Teaching with AI: Tips and Ideas

A student submission, however advanced, no longer represents learning consistently and reliably. This problem is not fundamentally new, as dishonest learning and presenting others' work as one's own existed at all times. However, in AI-rich environments the scale of this possibility is magnified immensely, as the option to generate a submission within seconds is available, in some form, to most if not all students.

• Distinguish between formative assessments of skill development and the summative assessment of "must-have" knowledge and skills. Varying degrees of AI resistance can be needed for those distinct scenarios.
  • you can use assessment add-ons like problem-solving logs, exam wrappers, minute papers, “muddiest point” questions. 
• Assess process and process reflection in addition to product. A 3-5 minute process presentation, recording, or conversation with students can be a good way to measure learning, complementing a short essay or another project deliverable.
• Engage diverse media. Replace an essay or short-answer writing assignment with one that requires students to submit an audio file, podcast, video, speech, drawing, diagram, or multimedia project. 
• For synchronous courses, flip the classroom. Reserve classroom time for creating and other hands-on work that can be assessed. 
  • Homework can also build on students' classroom experience for greater AI resistance. Ask your students to reference class materials, notes, or conversations.
    • For example: “Refer to two of the theorists discussed in class.”
• Scaffold the assessments. In many cases, academic dishonesty happens due to a time crunch. Teach and model good project management habits by assigning smaller, more frequent submissions instead of a single large one. 
  • For example: instead of one large submission due on May 5th, try assigning a project outline due April 1st, notes on research articles due Apr 15, first draft due Apr 25, and final draft due May 5th.

Strategies for Manageable Grading

• Ensure that assignments and submission requirements are aligned with the learning goals. For some courses and learning goals, it may be consistent and even essential to assign longer written pieces for summative assessments. In other courses, extended written work may often be assigned traditionally or conventionally, while there are other authentic ways to assess.
• Presentations or process discussions can be done in small groups (2-4 people). Being able to work with others became a crucial human skill in the age of AI. 

Learn more: Assignments & Assessments

• Ask your students to reflect and plan as part of learning. Reflecting and envisioning a future are two areas where generative AI’s performance remains quite weak. Create space for reflection and sharing after each learning unit. Make reflection and planning a routine part of written assignments that is gradable. Students will not be able to create strong submissions for such tasks using generative AI (also, feel free to tell them just that!)
  • For example: instead of the traditional essay, which may now be easy to cheat through, assign a multimedia project accompanied by a brief self-reflective essay.
• Reward trying as well as producing. If a perfect product (test, paper) is the only way to receive an A, students are more likely to resort to cheating. Make sure you assess and reward the processes that are needed to be a strong learner in your course: reading, viewing, speaking, improving, reflecting on one’s learning, etc.
  • Review your grading criteria and rubrics to make sure you’re setting your students up to adopt strong learning strategies. See Grading for Learning under Plan for Grading.
• Employ Simple Active Learning Strategies: In-class and in homework, active learning assignments inspire learning.

As suggested by the results of the Employer Survey, conducted in the Spring 2026 by the AI Working Group with the support from Montclair Career Services, workforce competency expectations extend far beyond prompting skills. Graduates and new employees are expected to be able to engage with AI tools safely and ethically, as well as to leverage such tools for increased productivity. At the same time, distinctly human skills such as clear communication, critical thinking, project management, and disciplinary preparedness, remain essential for professional success.

Montclair has adopted the Definitional Frameworks for Foundational, Intermediate, and Advanced AI Skills to help guide faculty, staff, and students in the definition of AI literacy. To support these skills in the classroom, faculty can:

• Set clear course AI policies and expectations for assignments.
  • Starting from Fall 2026, the Montclair Syllabus has a required field that faculty need to fill out, outlining expectations for student use of AI in each course.
• Teach students to use generative AI safely. Teach your students to never share personally identifiable, sensitive, or financial information, as well as any login credentials, with AI platforms that are not licensed by the University.
• Teach students to examine AI outputs critically. It is instrumental for students to understand that AI artifacts do not always meet the criteria of successful work as it can be defined by the university or by the workplace, and that AI artifacts  require human verification, competent oversight, and ethical responsibility at all times.
• Model and suggest ethical uses of AI: personalized tutoring, feedback generation, team planning, scheduling, (public) data analysis.
• Teach students to cite generative AI correctly.

• Assign social annotation. For short reading responses, instead of using open-ended questions in Canvas, try social annotation tools that require students to engage with a text along with their classmates. Try Hypothes.is or Perusall, both of which are supported by the University.
• Extend Flipped Learning: Ask students to read, view, and digest material at home, and then apply, demonstrate, and perform in class.
  • For example: Have students write responses in class. If students have 20 minutes to write brief responses to the kinds of questions you might have provided as homework, they will learn a great deal, and as a bonus, your subsequent class discussion will benefit from that engaged individual work.
  • Have students respond orally, requiring each student to respond to a different question.
  • Have students work in small groups in class to present on topics in class.
  • Incorporate brief in-class quizzes, tests and other assessments. The key is to make these short, frequent, and possibly even unannounced. They serve assessment purposes, reward attendance, and provide useful immediate feedback about learning. Small point values for individual assessments allow poor performance to be informative to students rather than disastrous.
• Engage visuals: ask students to respond to images or videos in their assignment. Be sure to include alt-text for accessibility.
• Collaborative Learning: Sometimes called team or group learning, collaborative learning can be designed to accelerate learning.
• Try requiring handwritten responses where scope permits. Students will groan, and you may too as you attempt to read student handwriting again, but not only will this deter the use of ChatGPT, but some research shows that we actually remember better when we write by hand. Varying the way we engage with thinking has value as it plays to different students’ preferences, and stretches all of us to try new ways to help us focus on the task of thinking.

