Artificial Intelligence: Readings and Resources

Decide Your Stance on AI In Your Classroom

Using a stoplight metaphor, which best describes your approach? (This table adapted from this excellent guide from Union College: Teaching and Learning Resources on Generative AI)

Create Your Syllabus Statement

• Be specific about what forms of assistance are acceptable or not. Focus on outcomes rather than naming programs. For example, rather than stating that ChatGPT is banned, you could state that text composed by anyone or anything other than the student is not acceptable assistance.
• Include Examples. Regardless of your stance, you can include example situations or cases that exemplify what is or is not allowed so your statement is easy for students to both read at a glance and engage with more deeply.
• Looking for sample syllabus statements? Several of the links in the rest of this guide offer language you might adapt for your own course.

Make Time to Discuss AI in Class

Either at the top of the semester, or as part of scaffolding an assignment, a discussion can help you and your students form a shared understanding of the technology and its impact on your field of study.

• Make space for your students to bring their values, concerns, and viewpoints, rather than simply re-stating your syllabus contents. AI carries significant consequences for the environment, human health and planetary limits while at the same time holding the potential to provide advancements in service to those topics. Faculty could incorporate an activity where students draft a personal AI use policy at the beginning of the semester with a reflection statement at the end about what they learned from it.
• Ed Tech’s conversations with students about AI suggest they are both excited and concerned about this technology’s impact on their education and their future careers. Students both familiar and unfamiliar with AI have told us they appreciate faculty making room for these conversations in the classroom.
• If you’re interested in facilitating a conversation with your class, but are unsure how to structure it, or would appreciate having a co-facilitator, Ed Tech can help. Send us an email to get started.

Illuminate means of on-campus support

Offer students other options for moments in your course when they may feel stuck or in need of assistance. This may include your office hours, TA hours, peer study groups, appointments with research librarians or the SAW Center, or other resources specific to your course.

• Check the assignment, the submission, and your reasoning by asking yourself:
  • Do features of this work indicate possible AI use? Such features may include factual or formatting inaccuracies, inconsistent arguments, citations for obscure sources, or citations for nonexistent sources.
  • Are there other possible explanations to consider besides the use of AI?
  • Do the course syllabus and assignment make it clear that the suspected AI use is prohibited?
• Invite the student for a one-to-one conversation. If they acknowledge that they used AI, ask about possible underlying issues that led them to it and identify alternative sources of support. Ensure the student understands which AI tools are prohibited. If the conversation needs to continue, let the student know you will be referring the incident to the Academic Honor Board.
• Refer the case to the Academic Honor Board (AHB). The aim of the AHB is to foster productive conversations with the student; it brings in the perspectives of faculty and students who have engaged with College policy on academic integrity. Faculty members may use the report form in my.mtholyoke under “Other Administrative Functions.”

Note: We do not currently endorse the use of tools that claim to detect AI-generated text in student writing assignments. Not only are they known for inaccurate results, uploading a student’s work to their database may impinge upon that student’s privacy.

Note: Many AI tools require users to create accounts before accessing their services, and not all AI tools meet our institutional accessibility standards. Please visit the list of Approved AI Tools at MHC to view current options for classroom use.

Our students report that they desire to become effective users of AI tools, but that they need guidance on ways to utilize these technologies productively in their work. Here are some constructive ways you might begin to incorporate AI into course assignments.

• Ask students to analyze or critique AI-generated written content, such as an argumentative essay, a snippet of code, a mathematical proof, or a summary of an article, book, or video.
• Ask students to use AI-generated visual material as an accompaniment to an in-class presentation, and to discuss or reflect on the process of creating that material.
• Collaborate with students on engineering useful prompts for AI that are relevant to your subject matter, and compare and contrast the results from different AI tools.
• Have your students use AI to generate outlines for writing assignments. Subject that outline to an in-class critique before students write a full draft.
• Define a process that is relevant to experiential learning in your field (conversation, experimentation, etc). Then, ask an AI tool to roleplay that process with you and your students.
• Ask your students for their perspective! They may have thoughts on how you can use AI in the classroom in a constructive manner.

MHC students value authenticity in their academic work, and are aware that relying upon artificial intelligence may, in some cases, interfere with their self-expression and scholarly reputation. However, it is not always clear to them when common applications they might use (including word processing and editing tools) have incorporated AI features. Given the potential for confusion, there are a variety of strategies we recommend you employ to discourage students from turning to AI, when you believe that its use is not appropriate.

• Check the clarity of your assignment instructions. Include information on what kinds of assistance, including AI, are allowed on each assignment. If AI is disallowed, explain why; doing so helps students place the work of an assignment in the context of your goals for them as learners.
• Students naturally turn away from AI when they know it will not produce work of an acceptable quality and that that lack of quality will impact their academic outcomes. You can demonstrate the limitations of these tools in class, by asking AI to respond to an assignment prompt (including citations). Then discuss how the AI result fails to meet your grading standards.
  • If you find that the AI results would be passable work, consider adding either topical specificity or opportunities for metacognition to the assignment instructions, such as reflection on in-class conversation (see below).
• Develop writing assignments that extend the classroom conversation. Ask students to respond to ideas and themes that emerged in discussion, or to apply your course content to a new text, item, or idea.
• Restructure a vulnerable assignment to include more documented steps on the way to completion. You may choose to:
  • Require a revise-and-resubmit of the written assignment of their choice at the end of the semester, as part of your final assessment.
  • Incorporate opportunities for peer review of both early-stage and late-stage assignments, including outlines, drafts, and revised content.
  • Ask students to submit a plan for how they intend to complete a major assignment in your course, including how long they think it will take, where and when they will do the work, and what sources of help they plan to seek out. You could require this prior to assignment submission, or as a reflective component after the assignment is complete.

Artificial Intelligence Tools (Oregon State University ECampus)

How to Create Compelling Writing Assignments in a ChatGPT Age (James Lang for the Chronicle of Higher Education)

From AI to A+: Prepare Your Students for Using ChatGPT and Other AI (Ryan Watkins, George Washington Univ.)

Teaching and Learning in the Age of genAI: Policy and Practice (Gettysburg College)

Teaching with ChatGPT: Assignment Design Tips & Ideas (Montclair State Univ.)

AI Text Generators: Resource Page (George Mason Univ.)