Whether you are looking for support on how to teach effectively with or about GenAI, this page offers information about building critical digital literacy with students, adapting assessment strategies, and getting creative with AI in the classroom.
If you are open to student use of GenAI, whether in limited ways or with no restrictions, we recommend making disclosure of its use easy and transparent. The slide deck linked here contains strategies for teaching with AI and can be modified for use in your classroom: Editable AI Slide Deck.
At York, our Senate Academic Conduct Policy prohibits the undocumented or unreferenced use of GenAI by students, while further allowing instructors to restrict the use of GenAI tools. Note that by default, any documented use of GenAI is not a breach of academic integrity unless explicitly prohibited by the instructor.
Supporting Students’ GenAI Literacy
Whether you are embracing GenAI in your classrooms or are keeping it at arm’s length, it is important to ensure that all students gain critical literacy skills regarding AI. As GenAI becomes more ubiquitous, it can be challenging to know when and how it is being incorporated into existing tools – for example, with its integration into Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and apps like Grammarly users may not be aware they are interacting with AI. Students may not be fully aware of how GenAI works, what its limitations are, how to use it ethically and safely, and what it means in your specific disciplinary context.
How are students using GenAI? Many, if not most, students are using GenAI to some extent in their coursework. Students who are informed users are more able to use GenAI effectively for brainstorming, tutoring and study support, research assistance, and accessibility and language support. Students also rely on it for task completion and to enhance productivity, sometimes to the detriment of learning. This is especially the case when students lack GenAI literacy and/or do not fully understand the assigned learning task and key underlying concepts.
Some of the strategies and approaches suggested below may help you in supporting students develop these important GenAI literacy skills. You can also refer your students to the For Students section of this website, where additional support can be found.
Adapting Assessment Strategies
Assessment in the landscape of GenAI is challenging. Any assessment with a non-invigilated component now raises questions about the possibility of GenAI usage by students. At the same time, these challenges highlight longstanding troubles with our assessment practices and prompt a revaluation of the purpose of assessment in teaching. The conversation about academic integrity can lead to a deeper consideration of why students cheat and the role of assessment in teaching and learning. Assessment (re)design offers an opportunity to enhance academic integrity as well as student learning. Try starting small: address the assessment that concerns you the most or will have the greatest impact, and then build on your experience.
Note that some students may want to avoid the use of GenAI technologies for privacy, ethical, or other reasons. If a student exercises their choice to opt out of using GenAI, be prepared to provide an alternative option.
Opting out should not disadvantage student learning. Regardless of the extent to which you choose to incorporate GenAI into your assessments, it is critical to be very clear with students about your expectations. You may be inspired by the AI Assessment Scale (Perkins et al., 2024), which can help communicate different levels of GenAI usage in any given assignment.
Assessment strategies that circumvent GenAI
- In person
- Bring your assignments, or parts of them, into the classroom.
- Authentic assessment
- Consider ways to have students demonstrate learning in alternative ways or in novel contexts, such as simulations, roleplay, debate/mock trial, podcast, field interviews with reflections, advance drafts, or digital artifacts.
- Connect assessments to specific course contexts – for example, require students to reference course discussions.
- Focus on process
- Scaffold assessments by requiring students to submit the assignment in stages so that you see evidence of the learning journey unfolding.
- Require students to submit something that shows their work in progress, for example, mind-maps, advance organizers, or drafts.
Assessment strategies that integrate GenAI
- Shared writing/creation
- Embrace co-writing using a structured approach to working alongside GenAI.
- Develop student skills for critically evaluating GenAI outputs.
- Help students offload parts of their workload while staying engaged with critical thinking.
- Help students offload parts of their workload while staying engaged with critical thinking.
- Use GenAI outputs
- Have students work together or in class to critique GenAI outputs using criteria relevant to your disciplinary context, for example, have students perform error analysis on GenAI output or engage in live debate against GenAI, followed by reflection on the process.
- Ensure clear instructions
- When integrating GenAI into an assessment, define expectations and limitations very clear.
- Provide examples of prompts and expected student work.
