Teaching and Learning in the Age of AI: Considerations, Resources, and Opportunities

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On-demand resources

Thinking about the role of AI in your courses? Explore the following on-demand resources for strategies and perspectives on teaching and learning with AI.

Considerations for AI Tools in the Classroom
Given the rapid pace of technological innovation and development, higher education, like nearly all industries, is continuously called upon to consider creative approaches to teaching and learning. This resource offers instructors a brief introduction to AI tools, specifically ChatGPT, along with several strategies they might consider for navigating or engaging with these tools in their courses.

Incorporating Generative AI in Teaching and Learning: Faculty Examples Across Disciplines
Faculty across Columbia University are reimagining their course policies, assignments, and activities to refocus on student learning and transparently communicate expectations to their students about the use of generative AI. In what follows, faculty across disciplines provide a glimpse into their approaches as they experiment with AI in their classrooms and teach AI literacy to their students.

Learner Perspectives on AI Tools: Digital Literacy, Academic Integrity, and Student Engagement
The CTL’s undergraduate student consultants share their thoughts on ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools and what that might mean for upholding academic integrity in the classroom.

Opportunities for departments, programs, and schools

Looking to have conversations with your colleagues about teaching and learning with AI? The CTL is available to facilitate these conversations upon request. Contact the CTL at CTLfaculty@columbia.edu

Request a Learning Community to Go on Teaching and Learning in the Age of Artificial Intelligence!

The surge of AI tools has different implications for different disciplines, which is why the CTL is visiting departments and schools to facilitate a forum for colleagues to discuss innovations and challenges, share best practices, and talk about the aspects of AI that matter the most to you as instructors in a shared discipline. Topics might include the ways in which generative AI can be used to support teaching and enhance learning, opportunities to try out new pedagogical approaches, and strategies to best teach students the critical thinking and analysis skills they will need in a world of AI-generated content.

Department chairs and program directors can request the CTL facilitate a conversation either in-person or via Zoom; we are happy to join existing meetings or groups, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to discuss the format that makes the most sense for your teaching community.

Upcoming events

Join the CTL for upcoming offerings to integrate digital transparency into your courses and experiment with various AI tools.

Teaching Lab for Generative AI Tools for Faculty  

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the landscape of teaching and learning in higher education. This spring, we are hosting a series of labs where faculty and CTL staff will explore generative AI tools and their potential applications in the classroom. If you’re looking for a supportive space to explore the ways generative AI tools can be used to enhance teaching and learning, join the CTL for this Faculty Lab for Teaching with AI Tools! 

Teaching Lab for Generative AI Tools: Designing Effective Prompts

February 20, 2024 – Register
10:00-11:00am, Online

In this lab session, instructors will gain experience crafting effective prompts for AI and explore various strategies for incorporating prompt engineering into their classes. Understanding how to design prompts that can effectively drive AI-powered learning tools is a skill that allows instructors and learners to unlock the full potential of AI in the classroom and beyond. 

Teaching Lab for Generative AI Tools: Community Building

February 27, 2024 – Register
3:00-4:00pm, Online 

In this lab session, instructors will explore practical strategies for using AI tools to cultivate a sense of belonging, foster interaction, and stimulate intellectual curiosity amongst their students. Instructors who are interested in discussing AI tools in their courses–or embedding them into assignments–might find employing AI in community building a low-stakes and potentially fun way to begin the conversation about AI in their classes.

You do not need any prior experience with AI tools to participate in these sessions. All that is needed is a laptop. Since each lab session will give you the option to explore one or more AI tools, you may need to create free accounts with various AI tools before the start of the session, and facilitators will reach out beforehand with more information.

Unable to join the Faculty Lab for Teaching with AI Tools? Engage with the CTL on-demand resource: Considerations for Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom. You can also schedule a consultation to chat with the CTL about generative AI in teaching and learning, or find other opportunities on our CTL events calendar.

