GenAI to Support Instruction

Strategies for Instructor Use of GenAI

There are dozens of ways instructors can use GenAI. You first need to determine what standards, policies or guidelines there are from your unit and/or professional organization regarding GenAI use. Once you know what you can do, then its seeing what you are comfortable with by exploring the options. CTL is excited to consult with you about your goals and help you find ways GenAI can help make your job easier, more meaningful and/or more enjoyable.

Top GenAI Uses

Curriculum Development: develop games, interactive tools with assessment, create assessments
Enhancing Teaching Practices – create personalized learning experiences, provide targeted feedback, adapt instruction
Automate Administrative Workflows – inform grading, scheduling, and communication
Conduct Academic Research – support bibliometric analysis, implement and interpret statistical models, revised academic papers based on reviewer feedback

Type of Engagement

Using GenAI efficiently can be challenging due to the vastness of its capabilities and the need for specific instructions to generate desired outputs. Depending on your purpose, you might choose to engage directly with a LLM (i.e. Claude, Gemini, Copilot) or a system that uses a LLM (i.e. Quizzizz, MagicschoolAI, Eduaide.ai). Working directly with an LLM allows you to design the task specifically where you can ask it to change the output but you've got to prompt it appropriately, which can take time. A system may save you time by having you fill in the blanks but the output is copy/paste without ability to ask for iterations. Test different LLMs and systems out, see what works best for you!

You could also interact with or design a custom bot trained and personalized for a specific use (i.e. Gemini Gems, ChatGPT GPTs or Claude's Projects). They are created and hosted with a LLM, can support/guide repetitive functions (i.e. students sharing an experience) and can be shared privately or published more broadly.

Strategies for engaging directly with LLMs

Prompt libraries alleviate this difficulty of getting what you from GenAI by offering pre-structured guidelines and examples, streamlining the creative process and enhancing productivity. We have brought together some examples for you and links to GenAI Libraries to better support you and your students' use of GenAI.

General Guidance for AI Prompting

GenAI works better when you give it more details. *more details coming soon*

Example Prompts

We have a few example prompts from one of workshops for you to view as well - it includes a framework users designing their own prompts.

Lesson Plan Prompt

For my {course name}, I want you to help me create a class lesson about {content/ chapter titles}. This is a {class length} {course modality} class meeting and assumes students have read the chapter before coming to this class session. There are # students. Create the lesson to engage students around the main elements of the chapter they have read. As you develop the lesson, make sure to use Gagne’s 9 Events of Instruction as a guide {or some other teaching theory}. I’d like to include a brief anonymous poll using Poll Everywhere to provide 5 multiple choice or true-false questions for me to use. Let’s include a related brief video in there as well, approximately 5-10 minutes in length. I’d prefer if you found one for me that is from a TED Talk as those are high quality and captioned. Incorporate some active group learning on the topic later in the lesson. I will want the name of the activity, instructions, tasks students are to complete, and what they can submit to show their work for participation. Looking forward to the great ideas you provide!

Active Learning Prompt

You are an expert in creating effective active learning exercises and are to help me. The activity we will create is a peer collaboration, will take place in a {course modality} class, and is to be based on the topic {topic}. It needs to be designed to enable students to demonstrate an understanding of {learning objective}. The activity is to last {time length}. Upon completion of the activity, students are to submit a worksheet that you will create for this activity. Now that you have all of this information, create a set of instructions that will tell me what I need to do to prepare for the activity. Create a brief and engaging description of the activity that I can post in Canvas so students know what we will be doing, and a one-page worksheet they will complete during the activity and then submit. The worksheet should include {insert any specific instructions}. Make sure the worksheet is structured well to guide their experience and provide it to me in downloadable format. Take your time and follow my instructions very carefully so we can make this the best experience possible.

Case Studies Prompt

You are an expert instructor in {field/ topic}. I want you to help me create a case study assignment as an effective learning and assessment strategy to enable my {topic} students to apply their knowledge. The case study assignment is to be based on hypothetical yet realistic scenarios. The assignment will require students to apply critical thinking skills. You will create instructions for the assignment. The students are to create and submit a two-page report. The assignment is to be worth 50 points, with 20 points weighted on how well they analyze the scenario presented, 20 points on their recommended course of action/ approach, and 10 points on the quality of the report they submit. Create a rubric table that has a column for each of the 3 criteria and description of performance levels for each as “Exceeds Expectations,” “Meets Expectations,” and “Below Expectations.” Distribute the points for each criterion across the performance levels. Now, create 3 case study scenarios. Without giving away too much, create one related to {topic}, one related to {topic}, and one related to {topic}. Let’s see what you create. Take your time and think about it as this is a very important learning experience and way for us to assess our students’ understanding of the course content.

Grading & Feedback Prompts

ChatGPT Grading Prompt: You are an expert in educational assessment. I am teaching a {course name} course and would like you to assist me in the creation of a # question exam on {content/ chapter titles}. I would like # of the questions to be multiple-choice, # questions multiple response, and # questions true-false. Each question is to be worth # points. Create the questions, the possible responses, and include the correct answers for me. Take your time to create good questions and answers and remember that the goal is to test students’ knowledge on these subjects, not trick them. Remember, YOU are to create all # quiz questions for me, so keep working until you have created all of them.
ChatGPT Feedback Prompt: You are a friendly and helpful mentor who gives students effective, specific, concrete feedback about their work. In this scenario, you play the role of mentor only. You have high standards and believe that students can achieve those standards. Your role is to give feedback in a straightforward and clear way, to ask students questions that prompt them to explain the feedback and how they might act on it, and to urge students to act on the feedback as it can lead to improvement.

Prompt Libraries

Prompt Libraries can be helpful in helping you think about how you can engage more productively with GenAI. Many libraries are searchable or are themed to help users find templates for what to type into GenAI to help you get the output you want. Below are just two prompt libraries that may be helpful to you:

: This library is specifically for educators. The prompts are organized into themes like assessment, professional development, for students, lesson planning and communication.
: This is an AI that is organized to look like a library and generate appropriate prompts for your use.

If you have specific prompts or different prompt libraries that have been helpful to you or your students, please let us know at ctl@kent.edu.

Try out a Gem

If you'd like to try out a Gem designed to help instructor think about redesigning an activity that engages students in GenAI, feel free to try LeighAnn's . All you've got to send is "hi" to get started and it will ask you questions. This could be a helpful, but not necessary, brainstorming activity prior to a consultation on integration.

Agentic AI is another form of use that acts independently and completes workflows/steps. It can plan, reason and make multi-step actions with limited to no human oversight. While there are use cases for instructors to use agentic AI (i.e. comb the internet for [insert x], organize it ___), there are many concerns with privacy, security, and professional standards not yet addressing agentic AI. Browser extensions, browser agents and agentic AI should not have access to Canvas or any institutional system unless you've been given explicit permission by IT for a pilot project with safeguards.

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