- Provide additional resources to help students grasp GenAI basics.
GenAI Detection
What happens if you suspect a student has used GenAI when you have expressly disallowed it? While concerns about student use of GenAI in tests and assessments are valid, York does not currently recommend the use of any GenAI detection tools. These technologies can be easily circumvented by altering the generated texts, and they often struggle with accuracy, leading to false positives. These false positives often disproportionately flag the work of non-native English speakers. In addition, the use of detection tools raises important issues around data security and student intellectual property – it is not recommended to upload any student work to an external GenAI or detector. Should you have concerns about a potential academic integrity breach, support is available at AI Technology and Academic Integrity for Instructors.
Strategies for GenAI in the Classroom
Those who want to bring GenAI into classroom learning can consider the strategies below, as well as the additional resources at the bottom of this page. Discussing GenAI with your students and including it in your teaching practices and class activities can enhance student engagement and support the development of critical GenAI literacy. Use GenAI to create tailored scenarios and practice opportunities for students to test out new skills and emerging ideas.
PAIR Framework
- The PAIR Framework was developed at King’s College London
- Adaptable, simple approach for integrating GenAI into your existing teaching strategies
- Focussed on development of transferable skills and ethical and responsible AI use
Ethical AI Discussions
- Hold a class debate on GenAI ethics in your discipline
- Assign and discuss readings on GenAI’s impact on your field, local community, or higher education
- Take inspiration from some of the ideas shared by WAC Clearinghouse
GenAI as a Class Participant
- Involve GenAI in class discussion and Q&A sessions, using its responses as a starting point for digging deeper into course content
- Encourage students to use GenAI for collaborative class activities or problem solving
Practice and Feedback
- Have students use GenAI in class for immediate feedback on tasks
- Have students practice giving feedback using work generated by AI
- Use GenAI to create tailored scenarios and practice opportunities for students to test out new skills and emerging ideas
GenAI and Teaching Workload
GenAI can alleviate some of the workload of teaching, if used thoughtfully and ethically.
Recommendations
We recommend:
- Maintaining transparency about your use of AI. Clearly communicate to students how and why AI tools are being implemented, ensuring they understand the benefits and limitations
- Staying accountable for GenAI outputs. Ensure that you maintain oversight of all course materials and teaching processes by reviewing AI-generated outputs for accuracy and relevance
- Emphasizing responsible AI use by integrating discussions on ethical implications into your curriculum, fostering a culture of critical thinking and ethical awareness
Strategies
- Draft course materials
- GenAI can generate initial drafts of lecture notes, presentations, syllabi, and more
- Review and revise to ensure accuracy and relevance
- Rubric creation
- Input your assignment description and grading criteria to have GenAI craft holistic, analytic, developmental, or other types of rubrics
- Further customize to match course or assignment objectives and standards
- Increase access and equity
- Ask GenAI to review course materials and course design to suggest ways you might decolonize course readings, implement Universal Design for Learning, or enhance student belonging
- Use GenAI to create learning resources more closely tailored to student needs or interests
- Feedback
- Ask GenAI to create a draft comment bank for common issues you anticipate when grading. Further tailor comments as needed for each student
- Support students in using GenAI as a Socratic tutor, coach, or editor
- Use Microsoft Copilot
- Microsoft Copilot offers enhanced data protection and is the only GenAI tool endorsed by UIT. When you use Microsoft Copilot while logged in with your Passport York ID, your data is not shared outside of York.
Want to Learn More?
101 creative ideas to use AI in education: A crowdsourced collection
This volume provides a wealth of ideas and concrete strategies for assessing and teaching with or about GenAI.
Towards AI Literacy: 101+ Creative and Critical Practices, Perspectives and Purposes
A second volume of crowdsourced strategies, this time with a focus on developing AI literacy.
10 Practical Ways Faculty and Instructors Can Use AI
An overview from Tech Online with examples of additional ways teaching workload can be lightened using GenAI.
A range of strategies from Learning Design Views for enhancing inclusion and access using GenAI.
Portions of this page have been adapted from: https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/mcmasterteachgenerativeai