Transparent Teaching with AI: Enhancing Metacognition

Are your assignments transparent about how you would like students to use generative AI? Transparency is a highly research-supported teaching and learning concept that demonstrates that explaining why you do what you do in the classroom improves learning outcomes and increases equity. (To use AI to ease the burden of the labor of making the purpose, task, and criteria of all your assignments explicit, read my previous tip.)

Along with purpose, task, and criteria of your assignment, students need to know if and how you would like them to use AI to complete it. At IU, some instructors are allowing students to use it and some are not, and even within a single course an instructor might sometimes promote or sometimes disallow the use of AI, which can be confusing for a student taking a full load of classes. So to be more transparent, you can add to the criteria that they are not allowed to use AI for an assignment (and why), or add in the task how (and why) you would like them to use it. For example, I often ask students to use AI to brainstorm a list of potential ideas before choosing one and telling me why. Research on this approach of asking students to reflect on the answers provided by AI is beginning to show that training students to approach their use of AI metacognitively can also help them develop the skill of being reflexive about how they approach completing assignments, which is a fast track to improving learning.

To participate in a workshop that will focus on how to use generative AI to improve your assignment transparency, sign up for our workshop Meaningful Assessments in the Age of AI: Policy and Practice (Part 1). For more on how generative AI can impact your teaching, you can self-enroll in our “GenAI in the Classroom” modules, attend a Faculty Showcase on Infusing Generative AI into Your Assignments, or watch a Kaltura recording of our Faculty Showcase on how instructors are creatively using AI to support teaching large enrollment courses. Contact the CITL with questions or for a personal teaching consultation on how generative AI can improve your teaching and learning outcomes.