Guidance for instructors

Explicitly state when and to what degree students will be using AI tools in your syllabus, in a Start Here/Getting Started module, or in assignment instructions. Follow this transparent assignment template for all assignments to ensure clarity.

Syllabus guidelines may vary by college, department, and course. Consider your plan for integrating AI into assessments and include clear statements in your syllabus and assignment instructions that align with your approach.

AI tools commonly used in the classroom span across several categories, ranging from assistive (e.g., autocorrect and autofill, and text-to-speech) to large language models (LLMs) that allow generative and conversational AI.

Consider these best practices as you explore AI Tools:

• Sign up for the tools and familiarize yourself with their main functions. If you plan to ask students to share a conversation they had in AI, test if this capability is enabled.
• If you plan to use AI in an assignment, test prompts and assignment instructions in the tool you selected before sharing it with students. Some subject matters that are more niche may present inaccuracies or limitations.
• Refer to Fast Path Solutions for updates on data usage and compliance.

Navigate students through the basic use of AI tools by including the following:

• Instructions on how to create an account or access an existing account of the tools used in the class.
• Introduce the AI tool through a low-stakes or ungraded assignment, such as this AI Introductory Discussion.

Promote opportunities for students to critically evaluate issues related to privacy, ethics, and biases in AI. Consider the following:

• Ensure students understand safety and security considerations and/or use a protected account, such as their UF login with NaviGator AI or Microsoft Copilot. Refer to Fast Path Solutions for updates on data usage and
  compliance.
• Ask students to evaluate the output from AI for potential biases or inaccuracies or purposely design assessments to incorporate practice for evaluation, such as this AI Literacy assignment.

In backward design, writing student learning objectives (SLOs) prior to designing assessments helps ensure instructors align and measure student performance based on outcomes for the course and program. Refer to CITT Course Mapping Resource Guide for assistance on writing SLOs to meet various learning levels and domains, and
aligning SLOs to program outcomes, assessments, and content.

When AI is introduced in an assignment or course, instructors may need to differentiate between AI capabilities and human skills, as noted in Bloom’s Taxonomy Revisited. This should be considered in the assessment design and explicitly written in the assignment instructions.

Building authentic assessments helps students apply their knowledge and experience to real-world situations and problems. Authentic assessments include personal reflections, analysis and problem-solving in case studies, role playing, debates, and simulations.

These assessments are often challenging to prepare, facilitate, and grade, but AI can help make them more feasible by using it as a tool for conversations or to generate content for diverse cases, problems, or datasets.

You can explore a variety of authentic assessments that leverage AI in the Elevated Recipes (Authentic + Artificial) section of the AI Prompt Cookbook.

Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) provides a framework that emphasizes transparency and clarity in purpose, tasks, and criteria for success. Use this transparent assignment template based on the TILT model that also includes ways to clarify expectations for AI usage for each assignment.

Scaffold assessments for frequent, low-stakes opportunities for feedback. Breaking assessments into multiple stages, or scaffolding, provides students with multiple opportunities to receive feedback and guidance.

This is also a great strategy to reduce the pressures students may feel with higher-stakes assessments, potentially reducing academic integrity concerns. Scaffolding can also help clarify at what stage(s) of the assessments AI is appropriate to use.

Follow Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to optimize the relevance, value, and authenticity of assessments. UDL principles recommend multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression in the teaching and learning experience.

By providing multiple ways for students to engage with course materials and multiple submission options (e.g., video, text, and auditory), students can show more creativity and autonomy in their submissions. Giving students the option to choose a creative submission type (e.g., infographic and video) could help reduce the use of AI where it is not needed.