Teaching in the AI Era

Teaching in the AI Era

Table of contents

This resource is part of our suite on Teaching and AI. See also Starting Small with AI in the Classroom and Course Policies on Generative AI Use.

The recent growth in generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools has quickly changed the education landscape. Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence technology that can generate new content (such as text, images, audio, computer code, etc.) based on patterns and information gathered from sets of sample materials. Some instructors are choosing to bring these new tools more explicitly into their teaching and course assignments, while others are aiming to limit the use of AI tools that are incompatible with course goals.

Below are some suggestions from the TLHub to help you be on the forefront of these tools and their impact on your course. Please note that these are emerging tools, and we will continue to provide new and updated resources as we develop our guidance on the intersection of teaching and AI.

Top Tips

  • Hear ideas from the GSB community. Watch the recording of Faculty Voices: Exploring AI in the GSB Classroom to learn how GSB faculty are exploring AI in course assignments and activities. Watch the recording of Student Voices: Exploring AI in the GSB Classroom to hear GSB students’ experiences and perspectives on AI in the classroom.
  • Establish and communicate your course policy on AI, and explain what unpermitted aid for assignments means for your course (view our template statements). State your policy in your course syllabus and the Course Policies and Norms form, and then follow up in class with your students. 
  • Get to know generative AI tools and how they might emerge in your course context. Consider running a few of your course’s assignment(s) through one or several AI tools. Discuss your findings with your students and explain how the AI tool’s output compares to your expectations for their work. 
  • Lead a class discussion about generative AI tools in your area of expertise, such as emerging areas of AI use or creative applications of AI tools in business settings.
  • Review your course’s assignments and assessments in light of generative AI tools and make adjustments. If students might use AI tools productively to help them complete your coursework, consider more explicitly inviting and guiding students’ use of generative AI tools. If students may be able to use AI tools in unpermitted ways, consider adjusting your coursework according to design practices that help improve learning and have an added benefit of incentivizing academic honesty. This could include breaking assignments into parts, providing in-class guidance and opportunities for practice, and clarifying why students are being asked to grapple with difficult work without AI supports.

Not sure where to start? See our tips for Starting Small with AI in the Classroom.

A Note on Information Security

In the new resource on Responsible AI at Stanford, UIT has advised the Stanford community to avoid inputting information that should not be made public when using a generative AI tool. This includes materials containing students’ personal information and proprietary or copyrighted materials (which may include case studies, course assignments, data sets, and more), or any information that may be classified as moderate or high risk according to Stanford UIT’s risk classifications. Information you enter into a generative AI tool may be shared with third parties, and the tool may use your prompts or questions to inform content generated for other users.

Stanford does not yet support any generative AI tools for use. If you encourage students to use such tools for work in your course, make sure to offer assignments that students may complete effectively if they are unable or choose not to use AI tools. This especially includes the use of paid tools, the use of tools that require personal information to make an account, or assignments that ask students to discuss personal information.

For more information on safety measures and risk factors related to generative AI tools, visit Stanford UIT’s guide to Responsible AI at Stanford.

FAQs about Generative AI Tools in the Classroom

Crafting Course Policies on the Use of Generative AI Tools

Guidance from the Board on Conduct Affairs states that Stanford instructors may set course policies regarding generative AI use as they choose. The guidance recommends that such policies are stated in the course syllabus and communicated clearly to students.

According to the Honor Code, students commit to not receiving “unpermitted aid” for assignments or examinations. If you do not specify that students can use generative AI tools, then their use would violate the honor code. But because these are emerging tools, it’s important to explicitly clarify with your students whether or not you permit generative AI tools.

For syllabus statement templates and tips on setting your course approach to AI use, see our resource on Course Policies on Generative AI Use. 

Using Generative AI Tools in the Classroom

Stanford does not yet support generative AI tools for use, but instructors and students may use AI tools in their work according to UIT’s guidelines on Responsible AI at Stanford. Students are expected to follow their instructors’ course policies on AI use, and if no policy is given, then AI tools are not permitted for coursework (see FAQs on Crafting Course Policies on the Use of Generative AI Tools above).

