Introduction

Troy Heaps

Introduction

Welcome to Generative Artificial Intelligence: Practical Uses in Education, an open educational resource (OER) produced by RRC Polytech. This OER was produced for educators who wish to find positive and productive ways to incorporate generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools into their work. This includes:

using AI tools to develop courses, lesson plans, activities, assessments, and rubrics;
leveraging AI tools to enhance student learning, and existing in-class activities and assignments;
teaching students how to engage with AI effectively, ethically, and responsibly; and
utilizing AI tools to efficiently complete administrative tasks.

This resource is focused on how AI tools can be used in polytechnic education. However, much of the content will also be relevant to educators in other educational contexts, like university or high school. The term ‘instructional staff’ is used widely in this resource and is meant to include instructors, professors, lecturers, teachers, educational assistants, and tutors.

One topic that is not covered is how the rapid rise of AI chatbots like ChatGPT has affected academic integrity and forced educators to rethink assignments, tests, and exams in order to ‘AI-proof’ assessments. Those topics have been expertly covered in many other resources. For more information about academic integrity and generative AI tools, consult your institution’s policies and guidelines as well as:

AI-Squared from the University of Alberta;
Statement on Artificial Intelligence and Academic Integrity by the International Centre for Academic Integrity Canada;
Recommendations on the Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence in Education from the European Network for Academic Integrity; and
Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence: Research Project Update from Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton.

To learn about redesigning assessment with AI tools in mind, please visit:

Designing assessments to mitigate the use of AI writing tools from Brock University;
What to Do about Assessments If We Can’t Out-Design or Out-Run AI? from the University of Sydney;
Effective Assessment Practices for a ChatGPT-Enabled World by Jonna Lee.
Four Directions for Assessment Redesign in the Age of Generative AI by Julia Chen.

The following table contains a brief description of each chapter’s content.

Chapter Name	Content
1. What is Generative AI?	The recent proliferation of new AI tools, and some ways they have impacted education. The origins and evolution of artificial intelligence. The training methods and inner workings of text-, image-, video-, and audio-producing AI tools.
2. Capabilities, Benefits, and Drawbacks	Capabilities and uses of generative AI tools. Benefits of AI tools in education. Drawbacks and limitations of AI tools.
3. Generative AI Tools for Education	Leading AI chatbots and their relative strengths and weaknesses. Image-producing and video-producing AI tools, and other applications that may be useful in education.
4. Setting Policy and Communicating Expectations	How institutional policies can promote responsible and ethical use of AI tools. How instructional staff can create or co-create course AI policies that enhance learning. How AI usage guidelines can be shared and reinforced along with each assignment. How learning outcomes should be reconsidered now that powerful AI tools are widely available.
5. Supporting Students to Use AI Effectively	Learning how to use an AI tool through experimentation and research. Evaluating and adapting AI outputs for real-world use. Differentiating between ethical and unethical use of AI tools.
6. Using AI to Enhance Student Learning	How AI tools can be used to: 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; and support reading, research, and writing skills development.
7. Writing and Refining Prompts	Three strategies for supplying an AI tool with an initial prompt. Adapting AI outputs for professional use through reprompting and human editing. How tone and language affects AI outputs. Ways to prompt AI tools to write in your voice.
8. Course Content Development	How AI tools can assist with the course-planning process. Ways that AI tools can generate multimedia content for course LMS or other materials.
9. Lesson Planning	How to prompt an AI tool to produce a draft lesson plan, and how to adapt it for classroom use. How to use AI tools to brainstorm classroom activities.
10. Assessment and Rubric Development	Using AI tools to: assist with creating assessment questions based on supplied prompts or materials; generate project topics and assessment scenarios; and help to develop rubrics.
11. Feedback and Grading	Using AI tools as a source of formative feedback. How AI tools can assist with summative feedback. Fun ways to use AI to make feedback more engaging.
12. Administrative Tasks	Using AI tools to: write first drafts of emails, agendas, templates, and other documents; help staff manage large amounts of information to summarize, identify trends, or target a search.

We sincerely hope that this resource will allow readers to integrate AI into their teaching practice in ways that enhance student learning and support students to work responsibly with current and emerging AI technologies. For further learning about AI in education, please check out RRC Polytech’s Teaching and Learning with Artificial Intelligence suite of micro-credential courses.

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