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Integrating Generative AI into your assignments

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Co-authored with Mary Jetter (CEI). 


Are you wondering how and when your students should use generative AI? Are you exploring how to harness generative AI to augment your teaching? Many instructors are asking these questions as they contemplate using generative AI in their courses.

Recently, the Emerging Technology Faculty Fellows were asked to try an experiment following these steps:

  1. Review resources that address the appropriate use of GenAI, for example, Appropriate Use of ChatGPT and Similar Generative AI Tools. 
    • Then consider the web resource Advancing Meaningful Learning in the Age of AI, which provides a revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy intended to help instructors evaluate and make changes to course assignments or assessments in light of GenAI. 
  2. Identify a single assignment from your course.
  3. Break the assignment into a series of sequential tasks. For each task, consider the following prompts:
    • Decide whether or not students could use GenAI for that task, and
    • Document your rationale for how you answered the first prompt.
  4. Use the information to write a student-facing GenAI policy for the use of GenAI in this assignment. 

Post-exercise, Faculty Fellows shared their analysis and discussed the decisions they made, filling out a templated table documenting their responses.  Below is an example of how fellows documented and shared their work. 


This is an example of how one instructor broke an assignment into tasks and determined if AI is appropriate for each task.

This helped them set parameters regarding generative AI usage and led to structure and transparency for their students.  The Fellows acknowledged that the exercise was valuable as it helped them develop a nuanced policy. They agreed that the larger teaching community would benefit from participating in this exercise and conversing with peers. 

Engage this exercise in your own teaching

To share this information with others, Teaching Support is offering two different modalities to engage with this exercise: 

  1. Self-paced: Access the resources at the end of this blog post. Use them to guide your efforts. No registration needed.
  2. Participate in a short course in May or August: This course includes pre-work to prepare for a live, virtual event that brings instructors together to share their work and learn from others.  We encourage instructors to register early as space is limited. 

May short course details

  • Register for the May section of the short course.
  • April 29 - May 6: Complete pre-work including a confidence level survey and an assignment in which you identify an assignment/project from your Fall 2024 course and determine under what circumstances GenAI may be used (allow 3 - 4 hours).  
  • By May 6: Submit your assignment. 
  • May 8:  Attend synchronous Zoom session from 12 - 1:30 pm and complete follow-up confidence level survey (1.5 hours).

August short course details

  • Register for the August section of the short course
  • August 21-26: Complete pre-work including a confidence level survey and an assignment in which you identify an assignment/project from your Fall 2024 course and determine under what circumstances GenAI may be used (allow 3 - 4 hours). 
  • By August 26: Submit your assignment.  
  • August 28: Attend synchronous Zoom session from 9:30 - 11:00 am and complete follow-up confidence level survey  (1.5 hours).

Self-paced exercise resources

Acknowledgments

Thanks to our Emerging Technologies Faculty Fellows. The ET FFP facilitators are: 

  • Adam Brisk, ITSS Academic Technology and Course Design
  • Cody Hennesy, University Libraries
  • Mary Jetter, Center for Educational Innovation
  • Lauren Marsh, OIT, Academic Technology Support Services
  • Bill Rozaitis, Center for Educational Innovation
  • Sara Schoen, OIT, Academic Technology Support Services


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