For more information about funding for instructors’ subscription fees to AI tools such as ChatGPT, contact your faculty assistant or the Teaching and Learning Hub.

Educators have quickly discovered many ways that students can use AI tools to improve their learning. Some of these include using AI chatbots for tasks like:

  • Divergent thinking tasks, such as brainstorming initial ideas or approaches, prototyping (including image, audio, video, data visualizations), or scoping out resources and leads for a project.
  • Summarizing information, such as summarizing long or difficult text, paraphrasing complex information, or finding patterns in data files.
  • Writing both text and code, including drafting, troubleshooting, revising, or translating.

Encourage students to critically evaluate all AI-generated content, no matter how they use the tools, and refer students to your AI use policy to let them know how and/or when to report their AI use.

For more information and example educational use cases of generative AI tools, see Stanford Teaching Commons’ resource on exploring the pedagogical uses of AI chatbots.

Watch the recording of Faculty Voices: Exploring AI in the GSB Classroom to learn how GSB faculty are exploring AI in course assignments and activities (Note: GSB faculty panel begins at 30:26). The panel features the following faculty:

  • Justin Berg, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior
  • Jennifer Aaker, The General Atlantic Professor in Marketing
  • Glenn Kramon, Lecturer in Management
  • Dan Iancu, Associate Professor of Operations, Information & Technology
  • Julien Clement, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior

Watch the recording of Student Voices: Exploring AI in the GSB Classroom to hear GSB students’ experiences and perspectives on AI in the classroom.

View our resource on Starting Small with AI in the Classroom, in which we offer tips on:

  • How to test your course assignments with AI tools
  • Reframing existing coursework to incorporate or disallow AI use thoughtfully
  • Short in-class activities to bring AI into the classroom in 10 minutes or less
  • And more!

If you would like to encourage students’ use of AI tools, especially chatbots, here are some quick tips for chatbot prompting that you might adapt to share with students:

When entering a prompt, consider instructing the chatbot to…

  • “Act as if you…[are an expert on X.]”
  • “Tell me what else you need to do this.” – or – “Ask me questions until you have enough information to do this.”
  • “Provide me with [a specific output]…” This can include details such as form, tone, etc.
  • Complete a task step-by-step, either by prompting it one part at a time, or by asking it to “complete the first step, then stop and ask if I need more information.”
  • Look up and cite relevant research to answer the prompt, if using a tool that can search the live internet. Then, double check each citation yourself.
  • Change its approach if you aren’t satisfied or sure about an answer. Ask the bot for clarification or to provide a different example. Tell the bot that it is incorrect and ask it to try again. Ask the prompt in a new way (or restart the chat) if the chatbot isn’t providing what you’re looking for — more specific questions and more context about how you like the chatbot to respond can often help…when in doubt, experiment

If you would like to encourage students to use AI tools, here are some ideas you may want to consider:

  • Most AI tools available today were not designed for educational purposes. It may help to demonstrate for students how you would like them to use the tools, and/or to provide students with recommendations for when and how they might benefit from using the tools. Students may also need help learning how to prompt an AI chatbot effectively to get useful responses.
  • Students have differing levels of experience with generative AI tools. Consider leading an open discussion about how students could imagine using AI tools, asking students to use AI tools during an early group assignment, or having students contribute successful chatbot prompts to a course repository, so that they can learn from one another.
  • Provide specific instructions and possible prompts for students to use, if possible, if you welcome students to use AI tools for an assignment. The more students are guided in their use of AI, the more likely they are to use the tools to support rather than shortcut their learning.
  • Students should learn about the limitations of generative AI tools. For example, AI tools do not always provide correct responses (often called ‘hallucinations’) and the tools’ outputs can be biased (e.g., more often representing a doctor as male and a nurse as female). Students may need support and/or practice in learning how to fact-check or critically evaluate AI-generated information. The Stanford Teaching Commons’ resource on exploring the pedagogical uses of AI chatbots offers a primer on the potential risks of using AI.
  • Stanford does not yet support any generative AI tools for use. If you encourage students to use such tools for work in your course, make sure to offer assignments that students may complete effectively if they are unable or choose not to use AI tools. This especially includes the use of paid tools, the use of tools that require personal information to make an account, or assignments that ask students to discuss personal information.

