AI Resources

Advancements in artificial intelligence are rapidly transforming both education and industry, offering both opportunities and challenges for educators. The resources below can help faculty understand AI and develop policies that guide ethical use in the classroom.

Key Terms

Generative AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that can create content, such as text, images, and code. These tools typically generate responses based on patterns in large data sets. While powerful, AI-generated content can sometimes be inaccurate or biased, making critical evaluation essential. As educators preparing students for careers that increasingly utilize AI, it’s important we help our students understand how to use AI responsibly.

Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that can perform complex workflows with little human oversight. While companies increasingly look to agentic AI to automate tasks, educators have raised concerns about its potential negative impact on education. Learn more about Addressing the Challenge of Agentic AI - Policies, Technology, Instruction, Assessment, and Learning Design.

Common AI Tools

Learn about popular AI tools commonly used in education and industry. When exploring AI tools:

• Be sensitive to FERPA/data privacy concerns that arise when using AI - especially when using tools that were not intentionally developed with educational policies in mind. You should not input personally identifiable information or material that is confidential, proprietary, or copyrighted.
• Responses from generative AI need human review to check for accuracy and potential bias.

AI in Education: Helpful or Harmful?

Students are increasingly using AI to summarize readings, brainstorm ideas for essays and projects, check grammar and improve writing, and create presentations, graphics, and study aids.

While some of these uses can enhance learning, educators have raised concerns about the harms of cognitive offloading - when students use AI to replace, rather than enhance their learning.  For example, some students may misuse AI by submitting AI-generated work as their own or relying on it to generate answers to exams.

Clear guidelines can help students understand when AI use may be appropriate and when it may be inappropriate. In addition to ensuring your students review and understand LPC's Academic Integrity Policies, it can be helpful to create a course-specific AI policy to make your expectations clear to students.

Developing Your AI Course Policy

An AI course policy helps students understand how and when AI may be used or not used in your specific class. When creating your AI policy, consider: 

• Defining acceptable use: Outline when AI use is permitted in your classroom (e.g., brainstorming, reviewing, refining) and when it is not (e.g., submitting AI-generated essays).   
• Defining acceptable tools: Outline which AI tools, if any, students may use freely and which they may not. 
• Transparency requirements: Ask students to disclose when and how they use AI, if allowed. You can model this for students by being transparent about how you will and won't use AI for instruction.
• Ethical considerations: Emphasize the importance of academic integrity and critical engagement with AI tools. 
• Detection and consequences: Explain how AI-generated content will be reviewed and potential academic consequences of misuse. 

Below, you'll find one example of an AI course policy. We encourage faculty to work collaboratively with colleagues in your departments to identify AI course policies that align with the unique needs of your discipline. The Academic Senate for California Community College's Academic Integrity Policies in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Resource Document includes additional helpful guidance.

How Instructors Can Monitor AI Usage

Faculty have a range of tools available to discourage the unethical usage of AI, including using:

• Proctorio for secure online exams
• Turnitin to identify AI-generated or remixed work.
• Google Doc Revision Histories, which can help students more clearly show instructors their drafting progress when they use their Zonemail Google tools to complete work.
• Canvas Quiz Logs to review quiz analytics, like how much time was spent on the exam. (For example, completing a 50 question exam in a couple minutes may indicate AI usage.)
• Canvas Course Analytics to review student activity. (For example, a student who completed multiple complex assignments while only being active in a course for a few minutes may indicate AI usage.)

How Instructors Can Leverage AI 

Generative AI can enhance both teaching and learning in creative ways. Below are ideas to help you explore AI: 

• Critical thinking exercises:  
  • Ask students to critique AI-generated work for accuracy and bias.  
  • Ask students to compare an AI-generated response with their own analysis. 
• Personalized learning:  
  • Use AI to brainstorm ideas for alternative forms of assessments that align with your SLOs and UDL principles. 
  • Encourage students to use AI to generate practice problems to aid in studying, turn readings into podcasts they can listen to for help reviewing, brainstorm ways to refine research projects in ways that align with their unique interests, or critique drafts of their own work. 
• Streamlined workflows:
  • Use AI to help remediate your instructional content for accessibility.
  • Ask AI to suggest revisions to your syllabus and/or assignments for clarity and tone.
  • Use AI to generate images and/or data visualizations that may help students process difficult concepts.
  • Use AI to generate rubrics based on your assessments and SLOs.

You'll find many more ideas to consider in AI Pedagogy: Designing Learning with Intelligent Systems in Mind. Be sure that your use of AI aligns with policies outlined in the faculty contract.

Next Steps 

By considering generative AI thoughtfully, instructors can guide students toward responsible and innovative AI use in their academic and professional journeys. To continue to explore AI: 

• Register for ongoing AI workshops and AI Professional Development and Learning Opportunities through the CCCCO.
• Sign up for the @ONE self-paced course: Generative AI.
• Watch recordings from the free, one-day professional development event for California Community College faculty: Reclaiming Joy: Human-First Teaching in the AI Era.
• Engage in discussions with colleagues about best practices. 
• Connect with the LPC Instructional Technology Team for one-on-one support.
• Learn more about Generative AI and the Future of Learning in California Community Colleges.

Kat King
Instructional Technology Coordinator
kmking@laspositascollege.edu

Catherine Suárez
Professor & AI and Academic Honesty Liaison
csuarez@laspositascollege.edu

Suzanne Kohler
Academic Senate Administrative Support
sikohler@laspositascollege.edu