How might AI enhance students’ learning?
AI can be useful in helping students understand, remember, and make connections between concepts in your course.
Ethan and Lilach Mollick of the University of Pennsylvania have identified how instructors can use AI to more efficiently implement five evidence-based teaching strategies:
- Producing many varied examples
- Providing multiple explanations
- Developing low-stakes tests
- Assessing student learning
- Distributing practice of important ideas
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How might I suggest students use AI to study more effectively?
AI’s ability to synthesize information and present it in different ways can be very useful for studying.
- Transforming Notes: Oxford University’s Centre for Teaching and Learning recommends encouraging students to use AI tools to consolidate their notes into different formats such as a bullet point list, structure outline, table of key concepts, or mind map.
- Practice Quizzing & Questions: Students can also ask AI to generate practice questions or quizzes to assess their knowledge. Checking the AI’s answers against a non-AI source provides additional practice and guards against AI-generated errors.
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How can I promote academic integrity?
It’s understandable to have questions and concerns about how AI is affecting academic integrity. Consider these approaches:
Proactive strategies
- Clearly communicate your expectations for use of AI to students through your syllabus and again at key points in your course, such as when an assignment is coming up. It’s especially helpful to explain the reasoning behind your approach and how it connects to what you’re hoping students learn in your course. View sample syllabus language.
- Engage students in activities and conversation around the potential advantages and limitations of AI. See these suggestions from the L&S Instructional Design Collaborative.
- Familiarize yourself and your students with this research guide from University Libraries and this guidance from the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards (OSCCS).
Responding to potential AI-related academic misconduct
- UW–Madison’s guiding principles for instructors discourage using so-called AI detection tools due to their unreliability and risk of false accusations.
- If you have reason to suspect a student hasn’t followed the expectations you’ve shared for use of AI, start as you would with any other case of potential academic misconduct – by meeting with the student. The Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards (OSCCS) offers suggestions on how to prepare for and have that conversation.
- OSCCS also offers a more comprehensive overview of the academic misconduct process.
Learn more
Ways to Establish Norms and Boundaries for Using AI in Your Classroom (L&S Instructional Design Collaborative)
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My course involves writing – what can I do?
Given AI’s power as a text generator, it’s natural for there to be particular concern about assignments involving writing. The good news is, you have a range of choices to consider, keeping in mind the particular context of your course and each assignment’s learning objectives.
Educating your students about the weaknesses of AI-generated text and about the campus resources available to help them with writing can be helpful strategies. For more on this, see Writing Across the Curriculum’s guide AI-Generated Text: Considerations for Teaching & Learning Writing.
You can find suggestions for AI-related activities and writing assignments that integrate AI from the L&S Instructional Design Collaborative.