Consider having students research emerging areas of AI use or brainstorm creative applications of AI tools in your field. This will allow students to explore, gain experience with, and discuss the pros and cons of such applications.

GSB resources:

  • Stanford Business Insights’ Technology and AI topic for articles that highlight Stanford GSB research on AI and other cutting edge technologies

Stanford resources:

Other business journals’ collections of AI-focused articles with up-to-date news examining AI business tools’ promising future and current limitations:

AI Tools and Academic Honesty

We strongly encourage you to test out generative AI tools, and consider running a few of your course assignments through one or several tools. This will provide the clearest sense of how an AI-generated output may compare to high-quality student work in your course. Note that such tools do not generally produce the same output each time a question is posed.

Note: When testing assignments with AI tools, be sure to choose an assignment prompt that does not contain proprietary, copyrighted, or other sensitive information.

Some common strategies for detecting plagiarism may be useful for identifying unpermitted use of AI tools. These include looking for generic or repetitive language, large shifts in writing voice or style, improper and missing citations or facts, or if a student can’t explain how they arrived at an answer or made choices in producing an assignment.

AI detection software is available, but has limitations. See below for more.

Yes. Under the honor code, faculty may use AI detection software if they provide students with “clear, advance notice,” as in the Office of Community Standard’s Tips for Faculty & TAs. 

However, Stanford does not have approved general licenses for plagiarism monitoring tools (a common example is Turnitin). We recommend faculty use AI detector tools with a high degree of caution, if they choose to use such software, because AI detector tools can vary widely in their accuracy and can produce both false negatives and false positives. Users can also bypass detection tools by revising AI-generated text and testing their work in AI detector tools themselves to check detection likelihood.

Note: Each AI detection tool differs in its approach to privacy and how inputted material may be shared with third parties. If you choose to use an AI detection tool, avoid inputting information that should not be made public, according to UIT’s guidelines for Responsible AI at Stanford. This includes personal, sensitive, confidential, or proprietary information that may be contained within students’ coursework, including student names.

In addition to stating your course policy clearly, there are some methods you can use to minimize students from turning to unpermitted aid to complete their assignments. Lowering the stakes for assignments, connecting course work to students’ intrinsic motivation, and increasing student support systems can help address underlying reasons students sometimes submit dishonest work. 

See Emphasizing Student Learning Over Tools for small-scale tips for promoting students’ learning regardless of whether they use AI tools. See Strategies for Promoting Deep Student Engagement with Assignments below for additional suggestions on how to adjust assignments or course structures to ensure students are learning deeply and to promote adherence to your course policy.

Getting Started with AI

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence technology that can generate new content based on patterns and information gathered from sets of sample materials. Here’s what else to know about this technology:

  • The most well-known generative AI tools are ‘chatbots’ (e.g., ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, or Claude). These are AI-based text generation tools that users interact with using a chat interface. Users type a question or prompt, and the chatbot responds with a cohesive and creative written answer. The chatbot can then refine or adjust its responses based on how the user continues to interact with the tool, such as by continuing to pose questions or asking for changes to the chatbot’s output.
  • Other generative AI tools produce many different outputs such as images (e.g., DALL-E or Midjourney), code (e.g., GitHub CoPilot), data analysis or visualization (e.g., ChatGPT Code Interpreter), or internet search results (e.g., Perplexity).
  • AI tools use ‘training data’ (sample materials or data) to inform the content they generate. The quality of AI-generated content can vary widely, in part based on the quality or focus of the training data. For example, a tool trained on large amounts of internet content may be able to respond to a prompt in many different and creative ways, but the tool’s output may also reflect the varying accuracy or biases embedded within the sample internet content. In addition, AI tools sometimes prioritize completing or responding to a user’s prompt over accuracy of information, and can sometimes make up information entirely (known as ‘hallucinating’).
  • For definitions of common AI terms and additional explanations of how AI chatbots work, see Stanford Teaching Commons’ resource on defining AI and chatbots.

