Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum with AI
Writing Across the Curriculum Assignments, Classroom Activities, and Educational Resources for Higher Education
Students create arguments using ChatGPT and identify any logical fallacies present in the generated content. Students provide a detailed explanation of how the identified logical fallacies occurred and suggest ways to prevent them.
Students generate predictions using ChatGPT and critically assess the output. The assignment emphasizes an analytical approach to evaluating hypothetical scenarios generated by ChatGPT. Students must go beyond simple fact-checking and use reasoned analysis to diagnose the plausibility of the predictions.
Students analyze how facts are assembled into an argument, focusing on the validity of the connective logic. They are encouraged to look beyond the individual facts and assess whether the conclusions drawn are logically supported by the premises.
Students verify the existence of quoted sources provided by ChatGPT, using the institution’s library website. This activity ensures that students learn to critically assess AI-generated content and confirm its authenticity.
The assignment examines the inherent weaknesses of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, emphasizing the importance of not relying on them unquestioningly. It highlights how these models mimic speech without true understanding and can produce convincingly false information.
The assignment teaches students to use ChatGPT to identify significant scholars, studies, and materials within a given field, providing a foundational understanding of important contributors and key texts in the subject area.
By using ChatGPT to identify and correct misconceptions, students can clarify their understanding of complex topics, ensuring that incorrect knowledge does not impede future learning and comprehension.
The assignment teaches students to use quotation marks and Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to narrow down search results effectively, ensuring they receive precise information tailored to their specific needs.
This series of activities works through strategies for prompt engineering, from basic choices to more sophisticated strategies. Use the activities one-by-one with students or point students to a specific strategy when they need to improve their prompt writing.
By requiring students to start a new chat for unrelated questions, the assignment demonstrates the value of resetting the chat history to obtain unbiased and “pure” responses, teaching them to manage context effectively in AI interactions.
The assignment teaches students to specify the desired length of ChatGPT responses, enabling them to receive information in various formats, from concise summaries to detailed essays, depending on their needs.
The assignment encourages students to specify the level of sophistication in their prompts, allowing them to receive responses that match their desired depth and complexity, whether for beginner or advanced understanding.
The assignment encourages students to engage creatively by asking ChatGPT to deliver explanations or summaries in the style of famous authors or artists, making learning more enjoyable and memorable.
The assignment allows students to explore and understand different tones by having them generate responses in various styles, such as playful, sarcastic, or authoritative, helping them recognize how tone impacts communication.
The assignment teaches students to use graduated prompts, starting with broad inquiries and progressively adding more details, helping them understand how specificity impacts the quality and accuracy of ChatGPT’s responses.
By rephrasing prompts, students learn how different wording can elicit varied responses, leading to a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the subject matter as they explore different angles and perspectives.
Students learn to generate and compare multiple responses from a single prompt, which helps them understand how different approaches and wordings can convey varying perspectives and nuances on the same topic.
The assignment introduces students to the technique of prompt chaining, teaching them how to build on previous prompts to extract more detailed and precise information, thereby enhancing their query formulation skills.
The assignment provides students with practical experience in machine learning by engaging them in activities that involve training algorithms and analyzing data, making complex concepts more accessible through hands-on application.
Students gain practical knowledge of how facial recognition systems work, including the technical aspects of image processing and machine learning algorithms. The assignment emphasizes the importance of discussing the ethical implications of facial recognition technology, encouraging students to think critically about privacy, consent, and bias issues.
The assignment encourages students to engage with technology by creating interactive paper circuits, combining traditional paper-based materials with modern electronics to enhance learning.
Students collaborate with peers from different disciplines, using AI text generators. The collaboration enhances their understanding of writing styles across various fields and fostering diverse perspectives in their work.
Students are provided with AI-generated texts relevant to the course topics and are asked to comment, review, and expand on these texts using text-editing software.
Students use ChatGPT to generate counterclaims or alternative arguments to their initial thesis. This process helps them refine, extend, and evolve their argumentative skills by considering multiple perspectives.