This course is designed to help educators integrate AI into their daily workflows, treating AI as a helpful assistant rather than a replacement for teachers. It focuses on practical applications to save teachers time (with planning, drafting, and grading) while providing scalable support and differentiation for students.
A core philosophy of the course is “Responsible AI.” Woven throughout the lessons are reminders that teachers must not input sensitive student data, must watch for biases, must verify facts and sources manually, and always hold the final responsibility for any materials produced.
What the Course Covers: The course is structured across 9 modules, combining conceptual learning with practical mini-tasks:
- Foundations & Prompts (Modules 1 & 2): Introduces what AI is, the benefits and risks (like hallucinations and over-reliance), and popular AI tools. It teaches the TEACH prompt framework (Task, Examples, Audience, Constraints, How to output) to help educators write highly effective AI instructions.
- Content Creation & Syllabus Design (Modules 3 & 6): Guides educators in using AI for backward design—mapping out courses from outcomes to lessons. It covers generating complete lesson plans, slide outlines with speaker notes, assignments, and measurable learning outcomes.
- Writing & Grading Assistance (Modules 4 & 5): Explores using AI to improve writing clarity and grammar, contrasting tools like Grammarly with chat assistants. It also teaches how to use AI to speed up grading fairly, generate “Glow, Grow, Next step” feedback, and build comprehensive rubrics.
- Student Support & Research (Modules 7 & 8): Equips teachers to help students use AI safely. This includes designing prompts for homework hints (rather than full answers), generating personalized study plans, practicing language through role-play, refining research questions, and summarizing articles. It heavily emphasizes citation awareness, teaching students that AI can invent sources.
- Ethics & The Future (Module 9): Concludes by helping teachers establish ethical classroom rules (covering transparency, fairness, privacy, and academic integrity). It teaches strategies to mitigate AI limitations and explores future trends, such as AI tutors and the shifting role of the teacher from administrator to coach.
