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Teaching with AI


THE FUTURE IS NOW

Generative AI is rapidly transforming higher education. Faculty, staff, and students cannot afford to ignore this shift as AI technologies continue to influence how knowledge is created, shared, and applied. For faculty, exploration and innovation are central to our academic mission. Faculty can model curiosity and adaptability by engaging with Generative AI and showing students how to navigate uncertainty with rigor and creativity. For students, AI literacy is essential for future success because employers are expecting graduates to understand and use AI tools responsibly. Current classroom experiences will play a critical role in preparing our students for this new reality. The efficiency and innovation AI provides must continually be balanced by the human qualities of imagination, empathy, and critical thought. Our challenge is to harness the benefits of AI while keeping higher education deeply human.

Teaching and Learning with Gen AI

Generative AI is not just a technological trend but a transformative force that is altering how knowledge is produced, shared, and applied. This means that traditional teaching methods must be re-examined in light of new possibilities. Faculty are being asked to prepare students for a workforce where AI literacy will be essential, not optional, so instructors need to understand not only how to use AI effectively for their own work, but how to effectively weave it into their teaching. In this section we’ll highlight some of the benefits gained and some things to be aware of in teaching with Generative AI.

Faculty and Student Benefits

Benefits for Faculty

Generative AI can help streamline several time-intensive aspects of course design and teaching. Instructors can use AI to create the first draft of a course syllabus, to generate assignment and discussion prompts, and even first drafts of grading rubrics which, with necessary revisions, can save hours of work. AI can also save instructors time by generating quiz questions, study guides, or practice problems built from course content. Most faculty find that using AI for some of their course and teaching tasks gives them more time for higher-level teaching activities like mentoring, having in-depth discussions, and fostering student engagement in class.

Professor, History: "I use AI to generate draft outlines for my lecture slides. It saves me hours of preparation, but more importantly, it pushes me to think differently about how to frame historical debates for students."
Associate Professor, Chemistry: "AI helped me create a bank of practice quiz questions aligned with my course. Instead of spending days drafting them, I could focus on refining explanations and designing labs."
Teaching Assistant, Business Administration: "I asked AI to summarize several case studies before class. The summaries weren’t perfect, but they highlighted key themes and let me concentrate on guiding students through deeper analysis rather than spending time on basic preparation."
Professor, Political Science: "I had AI generate a grading rubric for a policy analysis paper. It gave me a framework in minutes, which I then reworked. This saved me hours and made grading more consistent across sections."

Benefits for Students

Instructor guidance is needed to help students use AI tools for course learning activities and assignments, but students can use AI tools independently to support their learning. AI can serve as a tutor generating study aids such as flashcards, quizzes, and practice questions to help students test and strengthen their knowledge. AI tools can serve as a personal teaching assistant, explaining complex ideas that are difficult to understand. AI can help students with outlining, idea generation, and deeper engagement with concepts, or serve as a writing tutor by shortening over-long text, improving spelling and grammar, and bringing more clarity to their ideas. We can help students understand how to use AI in ways that support their learning, without replacing the real work of learning how to learn.

Sophomore in English: "I use AI to help me revise my writing—mostly for grammar and clarity. The ideas are mine, but my language skills are weak, and this helps."
Junior in Mechanical Engineering: "AI helps me generate practice problems when I’m studying to really learn the concepts."
Senior in Business Administration: "I use AI tools to summarize case studies and brainstorm project ideas, but I am careful to do my own analysis and check the sources."
Freshman in Integrative Biology: "AI explains some things that aren’t clear in class. I also make flashcards to help me memorize terms."

Ethical Considerations for Responsible AI Use

Generative AI offers many benefits for teaching and learning, but faculty should be aware of ethical considerations and instruct their students on how to use AI responsibly. More guidance for University of Illinois instructors and students can be found on the Digital Risk Management website.

Academic Integrity

Define clear boundaries for AI use in course assignments and assessments. Remind students that AI-generated text and ideas must be cited appropriately. Help students understand why academic integrity standards exist, and how they should use AI to support rather than hinder their learning.

Accuracy and Bias

AI outputs can be inaccurate, biased, or completely fabricated. Queries may produce incorrect authors and citations, merge ideas together that don’t belong, or simply gloss over important details. As with other discipline-based topics, help students to develop critical thinking skills and to practice evaluating AI-generated content responsibly.

Privacy and Data Security

Faculty should remember that AI is continually collecting user information and they must be vigilant in preserving FERPA data and student privacy. Faculty and students are encouraged to use campus-approved AI tools and never share sensitive, or proprietary information with third-party tools that may expose them to security risks.

Learn More: Enterprise GenAI page CIO →

Equal Access and Accessibility

Faculty should ensure that all students can access digital tools if assignments require them. While many options are free, group projects or shared resources can help minimize access and disparity issues. Faculty should also be aware that some digital tools may not be accessible. Follow campus guidelines and recommend campus-approved AI tools whenever possible.

