The Research

King, N., & Yan, J. (2025). Designing for AI literacy: A modular, GenAI-integrated course for interdisciplinary graduate students in education. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 16(2), 289-305.

Abstract

As educators, we are witnessing and experiencing the rapid proliferation and development of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools, which are raising urgent questions about authorship, ethics, and instruction in higher education (cf. Eaton, 2023). Amid uncertainty and reactive policy responses, we designed a graduate seminar titled “Generative AI—Emerging Implications for Teaching, Learning, Language, and Research: ChatGPT,” offered in Spring 2024 at the University of Rochester. We aimed to immerse students in GenAI environments and offer opportunities to explore both the “what” and the “how” of generative AI, including tools such as ChatGPT and their implications for teaching, learning, language, and research across K–12 and higher education contexts. Following extensive discussions with department leadership, faculty members, and prospective graduate students, we developed this course between February 2023 and January 2024 and implemented it with students during the Spring 2024 semester.

Application in Process

Course designers, teachers, teacher educators, and education stakeholders and policy makers can apply these design-based findings to their courses and policies in ways that frame generative AI as both a powerful tool for teaching, learning, and research, as well as an object of inquiry to consider ethically and critically before and during use.
As generative AI evolves rapidly, it becomes increasingly important for course and curriculum designers to center considerations of purpose, context, and audience in the selection of AI tools and in the generation of prompts when using these tools.

This design-based approach to a generative AI course development and reflection centers students, their contributions – linguistically, culturally, and personally – to the course, and the teaching philosophy of pedagogical humility and our role as continual co-learners. Our work on this course reaffirmed the importance of collaboration, reflexivity, and ethical intentionality in navigating the intersections of pedagogy, technology, and justice.

Nicole King