Text Strategies for Teaching About AI

To keep your courses current and engage students with real-world application of concepts, it may be useful to teach about AI, even if students don't use it for your course, per se. From ethics to application, there is a vast amount to explore that intersects with almost every domain.

Explore Ethical Questions

The rapid pace of AI deployment and the novel nature of the technology have presented a myriad of ethical questions and dilemmas in nearly every domain.

Try This

Encourage students to explore the many ethical dilemmas embedded in AI usage and development. You may even invite them to compare how AI ethics intersects with other issue areas like bias, climate change, copyright, etc.

Use AI as a Collaborator

Use a prompt like the one below in an AI tool like Perplexity or You.com to familiarize yourself with ethical issues in certain fields or ask students to compare the AI search with a library search.

Sample Prompt: What kinds of ethical issues relative to AI should someone studying marketing be aware of?

Center Information Literacy

AI literacy is intertwined with multiple aspects of information literacy, such as reliability, data privacy, algorithmic influence, and more. Helping students understand how information literacy intersects with your course content can be a powerful way to help them develop agency and make smart decisions about AI use.

Try This

Find ways to incorporate information literacy into your course content. There may very well be ways to do so that don't involve creating extra lessons and that fit within your course learning outcomes.

Use AI as a Collaborator

Sample Prompt: In what ways might information literacy and specifically AI literacy be incorporated into my Intro to Criminal Justice college course? Can you provide any resources that would be helpful for me in creating lesson ideas?

Note: I usually use a tool like Perplexity, rather than an LLM like ChatGPT, when asking for sources.

Examine AI Use in Various Fields

AI is being used in some way in virtually every field. It may be hard to stay up-to-the-minute with strategies and best practices, but you will likely see some principles and trends that hold true for AI use in different sectors and occupations.

Try This

Assign students to research how AI is being used in their fields and use their findings as the basis for a class discussion. Have them evaluate the pros and cons of the kinds of AI use cases they identify.

Use AI as a Collaborator

Sample Prompt: Can you please help me find an article in which someone in business consulting describes how they use AI?

Your Reimagine Roadmap

If you plan to use one of the activities above, make a note under Teaching about AI. You can also use this space to brainstorm other ideas or make note of questions for yourself.

Resources

Teaching AI Ethics: Practical Strategies for Discussing AI Ethics in K-12 and Tertiary Education

Adaptable AI Literacy Resources

More Resources from Stanford CRAFT