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AI Commons Bulletin 1/29/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

✨ Model Course Framework for Teaching Ethical and Effective Use of AI
Educators from LUT University, Finland, lay out a course with 4 modules;
- Introduction to Generative AI
- Ethics in Generative AI Usage
- Core Principles of Efficiency and Prompt Engineering
- Project Work for Practicing Efficient AI Usage

Learn More: https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/7d863060-bedf-446e-9862-154add2711fc/content

💯 ChatGPT4 Enrolled in an Online Masters Course and Earned Top Grades
In an online Master of Health Administration course, neither the instructor nor students knew the top-performing student was AI. ChatGPT excelled in quizzes, tests, attendance, and discussions.

Learn More: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/aupha/jhae/2024/00000040/00000004/art00005

👣 Step-By-Step Instructions for Building an AI Skills Trainer
Law professor Alexandria Serra shares how they created “MootMentor AI” to provide students practical legal advocacy experience. Key insights include pre-building decisions. See page 91 for details.

Learn More: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1168&context=jolti

💬 Communication Teacher: Special Issue on AI
A special issue of Communication Teacher explores four AI adaptation stances: observation, replication, enhancement, and transformation. Articles cover how educators integrate generative AI, with assignments, student reflections, and practical applications for communication courses.

Learn More: https://doi.org/10.1080/17404622.2024.2419012

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

AI Commons Bulletin 1/27/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

🎭 AI Can Role Play with Students
Creating AI-powered personas is now easier, enabling students to practice communicating with specific individuals like a boss, client, or even an injured person requiring emergency medical assistance.
Learn More: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/message/19:mPsjLgF9cSWjMOuyq4MgyL7R3OZR2BetLpENn7G0N5k1@thread.tacv2/1737984638529?tenantId=22177130-642f-41d9-9211-74237ad5687d&groupId=518d739a-4a75-49d3-bff7-a0be2e362aab&parentMessageId=1737984638529&teamName=AI%20Commons&channelName=AI%20Commons%20Bulletin&createdTime=1737984638529&ngc=true&allowXTenantAccess=true

💬 Breaking Down AI Controversies
This resource explores the major debates surrounding AI, including its ethical implications, impact on creativity, and potential for misinformation. Use it to spark meaningful classroom discussions or build critical thinking assignments.
Learn More: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qesxRSOZSlECOWvFJX-XOBuXL3iTmMnTHKihz4-81TY/edit?tab=t.0

✔️ Try This: Use AI to Check Your Grading
Grading essays can raise consistency concerns. Upload papers and grades, and AI can check for consistency. Use MSU’s CoPilot for secure student record handling.
Learn More: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.06461

🗺️ A Custom AI Chatbot Can Help Incoming Students Navigate Student Services
The University of the South Pacific (Fiji) offers new students an AI chatbot for orientation, answering service questions and helping with literacy, numeracy, and digital skills for their courses.
Learn More: https://jehe.globethics.net/article/view/6867/6023

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

AI Commons Bulletin 1/24/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

😊 The New Study Buddy: AI is Becoming a Tutor for Some College of Natural Science Students
MSU students are increasingly using AI tools like ChatGPT and the Khanmigo tutoring program to enhance learning, offering instant, interactive assistance for homework and studies.
Learn More: https://natsci.msu.edu/news/2025-01-the-new-study-buddy.aspx

🧠 Students Might Off-Load Critical Thinking to AI
This study found that using AI didn’t change students’ intrinsic motivation to learn. However, they did find that AI tended to cause “metacognitive laziness”. In other words, to avoid te work of critical thinking that AI is supposed to free them up to do.
Learn More: https://doi-org.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/10.1111/bjet.13544

🏫 Perplexity Pays Students to Market For Them
At least on AI company is using stealth marketing on campuses. Perplexity’s “Campus Strategist” program gives students a budget to spread awareness of Perplexity among their classmates.
Learn More: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/perplexity-s-2024-campus-strategist-program

🦠 The Education Revolution Through AI
This open-access book offers a collection of chapters on AI’s impact on higher education. Key topics:
Potential: Personalized learning, automated tasks, and adaptive teaching
Challenges: Bias, ethics, and data privacy in education
Applications: Integrating AI into research, teaching, and course design
Learn More: https://octaedro.com/libro/the-education-revolution-through-artificial-intelligence/

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

AI Commons Bulletin 1/22/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

📷 AI for Photographic Course Materials
Instructors using photos in course materials can explore AI tools that extend images into panoramic or 360-degree views. Currently based on a single photo, these tools may soon evolve to include context, offering more accurate and dynamic results.

Learn More: https://people.engr.tamu.edu/nimak/Papers/PanoDreamer/index.html

👍 Policies at German Universities Generally Positive Toward AI
A content analysis of AI guidelines at 67 universities in Germany can be summed up as: use it if you wish, just be open and transparent.

Learn More: https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12891

💬 Word of the Day: Agentic Era
Google sees the future as agentic. To them, this means AI that can “understand more about the world around you, think multiple steps ahead, and take action on your behalf”. In other words, AI that makes decisions and adapts to its surroundings.