Ask your students to: 

1. Generate a ChatGPT response to a question of their own choosing, related to the field,  
2. Examine that response, and 
3. Write a short analytical essay about ChatGPT’s response’s strengths and weaknesses. 

*In this basic form, this exercise can be a great critical thinking exercise. It can also be tailored to other specific learning goals. For example, if you are looking to teach assessment and evaluative skills, you can ask your students to also come up with a set of assessment criteria, as opposed to the free-form discussion of the strengths and weaknesses.

Ask your students to: 

1.  Pick a concept related to the field. 
2.  Ask ChatGPT to describe three applications of that concept. 
3. Rank those applications from most successful to least successful. 
4. Explain your thought process behind the rankings. 

*This can be a written homework assignment or a classroom discussion activity. 

Give your students two short human-written pieces or reading responses on a topic related to the field, and one AI-written piece on the same topic. The human-written pieces can be anything — student works, excerpts from publications, or any relevant online materials. Do not tell your students which one of the three pieces is AI-generated. 

Ask them to examine all three written pieces and 

1. Identify the AI-generated piece, 
2. Reflect on their thought-process: how difficult (or how easy) was it for them to identify the AI generated piece? what made them think it is AI-generated? in what ways does it stand out? 

*This exercise can also can be done as a discussion activity in the classroom or as a written assignment. Whichever format you choose, make sure that the essays are short enough and manageable to read in that specific format.

• OFE collection of sample assignments using AI (Google Doc, requires a Montclair account). If you have an assignment that uses AI to help student learning, we invite you to share it with colleagues at Montclair. To have your assignment added to our collection, request editing access to this Google doc, or simply email a copy of that assignment to Vera at seninav@montclair.edu.
• University of North Dakota’s AI Assignment Library of peer-reviewed assignment ideas

Students can ask ChatGPT for feedback on how to improve their writing. For example, it may suggest a student add more specificity to their writing by incorporating additional examples, adding transitions, or even give recommendations to include alternative perspectives. Consider having students keep record of the feedback they receive to incorporate into their writing, or analyze the feedback and justify if they are valid recommendations or not.

Example Prompt

• Act as an English Professor and provide recommendations to enhance this paper: [copy and paste text]

To help students exercise strong argumentation, they can prompt ChatGPT to act as a debate partner (Roose, 2023). By asking ChatGPT to take a particular stance on an issue, students can develop counterarguments and spar with the chatbot. This can help students develop deeper understandings of alternative perspectives, prepare for an actual debate in class, or enhance argumentation for a persuasive assignment.

Example Prompt:

• Act as my debate partner for the topic of “Banning Books in Public Schools.” Play the role of a parent who wants to censor texts they feel should not be read by high school students.

Incorporate ChatGPT into a class discussion by modifying the traditional “Think, Pair, Share” format to, “Think, Pair, ChatGPT, Share” (Miller, 2022). Inviting an AI perspective can provide another critical lens for students to collectively analyze.

Example Prompt:

• Ask ChatGPT the same question you’ve posed to students (or have students ask ChatGPT the question). After generating an initial response, try prompting ChatGPT with the following: Now, answer the same question from the perspective of a [insert persona].

As an educator, consider using ChatGPT to help create discussion prompts for your students on a topic or based on a particular (open access) text. You’ll need to provide the link to the text for ChatGPT to access and develop its questions.

Example Prompt:

• As a journalism professor, create a short prompt that will inspire college students to write an open-ended response about the media’s effect on society.

ChatGPT can create open-ended or multiple choice quiz questions based on a text you provide (Roose, 2023). Be sure to double-check that questions are accurate.

Example Prompt:

• Develop 5 open-ended and 5 multiple choice questions based on this article [insert link].

Text generators offer the opportunity for students of language acquisition courses to practice in the target language. Besides working through text chat, most mobile applications of text generators offer conversation functionality in multiple languages. Below are some specific ways these tools could function as a language tutor:

• Conversational practice and listening comprehension (Gemini and ChatGPT apps): Students can have verbal conversations in the target language. Users can tailor their experience to any level, speed, or subject.
• Reading and writing practice: Read content written in the target language. Students can prompt the tool to quiz them to enhance comprehension.

Montclair’s Digital Accessibility Initiative,OFE, and DRC offer a variety of resources for faculty to create accessible materials for students. Following Universal Design for Learning principles benefits all students.

Generative AI tools that enhance functions such as text to speech, speech to text, text to image, voiceovers, image descriptions, and PDF paraphrasing can potentially increase the accessibility of assignments and classroom materials for students with disabilities.

Resources:

• McDermott, B. (2024). AI as an Accessibility Tool: Using Generative AI to Support Universal Design for Learning Approach. In S. Mahmud (Ed.), Academic Integrity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (pp. 162-174). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-0240-8.ch009
   
• TriCollege Libraries (Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore)’s “Generative AI in Higher Education”. Page has sub-sections on AI assistive technologies and accessibility.
• University of Cincinnati Libraries’ “AI Tools for Accessibility“