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Designing Courses in the Age of AI
Designing Courses in the Age of AI
Assignment Adjustments Here and Now
Adapting your course design to face the new reality of Generative AI should and will take time, but students have access to these tools now and need guidance now. These are a few ways to initially adapt your assignments with Generative AI in mind:
- Incorporate more on-demand in class assignments where students engage with the material right there and then (timed assignments for virtual classes).
- Require students to include materials that are only available in your classroom, lessons, lectures, or lab work.
- Require detailed citations of their written work.
- Have students include personal examples and experiences.
- Focus on the process rather than a final product.
- Consider having students build on conversation with generative AI with thoughtful and critical follow-up questions.
- Add fact-checking activities with Generative AI to check the accuracy and authenticity of the bot.
Pedagogical Strategies
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AI-Resilient Course Design Framework
- Instructional Needs Analysis
- Define learning goals using higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
- Analyze learners’ prior knowledge, digital literacy, and AI usage.
- Consider delivery mode, institutional AI policies, and tech tools.
- Curriculum and Course Structure
- Align outcomes with 21st-century skills and AI literacy.
- Organize content into flexible, reusable learning units.
- Use a mix of conceptual, application, and reflection modules.
- Instructional Strategies
- Apply active learning: case studies, Socratic questioning, collaboration, debates.
- Scaffold AI use: teach prompt engineering, fact-checking, citation.
- Include AI-detection checkpoints with reflective annotation or oral explanations.
- Assessment Design
- Use authentic assessments: portfolios, presentations, design tasks.
- Require process documentation and critical reflection.
- Include AI-resilient tasks: in-class essays, scenario-based tasks.
- Feedback & Evaluation
- Provide formative feedback loops and peer/self-assessments.
- Use AI tools for feedback with human reflection.
- Leverage learner analytics for adaptive instruction.
- Ethics & Digital Literacy
- Teach AI ethics: bias, hallucination, data privacy.
- Discuss academic integrity and evolving norms.
- Use ethical case studies involving AI.
- Continuous Improvement
- Use analytics and feedback to refine.
- Stay updated with AI trends in education.
- Promote faculty collaboration on AI-resilient practices.
Sources
- MIT Sloan – AI-Resilient Learning Experience Framework
- Liberty University – Ethical Considerations in AI Instructional Design (PDF)
- ARCHED Framework – Human-Centered AI in Education (arXiv)
AI transparent
Assignment Instructions
- Require students to disclose and document any AI use.
- Ask for screenshots or transcripts of AI interactions.
- Include prompts like: “Describe how AI contributed to your work.”
Assessment Criteria
- Evaluate the student’s ability to critically reflect on AI use.
- Include a rubric category for ethical and effective AI integration.
- Assess originality and human input alongside AI contributions.
Student Reflection
- Require a reflection section: What did AI generate? What did you revise?
- Ask students to compare their own ideas with AI suggestions.
- Encourage discussion of AI limitations or biases encountered.
Example Assignments
- AI-assisted writing with annotated revisions.
- Compare and critique AI-generated vs. student-generated content.
- Prompt engineering tasks with rationale and outcome analysis.
Academic Integrity
- Clearly define acceptable AI use and citation expectations.
- Require attribution of AI tools (e.g., “Generated with ChatGPT, July 2025”).
- Emphasize transparency over prohibition.
AI-Resistant Design Choices
Assignment Instructions
- Clearly state that AI tools (Co-pilot, ChatGPT, Gemini) are not permitted.
- Emphasize the importance of original thought and independent work.
- Include honor statements or integrity pledges with submissions.
Assessment Criteria
- Prioritize originality, critical thinking, and personal voice.
- Evaluate process and development over final product alone.
- Include criteria for personal relevance, creativity, and depth of analysis.
Student Reflection
- Ask students to reflect on their learning process and how they arrived at their conclusions.
- Include metacognitive prompts like: “What challenged you most in this task?” or “How did your thinking evolve?”
- Use in-class reflection journals or exit tickets.
Example Assignments
- Hybrid and In-person- Handwritten or in-class essays.
- Personalized prompts: connect content to students’ lives or experiences.
- Scaffolded tasks: proposal → outline → draft → final.
- Oral exams or presentations.
- Open-book, open-note assessments focused on application and analysis.
- Peer review: students critique each other’s work, making AI-generated content easier to detect.
- Authentic assessments: real-world tasks, portfolios, or multimedia projects.
- Class-integrated tasks: reference specific class discussions or activities.
Academic Integrity
- Promote a culture of integrity through ongoing dialogue.
- Educate students on the ethical implications of generative AI.
- Use plagiarism detection tools as one of many deterrents.
- Reinforce Universal Design for Learning (UDL) by offering varied formats such as video, audio, and graphic organizers.
AI Inclusive Design Choices
Assignment Instructions
- Encourage students to use AI tools as collaborators or creative partners.
- Provide clear guidance on how AI can be used such as brainstorming, drafting, feedback.
- Require students to document and reflect on their AI interactions.
Assessment Criteria
- Evaluate how effectively students integrate AI into their process.
- Assess critical thinking in how students revise or build upon AI-generated content.
- Include creativity, originality, and ethical use of AI in the rubric.
Student Reflection
- Ask students to explain how AI helped shape their ideas or structure.
- Include prompts like: “What did AI suggest that you kept or changed, and why?”
- Encourage reflection on the strengths and limitations of AI as a learning partner.
Example Assignments
- Brainstorming with AI: Use AI to generate multiple perspectives or ideas.
- “Collaborate with an Alien”: Explain human concepts to a fictional outsider using AI-generated prompts.
- Scenario creation: Use AI to build future worlds, reimagine history, or visualize data.
- Draft generation: Use AI to create outlines or first drafts, then revise for voice, clarity, and structure.
- Error detection: Use AI to identify and improve grammar, logic, or clarity.
- AI as tutor: Ask AI for feedback or explanations, then reflect on its usefulness.
- Comparative analysis: Use AI to predict average responses and compare them to student ideas.
- Creative tools: Use AI to help design games, quizzes, or interactive learning tools.
Academic Integrity
- Define acceptable AI use and require attribution (e.g., “Assisted by ChatGPT, July 2025”).
- Promote ethical use through class discussions and modeling.
- Emphasize AI as a tool for learning, not replacement.