Learn More: Boldly Accessible Challenge →

Potential Risks

Faculty have a responsibility to uphold the ethical, professional, and intellectual property standards expected of university researchers and educators, and to impress these standards on their students. Remember that AI tools are always collecting personal and proprietary information during interactive or conversational use, and many tools may fail to comply with laws and regulations governing data and content use.

Gen AI Support for Course Design

Using AI can help streamline the course design process and can generate ideas for improvement. With well-structured prompts, or a word file of existing course materials, campus tools like Copilot, Gemini, or Chat GPT EDU can act as an idea partner to quickly draft learning outcomes, grading rubrics, slide decks, or suggestions for in-class activities.

Syllabus Guidance

The course syllabus is a contract between faculty and students informing them of what they will learn and how they will be evaluated. Inherent to that contract are expectations for student behavior during the course, and how students will continue to behave as they become professionals in their discipline. CITL offers general guidance about creating a syllabus which may be helpful to faculty getting started with syllabus development, but many have asked for more specific syllabus guidance that pertains specifically to GenAI.

The knee-jerk response is to add a blanket AI policy to your syllabus, but this is not advised. Instead, try to explain how and when it will be ok to use AI in class. Follow this up by demonstrating key benefits and limitations of AI and show how AI writing differs from natural writing. Modify a few assignments so students can explore using AI tools in limited ways, such as for brainstorming or revision. Discuss how AI can support student learning without replacing the work of learning. Building specific examples into the course will make it easier to create syllabus language where you define the parameters for course work and assignments, but students are still given opportunities to explore AI tools effectively. Here are some examples of syllabus guidance from this campus:

Assignment Makeovers in the Age of AI

Now is a great time to rethink some of your assignments and consider how you are assessing student learning in your courses. The goal here is less about catching out students who are using AI to do their assignments, and more about creating new learning activities that engage students more deeply and make your course more interesting. What follows are suggestions for activities that encourage students to participate fully in their learning.

Focus on individual presentations: Require students to make short informational presentations in class, alone, or in small groups. Ask them to connect disparate concepts together or demonstrate a problem-solving strategy. Try rotating students through different roles as Leader, Fact Checker, Disruptor, and Arbiter.
Focus on applied learning in small groups: Ask students to engage in classroom role play exercises, debates, and panel discussions to encourage planning ahead and demonstrating understanding. Ask students to participate in Think-Pair-Share exercises, Fishbowl discussions, and Brainstorming sessions.
Focus on making learning visible: Ask students to show what they know by working alone or in groups. Examples include building concept maps, diagraming complex processes, completing timelines, building fishbone maps, Lotus diagrams, or hexagonal graphs that force them to pull apart concepts.
Focus on multimodal projects: Ask students to create short podcasts, infographics, digital storybooks or graphic novels. Have students work alone or in groups to create a game or instructional manual that teaches a concept, tells a story, or demonstrates what they have learned.

A few examples follow, based on one type of lesson: learning about autonomous vehicles.

Podcast Series: As a group, develop a series of podcast episodes discussing various dimensions of autonomous vehicles. Each episode could feature role play interviews with student experts or real-life stories drawn from research.
Infographic Poster: Create an infographic poster summarizing key points about autonomous vehicles in a visually engaging format. Include sections on technological advancements, sensor illustrations, and social implications.
Social Media Campaign: Develop a social media campaign or PSA aimed at raising awareness and fostering discussion about autonomous vehicles. Include posts featuring infographics, short videos, and polls.
Illustrated Storyboard or Comic Strip: Using tools like Adobe or Canva, create a visual narrative that explores ethical challenges faced by autonomous vehicles. Record a brief audio explanation for each panel.
Augmented Reality App: Create an AR app that overlays information about autonomous vehicles onto real-world environments. Users can point their smartphones at pictures and see statistics about autonomy and safety.
Board Game: Create a board game that examines how innovative technologies have transformed traditional industries. Include character cards with scenarios describing workers, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders.
Interactive game using Twine or Scratch: Create decision-making scenarios for autonomous vehicles that allow players to make specific types of choices, including ethical ones.
Role Play Panel Discussion or Live Debate: Working in teams, organize a panel featuring role-playing experts from academia, industry, and government to discuss challenges and opportunities.

CITL staff can help you design learning activities and assignments customized for your course content. Reach out for a consultation at any time.

Tools that Support Student Learning

  • Notebook LM story example
  • LM podcast , mindmap, etc
  • How to make flashcards

CITL is Here to Help

The Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning strives to support faculty as they explore, discover and innovate in all areas of teaching and learning, including Generative AI. CITL invites faculty and students to engage with us as we learn more about AI, demystify it, and make it a helpful partner.

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