Generative AI: A Guide to Course Integration  

Artificial intelligence (AI) makes regular headlines, from debates about whether it will create or destroy jobs, to conversations about the ethics of its use in hiring or medicine, to its impact on higher education. The role and impact of AI in our lives is up for debate. One aspect, however, is not: employers are looking for graduates who know how to utilize AI to improve productivity in their roles. According to a recent article, 91 percent of hiring companies are looking for candidates with ChatGPT experience (Blum, 2023). Given the demand for AI experience in the job market, many educators are looking to integrate AI into their courses. But now comes the hard part—how do you do that? It is important to note that you will want to review your university’s policies on AI usage, especially as it pertains to the use of specific tools, prior to integrating AI into your course.

Generative AI (genAI) refers to deep-learning models that can generate high-quality text, images, and other content based on the data they were trained on (Martineau, 2023). Though there are many different genAI tools, and more are being developed daily, this piece focuses on ChatGPT and similar tools designed to generate text responses based on user inputs or prompts. These genAI tools use algorithms, or equations, to generate text after being trained on large volumes of data. In short, these tools use predictions to generate new content based on their training data. While this works well when a user enters a prompt such as, “Write me a 500-word paper summarizing Tolstoy’s War and Peace,” it can also be used for a variety of other applications within a course space, many of which activate higher-order thinking skills while providing students with experience utilizing genAI as a tool.

According to Huang (2024), genAI can be integrated into a course in several different ways. To explain, think of genAI use cases as a ladder that contains four rungs. Each rung represents one of the following approaches to the tool’s use: intern, thought partner, coach/critic, and teacher. As you ascend each rung or approach, you are asking the genAI to do increasingly complex tasks, ranging from what is essentially grunt work all the way to teaching you something new. This piece will take a closer look at each of these, including possible course applications and prompt examples. Keep in mind you may decide to utilize just one, several, or all of these approaches in your course. You also do not need to start with the lowest rung. You can instead decide to only integrate the coach/critic or teacher approaches while skipping the intern and thought partner approaches altogether.

The intern approach represents the lowest rung on the ladder. With this approach, the user is asking genAI to complete tasks commonly asked of an intern. This may include generating a list of titles for a blog or articles related to a specific topic. The approach can be very useful as it allows students to quickly find content that may have previously taken hours or even days to locate. The user’s cognitive efforts can shift to focus on the analysis of that content—rather than the search for it—which utilizes higher-order thinking skills such as application and critique of content. As an instructor, you may want students to develop their research skills and decide to avoid this approach, but if your goal is to focus on content analysis and decision-making rather than research, this approach will help you better align your course assessments with your course goals.

The intern approach may also help eliminate one of the biggest criticisms of genAI in academics: that it raises academic integrity issues. Many within the academic world have expressed concerns about student use of AI to generate content, and genAI is indeed capable of producing submissions for many types of assessments. However, by utilizing the intern approach, an instructor can actually discourage this type of cheating by encouraging students to utilize the AI to create a rough draft, then use their own creativity to improve upon, confirm, or as is often the case, refute the content generated by AI tools. And yes, genAI does create factually incorrect content, a phenomenon referred to as “hallucinating.” This approach shifts the purpose of the assessment from focusing on researching and writing to focusing on analysis and application, skills students will likely need in their future roles.

• Encourage students to use genAI to gather sources or content on a topic. Clearly explain they will need to evaluate anything generated, as genAI does not always deliver accurate content (though accuracy continues to improve over time).
  
  • Provide a list of 10 recent articles focused on the impact of genAI on higher education.
• Encourage students to use genAI to brainstorm topics or write a rough draft of a paper, and then require them to evaluate the output using sources from their readings to support or refute the AI content. This shifts the focus of the assessment from one of content generation to one of content evaluation.
  
  • You are an experienced marketer. Provide me a list of 10 titles for a blog focused on [topic].
  • You are [role]. Create an outline for a two-page paper focused on [topic].
• Provide students with content created using genAI and ask them to support or refute the content based on their course materials or additional research.

A thought partner approach is the next rung on the ladder. In this use case, your students utilize the genAI tool to brainstorm ideas. This is more of a conversation with the AI tool than the intern approach. With the thought partner approach, you can encourage your students to think through a situation or approach a problem using genAI as a partner. Rather than telling the tool what they would like it to do, your students are asking its opinion on a topic, or asking it “What do you think we should do?”

This is a great opportunity to embed genAI into the planning process for a written assignment or project. Your students can scope and plan their projects using the feedback they receive from the genAI tool. Rather than focusing their cognitive energy on generating ideas, they can quickly gather that information and then focus on evaluating the merits and limitations of each approach. In addition to efficiency, brainstorming with genAI can provide a diversity of ideas that students may not have considered on their own (Northwest Executive Education, 2024).

• Encourage students to utilize genAI to develop or explore topics for a project. Require them to evaluate the AI feedback, including their assessment of the process and/or output as the deliverable for a project step. In fact, you can require them to submit the results of their AI prompts as part of that feedback.
  
  • You are an experienced marketer. What topics do you think would make a good blog post to drive user traffic to a website?
• Utilize genAI within a project to complete tasks such as a SWOT analysis or generate ideas for a product or target market. Require students to submit their interactions with the genAI tool as well as summarize their analysis of the tool’s output.
  
