Implementing AI in teaching and learning
Artificial intelligence is changing how we teach, learn, create and work. Thoughtful integration of AI in higher education begins not with a particular tool, but with a clear understanding of what students should learn and how AI can — or cannot — support that learning.
Mizzou faculty have access to Show-Me AI, the university’s generative AI platform, along with training, examples and resources designed to help faculty and students explore AI confidently and responsibly.
Whether you are experimenting with AI for the first time, redesigning an assignment or intentionally incorporating AI throughout a course, use the guidance below to make purposeful, transparent and responsible decisions.
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Starting with the learning, not the AI
Before adding AI to a learning experience, consider:
- What should students know or be able to do?
- What thinking or practice do students need to do themselves to reach that goal?
- Could AI enhance that learning, or might it bypass an important part of the learning process?
- How will students know when, how and why they may use AI?
- How will you determine whether students achieved the intended learning?
AI does not need to be incorporated into every activity or assignment. In some cases, using AI can create opportunities for deeper analysis, experimentation or feedback. In others, limiting AI may be necessary so students can practice foundational skills independently.
Decide the role AI will play
Consider AI as one possible component of the learning environment. Depending on your goals, students might use AI to:
Explore and brainstorm
Generate questions, possible approaches, examples or alternative perspectives before evaluating and developing ideas further.
Practice and receive feedback
Use AI as a practice partner, simulated audience, tutor or source of formative feedback while developing a skill.
Analyze and critique
Evaluate AI-generated information for accuracy, bias, quality, reasoning or disciplinary appropriateness.
Create and revise
Use AI during selected stages of a creative process while documenting decisions, revisions and human contributions.
Develop AI literacy
Practice using AI effectively and responsibly while learning to recognize its capabilities, limitations and effects within a discipline or profession. AI can also be intentionally excluded when independent performance is essential to the learning objective.
Make expectations clear
Students should not have to guess how AI may be used in your course.
Clearly communicate:
- Whether AI is permitted, restricted or required.
- Which tools or types of AI use are acceptable.
- What students must complete independently.
- How students should acknowledge or document AI use.
- Whether prompts, outputs or process documentation should be submitted.
- How inappropriate AI use relates to academic integrity expectations.
It is also best practice for instructors to be transparent about their own use of AI in the course, particularly when AI contributes to course materials, learning activities, communications or feedback. See “Transparency and student agency below” for additional guidance.
Design learning for an AI-enabled world
Generative AI can produce polished products quickly, making it increasingly important to consider what evidence of learning an assignment actually provides.
Rather than focusing only on the final product, consider ways students can demonstrate their thinking and development throughout the learning process.
Strategies might include:
- Connecting assignments to specific course experiences, cases or contexts.
- Incorporating drafts, checkpoints or iterative feedback.
- Asking students to explain or defend decisions.
- Incorporating reflection or metacognition.
- Having students critique and improve AI-generated work.
- Incorporating authentic disciplinary or professional practices.
- Using presentations, demonstrations or conversations to complement submitted work.
- Assessing both the process and the final product when appropriate.
Current higher education research increasingly points to authentic, process-based assessment as an important response to AI's growing capabilities.
Build your prompting skills
Effective use of generative AI often depends on the quality of the instructions and context provided to it. Developing prompting skills can help faculty and students use AI more purposefully while critically evaluating the results.
Prompt Power is a Mizzou AI literacy resource designed to help you improve the way you communicate with generative AI. Explore a five-element prompting framework, transform an existing prompt or browse ready-made prompts for teaching, research, advising, administration and other university work.
You can also explore prompting strategies, prompt templates and custom instructions through Show-Me AI training and resources.
Use AI responsibly
Responsible AI use requires more than writing a good prompt. When implementing AI, consider the following.
Generative AI can produce inaccurate or fabricated information. Faculty and students remain responsible for verifying information and evaluating sources.
AI systems can reproduce or amplify biases found in their training data. Encourage students to examine whose perspectives are represented, missing or potentially distorted.
