Teach: AI Literacy

Teach AI Literacy

Below are various ways to teach AI literacy that follow the scaffolding of the pyramid above.

1. Understand 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

Resources

• Understanding AI Literacy. (n.d.). Teaching Commons. Stanford University. This module introduces a framework that identifies and organizes skills and knowledge that you can use to navigate the challenges and opportunities of generative AI technology in education in more thoughtful ways. After completing this module, you should be able to:

  • Describe the skills and knowledge within each of the four domains of this framework

  • Apply the AI literacy framework to a real-life educational context

  • Identify and commit to actions that can improve your or students’ AI literacy

• A Framework for AI Literacy, by Hibbert, M., Altman, E., Shippen, T., & Wright, M. (2024, June 3).  Emerging Technologies and Trends, Educause. 

The most successful prompt frameworks are those that enforce specificity, role assignment, and tight constraints rather than vague conversational requests. These options are arranged from simple to complex.

RTF (Role, Task, Format)

• Best lightweight framework for quick, everyday tasks.

• Example: "Role: Act as an expert nutritional psychiatrist. Task: Synthesize the past 5 years of research on diet and mental health, explain how these insights impact primary care practice, and cite your sources. Format: Present this as a clinical briefing with distinct sections for findings, primary care takeaways, and references."

IDEA (Identify, Define, Explain, Action)

• IDEA explains abstract or complex information and is practical for research applications.

• Example: "Identify: The past 5 years of scientific research examining how diet, nutrition, and gut health impact mental health outcomes. Define: The biological mechanisms connecting diet and mental well-being (e.g., gut-brain axis, neuroinflammation, microbiome diversity) based on recent literature. Explain: How these findings shift the clinical understanding of psychiatric health and why dietary interventions belong in routine primary care practice. Action: Outline a practical framework for primary care physicians to discuss nutritional psychiatry with patients. Include citations for supporting sources."

CRAFT (Context, Role, Action, Format, Tone)

• CRAFT is best when you have a specific tone and format in mind, and need a ready-to-use draft for a specific audience.

• Example: "Role: Act as an expert nutritional psychiatrist. Context: There has been much research over the last 5 years linking gut/dietary health and mental well-being. Action: Synthesize the core findings from this body of work, explain the direct implications for primary care practice, and include citations for your sources. Format: Provide a structured clinical briefing with distinct sections for findings, primary care takeaways, and references. Tone: Be professional, objective, and clinically relevant, but keep it simple enough for dissemination to non-physicians."

Google suggests adding: "ask the AI to think really hard" and "what questions do you have?" or "what am I missing?" (Watch ABCDQ framework (3:53). 

RISEN (Role, Instructions, Steps, End goal, Narrowing)

RISEN works best when you need the AI to follow a rigorous process before responding.

• Role: Expert Nutritional Psychiatrist and Medical Communicator.

• Instructions: Synthesize the past 5 years of research on the relationship between diet, gut health, and mental health outcomes, evaluating how these findings should inform primary care medicine.

• Steps:

  1. Review key literature from the past 5 years regarding nutritional psychiatry and mental health.

  2. Identify 3–4 core biological mechanisms (e.g., gut-brain axis, neuroinflammation, microbiome) highlighted in recent evidence.

  3. Translate these findings into practical, actionable takeaways for primary care physicians during routine patient visits.

  4. Compile a concise, cited reference list of major studies/meta-analyses.

• End Goal: Deliver a comprehensive clinical briefing that helps primary care doctors quickly understand the science and apply it to patient consultations.

• Narrowing (Constraints):

  1. Tone: Professional, objective, evidence-based, and clinically focused.

  2. Length: Under 600 words.

  3. Format: Use Markdown headings, bullet points for key findings, and numbered citations.

  4. Exclude: Avoid generic advice like "eat healthy". Focus on specific dietary patterns (e.g., Mediterranean diet, fermented foods) supported by research.

Be Transparent 

Be transparent, honest, and specific when you use AI. A good acknowledgment clearly states which tool was used, how it contributed, and the extent of its involvement. For example:

I used Gemini Deep Research to conduct the research upon which the infographic is based. The prompts included, "What are the most significant peer-reviewed findings from the last year regarding the correlation between diet and mental illness? Provide a structured summary with citations." and "Rewrite as a summary report for medical personnel in a scientific report style with an intro, background, lit review, and recommendations (diets for both prevention and treatment). Keep references." 

See how by watching Teaching Students About Plagiarism (2:44) and Teaching Students to Cite AI (2:19) from UA Teaching Academy.

Follow these key steps to properly acknowledge AI usage.

• State the specific tool and version: Name the exact AI (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini).

• Provide the link: Include the URL to the tool or the shareable link to your chat transcript.

• Detail the exact task: Explain what you used the AI for—such as brainstorming, drafting, editing, or translating.

• List your prompts: Include the specific prompts you submitted to generate the response.

• Explain how you used the output: Describe whether you adopted the output word-for-word, paraphrased it, or simply used it to refine your own ideas.

Incorporating AI Logs in Assignments can help students use AI responsibly while strengthening their critical thinking, creativity, and metacognition in many types of assignments (University of Alabama, 3:02).

Cite AI

When AI use is permitted, clear attribution and APA-compliant formatting are required. Share this guide with your students:

• Read Citing generative AI in APA Style: Part 1—Reference formats for guidance.

• Format: AI Company Name. (year, month day). Title of chat in italics [Description, such as Generative AI chat]. Tool Name/Model. URL of the chat 

• Reference list example: OpenAI. (2025, August 21). High school grammar concepts [Generative AI chat]. ChatGPT. https://chatgpt.com/share/68a77b60-0ee4-800c-9acc-cd3fd573c311

• In-text example: (OpenAI, 2025) or OpenAI (2025)

• APA indicates that users can open the URL and interact with the chat, but that any subsequent conversations are not saved for anyone except the person who continued the chat. Only the original conversation is saved.

See how by watching Teaching Students to Cite AI (2:19) from UA Teaching Academy.