Short Introductions to AI

• Art History: 3 Writing Tasks (Alice Price)

Brainstorm possible paper topics; create a suggested bibliography; write a draft of an exhibition label. Evaluate the usefulness or lack of utility in using AI for writing tasks.

• Sports Management: DEI Plan Creation (Heather Blackburn)

Discuss with students how they might create a DEI plan for their organization. After brainstorming a few ideas, students prompt AI for additional ideas. This is followed by a discussion in which students assess the AI-generated plan, in addition to their original ideas, to determine if it would be the right fit for the organization.

• First Year Writing: Reading & Writing With and About AI (Amy Friedman)

Students write an essay formulating and articulating their own opinions about the role of AI in their education and learning after summarizing several disparate, current articles on the topic. They explore AI in class as part of their preparation for the assignment. . Once students have completed their own drafts, they ask AI to write the previous essay and assess the responses.

• Media Studies: Student Product Versus AI Product (Dana Saewitz)

This analysis of 1984, by Geoge Orwell, requires five steps for completion:

1. Read the book. Write a brief reaction paper (2-3 pages). In this reaction paper, we summarize the book and then compare the author’s predictions to the realities of our hyper-mediated world today.
2. After completing your response paper, please use AI to complete the same task. Submit the AI written document.
3. Compare and contrast this to your paper. Describe the key differences between the two responses. Which paper is stronger, yours or the AI version? Can you explain why? Then, consider the impact o you think AI will have on your education. What impact do you think AI will have on your future career?
4. Please answer the following questions: Have you used AI before for an in-class assignment? (Yes/No) Will you use it again in the future? (Yes/No - Why/Why Not)
5. After completing steps 1 - 4, read this opinion piece in the New York Times, “You Can Have the Blue Pill or the Red Pill, and We Are Out of Blue Pills,” by Yuval Harari, Tristan Harris, and Aza Raskin. Come prepared to discuss.

NOTE: Include steps 1, 3, & 4 in this assignment link. Submit step 2 using this separate assignment link.

• Social & Behavioral Science: Dietary Planning (Alissa Smethers)

This two-step assignment ensures that students learn the correct information and develop critical thinking and research skills that they will use as nutrition professionals.

1. Use AI to create a detailed one-day dietary plan for a 2,000 kcal dietary pattern for [insert popular diet]. NOTE: You may need to provide additional detailed follow-up prompts to the AI, such as “Can you provide specific portion sizes for each of the foods listed in the diet plan above?”
2. Enter the dietary plan created by the AI into a diet analysis program to assess the accuracy of AI. Does the plan provide 2,000 kcal? If not, how far off was it? Do the macronutrient composition and food choices reflect the popular diet you selected? If not, what foods would you add or remove?

• First Year Writing: Reading for Themes & Patterns (Whitley Cooke)

Students individually use AI to outline the articles provided. Continuing with the AI, the individual students prompt the AI to generate similar words and phrases (patterns) that reflect common themes and ideas. Students then work in groups to expand on those ideas with references to the article(s) and how the author used those patterns to create the theme of the article(s).

• First Year Writing: Education and AI - Debate and Experimentation (Jacob Ginsberg)

Students read academic articles about the role of AI in education. In class, students write a paragraph about what it means to them to be a member of their generation. Outside of class, the students are to task an AI with the same prompt and then follow up with these additional prompts: make an argument FOR the use of AI in education, make an argument AGAINST the use of AI in education, and then come up with something silly and fun (as the student’s prompt). Discuss the results in class.

• Economics: Foundational Understanding & Experimentation (Joshua Mask)

Students complete a series of faculty-developed training assignments for Large Language Models (LLMs) to become familiarized with capabilities beyond word generation. Students then use several AI tools to create a paper and review how well the AI completed the task. The AIs are then tasked with grading one another’s output.

