Teaching Commons > Teaching Guides > Technology > Artificial Intelligence > Teaching Recommendations

AI Teaching Recommendations

Masland (2023) describes a range of ongoing responses to emerging AI technologies in higher education. In doing so, Masland encourages instructors to reflect while considering the best ways to integrate AI in their teaching:

  • What do I want to model to my students about this technology?
  • What additional labor am I willing to invite into my teaching?
  • How can I ensure that my response to this threat isn't bigger than the threat itself?
  • What decisions can I make that will maximize my student's success and my own enjoyment of this facet of my career?

Draft a syllabus statement and discuss academic integrity with students.

A syllabus statement and other classroom policies will help you to enforce your expectations for AI use in your classroom.

  1. Familiarize yourself with DePaul’s Academic Integrity Policy and any department, college , and field-specific generative AI guidance and approaches.
  2. Detail your expectations for students with a syllabus statement.
  3. Workshop your statement with colleagues and review how others have approached syllabus statement development.
  4. Use your syllabus statement as a starting point for co-creating specific guidelines for responsibly using AI tools with students.
  5. Reflect on your plan for approaching students if you suspect they have used generative AI inappropriately and in violation of your classroom policies. Provide students with resources for navigating generative AI and academic integrity.

Syllabus Statement Drafting

An AI syllabus statement should help you and your students identify appropriate AI use for the class. The following questions are designed to help you reflect on and describe appropriate AI use in your classes, and were generated from a review of syllabus statements from many institutions curated by Lance Eaton.

  • What role does generative AI play in your course or field? What do students need to know about the possibilities of AI tools?
  • Is the use of AI tools appropriate in this class? If so, are there limitations based on tool, assignment, stage of the project, type of prompt, percentage of original to AI-generated content, etc.? Are there specific examples of what’s appropriate (e.g., brainstorming and idea generation) and what’s not (e.g., analytical or reflective work, checking grammar, or generating sentence structure options)?
  • Is the use of AI tools appropriate for some assignments and not for others? How will students know when it’s appropriate to use AI tools?
  • If AI usage is appropriate for an assignment, how should students indicate that they’ve used AI? What are the citation expectations?
  • Will you be using an AI detection tool to look for AI usage in student work? If an AI detection tool indicates that a student has used an AI tool, what are your steps for adjudication?
  • What are the possible penalties for students who violate this AI usage policy? What is the relationship between the AI policy and the DePaul Academic Integrity policy?
  • How should students consider your AI policy when navigating their other courses and coursework?
  • How will you use AI tools to support the course?
  • What sources did the instructor reference in creating their AI policy?

Everyone is still learning about generative AI tools. Providing students with some information about the limitations of AI tools will help them to make informed decisions about how they use them.

  • AI tools can generate inaccurate information or hallucinate, making up sources and information.
  • AIs are trained on existing information and therefore are limited in supporting future-oriented thinking.
  • AIs are trained on existing information that contains bias and therefore may perpetuate those biases.
  • Using an AI gives it permission to integrate your prompts into its learning; you’re providing free labor in exchange for the use of the tool, and you can’t fully control how your work will be used in the tools “learning.”

Syllabus Statement Generator

The DePaul Generative AI Syllabus Statement Generator will help you to create a statement via prompts and example statement text. This generator is inspired by Chris Heard's work as Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Seaver College.

Syllabus Statement Examples

These examples have been written with DePaul’s approach to AI in mind. Please note some departments and colleges may have their own AI policies that must be used verbatim or considered when drafting AI statements.

Students are allowed to use generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT or Dall-E 2, on specific assignments in this course. Each assignment sheet will indicate if AI use is permitted. When permitted, students must document and credit the AI tool. For example, paraphrased text generated using ChatGPT should include a citation according to APA, MLA, or Chicago Style generative AI citation guidelines.

Material generated using other AI tools should follow a similar citation convention.

The use of generative AI tools is permitted in this course for the following activities:

  • Brainstorming ideas
  • Fine tuning your research questions
  • Exploring what you need to learn about your topics
  • Drafting outlines
  • Checking grammar

If you use generative AI in any of the above ways, please describe the tools you used, and how you used them, in a paragraph at the end of your discussion post or essay. Please include the prompts you provided to the generative AI tools.