Learn More: https://blog.google/technology/google-deepmind/google-gemini-ai-update-december-2024/

🏫 Learning Needs in the Age of AI is Different
The rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) sparks important discussions regarding learner independence and self-direction:
1. How to use AI productively for one’s learning needs
2. How to evaluate AI responses
3. How to maintain one’s own voice

Learn More: https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14121369

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

AI Commons Bulletin 1/15/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

🧬 Use Case: A Structured Framework Requiring ChatGPT Use
Graduate students used ChatGPT for a project, following specific steps and justifying their choices. The assessment emphasized critical thinking. Students appreciated the structured framework, which helped them learn ChatGPT’s use and weaknesses effectively.
Learn More: https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2024.2421997

🔍 Explore a Self-Directed Learning Bot

Did you know you can create a customized version of ChatGPT for your students? An example is LearnGuide, created to add self-directed learning to a problem-based learning (PBL) medical curriculum. Students learned as well as or better than those who did not use the tool.
Learn More: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-oZ8zdPaKp-learnguide

✏️ Writing Improved When Assisted by AI

Subjects wrote stories with ChatGPT-3’s assistance. Those who modified AI suggestions produced higher-quality, less biased writing than those who accepted or rejected them outright. Researchers attribute this to higher-order thinking during modification.
Learn More: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.07200

🚫 Why Academics Don’t Use AI

A survey of UK academics found half did not use AI tools in their work because:
They didn’t know how to use AI or if it was allowed
Ethical issues relating to how AI works
Lack of time and interest
They prefer to do work themselves
Reject AI as dehumanizing
AI is inaccurate and can’t be trusted
Learn More: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-024-00524-x

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

AI Commons Bulletin 1/13/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

😮 Word of the Day: “AI-giarism”
“The unethical practice of using artificial intelligence technologies, particularly generative language models, to generate content that is plagiarized either from original human-authored work or directly from AI-generated content, without appropriate acknowledgement of the original sources or AI’s contribution.” (Chan, 2024)
Learn More: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-13151-7

💚 H-Net Hosts 2025 AI Symposium: Fear, Faith, and Praxis: Artificial Intelligence in the Humanities and Social Sciences
This year’s theme, “Fear, Faith, and Praxis: Artificial Intelligence, Humanities, and Social Sciences,” focuses on student-centered approaches to the use of AI in pedagogical practice and reassessing previous assumptions about AI. This two-day event will be held on MSU’s campus on Feb 20-21, 2025, and available via live stream on the H-Net Commons.
Learn More: https://networks.h-net.org/2025-ai-symposium

💬 Try This: Use AI to Make Peer Feedback More Effective
Use this prompt: ‘‘I teach a university class where students work on teams for the semester. You are my assistant, who is going to help me provide formative feedback to my students. I collect peer comments periodically throughout out the semester, and I would like you to summarize the comments into a performance feedback review in a way that is constructive and actionable. Additionally, the students assess themselves and I would like you to compare their responses to the peer feedback. The output should be in the form of a letter, and please exclude anything that is inappropriate for the workplace.’’ [If there are less than 2 comments for a student, please provide generic feedback only.]
Learn More: https://www.ijee.ie/1atestissues/Vol40-5/02_ijee4488.pdf

🫥 AI’s That Can Read Your Student’s Emotions
Google wants its AI bots to read emotions. Critics point out the dangers from misclassifying user behaviors. AND recent research suggests the science of “universal emotions” is culturally biased.
Learn More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/05/google-says-its-new-open-models-can-identify-emotions-and-that-has-experts-worried/

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

AI Commons Bulletin 1/8/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

💚 MSU IT Releases New Copilot and Generative AI Guidance
MSU IT claims that Copilot surpasses the safety standards MSU has been able to endorse for other programs, such as ChatGPT. Instructors, staff, and students can input any institutional data -- EXCEPT HIPAA data -- into Copilot.

Learn More: MSU IT. tech.msu.edu/news/2024/12/microsoft-copilot-and-generative-ai-guidance/

🆕 AI Commons article: AI as a Learning Partner: Offering Supports Through Generative AI
Dr. Kevin Haudek offers a constructivist approach to how GenAI agents can be developed to provide different types of support to learners in the classroom.

Learn More: AI Commons. https://aicommons.commons.msu.edu/2025/01/07/ai-learning-partner-haudek/

🥯 Try This: Make Teaching Materials More Concrete or Abstract
Concrete language helps bridge the communication gap between you and your students. By using specific, relatable examples, you can make complex concepts clearer and easier to understand. Conversely, abstract language can help students think critically and generalize principles across different contexts. Use AI to adjust your material based on your teaching goals.

Learn More: Case study by Garcia-Varela et al (2024) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2024.105182

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

AI Commons Bulletin 1/6/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

💚 Try This: Create Examples for Critical Analysis
Students can use AI to create an example “in the style of” something, and then evaluate the result. For example, Dickens scholar Dan Doughtery offers: “Write a story about a young man falling in love in the style of Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield” (Dougherty).

Learn More: https://bowiestate.edu/academics/colleges/college-of-arts-and-sciences/departments/language-literature-and-cultural-studies/ceamag/ceamar-journal-2024.pdf#page=38

🔮 Crystal Ball: “Digital Twins”
Watch for this in the next year: virtual models of a specific object, person or system updated using real-time data. Imagine it as a tool for the ultimate personalized learning system.

Learn More: https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/digital-twin

ℹ️ Students See Feedback from a “Calibrated” AI as Helpful
In this example, instructors augmented a general AI tool with research from their discipline and works from previous students (both = 35 million words). Then instructors had the AI tool give feedback on student assignments. The students loved it.

Learn More: (Numerous theories here – skip to page 17 for results). Zapata, G. C., Saini, A., Tzirides, A. -O. (Olnacy), Cope, W., & Kalantzis, M. (2024). The Role of Feedback in University Students’ Learning Experiences: An Exploration Grounded in Activity Theory. Ubiquitious Learning: An International Journal, 18(2), 1-30. https://cgscholar.com/bookstore/works/the-role-of-ai-feedback-in-university-students-learning-experiences

Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).