Defining AI for Educators Workshop Kit

Here we offer an entry point into the topic of generative AI in education. This workshop kit will help you introduce your audience to generative AI tools and inspire deeper engagement on the topic.

Workshop goal and objectives

This workshop's goal is to move your audience toward acceptance and curiosity about new possibilities and increase their motivation to continue engaging with the topic of AI in education. We also want your audience to form a basic understanding of AI tools and feel prepared to begin using an AI chatbot.

After completing this workshop, participants should be able to:

• Reflect on their emotional state concerning AI in education.
• Identify strategies for navigating innovation and disruption.
• Define common terms and concepts in AI.
• Summarize how generative AI tools work.
• Use humor and play to foster feelings of acceptance, curiosity, and motivation regarding generative AI tools.
• Reflect on the differences between human-generated language and AI-generated language.

Audience

This workshop is intended for staff, instructors, and students who are new to the topic of AI in education. 

Time

This workshop is approximately 60 minutes in length.

Key strategies

This workshop leverages inclusive teaching strategies to create a positive learning environment to serve as a foundation for subsequent engagement with other more complex aspects of AI in education. 

Consider the following strategies and perspectives when developing this workshop.

• Acknowledge the wide range of emotional responses to AI. Foster trust, safety, and positive emotions first.
• Address why we should care about AI and its impact on education.
• Recall past personal experiences and resiliency in navigating technological innovation and disruption.

Reading list

Consider these resources as you prepare to lead this workshop.

• Artificial Intelligence Teaching Guide: Web-based resources from the Stanford Teaching Commons
  • Warming Up to AI
  • Defining AI and Chatbots
• Practical AI for Instructors and Students: Video series from the Wharton School YouTube channel.
  • Part 1: Introduction to AI for Teachers and Students
  • Part 2: Large Language Models (LLMs)

Slide presentation with speaker notes

Here you can find slide presentations for this workshop in different formats. The PDF version of the slides is useful for skimming and previewing the workshop. View the slide notes for additional context and sample scripts. We then recommend downloading the full PowerPoint presentation to adapt and customize. The full PowerPoint presentation includes speaker notes, sample scripts, and additional optional slides from other AI workshop kits.

Workshop agenda

This suggested agenda proposes a workshop that balances content presentations with learning activities. This agenda is a starting point as you adapt it to fit your audience.

• Introduction (10 minutes)
  • Lecture and slide presentation
  • Slides 1 to 6
• Warm-up activity (5 minutes)
  • A small group discussion on how we feel about the future of AI in education and why.
  • Slide 7
• AI terms and concepts (15 minutes)
  • Lecture and slide presentation
  • Slides 8 to 16
• Playing with AI chatbots (20 minutes)
  • An exploratory activity where workshop participants access and have a short conversation with a chatbot.
  • Slides 17 to 23
• Reflection (5 minutes)
  • A small group discussion responding to the prompt: "I used to feel AI was... Now I feel..."
  • Slide 18
• Wrap-up (5 minutes)
  • Participants complete a short summative assessment and evaluation survey.
  • Slides 25 and 26

Promotional resources

You can use the following sample language to promote your workshop. This language was created with assistance from ChatGPT. Consider using AI tools yourself to generate other promotional material, such as promotional images, to get more practice using generative AI tools.

Assessment and evaluation survey

This survey serves multiple functions. It gathers demographic information about the workshop participants, evaluates the workshop's effectiveness, prompts metacognitive reflection, and gathers feedback on improving the workshop. The survey was created in Google Forms. Make a copy of the survey to adapt and keep in your Google Drive.

Preview the example survey as a responder.

Create a copy of the example survey (Stanford only). Log in to your Stanford Google account, then use the link to make a copy in your Google Drive to edit and distribute.

Feedback on this workshop kit

Please respond to the poll below to share your feedback on this workshop kit. Your feedback will help us improve this workshop kit and develop resources that support your teaching. Your anonymous responses will be seen only by the Teaching Commons team. Please respond to the prompt, "What feedback do you have for the creators of the Defining AI Chatbots Workshop Kit?"

Author and attribution

Kenji Ikemoto, an Academic Technology Specialist at the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning, created this workshop kit in March 2024.  

This workshop kit is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 (attribution, non-commercial, share-alike). You may adapt, remix, or enhance these modules for non-commercial use. Please attribute it to the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning. We ask that you also share your work under the same licensing terms. 

Contact

If you have questions about this workshop kit contact us at TeachingCommons@stanford.edu. 

Stanford community members are invited to request a consultation with experts at the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL).