This resource, developed collaboratively by participants of the "Charting the Course" learning community in fall 2025, offers a menu of strategies for helping students become critical users of AI tools.
What must my students think about before using AI?
- Students must first identify their purpose for using AI, determining the specific level of help they need, such as generating initial ideas or brainstorming a topic.
- Students must be aware of and adhere to the specific AI policy established for your class and the specific assignment.
- Students should thoughtfully consider which AI tool is most appropriate and effective for the specific task at hand.
- Students must reflect on whether the time spent interacting with an AI is more productive than directly tackling the task through their own meaningful effort.
- Students should consider the ethical implications of AI use, connecting those implications to professional ethics as well as broader issues, such as the financial, societal and environmental costs of AI use.
How can my students interact with AI to deepen their learning?
- Students can use AI as a brainstorming partner to expand their thinking and explore diverse perspectives on a topic.
- Students can employ AI tools to assist with revising and editing their own writing, focusing on improving clarity, grammar and structure. (E.g., Grammarly, Scite, Petal)
- Students can use AI to help navigate initial research or synthesize literature reviews, while always verifying the sources provided. (E.g., Elicit, Consensus, Perplexity)
- Students can engage with customized AI tutor bots to ask questions, clarify concepts and practice applying knowledge in a conversational format.
- Students can use AI as a study tool to organize notes, generate practice questions or create study guides from their own materials. (E.g., NotebookLM, Penseum)
The core principle is to use AI as a tool to learn and understand, not as a tool to complete the work without engagement.
How should my students critically evaluate and verify AI output?
- Students must maintain a stance of healthy skepticism toward any information or output provided by AI.
- Students must make the effort to cross-check AI suggestions, such as citations or facts, with verified primary sources and literature before accepting them.
- Students must remember that AI is no less fallible than other sources of information and is sometimes more prone to generating convincing inaccuracies.
- Students should understand that AI is not an original source of truth but an aggregator and synthesizer of existing content, which might contain biases and errors.
How can my students responsibly integrate AI ideas into their original work?
- AI can be a useful tool for tasks like engineering design, where it can help build upon established precedent and known solutions.
- Students can use AI to help identify gaps in their own knowledge, the logic of their arguments, or the presentation of their ideas.
- Students can employ AI as a thought partner to check the feasibility or logistical planning of a project, simulating an intermediate expert's review.
- Students can use AI to anticipate potential questions, counterarguments or concerns from their intended audience, instructor or readers.
When should my students step back from AI?
- Students should avoid inputting sensitive personal data, private intellectual property or non-public research into general-purpose AI platforms.
- Students should avoid over-reliance on AI to the point where they lose their own unique voice and perspective, as AI inherently lacks genuine personal voice. AI cannot replicate a student's authentic personal experiences, emotions or unique creative spark. Using it for journals, artistic statements or narrative writing can strip the work of its authenticity and meaning.
- If the goal of an assignment is to build competency in writing a thesis, structuring an argument or performing a basic calculation, using AI to complete that task defeats the purpose of the exercise.
- Students must respect the boundaries of graded evaluations designed to measure their individual knowledge and ability, understanding that unauthorized AI use constitutes academic dishonesty.
- The productive struggle of working through a difficult problem is where deep learning and resilience are built. If AI is used to bypass all challenges, it short-circuits this essential cognitive development.
- If cross-checking every fact, source and logical step provided by the AI is more labor-intensive than creating a first draft yourself, then the tool is not offering efficient or trustworthy support.
- AI models often converge on common or probable outputs. Students should step back if they sense the AI is narrowing their thinking instead of helping them explore truly novel or unconventional ideas.
- AI lacks true consciousness and moral reasoning. Decisions involving human relationships, ethical dilemmas or sensitive cultural contexts require human insight and compassion.