The use of generative AI tools is prohibited in this course for the following assignments and activities:

  • Composing discussion board posts and responses
  • Writing reflections, including exit tickets and process logs
  • Writing drafts of a writing assignment
  • Writing paragraphs used to complete any assignments

If you are unsure about whether or not a specific tool or use of AI is permitted, please contact me. Using generative AI in a way that is not permitted is considered a violation of DePaul’s Academic Integrity Policy.

Generative AI tools are trained on existing texts, algorithms, and models to generate content like writing, images, and videos based on prompts from users. ChatGPT, Midjourney, Google Bard, and DALL-E are examples of generative AI tools. Please refrain from using generative AI in this course for any purpose. We will be developing skills that are important to practice on your own and using generative AI may inhibit development, practice, or understanding of those skills. During class, we will discuss how and why generative AI may disrupt your learning.

If you’re unsure if a specific tool makes use of AI, or if a specific tool is permitted for use on assignments in this course, please contact me. Attempting to pass off AI-generated work as your own will violate DePaul’s Academic Integrity Policy.

In this course, we will spend some time analyzing how AI impacts our work as writers. We will think critically about the best and worst ways to use AI in our University writing and the writing we do outside of the University. I will use AI to brainstorm assignment and activity ideas and to generate writing that we can analyze and provide feedback on as a class.

For your course work, we will treat AI-based assistance, such as the use of ChatGPT and Google Bard, the same way we treat collaboration with other people: you are welcome to talk about your ideas and work with other people, both inside and outside the class, as well as with AI-based tools. You can use these resources for every assignment in our course unless otherwise noted in the assignment instructions. However, all work you submit must be your own. Avoid hitting “Copy” within your conversation with an AI tool. Do not have your assignment and the AI tool open at the same time to limit the urge to copy the responses. Use your conversation with the AI as a learning experience, then close the interaction down, open your assignment, and let your assignment reflect your revised knowledge.

You should never include in your assignment anything that was not written directly by you without proper citation. In this course, we will predominantly use MLA citation style. Use the generative AI MLA citation guidelines any time you paraphrase, quote, or incorporate into your own work any content (whether text, image, data, or other) that was created by AI. Please note that the MLA guidelines also recommend adding notes to your work where you explain in greater detail how you used AI. Throughout the quarter, I will also ask you to reflect on your AI use in class discussions and process-based reflective writing, and will ask you to provide direct links to your chats with ChatGPT.

AI tools can generate inaccurate information, even to the point of making up sources. AI tools are trained on existing information and therefore are limited in supporting future-oriented thinking. AI tools are trained on existing information that contains bias. Therefore, they may perpetuate those biases. Using an AI tool gives it permission to integrate your prompts into its learning; essentially, you’re providing free labor in exchange for the use of the tool, and you can’t always control how your work will be used to inform future iterations of the tools.

I will read your work throughout the quarter and learn more about your writing style. During class, we will also talk about the features and limitations of AI-generated writing. Throughout the quarter, I will see how AI responds to our assignment prompts. If I suspect that you have submitted work that is not your own without citation, including work generated by AI, I will set a time to meet with you. If you blatantly violate DePaul’s Academic Integrity Policy and the citation guidelines in our syllabus, I will report an academic integrity violation.

While all DePaul courses are guided by DePaul’s Academic Integrity Policy, professors in other courses may set different guidelines for using AI assistance. Please check with your professors before using AI assistance to support your course work.

We’re currently in a time of transition and learning with generative AI, the new-ish tools that respond to prompts and create new texts, code, images, and other materials that are grounded in existing human- created work. Here’s how I’d like us to think about, and learn about, these tools together:

In this course, you’re welcome to treat generative AIs like ChatGPT, Google Bard, Microsoft Bing, Anthropic Claude, DALL-E, etc., as you would a human resource: You can bounce ideas off of the AI. You can share some of your writing with the AI and ask for grammatical or syntactical advice (as long as you’re comfortable with your work becoming part of the AI’s training, with no compensation for you!). You can have a conversation with the AI as you’re planning a draft.

But, my expectation is that the work you submit in class is primarily authored by you. A key learning path in our class involves practicing different writing skills, and neither of us will know what you’re learning if you’re relying on AI to produce the text that represents your thinking.