Teaching with AI: Teachers’ Lounges for Graduate Students

Teachers’ Lounges are a series of informal discussions about teaching practices and the culture of learning at Columbia. In 2024 Teachers’ Lounge is hosting informal conversations about leveraging AI in teaching. 

Teaching with AI: Prompt Realizations 
March 6, 2024 – Register
12:10-1:25 pm, 212 Butler Library

In this session, participants will have the chance to experiment with various AI prompt strategies that can drive learning activities as well as just-in-time feedback and assessments. Advanced AI generating tools will be set up in stations, so that sequential prompts can be applied to text and image generation.

Teaching with AI: Pioneers Panel 
April 17, 2024 – Register
12:10-1:25 pm, 212 Butler Library

In this session we’ll again hear from a panel of instructors who have proactively tried out AI in their teaching — for example, using it as a means to generate course materials, design learning activities, provide timely feedback, or assess student learning. Continuing our focus is on practical applications of AI to teaching, we will be collectively considering challenges and opportunities entailed with discussed incorporations of AI into pedagogy.

Past events

Teaching Lab for Generative AI Tools: Designing Effective Prompts
October 26, 2023
12:00-1:00pm, 213 Butler Library

In this lab session, instructors will gain experience crafting effective prompts for AI and explore various strategies for incorporating prompt engineering into their classes. Understanding how to design prompts that can effectively drive AI-powered learning tools is a skill that allows instructors and learners to unlock the full potential of AI in the classroom and beyond. 

Teaching Lab for Generative AI Tools: Community Building
November 14, 2023 
10:00-11:00am, 213 Butler Library 

In this lab session, instructors will explore practical strategies for using AI tools to cultivate a sense of belonging, foster interaction, and stimulate intellectual curiosity amongst their students. Instructors who are interested in discussing AI tools in their courses–or embedding them into assignments–might find employing AI in community building a low-stakes and potentially fun way to begin the conversation about AI in their classes.  

Teaching with AI: Teachers’ Lounges for Graduate Students

Teaching with AI: Exploring Tools 
October 12, 2023 
12:10-1:25 pm, 212 Butler Library

This session will be devoted to tinkering with a set of tools powered by AI — both text- and image-based. We’ll explore these tools at stations in small groups, brainstorming ways they could motivate curiosity and learning in our respective disciplines. To suggest a specific tool to queue up for this session, reach out to us ahead of time at CTLgrads@columbia.edu.  

Teaching with AI: Notes from the Frontline
November 9, 2023 
12:10-1:25 pm, 212 Butler Library

In this session we’ll continue explorations of AI tools and hear from instructors who have proactively tried them out in some form with students. Since our focus is on practical applications of AI to teaching, we will be collectively considering aspects of incorporating these tools into assignments — such as privacy, attribution, and metacognitive growth.  

3-hour workshop for faculty: Transparent Assignment and Rubric Design in the Age of AI

December 12, 2023 
10:00am-1:00pm, 212 Butler Library

AI and its use in assignments has exposed a critical need for instructors to make their assignment expectations completely transparent to students. This session will offer a framework for transparent design to ensure that students know the purpose, the task, and the criteria for success on an assignment.

Bring an assignment idea or an existing assignment to work on. During the 3-hour session, you will apply the transparent design framework to your course assignment, engage in peer review, create a rubric for your assignment, and plan for implementation.

Related resources: Designing Assignments for Learning; and Incorporating Rubrics Into Your Feedback and Grading Practices

“… assignments that are designed to create student engagement and motivation will be most influential in learning, regardless of whether or not professors utilize artificial intelligence.” – Olivia Schmitt | Undergraduate Student, School of Engineering and Applied Science

Read what Olivia and her peers had to say about AI and their learning: Learner Perspectives on AI Tools: Digital Literacy, Academic Integrity, and Student Engagement

Teaching and ChatGPT Forum | February 13, 2023

Campus Conversations: Teaching with AI Tools | April 2023

Three 60-minute conversations for Columbia Faculty and Graduate students.