Test out your course’s assignment(s) using one or several AI tools. Discuss your findings with your students and explain how the AI tool’s output compares to your expectations for their work. See tips and suggestions for testing your course assignments with AI tools.

Note: When testing assignments with AI tools, be sure to choose an assignment prompt that does not contain proprietary, copyrighted, or other sensitive information.

Learn more about AI tools’ strengths and limitations with five fun exercises. We recommend choosing creative topics and/or topics that you are an expert in (whether that is a business, teaching, or other topic), for the best sense of the scope and limitations of the AI tool. Select your chatbot tool of choice (e.g., ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Claude) and try one or more of the following:

  • Stump the AI. Select a topic that you are an expert in and prompt the chatbot for increasingly specific or obscure information. 
  • Brainstorm creative writing. Ask the chatbot to help you develop a fictional short story, and explore different elements of the story through conversation with the chatbot.
  • Practice a foreign language. Prompt the chatbot to be your supportive language teacher in a foreign language of your choice and ask it to help you with vocabulary practice for travel in a relevant country. 
  • Develop a project plan. Ask the chatbot to develop a project plan for an upcoming project or an itinerary for a trip, and then ask for further details, reorganizations, or sample products.
  • Try something fun. Create a recipe for a new fusion dish. Plan a themed surprise party for a special guest of honor. Play a guessing game about animals, movie stars, or another topic. Provide song recommendations based on your creative descriptions. 

These and additional sample prompts are provided in Stanford Teaching Commons’ resource on exploring the pedagogical uses of AI chatbots.

For a step-by-step guide to generative AI tools in the higher education context, see Stanford Teaching Commons’ Artificial Intelligence Teaching Guide.

TLHub Support

We can offer one-on-one consultations, answers to questions via email, and even a short presentation with Q&A at your next faculty meeting. If you have questions about the impact of generative AI tools on your course and assignments, reach out to discuss your concerns or specific use case with us.

Strategies for Promoting Deep Student Engagement with Assignments

Regardless of your course policy on AI use, it may be helpful to review your assignments and assessments and consider how to enhance students’ learning. Below, we highlight some design practices that help improve learning and encourage deep student engagement but have an added benefit of incentivizing academic honesty. Consider which suggestions may be most relevant for your course.

Supporting Students

  • Make sure students know how and when to seek help on written assignments and for exam prep.
  • Remind students of AI use policies and permitted aid or collaboration when assignments are given, not just at the start of the quarter.

Adjusting Assignment or Assessment Structure

  • Incorporate lower-stakes writing assignments as practice before assigning a higher-stakes assignment or exam.
  • Break a larger assignment into parts (e.g., topic proposal, outline, rough draft, final draft).
  • Provide feedback that students are expected to incorporate into revisions, or, in large classes where it isn’t possible to provide everyone with detailed feedback, open dedicated office hours to students seeking feedback.
  • Incorporate in-class brainstorming sessions for students to generate ideas for paper topics or arrange peer review feedback sessions on preliminary drafts.
  • Provide work samples and ask students to identify, explain, and then correct flaws or issues in the samples as part of their assignments.
  • Convert take-home assignments that may tempt the use of unpermitted aid to in-class activities. For example, instead of assigning an essay on a general topic for homework, have students complete a five- to ten-minute freewrite at the end of class to demonstrate their understanding of course materials, or have students work in small groups to paraphrase the main takeaways of the class session and develop predictions for how those ideas will apply to upcoming course material.

Shaping Meaningful Assignment Prompts

  • Allow students to shape assignments according to personal interests. You may consider asking students to apply course concepts to an issue of their choice that they are passionate about, or offering a selection of prompts for students to choose from. 
  • Adjust assignments to enhance real-world applications and reflect as much as possible the work students may do after leaving the GSB. 
  • Include assignments that are deeply context-based, such as assignments situated in personal or work experiences, group work, experiential learning tasks, in-class discussions, etc.

Additional Resources

Stanford Community Resources

Resources from Outside Institutions

Acknowledgements

This article draws from the Artificial Intelligence Teaching Guide, Stanford Teaching Commons.

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