Home / Online Teaching Resources / Artificial Intelligence Resources for Tufts Faculty and Staff
*Notes - This information will continue to evolve and change. Events related to AI can be found on the CELT Events 2023 page and links to helpful resources for instructors can be found at the bottom of this page.
In higher education, rapid advances in AI tools raise important questions about our role moving forward as to what our students need to learn, and how they can best learn. These tools require us to consider how they can be helpful for learning and teaching, and when they may not be helpful. They raise questions about potential embedded bias, or other negative aspects to their use. The new availability of AI tools requires a paradigm shift and ongoing dialogue at all levels of the university as we think through what this means for Tufts. For more see Resilient and Equitable Teaching and Assessment Require a Paradigm Shift.
Change is hard, and we all respond differently. Individual faculty responses to AI tools will fall somewhere on a continuum from resistance and concerns about “cheating” to reflection on whether current assignments and assessments will continue to nurture and assess student learning and how to adapt them, to embracing these new tools and experimenting with how to leverage them for learning by redesigning courses or assessments. At CELT, we view this moment as an opportunity to engage in meaningful dialogue with each other, to think deeply about what and how we teach, and to be innovative and creative.
Below are sets of questions for individuals, departments, and schools to guide important discussions as we navigate our decisions related to AI.
When AI tools are able to replicate or mimic some or much of the work we ask our students to do in higher education - say write an essay or a term paper, code, an admissions essay, or the preface to a grant proposal - we need to reflect deeply about our role in educating students and our own professional standards. Important questions need to be addressed globally, but also across higher education as an important agent of change, progress, and democracy.
At the school level, it will be useful to create cross-cutting working group(s) and structured spaces for open dialogue among faculty, staff and students. Soliciting questions from your department chairs, faculty, staff and students will be important in having a robust path for inquiry and dialogue. These learning groups might focus on overarching questions such as:
Reflective and critical dialogue within departments will help to develop a shared understanding of AI implications for learning and academic honesty. They will help you develop consistent language, policies and approaches that can guide both faculty and students in navigating the use of these tools. Pedagogies and curricula traditionally differ across disciplines, and some may be more affected by new and emerging AI tools than others. Questions at the department level might include:
There are a range of ways individual faculty can begin to explore the potential impact of AI tools in their courses. [Continuum] While our responses will vary, critical reflection and a thoughtful approach for teaching will be important in order to preserve a respectful faculty-student relationship, provide clarity and guidance for students, and for you to have a framework for how you might adapt your teaching where necessary.
Some areas you might prioritize:
See Developing Syllabus Statements for AI for advice and example syllabus policies, Designing Courses in the Age of AI prompts for designing authentic learning experiences, advice for teaching students to write with AI and discussion of each of the practices above