The national and international discussions about generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, like ChatGPT, have been developing at a rapid pace in recent months. While many conversations about these tools raise concerns about assignment design and academic integrity, there is also a strong consensus that AI presents higher education with an exciting opportunity to explore creative ways to leverage it as a tool in teaching and learning!

To help facilitate productive, generative conversations about the potential for AI tools in teaching and learning, the Center for Teaching and Learning is hosting a series of campus conversations to engage the Columbia teaching community in discussion around AI Tools in higher education.

Each conversation this semester will revolve around a different theme, including: the potential for AI tools to enhance student learning, the function of writing in a world with ChatGPT, considerations for assessment of learning and assignment design when incorporating AI tools, and the importance of human engagement in teaching and learning.

Are humans still relevant!? Big questions for higher education and AI tools

Wednesday, April 12, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Media headlines and popular discourse can certainly make it seem like AI Tools are poised to replace the need for a human workforce in the future. Yet higher education finds itself with an opportunity to rethink student learning for a future in which they work with these tools, rather than against them. Join us for an open discussion about what those skills and opportunities are, and how the Columbia teaching community can embrace the relational foundation of teaching and learning.

Enhancing student learning with AI and ChatGPT

Wednesday, April 19, 2:00 – 3:00 pm

How can instructors embrace and work with AI tools to further enhance student learning? What are student perspectives on AI tools? Join us for an open discussion about how to communicate with students on this topic and provide support for student learning in the ever-changing landscape of AI technology.

Assessment and assignment design with AI Tools

Wednesday, April 26, 10:00 am – 11:00 am

How can instructors design assessments for students to use and build upon AI tools to enhance their learning? Join us for a conversation with Dr. Victoria Malaney-Brown, Director of Academic Integrity, to discuss the purposeful integration of AI tools in assignments and transparent ways to assess student work in a world with ChatGPT.

If you missed these campus conversations on “Teaching with AI Tools” but would like to discuss the topics, please schedule a 1-on-1 consultation or invite the CTL to facilitate these conversations for your department, program, or school. Contact us at CTLfaculty@columbia.edu.

Using AI Writing Tools in Your Scientific Writing Process | May 2, 2023

AI writing tools such as ChatGPT are here to stay. These powerful tools can generate sophisticated text from scratch or revise human writing. In this seminar and workshop with Tim Requarth, we’ll explore using AI writing tools in the scientific writing process.

This event was co-sponsored by the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Teachers College, the Center for Teaching and Learning, and the departments of Biological Sciences and Statistics.

Tim Requarth is a Lecturer in Science & Writing at NYU Grossman School of Medicine where he teaches scientific writing courses, workshops, and seminars at the Vilcek Institute for Biomedical Sciences. He is also an award-winning freelance science journalist and contributing writer at Slate, with other work appearing in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and more. Dr. Requarth holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Columbia University.

Related Resources and Tips

Designing an Inclusive Syllabus
Review your syllabus. Consider how your expectations on student participation, assessments, and other course policies can be made clearer. Communicate your policy on digital transparency. Be explicitly with students about your expectations around the usage of AI tools to support their learning.

Promoting Academic Integrity
While it is each student’s responsibility to understand and abide by university standards towards individual work and academic integrity, instructors can help students understand their responsibilities through frank classroom conversations that go beyond policy language to shared values. By creating a learning environment that stimulates engagement and designing assessments that are authentic, instructors can minimize the incidence of academic dishonesty.

Designing Assignments for Learning
[Re]Design assignments and rubrics with AI in mind. Consider breaking down large assignments into subtasks and providing feedback along the way, assigning authentic assignments that invite students to make connections between what they learn in the classroom and their local community. Communicate to students how AI can be used as they work on an assignment and the extent to which AI use can be included in what they submit. Clarify what you are looking for in student work with a rubric.

Metacognition
Talk with your students about their learning and important skills like metacognition. This resource provides instructors with an overview of the what and why of metacognition and general “getting started” strategies for teaching for and with metacognition.