Generative Artificial Intelligence Guide for Faculty

The fast evolution of GAI requires us to re-think the way we teach and the way we ask students to acquire, internalize, and create knowledge. A modern education requires students to focus on the process of their work as consumers and disseminators of knowledge. Ubiquitous technologies that can both help and hinder a student's educational experience demand that educators re-think how they teach, and what they ask students to accomplish. 

One way to minimize cheating in general is to tap into students' intrinsic motivation. Assignment prompts that do not have fixed answers and require students to engage deeply with content are most likely to discourage academic dishonesty. On this page are some strategies you can use to design courses and craft prompts that encourage genuine engagement and discourage cheating, with or without incorporating GAI.

Page Contents:

• Working with GAI
• Designing Classroom Prompts
• Assignment Strategies That Minimize Reliance on AI

Working with GAI
GAI can be used successfully to enhance classroom teaching and learning while reducing time spent on routine tasks

How Faculty Can Work with GAI

• Create a draft syllabus
• Generate ideas for an assignment. You can ask for samples that discourage or minimize use of GAI
• Identify key players and debates on topics in the discipline for students to read and analyze
• Compare a GAI-generated response to student writing if cheating is suspected.

Allowing Students to Work with GAI

• Brainstorm research ideas or first drafts of research questions
• Generate lists of keywords to use in database searching
• Create an outline for an essay
• Generate reading lists or bibliographies (to be supplemented with current research using Library databases)
• Modeling or asking GAI to provide a sample of the type of work they are about to do themselves
• Ask GAI to act as an editorial partner and suggest improvements to original work. Students respond with comments as to why they accepted or rejected changes.
• Ask GAI to provide computer code examples and edit the code

Designing Classroom Prompts
Assignments and classroom exercises can be created to complement GAI. Conversely, unauthorized use of GAI can be prevented with prompts that require critical thinking and personal creativity .

When fed into a generator, questions that ask students to answer research questions usually provide general definitions of key terms along with "listicle" style responses such as those found on self-help guides, but usually will not articulate an answer that adequately addresses a well-articulated prompt.

Whether or not you incorporate GAI in a given assignment, it can be useful to think in terms of Bloom's Taxonomy, which models domains of complexity in critical thinking. Whereas lower-order actions in Bloom's Taxonomy such as "define," "explain," and "describe" can make it easier for students to cheat, higher order actions, when used to create assignments that pair with library resources and personal and classroom experiences, can make cheating more difficult. Higher order action terms include: 

Assignment Strategies That Minimize Reliance on GAI
Some of the following elements of projects can either minimize use of GAI or work with it were generated with ChatGPT (2025, May):

• Scaffold Assignments: Consider incremental, process-focused assignments that increase in complexity Require accountability at each stage through drafts, outlines, peer review, and multiple revisions.
• Assign Group Projects. Require students to collaborate and share their ideas and knowledge through ensuring discussion and engagement. Ask students to grade each other or hold each other accountable through progress reports.
• Locality Based Work: Ask students to apply course theory to a local institution that will requires observational study, interviews, or the use of non-digitized local sources. 
• Firewalled Evidence is Required: Students use subscription-based material obtained through the Library to produce annotated bibliographies, evidence comparisons, literature reviews, etc.