Artificial Intelligence in Classes

The widespread accessibility of AI and LLM assistive technologies - including those available for writing, coding, drawing, and solving equations/problems - create opportunities and challenges for teaching and learning. These opportunities and challenges make it even more important for instructors to think carefully about whether and how to use AI in teaching and to communicate clearly (and repeatedly) with students and teaching assistants about their decisions. In addition to the guidance on this page, please also refer to the Generative Artificial Intelligence in Teaching and Learning webpage.

Generative AI in Teaching and Learning

The following recommendations are designed to help you manage and track students’ learning processes and/or discourage AI use in your course. These guidelines prioritize transparency, trust and engagement.

• Design for Human-Centered Interactions. Create meaningful opportunities for student interaction and discussion that help students use and develop their critical thinking skills and simultaneously give you a clearer idea of their learning process. For complex assignments, prioritize facilitating writing/problem-solving over an extended time period as a way to scaffold students’ learning.
• Focus on the Learning Process, Not just Product. Make assignments more meaningful by requiring students to connect academic content with their own thinking and lived experience. You can also make the learning and critical thinking processes very transparent to your students so they can evaluate the difference between human and artificial “intelligence”. For example, consider requiring students to show/annotate their work, submit drafts for feedback, or explain/reflect on their thought processes via voice or video recording.
• Discuss AI's Limitations: Dedicate time to exploring and discussing the inaccuracies, biases, and ethical issues associated with AI-generated content. Use concrete examples and allow students to experiment with why they cannot rely on it for academic work.

Policies for Gen AI in Classes

Neither UCSB nor the UC system has a formal policy on generative AI in teaching and learning contexts, thereby allowing instructors to formulate their own class policies. Many instructors have different policies for each assignment and/or an AI-attribution clause for assignments in which students describe and reflect on their use of AI, whereas others have a no-AI policy for their course. Regardless of which approach you take, we recommend that you:

• Foster an Environment of Trust and Transparency. A trusting and transparent environment makes students more likely to engage with you directly rather than turning to an AI tool. Discuss the "why" behind your policies and teaching strategies. Explain that AI policies are not to punish, but to ensure students develop their own skills and voices.
• Use clear, supportive, positive language. Frame your policies around learning and skill development, not punishment. Share why (or why not) you’ve used AI in your own work. If you use AI, show how you cite/attribute AI usage.
• Explain your "why." Clearly communicate how your approach to AI supports student learning and aligns with the goals of your course.
• Reframe the Conversation: If you do allow students to use AI, position it as a tool for specific tasks (e.g. translation support or as a study tool). Discuss how students’ “mental weightlifting” will build [insert specific] skills and create opportunities for feedback on their learning (e.g. via polling, partner work or flipping the class).

To create an AI policy for your courses, consider what you would do if the following scenarios occurred and how UCSB students are using AI. Would you permit some of these uses? None of them? All of them? Communicating to students about your decision and the reasons for it is critical.

1. A non-native English speaking student writes part of their report in their native language, and then uses AI to translate it into English and do some copy editing.
2. A student asks AI to summarize an assigned journal article and to define the discipline-specific language in  the results section.
3. Based on your assignment instructions and rubric, a student group uses AI to create several possible outlines and thesis statements for their final presentation.
4. A student inputs your practice quiz questions into AI and asks it to create ten more questions similar in topic and level of difficulty so they can practice for the exam.
5. You ask students to use Gen AI to produce a creative media product. One student has a paid subscription to a Gen AI, while another student does not. The quality of the respective products they produce is noticeably different.
6. A student uploads your course slides, readings, and their own notes into an AI bot that they created as a tutor to help them with homework and prepare for exams.
7. Students ask an AI to help them create and debug programming code for their homework.

The Office of Teaching and Learning has sample Generative AI policies that you can adapt for your course and assignments. Please meet with an Instructional Consultant at OTL if you want feedback on your policy or want to go through more nuanced scenarios related to your course assessments.

Approach to Suspected AI Misuse

While AI detection software exists, the UCSB Office of Student Conduct does not accept these tools as sole evidence for academic dishonesty due to their known inaccuracies. If misuse of AI is suspected, the determination will be based on a "preponderance of evidence," which may include a comparison to students’ previous work, an oral discussion of the submitted work, or other indicators of a substantial change in writing style or content that suggests unauthorized assistance. To this end, it may be useful to scaffold larger assignments with in-class writing tasks that support student learning and provide a sample of their writing without AI assistance. Read more guidance from the Office of Teaching and Learning and the Office of Student Conduct.
 

Key Approaches for Teaching with AI

Whether you want to discourage or encourage AI use in your courses, consider how you can set students up for success with the following approaches:

In cases where you feel that AI can be used to support student learning, work with students to use AI/LLMs in productive ways (see list below).

1. Think about your course objectives. What are the cognitive tasks students need to perform without AI assistance? When could/should students rely on AI assistance to help them practice or find inspiration? Where can an AI facilitate a better outcome, creation, or product? Are new rubrics and assignment instructions needed?
2. Examine the potential for and risks of integrating AI tools into the research process, given that LLMs can "hallucinate" and generate false facts, statements, or sources. Urge students to cross-check AI-generated information and develop critical appraisal skills to maintain the credibility and precision of their work.
3. Examine and address potential biases and fairness concerns that may arise from AI technology, including the perpetuation of stereotypes or the exclusion of specific perspectives. Promote critical thinking and discussions to recognize and counteract biases in AI-generated content. Stimulate discussions about problem-solving and writing processes, strategies, and ethics through class explorations of AI technology. Work with your students to generate diverse examples using AI, then compare and contrast them with student work, and examine their strengths and weaknesses collaboratively.
4. Explore ways that people in careers in your field (potentially) use AI. What kinds of assignments could help students learn those skills, as well as the pros and cons of using AI in their future workplace?
5. Encourage student creativity and curiosity by leveraging AI technology to create initial prompts, classifications, topics, or questions for exploration.
6. Challenge students to interrogate how AI technology can help them problem-solve, brainstorm, and compose pieces across various genres, styles, and perspectives.
7. Invite students to utilize AI to generate text in specific genres in order to recognize and identify genre conventions and reflect upon the role of audience, purpose, and context in developing rhetorically effective prose.
8. Encourage students to compare AI-generated text, code, analyses, etc. with human-generated versions to see how individual agency, voice, style, and ethos are impacted.