As artificial intelligence reshapes higher education, institutions face a critical moment: resist change or embrace transformation. At Risepoint, we believe in turning these challenges into opportunities that enhance learning while maintaining academic integrity. Here’s how we’re navigating this exciting frontier.
AI Literacy Foundations: Building Informed Stakeholders
To effectively integrate AI into education, stakeholders must first become well-informed about its implications and applications.
Here’s how to get started:
- Investigate Student Perceptions and Usage: Explore existing research or conduct surveys to understand how students perceive and use AI tools.
- Research Workforce Impacts: Analyze how AI will affect specific career roles of learners. Use this information to shape curriculum and skill development.
- Explore Ethical and Societal Impacts: Study the ethical considerations and societal impacts of AI, including biases and privacy concerns.
- Leverage and Share Resources: Utilize resources like Educause’s A Framework for AI Literacy and MLA’s Student Guide to AI Literacy. Share insights and establish a common vocabulary to ensure clear communication across the institution.
Even when we are well-informed on a subject, challenges still arise. But you aren’t alone. Institutions have taken steps to turn challenges into learning opportunities. Let’s look at a few examples of how.
Opportunity: Communicate Expectations
Today’s successful institutions are. To maintain academic integrity in the age of AI, institutions are aligning policies and creating nuanced guidelines that prepare students for an AI-integrated future
Here’s how to get started:
- Advocate at your institution to define institution-wide acceptable AI use across different contexts (e.g., brainstorming, editing, or generating content) if they are not in place.
- Create transparency by revising academic honesty policies to address AI use directly, emphasizing ethical AI practices.
- Provide acceptable use case scenarios. Educate students on assistance versus misuse.
- Determine what your policy is for your courses. Need help defining the policy? Arkansas State University provides sample syllabus statements based on your level of use.
Not sure how AI is being used? Check out Barnard College’s faculty approaches to integrating Generative AI into Teaching and Learning for inspiration.
Opportunity: Bridge the Digital Divide
The digital divide shouldn’t determine student success. How can you ensure all students, regardless of background, have equitable opportunities to learn and use AI responsibly?
Here’s how to get started:
- Explore and suggest tools that are open source, free and reputable for student use
- Determine what institution-sponsored, vetted AI tools all students will have access to and require those for your course.
- Provide tutorials to improve students’ digital literacy and AI proficiency.
- Advocate for grants or partnerships to subsidize access for under-resourced institutions. Looking for free resources?
Organizations like Ai-4-All are leading the charge in fostering diversity and inclusion in AI education.
Opportunity: Use AI as a Catalyst for Critical Thinking
Students should learn to use AI as a supplement to their own problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity—preparing them for modern workplaces.
Here’s how to get started:
- Redesign assessments to integrate AI while requiring students to critically analyze and edit outputs. For example, “Evaluate AI-generated arguments for bias, clarity, and accuracy.”
- Create reflection tasks where students explain their decisions when using AI tools
- Introduce scaffolded assignments that combine AI support with personal skill-building.
- Consider offering optional AI use so students who do not wish to use it still have a structured learning path.
Want more ideas? Check out our Creative Outputs and Real-World Deliverables page for ideas on how to get started.
Opportunity: Foster AI Literacy and Critical Awareness
Students need to become critical users of AI, understand its limitations and how to mitigate bias.
Here’s how to get started:
- Work with campus leadership to develop standardized content on identifying and addressing AI biases, highlighting diverse perspectives often underrepresented in models.
- Encourage students to evaluate AI tools for fairness, transparency, and inclusivity and analyze how an AI model reflects biases or excludes certain viewpoints. Check out Educause’s article on The Impact of AI in Advancing Accessibility for Learners with Disabilities
- Partner with experts to create or promote tools that are culturally sensitive and multi-lingual.
- Check out the following resources for developing AI Literacy with your students.
Opportunity: Model Responsible AI Use
Build a secure learning environment that prioritizes student data protection and trust.
Here’s how to get started:
- Evaluate the tools your institution is providing and follow compliance policies with student data privacy laws (e.g., FERPA, GDPR).
- Work with campus leadership to provide clear guidance on safe AI use: which platforms are approved, what data can be shared, and what risks exist.
- Educate students about protecting their own privacy when using AI tools.
Opportunity: Lead with Clarity and Institutional Support
Consistency across courses and programs will reduce confusion, promote ethical AI use, and strengthen trust between faculty and students.
Here’s how to get started:
- Form an institution-wide AI policy task force to develop clear, adaptable guidelines. If one exists already, become involved to address gaps and opportunities related to the development of clear, adaptable guidelines.
- Review resources and training to implement AI policies consistently. Need help developing clear guidelines? Lance Eaton hosts a spreadsheet on Syllabi Policies for AI Generative Tools that is goldmine of resources.
- Create FAQ documents, workshops, or videos to explain AI boundaries.
Institutions can take the lead in promoting ethical AI literacy, fair access, and creative teaching methods by presenting AI challenges as opportunities for development. This method preserves fundamental educational principles like justice, integrity, and critical thinking while giving students the tools they need to succeed in an AI-integrated world.
