Asst. Director for Teaching, Learning, and Technology
Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE)
Boston College
nirmal.trivedi@bc.edu
CTE Resources
Artificial Intelligence in Teaching and Learning
There are many artificial intelligence (AI) tools that can generate “human-like” responses to a wide range of questions and statements. Among the most popular generative AI (or GenAI) tools is ChatGPT, a text-based tool that can produce essays, reports, lesson plans, and more. Boston College students will likely use content from these tools in a variety of ways, including as substitutes for their own thinking and writing. Like other technologies that have created new opportunities for academic dishonesty (e.g. Wikipedia, calculators, etc.), ChatGPT invites instructional responses that promote academic integrity and authentic student learning without sacrificing trust in instructor-student or student-student relationships.
Boston College
Pedagogy Reading Groups - Campus-Wide Programs - Programs & Events - The Center for Teaching Excellence - Boston College
The CTE organizes occasional reading groups open to instructors interested in delving into a particular author’s work or into a timely pedagogical text. Meetings are informal and are meant to provide an opportunity to share reactions, questions, and thoughts about how to implement the principles introduced in the reading.
AI 101 for Teachers ( code.org )
AI 101 for Teachers: Demystifying AI for Educators
Prompt Engineering
Prompt Engineering
Acknowledge the Variety
Acknowledge the Variety
Implications for Writing
Plagiarism undetectable Plagiarism detection tools are often unreliable Emphasizing writing process Emphasize the writing process to help students with thinking, project planning, brainstorming, research, outlining, drafting, and revision. Risks involved There are risks involved: GenAI may impair original thinking and problem-solving. output may contain fabrications, falsifications, biases, or errors.
Assignment and Assessment Design
AI Assessment Scale Perkins, Mike, Leon Furze, Jasper Roe, and Jason MacVaugh. 2024. “The Artificial Intelligence Assessment Scale (AIAS): A Framework for Ethical Integration of Generative AI in Educational Assessment.” Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice 21(06). doi:10.53761/q3azde36. AI Assessment Scale
Course Policy Consideration
Syllabus Policies Syllabi Policies for AI Generative Tools Potential Uses for Faculty in Teaching Streamline Tasks AI can help with quiz generation, creating rubrics, creating slideshows, and lesson plan creation. Analyze Course Grades Upload a spreadsheet with grades—with all identifiable info redacted—to see patterns. Customized Feedbacks AI can help you craft feedback that addresses specific issues with a student's coursework. TeacherServer Created by USF St. Petersburg Education Professor Zafer Unal, TeacherServer provides free AI tools to assist planning, assessment, preparation, research and more. TeacherServer AI Tools The AI Pedagogy Project Assignments – The AI Pedagogy Project
Sample Prompts
Teaching Ideas Adapted from Teaching AI Ethics from Leon Furze "Suggest a teaching idea for these ethical issues. Do not align to a particular subject area. Build out robust and interesting lesson activity ideas which can be applied to any of the following 4 areas: data privacy academic integrity environmental impact information literacy Do not align activities with the 9 areas. Use contemporary teaching practices, and a mix of discussion, research, student centred, and explicit instruction. Produce a title for the activity, one or two learning intentions, and the description of the activity. Limit activity to a maximum of 50 minutes." As an Example Generator Adapted from Ethan and Lilach's paper on prompting. "I would like you to act as an example generator for students. When confronted with new and complex concepts, adding many and varied examples helps students better understand those concepts. I would like you to ask what concept I would like examples of, and my year in college. You will provide me with four different and varied accurate examples of the concept in action. The first concept is …" As a Recruitment Letter "I am a faculty member at Boston College interested in developing a faculty learning community focused on Generative AI for teaching and learning. Ask me one question at a time, wait for my response, and provide feedback on how I can improve the email to appeal to my target audience. Do not provide me with the exact language. Only ask questions that will help me write the email by myself. Ask me follow up questions based on my response to your feedback. My tone for the email should be professional, informative, and accommodating. I am also seeking to recruit academic faculty from a wide range of disciplines."
GenAI Ethics 101 Curriculum
Adapted from "AI & Ethics" slide deck by Torrey Trust, Ph.D. is licensed under CC BY NC 4.0. Data & Privacy The use of personal information to train GenAI models raises concerns about privacy and potential misuse. Bias GenAI models can perpetuate existing biases found in the data they are trained on, leading to unfair or discriminatory outcomes. Hallucinations GenAI models can generate false or misleading information, potentially impacting the accuracy of information dissemination. Academic Integrity The use of GenAI for academic work raises questions about plagiarism and the authenticity of student work. Copyright & Intellectual Property The generation of content that may infringe on existing copyrights raises legal and ethical concerns. Human Labor The development and training of GenAI models may involve exploitation of human labor, particularly in data annotation tasks. Environmental Impact The energy consumption associated with training and running GenAI models has significant environmental implications. Spreading Misinformation The potential for GenAI to generate and spread false or misleading information poses a threat to public discourse.
Examples of Student Use
As a retrieval tutor Danny Liu at the University of Sydney "Act as an expert tutor for a first year university biology course. I need to study the topics of cell biology, evolution, and genetics. Generate a passage that contains statements that integrate and interleave these topics. Wait for my responses to the passage and then give me feedback on my responses." As a universal simulator Ethan Mollick at Wharton "I want to do deliberate practice about how to conduct bedside consultations in a large hospital. You will be my teacher. You will simulate a detailed scenario in which I have to engage in a patient consultation. You will fill the role of the patient or their family, I will fill the role of the doctor. You will ask for my response to in each step of the scenario and wait until you receive it. After getting my response, you will give me details of what the other party does and says. You will grade my response and give me detailed feedback about what to do better using medical consultation models. You will give me a harder scenario if I do well, and an easier one if I fail." As an explainer Adapted from Ethan and Lilach's paper on prompting. "I would like you to act as an example generator for students. When confronted with new and complex concepts, adding many and varied examples helps students better understand those concepts. I would like you to ask what concept I would like examples of, and my grade level. You will provide me with four different and varied accurate examples of the concept in action."
Considerations for Instructors
"AI & Ethics" slide deck by Torrey Trust, Ph.D. is licensed under CC BY NC 4.0. Help your students learn how to identify misinformation and combat the spread of misinformation… Because, the ability “to discern what is and is not A.I.-generated will be one of the most important skills we learn in the 21st century” (Marie, 2024, para.3). Resources: Teacher and Student Guide to Analyzing AI Writing Tools (see “Questions About the Text Produced by the AI Writing Tool”). AI Pedagogy Project: AI Misinformation Campaign Lesson. Can You Spot Fake AI? Checkology: Misinformation Lesson Readings: AI Misinformation: How It Works and Ways to Spot It. Commission on Information Disorder Final Report How to deal with AI-enabled disinformation
