From Chalkboards to ChatBots: AI for Active Learning

By: Leah Stanford

This article marks the final installment in the series "From Chalkboards to ChatBots." This series has focused on utilizing generative AI in educational practice. In December, we explored the fundamentals of AI, including its limitations and ethical considerations. Then, in February, the focus shifted to writing effective prompts to ensure more relevant and valuable results. As we close the series, we will be exploring practical applications of generative AI for planning lectures. Specifically, lectures that incorporate active learning strategies. If you would like to see an example of this process, you can access the “AI Diabetes Lecture Outline” that I created using ChatGPT. Hopefully, this example encourages you to continue exploring the use of AI for effective instruction. If you are curious about getting started or want support along the way, feel free to reach out to me at lstanford1@umc.edu.

Start with Objectives

As with all instructional activities, a great lecture begins with strong learning objectives. For this article, I used the objectives from the Introduction to Diabetes Mellitus lecture from SOM 610. In my initial prompt, I made sure to include these objectives so that the lecture content could be aligned with the expected outcomes for the session and meet the rigor required for medical students.

Integrate Active Learning

One of my goals for this chat was to identify opportunities for active learning. Many simple strategies can be added to lectures to encourage student interaction, critical thinking, application of concepts, reflection, etc. However, with such dense subject matter, it can be easy to forget to incorporate these strategies. This is where generative AI can help. ChatGPT was able to quickly break the lecture into manageable segments, each combining brief lectures with interactive elements such as audience response, partner discussions, polling, and exit tickets. It even provided time estimates, sample questions, and a clever title.

Refine and Regenerate

The best thing about generative AI tools is that you can provide additional guidance, and the tool can adjust the results based on your feedback. The AI Diabetes Lecture Outline, linked above, demonstrates how iterative prompting enhances results. By adding details about session logistics, available tools, space limitations, and time constraints, the AI-generated outline became more tailored and actionable.

As generative AI continues to evolve, educators have an opportunity to adapt, experiment, and collaborate with these tools in ways that enhance teaching and learning. With human expertise guiding the process, the real power of AI lies in how creatively and responsibly we choose to use it. Like bacon, artificial intelligence isn’t essential—but when used wisely, it can make everything be.