The new academic year is fast approaching—have you put thought into how you will approach AI fluency in your courses? The Drake Institute, in collaboration with partners across the university, provides a range of resources and programming to help Ohio State educators understand the university’s AI Fluency initiative and make informed decisions about incorporating AI into teaching and learning.
Explore AI Topics and Tools
As you finalize your autumn courses, you may be seeking resources for specific pre-semester or early semester tasks, such as writing your AI syllabus statement or discussing expectations for AI use with students. You may have questions about how to integrate AI fluency into existing or new assignments, or why and how to employ the new AI assistant within CarmenCanvas.
Expand each topic below to find relevant resources.
Developing Your AI Course Policy
Establishing a clear AI course policy—and communicating it in the first days of class—can help students understand your expectations, make informed decisions about AI use and start the term with greater clarity.
See AI Teaching Strategies: Developing Your Course Policy in the Teaching and Learning Resource Center for tips on crafting a transparent AI course policy. Co-authored with multiple Ohio State units, this guide walks you through potential uses for AI in your course, the building blocks of your AI syllabus statement, and how to discuss your expectations with students.
Discussing AI with Students
Students (as well as instructors) have varying attitudes and feelings about the uses of AI for coursework. This variability makes it especially important to have transparent conversations about how AI may be used in your course and your rationale for those uses.
See AI Teaching Strategies: Having Conversations with Students for a brief exploration of common concerns as well as strategies, conversation starters and activities for discussing AI openly with students.
Planning Assignments in Light of AI
AI has changed how students approach coursework, but it also presents opportunities to support their learning and build their AI fluency. Intentional assignment design can help students develop the skills and judgment to use AI thoughtfully, effectively and ethically—in their academic work and beyond.
See AI Teaching Strategies: Transparent Assignment Design for ideas for planning transparent assignments that support students to use AI productively and with integrity. The guide presents each step of the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework to "un-complicate" planning an assignment that uses AI, offering guiding questions for you to consider along the way.
To explore effective ways to integrate AI fluency into existing or new assignments, register for Designing Assignments for AI Fluency. This ninety-minute asynchronous workshop focuses on key concepts and strategies for designing assignments that support AI fluency. You’ll consider which fluency outcomes are relevant to your course or teaching context, how to assess student progress toward those outcomes, how assignment design strategies can address challenges and barriers, when and how to incorporate AI tools, and ways to support students’ ethical and effective use of AI.
Using the New Carmen AI Assistant
A new AI assistant within CarmenCanvas offers opportunities to enrich the student experience while reducing instructor workload. Course-specific AI assistants can be designed to answer common questions, clarify difficult concepts, guide reflection or practice and more.
To learn about the tool, explore sample assistants and consider whether it’s right for your course, visit the Carmen AI Assistant website and read the Instructor Resource.
For a step-by-step guide to designing your Carmen AI Assistant, including support for writing an effective system prompt and positioning the assistant in your course, see Designing Your Carmen AI Assistant in the Teaching and Learning Resource Center.
Each semester, the Drake Institute also offers a variety of workshop topics that address the intersections of AI with teaching and learning. Consider registering for one or more of our pre-semester or autumn sessions on AI.
Deep Dive into AI Fluency
Since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, educators have been exploring how to best respond to and integrate generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their courses. As AI tools and capabilities multiply, so do considerations for how to incorporate them effectively into teaching and learning.
If you would like to explore AI fluency in more depth, the Drake Institute offers a self-paced online course and teaching endorsement program. These delve into a range of AI fluency topics and considerations, including developing AI policies, communicating expectations to students, designing assignments that incorporate AI, maintaining critical thinking and academic integrity, and more.
Stay in the Loop
New resources and learning opportunities on AI and teaching are announced throughout the year. To stay tuned in:
- Bookmark Teaching Support for AI Fluency. This page, which compiles Drake Institute resources and programming on AI fluency, is updated semesterly.
- Subscribe to Drake Institute Digest, a monthly email newsletter for all who teach and support instruction at Ohio State.