AI in higher education

Artificial intelligence is a transformational technology, evolving rapidly. It is forcing us to think deeply about our existing structures and assumptions in teaching and learning, research, and how we work and interact with each other socially. For this training, we will focus on how AI is impacting us in higher education.

Click through the infographic below to review some of the shortcomings and myths about generative AI.

The resources identified in the checklist below will expand your understanding of AI and help you respond appropriately when students ask about it. You must be on the same page with your instructor and your department. As a graduate student, you must also try to explore how AI is being used in your discipline.

Instructor: Discuss your instructor's AI philosophy before the semester begins.
University-level guidelines: Read UNC's guidelines and resources.
Syllabus guidelines: Read UNC's syllabus guidelines. Read the syllabus carefully for the course you are supporting - students will reference that. As a TA, you might need to communicate expectations around AI use and help students interpret the official course/syllabus policy.
UNC tools: Familiarize yourself with PromptLab, UNC's toolkit of approved AI tools. It is recommended to use only UNC-approved tools, especially when you are working with FERPA-protected information.
Assessment and grading strategies: Review the slides [to be added after orientation on 13 Aug 2026] by Professor Dana Riger, UNC's Gen AI Faculty Fellow. You can also sign up for an online workshop by CIRTL on Rethinking assessment design in the age of AI - A practical framework (30 September, 2026).

Additional resources

Prompt libraries: As we grapple with the new instructional landscape created by generative AI, some scholars and educators have created their own repositories of effective prompts for teaching and learning tasks. These repositories-- generally referred to as prompt libraries-- include prompts that you can copy, paste, and edit for your own use in the generative AI tool of your choice. Below is a list of prompt libraries from some well-known scholars and institutions in the field of teaching and learning in higher education. Use these prompt libraries for inspiration for your own AI interactions.

Acknowledgement: In developing this module, we have partnered with our colleagues at Johns Hopkins University. This content has been adapted from their Generative AI in Teaching and Learning modules.