AI in Teaching and Learning: A CTAL Faculty Learning Community

Description and Context

Designed to complement ongoing campus and national conversations about the use of AI in teaching and learning in higher education, this faculty learning community (FLC) is an opportunity for faculty to share their current state-of-practice using these tools. This FLC will provide faculty grappling with the broad ethical, social, cultural, and practical challenges that underlie the use of such tools in teaching with an opportunity to share their experiences with others undertaking the same work.

This FLC is designed as a “for-faculty, by-faculty” space for those actively teaching to engage in cross-disciplinary conversations about their lived experiences with AI in teaching and learning. There is no single required product to be produced by the end of the semester, but several avenues for future work are suggested.

Dependant upon the number of interested participants, we may create multiple cohorts to accommodate faculty from a variety of disciplines.

Guiding Questions

Taking inspiration from the recent call for applications from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)’s “Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities,” our guiding questions will align with current social and cultural issues surrounding technology and artificial intelligence. We do not expect or request that the FLC address all of these questions; these questions are a starting point for the members of the FLC to determine their focus for this one-semester collaboration.

- What are the ethical and social implications of using AI:
  - As a teaching tool?
  - Within the context of course-level assessment?
  - To generate course materials?
- To what extent do AI tools challenge notions of authorship and originality in the context of student work?
- To what extent could AI tools provide opportunities or supports that might ameliorate current inequities in teaching and learning?
- What privacy rights can or should students reasonably respect with regards to their use of their work for a course that involves an AI utilized for teaching or assessment?
- How can we teach students about the cultural biases and limitations present in currently widely-used AI tools like DALL-E, ChatGPT, and others?
- What are the ethical implications of not teaching students with and about AI tools in the context of a humanistic education?

Further Details

FLC proposed outcomes:

FLC participants will be expected to engage in structured conversations across the semester, with the ultimate goal of producing some form of artifact or product that captures aspects of the semester-long discussion. Participants will be allowed to select from a variety of outcomes, based on their disciplines, professional goals, and interests. These include:

Preparation of a grant application to the NEH’s Dangers and Opportunities of Technology (DOT) program or a similar opportunity
A web-resource hosted on the CTAL or AI working group website (e.g. white paper, handbook, how-to-guide…)
A conference presentation (here at UD or any other higher education venue or institution)
A lesson plan, unit of instruction, Canvas module, or other type of artifact for a course that highlights the work undertaken over the course of the semester

Participant characteristics

Faculty participants are expected to be currently using AI tools within their teaching and learning.

Full-time faculty at all ranks and on both CT and TT tracks are welcome to apply.

The organizers seek to bring together diverse perspectives and foster connections across disciplines that will ultimately lead to cross-disciplinary and campus-wide resource sharing. The cohort of participating faculty will be selected with this diversity of perspectives in mind.

Time commitments

The FLC will meet 9 times over the course of the Spring 2024 semester. These meetings will not take place during the first 3 or last 3 weeks of the semester. A day and time will be mutually agreed upon by the selected participants.

Meetings will be between 60-90 minutes, and each participant will serve as a discussion leader for at least one meeting. Preparation for those meetings is expected to take 1-2 hours per week, with perhaps slightly more time as participants write or review documents.

Compensation and Recognition

1-2 faculty will be designated as facilitators, a role that encompasses additional responsibilities and compensation. Compensation for facilitators will be $2500 per semester. Additional responsibilities for this role include: scheduling of meetings, maintenance of shared materials and documents, tracking participation, and setting deadlines for deliverables.

Participating faculty will receive $1000 upon successful completion of the FLC. The final funds will be disbursed to those participants who:

Attend 7 of the 9 scheduled sessions
Submit an artifact (e.g. a sample teaching philosophy, a tip-sheet…) to be included on the CTAL website for broad distribution.

Participants will also receive a formal letter of documentation that can be included in a dossier for the purposes of promotion, tenure, or reappointment.

Eligibility and Application

All full-time faculty, regardless of rank or track are eligible to join. Adjuncts, part-time faculty, and graduate students are not eligible.

To apply, please complete this application form. Questions can be directed to: CTAL’s Associate Director for Educational Development, Dr. Rose Muravchick (rosemur@udel.edu).