Universities Embrace AI Literacy. One Activity At A Time. Sensible, At Least.
Times Higher Education outlines how instructors can integrate AI into coursework without redesigning entire syllabi. The recommended approach starts small: a single activity where students use AI for brainstorming, then critique both the prompts they wrote and the quality of ideas the model produced. The article stresses that AI should support existing course goals rather than introduce new AI-centric objectives.
The underlying principle is what I call incremental legitimacy. The mechanism: adoption succeeds when a new tool is grafted onto an existing goal rather than forcing a new one. Students recognize forced integration immediately. The lesson for anyone teaching, managing, or rolling out AI is that a single, well-framed exercise builds more durable literacy than a sweeping mandate.
Times Higher Education's Campus section, writing for university instructors, recommends starting with a brainstorming activity where students evaluate AI-generated ideas and prompt quality. The emphasis is on transparency and alignment with existing course objectives.
- Pick a topic you already work on, like drafting an email or planning a meeting agenda, and ask an AI assistant to generate three ideas.
- Write down what you asked, then critically evaluate your own prompt and the quality of each idea the model returned.
- Refine your prompt based on what you observed and run it again. The expected outcome is that you develop a feel for prompt quality and AI limitations, which is the core of AI literacy.