Do not enter protected, confidential, personally identifiable or otherwise sensitive information into AI tools unless the tool has been approved for that use. Before sharing university or student information, confirm both that the tool is institutionally approved and that it is authorized to handle the appropriate Data Classification Level (DCL) for the information you plan to use.
When working with university or student information, use institutionally supported technologies and review current Mizzou guidance. Show-Me AI training and resources includes information about the platform’s features, file uploads, assistants, sharing and support.
Be clear with students about your own use of AI when it meaningfully contributes to course materials, feedback or learning experiences, and establish similar expectations for student disclosure. Transparency can help establish shared expectations and trust around AI-supported work.
The MU Student AI Use Scale Orientation Page in Canvas Commons includes a section to describe your own use of AI in the course. It can be imported directly into your course through Canvas Commons by searching “MU Student AI Use Scale Orientation Page”.
Mizzou’s AI Grading and Feedback Policy requires transparency and human oversight when approved AI tools are used to assist with customized student feedback and encourages instructors to accommodate student requests to opt out of AI-assisted feedback.
Generative AI has the potential to improve access to learning. For example, by helping students summarize information, clarify concepts, organize ideas or interact with content in different ways. For some students with disabilities, AI may even function as a valuable assistive technology. At the same time, AI tools themselves are not necessarily accessible. Research on commonly used generative AI interfaces has identified usability and digital accessibility barriers that may prevent some people with disabilities from interacting effectively with these technologies.
Need help designing an accessible AI activity?
A Mizzou Online instructional designer can help you consider accessibility, learning objectives and alternative pathways before implementing AI in your course
AI-generated content should be reviewed rather than accepted automatically. Human judgment remains essential when making instructional, evaluative or consequential decisions.
Human presence and regular and substantive interaction
AI can help instructors brainstorm activities, develop resources, identify patterns in student learning or draft feedback, but it should support rather than replace meaningful instructor presence.
This is particularly important in online courses. Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) requires predictable and meaningful interaction between students and their instructors. Automated interactions alone — including feedback generated by a technology — do not fulfill RSI expectations.
These considerations align with broader frameworks for trustworthy AI, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) emphasis on governing, mapping, measuring and managing AI-related risks.
To help your students navigate the responsible use of AI tools, consider incorporating the MU Student’s Guide to the Ethical Use of AI module created by the Teaching for Learning Center. It can be imported directly into your course through Canvas Commons by searching “mu student's guide ethical ai.”
Start small
You do not need to redesign an entire course to begin exploring AI. Start with one learning activity or assignment.
- Identify the learning objective. What should students learn or practice?
- Determine AI's role. Should students use AI, work without it or practice both?
- Choose an appropriate tool. Use institutionally supported tools whenever possible.
- Set expectations. Explain what is permitted and how AI use should be documented.
- Design for learning. Make sure students still engage in the thinking or practice necessary to achieve the objective.
- Try the activity yourself. Test what common AI tools can produce before giving the assignment to students.
- Reflect and revise. Ask what AI added to — or potentially removed from — the learning experience.
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Explore AI with confidence at Mizzou
Show-Me AI provides Mizzou faculty and students with access to generative AI tools in a protected, university-supported environment designed for teaching and learning.
- Explore Show-Me AI
- View approved AI tools
- Review AI policies and guidelines
- Explore AI training and faculty development
- Schedule a Consultation with a Designer
Continue exploring
AI implementation is not a one-time decision. Tools and capabilities will continue to change, making AI literacy — the ability to understand, evaluate, use and make informed decisions about AI — an increasingly important outcome for faculty and students alike.
As you experiment, focus less on keeping pace with every new tool and more on the enduring questions.
What do we want students to learn? What role should humans play in that learning? And where can AI meaningfully support that process?
We’re here to help
Whether you're exploring an idea, revising an assignment or thinking more broadly about the role of AI in your course, Mizzou Online instructional designers can help you translate these questions into practical learning experiences.