Building AI Literacy

How To

How can AI tools help students learn more effectively? The authors of Generative Artificial Intelligence: Practical Uses in Education shared many ways AI tools can be used to enhance learning, including:

• tutor students;

• simulate real-world tasks, from a salary negotiation to an engine overhaul;

• generate practice questions based on a topic or text;

• teach a concept using analogies or examples;

• help language learners build their vocabulary;

• support reading, research, and writing skills development.

The resources below are sectioned using the Framework for AI Literacy shown above. 

Understand AI

There are numerous ways you can help students learn the pluses and minuses of AI.

• • Teaching Students about Ethics and AI (2:37) - Discusses approaches for teaching students about the ethical implications of GenAI with strategies for classroom discussions to encourage critical thinking on AI development and deployment.

  • Supporting Students to Use AI Effectively describes how to prepare students to use AI tools in the classroom, including differentiating between ethical and unethical use. 

  • Writing and Refining Prompts explores strategies for supplying an AI tool with an initial prompt, adapting AI output for professional use through re-prompting and human editing, how tone and language affect AI output, and ways to prompt AI tools to write in your voice.

  • Teaching Students to Write Effective Prompts (3:00) - Help students write effective prompts by focusing on clarity and specificity.

  • Brainstorming a Topic. Use Generative AI to identify topics within a topic.

Use and Apply AI

• Integrate Hemingway Editor in the Classroom, by John Neibrandt

• Using AI to Facilitate Role Playing (2:27) - Guide students to engage in meaningful discussions with historical and literary figures.

• Using AI to Test Argumentation (2:05) - Facilitate structured debates that enhance students’ critical thinking and argumentation skills.

• Incorporating AI Logs in Assignments (3:03) - Explore practical ways to integrate AI logs and reflections into assignments.

• Teaching Students to Cite AI (2:19) - introduces essential best practices and guidelines for teaching students how to attribute AI-generated content properly.

Analyze and Evaluate AI

• • Locate Errors - Use GenAI to help create an activity that encourages your students to fact-check information related to their topic of study.

  • Evaluate an Argument - Use GenAI to create an argument relevant to your field of study and then ask your students to evaluate it.

  • How to Prompt AI to Analyze Documents (2:42) - Provides practical tips to help AI summarize, extract details, and provide key insights.

  • Teaching Students to Verify Information (2:59). Discusses the importance of developing students’ critical thinking skills through verifying AI outputs using practical strategies like cross-referencing with reputable sources.

Create AI

• Harnessing Perplexity AI for Research and Effective Source Identification, by Bryony Drought

• Supporting Career Exploration and Guidance with AI-Powered Tools, by Paul Neufeld

• How to Use AI for Media Creation (2:26). Provides an overview of how to create AI-generated media, including images, audio, and video for multimedia projects.