Fully Developed AI Assignments/Assessments

• Business Communication: Bad News Email (Laura Aboyan)

Students choose one of three scenarios and write a business-style email to break bad news to a client. Typically, this is an out-of-class assignment where students are asked to use AI to create a draft of the email and bring it to class. The class session is spent reviewing the fundamentals of business-style emails, and then the students work to evaluate the AI output for their respective scenarios and revise their emails. A class discussion emphasizes that AI is a good drafting tool but still requires proofreading, formatting, editing, and revising.

• Presentations: Develop Appropriate Historical Tone & Style (Laura Aboyan)

As part of a role-playing game set in 1818 England, students must give speeches and submit newspaper content advocating for equitable treatment of their characters regarding issues of society, employment, government, taxes, etc. Since the assignment requires the speeches to be written in the style of 1818 England, the students are encouraged to use AI to generate content in the appropriate style.

• AI For Code Generation (Dominic Letarte)

Students are allowed, as extra credit, to use AI to generate code for the PlayStationTDD. Students submit an individual report describing how the AI tool was used and if it was or was not useful.

• Film Analysis: Elements of Mise-en-scene (Ryan Rashotte)

Students use an AI tool to write a single paragraph about how an element of mise-en-scene in their chosen film supports one of the themes the student has identified in their written essay on that same film. The student submits both the original student work and the AI output. Students are then asked the following questions: what are the strengths of this AI-generated paragraph? What are the weaknesses of the AI-generated paragraph?

• Group Debate Preparation (Ryan Rashotte)

As a group, students will decide which art form is superior: television shows or films. Drawing on the arguments from Mattes and Shaw and any personal arguments, develop three reasons to defend the group's stance. Then, use AI to query the same prompt. Determine if the AI provided any new or interesting arguments. 

The groups will then prompt AI to write a full paragraph on their stance (television shows are better than films, or vice-versa). Require the AI to cite two sources within the paragraph for support. That paragraph is then submitted with the following group considerations: identify 1-2 strengths and 1-2 weaknesses in the AI paragraph. Consider how well it would work as a paragraph in your cause-effect essay.

• Physical Therapy: Plan of Care (Scott Burns)

Students use AI to create a care plan for someone with a specific condition, including references. This allows the students to generate a generic plan of care for a condition, but the assignment is to provide a detailed explanation of how the exercises may or may not be accurate. This highlights that AI can be useful for broad recommendations but cannot currently provide critical clinical decision-making and rationale backed by anatomy, neuroscience, motor control/learning, and physiology.

• Student as Teacher, Role Play Hiring Process, Data Analysis (Joshua Mask)

Exploring the capabilities and the limitations of AI tools using three different approaches.

Full assignment link.

• Interviewing Techniques, Socratic Debate, Constructive Feedback (Joshua Mask)

Exploring the capabilities and the limitations of AI tools using three different approaches.

Full assignment link.

• Comparing Writing Across Three AI Tools (Joshua Mask)

Comparing the output of three different AI tools using the same prompt. Grading criteria are provided.

Full assignment link.

• Written Survey of Debate with Personal Reflection (Amy Friedman)

An essay about the issues surrounding AI and ourselves as learners.

Full assignment link.

• Jumping Off Point: Prompting & Grading Output (Cynthia Gooch)

Using typical course assignments to identify ways that AI can help with student writing and some of the limitations that it presents.

Full assignment link.

• Public Health Risk Factors for Disease (Leah Schumacher)

Many people use the internet for health advice. As AI tools become more common, many people will likely use these tools to get advice on avoiding developing certain diseases. In this activity, students apply their knowledge of factors contributing to chronic disease development by using and critiquing/complementing AI.

Full assignment link.

• Ensuring Meaningful AI Output for Engineering Work (Cory Budischak)

As part of any assignment, the syllabus for a course should lay out very clear instructions for AI use. This course syllabus includes examples of AI output that could be useful in specific assignments throughout the semester. Students are allowed to use any AI tool, so long as it is properly documented per the syllabus guidelines, to design new seats for bus drivers.

Syllabus language and assignment link.