Faculty Should be GenAI literate

It is important for faculty to be GenAI literate.  Reading about GenAI is a good place to start, but there is no substitute for trying it yourself. Take advantage of one of the workshops offered by CTI. Watch for GenAI lunch sessions from MTEI and the Bovay program.  Talk to your colleagues about some of the great work they are doing to incorporate GenAI into instruction.  MTEI will be collecting and propagating examples – see coming teaching tips and workshops.

Try experimenting on your own.  You might, for example, try using GenAI as a thought partner to help you come up with ideas for assignments or new ways to explain concepts.  For example, give the prompt “I am teaching a college-level engineering course in mechanics and materials. Generate two metacognitive questions as follow ups to the following question ...”   “Generate a think/pair/share activity for sophomore course in …. “  “Generate a worksheet for a discussion section that takes students through the process of generating a free body diagram. “

Acknowledge Challenges

You may find it helpful to acknowledge in class that GenAI is a new and rapidly evolving tool and that this is a learning journey you are embarking on with your students.   Solicit student input and feedback.  Co-create expectations on GenAI use with your students. Share an awareness that they will likely use GenAI in the workplace, but that they will also need to add their own value as an engineer and that you are trying to guide them in developing the experience and expertise they will need.

Syllabus Guidance

Students report that guidance from faculty on allowable uses of GenAI is often unclear.  While there is no one rule that can apply to all courses, all instructors should clearly state in their syllabi whether, where, and how GenAI tools may be used by students to complete assignments and assessments. Be as specific as possible, as students and faculty may view general guidance very differently, what students must do on their own, where can they use GenAI for guidance, and where can they use GenAI output directly.  In some cases, it may be necessary to specify rules around GenAI at the specific assignment level.

In your syllabus, or by taking time early in the semester, explain the rationale for your policy.  Note that a strict ban will be hard to enforce and should be backed up by clear reasoning. Sample syllabus statements are given at the end of this document.

Learning Outcomes and Assessment Strategies

Modify the course learning outcomes and assessment strategies to specify what students should be able to know and accomplish without the assistance from GenAI. Ensure that the assessments (e.g., exams, problem sets, or alternative forms) are intentionally designed to measure these outcomes and account for potential GenAI use. Consider focusing more on critical thinking and analysis, including reflective components such as asking students questions on underlying assumptions, or ask them to explain how the result would change if the assumptions were not valid.

Academic Integrity

GenAI brings significant academic integrity concerns to take-home exams and any other high stakes assessments that students conduct on their own. GenAI tools can answer many exam problems, and detection of GenAI generated content is difficult.

Faculty can get a sense of GenAI capabilities by having it complete several homework or  exam problems from your class. Try using different tools.  Be aware that paid versions of some GenAI tools may provide better answers and that providing prompts with more context and information may improve the solutions.

If GenAI can solve your take-home exam question, rework the question, or move to in-person exams, or consider oral exams or a hybrid of take-home exams plus oral exams or in-person project presentations.

The Code of Academic Integrity states that students may not share course material without instructor permission.  Note that uploading documents to GenAI tools is a form of sharing.  If you do not want your course material uploaded to GenAI, make that expectation clear to students in your syllabus and mention it explicitly in a class meeting.

Catching GenAI use where it is prohibited is difficult. You can almost never be certain that GenAI was used and GenAI detectors are not reliable.  Keeping that in mind, below are a few ways you might design assignments to support academic integrity.

• Have students work in front of you.
• Count homework as a relatively small part of final grade while emphasizing its role as practice to help students learn. Homework quizzes instead of direct homework grades may be useful in some courses.
• For exams, consider a range of problems that are nearly homework, are a small stretch from homework and are a further stretch from homework as a way to reward working homework and to recognize deeper thinking and understanding.
• Incorporate personal reflection that GenAI can’t easily fake.
• Require the use of idiosyncratic technical terms that you use in your course but are not in widespread use.
• Be aware that students may think GenAI was only giving a hint or a little help whereas it is actually solving a key part of the problem. This is especially true for weaker students who may not recognize the difference.

More detailed discussions will be posted in coming MTEI Spring Teaching Tips.  Also, see the CTI resource: AI and Academic Integrity.