AI in Academics

AI in Academics

Spring 2025 Schedule of AI in Academics Events

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AI in Academics

As AI technology and use in higher education continues, the Faculty Resource Center, in conjunction with the Writing Across the Curriculum and First-Year Rhetoric and Writing programs, is offering an AI in Academics at UCCS focus throughout the semester. Please check out the following event series to determine which might support your professional AI pursuits.

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AI in Academics Roundtable Discussion
Thursday, January 30, 12:30-1:30 pm
Dwire 204 or online
Lunch provided for in-person participants.
Register by January 27

Join Catherine Grandorff, PhD, Assistant Director, First-Year Rhetoric & Writing and FRC Teaching Fellow, and Kacey Ross, English Teaching Professor, Director of Writing Across the Curriculum Program and Director of First-Year Rhetoric and Writing, as they facilitate discussion to expand ideas brought forth in the Teaching and Learning Conference keynote message, Embracing AI as Essential Learning: Preparing Students for Life Beyond College. In this session, attendees will consider how to map out AI in teaching and learning and learn more about the initiatives being offered on campus this semester, including the upcoming Teaching Circle on Bowen's book, Teaching with AI.

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Teaching with AI Teaching Circle
Every other Tuesday beginning February 11 through April 29, 1:45-2:45 pm
Columbine 203 or online
Facilitated by Kacey Ross, English Teaching Professor, Director of Writing Across the Curriculum Program and Director of First-Year Rhetoric and Writing

In this teaching circle, you will: 

  1. Receive your own copy of Teaching with AI, courtesy of the FRC
  2. Be subscribed to 4 months of Boodle unlimited (subscription-level access to eight AI tools), courtesy of Writing Across the Curriculum
  3. Engage in conversation with colleagues who are also experimenting with AI tools
  4. Be given an opportunity to share your successes with colleagues

There is a 15-participant limit for this circle so please sign-up ASAP if interested.
Teaching Circle Sign-up

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AI Appy Hours

These are one-hour sessions focused on raising AI literacy. Each session will focus on a specific AI tool, and its versions, features, and uses in teaching and learning.

Claude by Anthropic
Tuesday, February 18, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Columbine 203 or online
Facilitated by Phillip Haisley, PhD, English Teaching Professor and Director of Writing Portfolio
Register

Microsoft PowerPoint Designer
Wednesday, March 5, 1:50-2:50 pm
Columbine 203 or online
Facilitated by Patrick McGuire, PhD, Professor and Chair of Teaching and Learning Department
Register

Gemini by Google
Thursday, April 17, 2:00-3:00 pm
Columbine 203 or online
Facilitated by Hailey Blackburn, PhD, TCID Assistant Teaching Professor
Register

If you have expertise in using a specific AI tool in teaching and learning and want to facilitate an AI Appy hour, please contact Angie Dodson in the FRC at adodson2@uccs.edu.

Resources for the Use of AI in Academics

It may come as no surprise that some students today are taking advantage of the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help them with their assignments. One popular tool is chatGPT, which can write papers and essays, even art, poems, and computer code. It can be challenging to detect the use of this when students submit their work.

In light of this concern, here are some resources to consider.:

Both articles offer practical advice not only for communicating with students about the use of AI, but also actually embracing it and using it to advantage in the classroom. Here some suggestions taken from these articles:

  • Choose a topic and encourage students to use ChatGPT to ask questions, share insights, and collaborate with one another, expanding on the course material and individual knowledge.
  • Instructors can create lesson plans, activities or assignments using ChatGPT.
  • Students can enter information that they know about a topic and use ChatGPT as a tool to organize their thinking around a topic and generate an outline for a paper or project.
  • Identify a question or challenge for students to write a prompt for ChatGPT, have students collaboratively develop criteria for assessing ChatGPT's responses to their question, and then use those criteria to judge the responses, rating them from best to worst.
  • Have students use ChatGPT to write a response to a prompt they have created, and ask students to reflect on ChatGPT's output—is it correct or incorrect and what else might they need to research to verify that?

There are many more suggestions and much greater detail in both of these articles.

Sample Syllabus Entries for the Use of AI

Caveat: Anything generated by AI can be considered to have been plagiarized

Given that anything generated by AI has been culled from the web and restated or recreated without attribution (and sometimes even with false attribution), that content could be considered as to have been plagiarized. Caution is urged with what you allow students to use from generative AI.

Acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI

[This syllabus statement is useful when you are allowing the use of AI tools for certain purposes, but not for others. Adjust this statement to reflect your particular parameters of acceptable use. The following is an example. (Adapted from Temple University's Center for the Advancement of Teaching.)]

The use of generative AI tools is permitted in this course for the following activities:

  • Brainstorming and refining your ideas
  • Fine tuning your research questions
  • Finding information on your topic
  • Drafting an outline to organize your thoughts
  • Checking grammar and style

The use of generative AI tools is not permitted in this course for the following activities:

  • Impersonating you in classroom contexts, such as by using the tool to compose discussion board replies or content that you put into a Teams or Zoom chat
  • Completing group work that your group has assigned to you, unless it is mutually agreed upon that you may utilize the tool
  • Writing a draft of a writing assignment
  • Writing entire sentences, paragraphs, or papers to complete class assignments
For instructors who wish to embrace AI

The use of AI tools, including ChatGPT, is permitted in this course for students who wish to use them. You are responsible for the information you submit based on an AI query (for instance, that it does not violate intellectual property laws, or contain misinformation or unethical content). Your use of AI tools must be properly documented and cited, using quotation marks or other appropriate indicators of quoted material when appropriate, in order to stay within university policies on academic honesty.

For instructors who wish to allow limited use of AI

The use of AI tools, including ChatGPT, is permitted in this course for specific assignments only. When the use of the tool is allowed, it will be explicitly noted in the assignment directions. You are responsible for the information you submit based on an AI query (for instance, that it does not violate intellectual property laws, or contain misinformation or unethical content). Your use of AI tools must be properly documented and cited, using quotation marks or other appropriate indicators of quoted material when appropriate, in order to stay within university policies on academic honesty.

Citing generative AI content for specific referencing styles
For instructors who wish to prohibit the use of AI

The Faculty Resource Center does not recommend this. Our students will likely be expected to use AI in the workplace when they graduate, and we should be teaching them how to use it responsibly and ethically. Also, there are currently no tools that can accurately detect AI writing. In fact, OpenAI recently discontinued its AI writing detector due to a "low rate of accuracy". All of the available tools today generate too many false positives that could lead to false allegations.

For a more holistic approach for discerning acceptable use of AI-generated assignments, contact the FRC for a consultation.

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