating AI into your pedagogy.

TextGenEd: Teaching with Text Generation Technologies[7]
TextGenEd collects early experiments in pedagogy with generative text technology, featuring 34 undergraduate-level assignments to support students’ AI literacy, rhetorical and ethical engagements, creative exploration, and professional writing text gen technology.

101 Creative Ideas to Use AI in Education[8]
An open, crowd-sourced collection of ideas developed in the first months of 2023 focused on potential alternative uses and applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

New Modes of Learning Enabled by AI Chatbots: Three Methods and Assignments[9]
Covers (1) using AI to help improve transfer about concepts, (2) creating essays for students to critique and improve, and (3) helping students recognize and acknowledge gaps in their knowledge about a topic.

  1. Statement on Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence: https://academicintegrity.org/images/ICAI_Statement_on_Academic_Integrity__Artificial_Intelligence.pdf ↵
  2. Jones & Hicks example: https://www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/charting-the-course-incorporating-ai-into-assignments-to-foster-self-regulation ↵
  3. AI Pedagogy Project: https://aipedagogy.org/ ↵
  4. Exploring AI Pedagogy: https://exploringaipedagogy.hcommons.org/ ↵
  5. MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force Committee: https://aiandwriting.hcommons.org/ ↵
  6. Generative AI Activities for the Writing and Language Classroom: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1IbEBckhoOPKRWKQovCVL43-552rF4tlK/edit#slide=id.g28cd987cbf7_0_915 ↵
  7. TextGenEd: https://wac.colostate.edu/repository/collections/textgened/ ↵
  8. 101 Creative Ideas to Us AI in Education: https://creativehecommunity.wordpress.com/2023/06/23/oa-book-101-creative-ideas-to-use-ai-in-education/ ↵
  9. New Modes of Learning Enabled by AI Chatbots: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4300783 ↵

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Designing Research Assignments that Enhance Student Research Skills Copyright © 2024 by Kathleen Oakey is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.