Familiarity with GenAI tools is essential for our students’ digital literacy. All students will be using some form of GenAI in their future jobs and lives. We can help them approach the use of the technology by using GenAI tools in assignments as a way to both create better output for projects and in critically assessing the quality of the output from GenAI tools. It’s important to structure assignments that emphasize analysis, evaluation, and reflection on the AI-generated content, not just the ability to produce text and images using AI. Students need to be explicitly taught how to use generative artificial intelligence tools appropriately. 1

Before integrating GenAI in your assignments, ensure that students know the requirements you set for use of GenAI in your class. Clearly state learning goals and grading criteria in every assignment. Students should be aware of how to properly cite sources and be aware that Generative AI models, including ChatGPT, and UM-GPT can sometimes provide false or inaccurate answers. All results produced by GenAI models should be validated manually.

Encourage students to consider the ethical implications of using AI in their field and to understand potential biases.

Here are four ways GenAI can be used as an assignment in class:

Creative Writing

In a creative writing workshop, ask students to use UMGPT to generate different opening lines for a short story and ask them to choose which is the best start for their storytelling.

Students could also use DALL-E 3 to visually bring to life characters from literature or their own writing.

A Research Proposal

Any research project can use GenAI as a tool for providing feedback on research writing, similar to a copy editor’s role. GenAI should not be used exclusively to generate the proposal. As long as the human author assumes full responsibility for the final content, such editing help from generative AI is increasingly being recognized as acceptable in most disciplines where the actual language is not the primary scholarly contribution. 2

AI Generated Visualizations

Use DALL-E 3 to compare and contrast AI-generated images prompted to create in the style or of a specific artist, with actual images by those artists. Students can then discuss in small groups. Ask student groups to describe the formulaic images generated by DALL-E 3 when it is prompted to make art in the style of a specific working artist or style and compare that to thinking about how artists influenced each other in the past.

Data Analysis

Ask students to create a survey, survey their peers and then review the output using GenAI. They can use a survey in class and use the responses or data points from multiple students to show an overall summary of how students in their class have responded.

GenAI is very efficient with using clean data and can analyze information much faster than was formerly possible. The tedious portions of data analysis projects can be now automated with a few well-written prompts. Ask your students to experiment with different kinds and formats of data and then use the output to create a visualization of that data to explain the results.

For more detailed examples of assignments using GenAI, see “Creative and Critical Engagement with AI in Education” at the AI Pedagogy Project website. 

Guide to using “Data Analysis” feature in UMGPT. 

References:

1. Kelly, Andrew, Miriam Sullivan, and Katrina Strampel. "Generative artificial intelligence: University student awareness, experience, and confidence in use across disciplines." (2023).

2. Unlocking Human-AI Potential - 10 Best Practices for AI Assignments in Higher Ed, The Association of College and University Educators (ACUE)

3. Michigan Institute for Data and Society Generative AI Hub User’s Guide