Generative AI in Academe: For Instructors

1. Idea Generation: Use AI to brainstorm ideas for essays, presentations, or projects. This can help stimulate creative thinking and foster divergent ideas.
2. Practice Conversations: Use AI to simulate conversations in different languages. This can be especially useful for language learning courses.
3. Scenario Exploration: Ask AI to generate possible outcomes based on a given scenario. This can stimulate critical thinking and discussion.
4. Group Projects: Use AI as a tool in group projects, allowing students to test their ideas and get immediate feedback.
5. Content generation: Short essays, basic communications, presentation outlines, practice quizzes/ answers to multiple choice questions, create study guides, computer programming source code.
6. Summarize recorded lectures or meetings.
7. Research: Find key points on a particular subject or topic.
8. Evaluate mathematical problems, lines of computer code and complex formulas.

Written with assistance from GPT4.

Design Assignments for Critical Thinking

1. Develop assignments that require higher-order thinking and personal reflection, such as the analysis or critique of sources, deep connections with class discussions and activities, or the application of course material to new contexts.
2. Allow students to shape assignments according to personal interests. Develop assignment prompts that are open ended or offer a selection of prompts for students to choose from.
3. Develop assignments that require students to express their thinking in multiple ways. Examples include a formal video presentation followed by an informal in-person Q&A, a written essay including thought maps or other visuals, or a final report accompanied by intermediate drafts and an explanation of how the student made choices in developing or editing their project.

Lower the Stakes

1. Incremental Assignments: Break large assignments into smaller parts to lower stakes and discourage outsourced completion. Such assignment or assessment design practices help improve learning, and have an added benefit of incentivizing academic honesty and making tools like AI harder or less relevant to use. Assign portions of a project that later contribute to a larger paper or portfolio, or have students turn in drafts of their work.
2. Incorporate lower stakes assignments or assessments throughout the course, such as weekly quizzes or short, regular writing assignments. These can also help you become familiar with students’ personal writing styles.
3. Give students time to work on portions of their assignments during class, such as developing an initial or main idea of an assignment, writing an introductory paragraph, or discussing and revising a draft essay. You might consider having students turn in these initial drafts alongside final versions.
4. Offer retakes or re-writes for one or more assignments and ask students to provide a reflection of how they improved their study or writing approach for their second attempt. This can help lower the stakes for students when initially completing assignments or tests, and long-term learning increases when students are given the chance to think deliberately about and remedy their learning gaps.

Find the Right Environment to Evaluate Learning

1. Convert take-home assignments that may tempt the use of unpermitted aid to in-class activities. For example, instead of assigning an essay on a general topic for homework, have students complete a five- to ten-minute free-write at the end of class to demonstrate their understanding of course materials, or have students work in small groups to paraphrase the main takeaways of the class session and develop predictions for how those ideas will apply to upcoming course material.
2. When converting take-home exams to in-class exams, account for differences in the test-taking environment. Make sure that writing prompts are direct and detailed and that grading rubrics are developed with quick, not polished, writing in mind. This will help account for time limitations and performance pressures.

Promote Motivation and Self-efficacy

1. Explain how students will use skills developed in your course in their professional careers to foster intrinsic motivation. Highlighting stories told by guest speakers and other diverse course alumni may be especially helpful.
2. Discuss the ethical and career implications of AI tools such as AI and forthcoming AI systems, as the issues relate to your course content.
3. Provide multiple opportunities and ways for students to get help in your course. Academic dishonesty and the use of unpermitted aid often arises out of desperation. Clarify often how students can get the help they need and reach out to students who are struggling.
4. Frequent Feedback: Incorporate frequent low-stakes assessments to monitor student understanding and to become familiar with their individual styles.
5. Incremental Assignments: Break large assignments into smaller parts to lower stakes and discourage outsourced completion. Such assignment or assessment design practices help improve learning, and have an added benefit of incentivizing academic honesty and making tools like AI harder or less relevant to use.
6. Frequent Feedback: Incorporate frequent low-stakes assessments to monitor student understanding and to become familiar with their individual styles.

Written with assistance from GPT4.

1. Explain Concepts: Use AI to explain complex concepts in simple language. This can help students understand the material better, especially for difficult topics.
2. Idea Generation: Use AI to brainstorm ideas for presentations or projects. This can help stimulate creative thinking and foster divergent ideas.
3. Scenario Exploration: Ask AI to generate possible outcomes based on a given scenario. This can stimulate critical thinking and discussion.
4. Role-Playing: Use AI to simulate characters in a story, historical figures, or specific roles in a business scenario. This can make learning more engaging and immersive.
5. Simulation of Real-life Scenarios: In subjects like business or economics, AI can simulate market conditions or other real-life scenarios, helping students to better understand theoretical concepts.
6. Learning Aid for Disabled Students: For students with disabilities, such as dyslexia, AI can be used to read out written material and help them understand the content.
7. Foreign Language Material: Use AI as a language translation tool.
8. Summarizing Content: Use AI to help summarize lengthy reading materials, which can save time and help them focus on the key points.
9. Creating Mock Interviews: AI can simulate interview scenarios, which could be helpful for students preparing for job interviews or university admissions interviews. This will allow students to practice and get feedback on their responses.
10. Facilitating Classroom Discussion: AI can be used to simulate discussions and debates on various topics, which can provide students with new perspectives and encourage critical thinking. By inputting different viewpoints into the AI, instructors can create a balanced discussion that challenges students to defend their positions or understand a contrary viewpoint.
11. Supplementing Teaching Material: Instructors can use AI tools to generate additional teaching materials, such as practice questions, real-world case studies, and interactive content. These materials can help reinforce the concepts taught in class and provide students with extra practice to ensure mastery of the subject.
12. Research Assistance: AI can be used as a research tool, providing quick access to a wide range of information and summarizing complex academic papers. This can save instructors a significant amount of time and allow them to focus on interpreting and applying the research findings.
13. Building Soft Skills: AI can also be used to teach and evaluate soft skills. For example, AI can simulate real-world scenarios where students must demonstrate skills like problem-solving, leadership, and teamwork. Through this practice, students can enhance these crucial skills in a controlled, safe environment.

Written with assistance from GPT4.