  • You are a [professional field] expert. Complete a SWOT analysis on [topic], considering internal strengths/weaknesses and external threats/opportunities.
  • Please create a complete mind map for [topic], starting with a central concept and expanding outward with connected branches of related ideas.
• Encourage students to consider the consequences of different approaches to a project utilizing genAI. Ask them to then evaluate the best choice for the decision utilizing genAI feedback. In addition, ask them to search for examples of companies that took their approach to help support or refute their decision.

Coach/critic is the third rung toward the top of the genAI use ladder. In this use case, your students have already created something and are looking for an evaluation of that work. Think of this as an automated peer review or an opportunity to ask genAI, “I’ve created this, so what do you think is missing?” This approach may be helpful for written assignments or during a project, allowing students to gather and evaluate feedback on their work. Research shows that timely, actionable feedback is essential for students’ learning and development. Though AI feedback is not a substitute for instructor feedback, it can be a useful complement (Mollick & Mollick, 2023).

Implementing a genAI review for a project or written assignment provides students with an opportunity to utilize higher-order thinking skills as they will be engaging with genAI to evaluate their work. Similar to the thought partner approach, you may decide to require students to share their conversation with the genAI as part of the project deliverable. This could also be a relatively simple use case to implement as you may already have a project or written assignment in your course that would benefit from the additional feedback step.

It is also worth mentioning that genAI usage can be extremely helpful for non-native English speakers who struggle with the constraints of formal writing. These students can benefit from the use of genAI to help clarify their thoughts and eliminate grammar and structure errors in their writing.

• Encourage students to input their completed work into genAI, and then evaluate the feedback. You may also want them to submit that feedback or their analysis of the feedback as part of the assignment deliverable.
  
  • As a magazine editor, please review the following article for both strengths and areas for improvement. On a scale of 1–10, how would you rate it? Be candid and objective in your feedback.
• Consider adding a step to a project or written assignment that requires students to submit their work to genAI for feedback. Require them to either submit the conversation or write a summary of their experience engaging with the genAI tool.
  
  • You are an executive with 10 years of experience making financial decisions for a large company. Read the following memo and provide five points of feedback or questions you would ask to further analyze the investment opportunity.
• Encourage non-native English speakers to utilize genAI to review their writing for strengths and areas for improvement. The use of genAI will help them articulate their thoughts on the course goals rather than struggling with the format of a formal writing assignment. However, you may want to avoid this approach if your course focuses on the writing process itself.
  
  • You are a writing expert. Read the following paper and provide specific suggestions to improve clarity and flow. Also, identify grammar and spelling errors.

The teacher approach is the top rung of the genAI use ladder. In this case, you are asking the genAI to teach your students something. This is a great strategy to add feedback opportunities in written assignments, as well as formative assessment opportunities to your course. For instance, “algorithms that use natural language processing (NLP) may evaluate student writing and offer in-depth comments on syntax, coherence, and substance. Additionally, AI-powered virtual assistants support traditional classroom instruction and foster continuous learning by being accessible around-the-clock to respond to students' questions, provide clarifications, and mentor them through difficult subjects” (Shree, 2024, para. 3).

What might this look like? You may decide to add an ungraded component to your content pages. This can include a link to a genAI tool as well as instructions for how to utilize genAI to create personalized questions related to the content. Or you may create an assessment where your students engage with genAI and write a summary of what they learned, or share their conversation with the tool. Another benefit of this approach is that the AI tool can evaluate each student’s responses and provide them with personalized feedback to target gaps in their knowledge.

• Provide practice opportunities on a content page by putting prompts and a link to a generative AI tool in a callout box on the course page. Encourage students to engage with the genAI tool as part of their learning process.
  
  • Teach me about [concept] by asking me questions about my level of understanding of necessary components. With each response, fill in my gap of understanding, and then recursively ask me more questions to check my understanding.
  • You are an economics professor. Ask me questions about my level of understanding of the concept of [topic].
• Create an assessment where students engage with genAI to test their knowledge of key concepts. Require students to submit their conversation with the genAI or summarize what they learned as a result of their interaction with genAI.
  
  • You are a marketing professor. Teach me how to complete a SWOT analysis.
  • You are a psychology professor. Teach me the main differences between cognitive behavioral therapy and psychodynamic therapy.

Ultimately, the debate continues over the use of genAI tools in higher education. We have now explored multiple pathways to integrate genAI into your classroom. As you consider these different use cases, ask yourself which of the outlined approaches makes the most sense to integrate based on your current course content. Your use of AI may ultimately not only better prepare your students to achieve the goals of your course but also provide them with practice utilizing genAI in preparation for their future careers.

Blum, S. (2023, April 26). The majority of hiring organizations want workers with ‘ChatGPT experience.’ What does that mean? HR Brew.

Huang, P. (2024). Intro to ChatGPT. The Neuron.

Martineau, K. (2023, April 20). What is generative AI? IBM.

Mollick, E., & Mollick, L. (2023, September 25). Student use cases for AI: Part 1: AI as feedback generator. Harvard Business Publishing.
 
Northwest Executive Education. (2024, November 22). 6 tips for using ChatGPT to brainstorm better.

Shree, T. (2024, April 17). AI in education: Personalized learning, automated grading, and beyond! LinkedIn.