Human authorship is especially important in creative and reflective writing, and we’ll be doing both in this class! You’ll miss out on key learning if you’re relying on AI for the creation of these types of texts. In each assignment description, I’ve included explicit expectations on how you may or may not use AI for that assignment.

If I think an assignment might have a bit too much AI intervention, my first step will be to have a conversation with you, so that we can understand your composition process and work together to align expectations. However, if this becomes a pattern, I’ll be relying on DePaul’s Academic Integrity Policy (also detailed below) for next steps.

The screenwriting program at DePaul is committed to fostering the unique voices and perspectives of up-and-coming screenwriters, as evidenced by our motto: “learn your craft, find your voice, make your mark.” Writers should be aware that AI (generative artificial intelligence) is a tool and only a tool. It does not create; it aggregates and repurposes previously published content. As such, AI may facilitate the story development process, but cannot replace what each individual writer brings to a story: their distinctive point of view and voice. We understand that students may wish to use AI tools to aid in the development and early drafts of screenplays and screenwriting assignments. To do so with academic integrity, students must understand and adhere to the following:

  • Developing ideas, creative problem-solving, honing one’s voice, and engaging in rewriting are at the core of the writing process, and the use of AI is not a replacement for enhancing these fundamental skills.
  • Acknowledge your use of AI. For any assignment that you complete using AI, you must include a paragraph that explains 1) what AI tool you used, 2) what prompts you used, and 3) a clear explanation of how it helped you engage in the writing process.
  • AI-assisted work may be accepted as part of the development of any project (including story ideation, character development, world-building, basic outlining, etc.), but the entirety of your screenplay/writing assignment must be authored by you.

Look for opportunities to check in with students’ processes and learning strategies.

Use your assignment prompts to experiment with generative AI tools.

Discuss the possibilities and limitations of generative AI tools with students.

Use texts from “Stay Current on Trends in Higher Education” to guide some of your discussion. Consider how your field or discipline impacts the conversation and look for AI-related discussions in your discipline’s publications. 

"Get Up to Speed with AI" Checklist

Joe Veverka, an instructor in DePaul’s Department of Marketing, developed a “Get Up to Speed with AI” checklist that combines recommendations for how instructors can familiarize themselves with generative AI and suggestions for intentionally integrating generative AI in activities and assignments with students. The checklist is divided into three phases: 

Before you use any Generative AI service, please review the terms of use to ensure you understand exactly how your data will be used. This can range from data being used to train or refine models, or steering responses toward human preference. As a best practice, never provide a chat service DePaul proprietary information or intellectual property unless the service is designed for specifically enterprise use with the necessary protections.

  • Put in your assignment prompts to see what the AI generates.
  • Using that baseline information, create an anticipated prompting path that students might use for an assignment. Plan to share your most successful prompts with your students to help get them started.
    • Remember, using Generative AI is the same as a spoken conversation with humans. You need to provide context to the conversation in your prompt(s) to make the conversation more effective. Be willing and prepared to have a chat that is 5-10 prompts long and build on detail along the way to get to the outcome you want.  
  • Evaluate the process yourself and determine if you want to integrate this intentionally in your course.
    • Your students may already be familiar with using Generative AI, so be sure to take into account varying levels of familiarity if you choose to add it to your course.

Another caution: Requiring students to use AI is tricky! There are many free versions, but there are also some paid versions so there are potential equity issues to consider. Additionally, take into account that some legacy models of ChatGPT are constrained to information before September 2021, while search engines powered by AI like Bing Chat and Google Bard have access to current real-time information. Ensure you are guiding students to the experience that is more relevant for the course work you are assigning.

  • Be prepared to discuss the assignment with your students, as well as any student concerns related to privacy of the information they put into the AI. Encourage your students to review the terms of use prior to using any tool.
  • Ask students to provide a citation as they normally would with referencing any material on the Internet. In some instances, links to conversation chats can be provided so you can directly access the conversation.
  • Ask students to write a summary of their prompts and how the AI outputs supported or distracted from their working process.
  • Ask students to reflect further on their experience:
    • What worked
    • What didn’t work?
    • How did this experience impact your perception of AI?
    • Did using AI for parts of the project help you create more sophisticated or complex work? 
    • Did using AI hinder you from exploring paths not presented by the AI?


​