Adding AI to Syllabus

Welcome back to another academic term (for most, those on the quarter system have a few more weeks)! I hope that your summer was productive and rejuvenating. To restart our SoTL weekly blog, I would like to pick up where we left in June with the possible role of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in higher ed. Two weeks ago Gannon (2023) shared an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled, “Should You Add an AI Policy to Your Syllabus? (hopefully most, if not all of you have institutional accounts for The Chronicle through your libraries and can access this article at no cost).” In short, the author answers this question with a simple, “yes.” I would like to share highlights and a few ideas which I hope will be helpful as you consider integrating GenAI into your syllabus and course design.

The author provides the following resources:

• How to devise compelling writing assignments in an AI era.

• Warner assesses its impact on teaching and learning

• Zak Cohen’s optimistic assessment of AI.

• Herrman analyzed the shifting nature of ChatGPT.

• Stanford research on GPT.

• Alexander has compiled a comprehensive list of AI resources.

The author also suggests:

• Revisit your institutions policy on academic integrity;

• Keep in mind GenAI is changing quickly;

• Be detailed and consistent with your ‘Do’s and Don’ts”; and

• Review expectations for your assessments, perhaps keeping these questions in mind:

  • Why does this assignment make sense for this course?

  • What are the learning outcomes for this assignment?

  • How might students use AI tools while working on this assignment?

  • How might AI undercut this assignment? How could you mitigate this?

  • How might AI enhance the assignment?

  • How could you make the assignment more meaningful?

You may wish to review this helpful crowdsourced Google Sheet that our colleagues have been contributing their verbiage on GenAI in a Syllabus.

Finally, I have focused much of my research time this summer on learning as much as I can about how GenAI might support our pedagogy. I have experimented with Google Bard, Open AI ChatGPT and a somewhat newcomer Anthropic Claude. For what it’s worth, I have found that each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Please send me a note if you would like to chat further about my experiences.

References

Gannon, K. (2023). Should You Add an AI Policy to Your Syllabus? The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved at https://www.chronicle.com/article/should-you-add-an-ai-policy-to-your-syllabus#:~:text=So%2C%20yes%2C%20you%20probably%20do,t%20and%20can't%20do