This fourth and final installment of our 2025 Summer Asynchronous Professional Development offers three activities to help you engage with your students around what AI looks like in your classroom.

Preparations for Fall: Communicating expectations to your students
by Alexis Brown and Jenna Goddard

As September approaches—and with it, the rollout of TRU’s new Academic Integrity Policy that now includes language around the use of “unapproved tools which generate content” as well as the implications of teaching in an increasingly AI world—educators are continuing to navigate our place on the AI spectrum from enthusiastic adopter to refuser, continuously finding ourselves in the position of learner in our own classrooms. Regardless of where you find yourself on the AI spectrum, our students are using and engaging with it for academic purposes.

So, what does this mean for faculty?

The work of Dr. Sarah Eaton (2025) can help guide faculty in thinking about how we communicate responsible and transparent AI use with our students. Eaton argues that historical definitions of plagiarism no longer apply, and that policy definitions must be changed alongside the understanding that while humans may relinquish control of AI generated content, we cannot relish the responsibility of what AI produces; that is to say, responsibility is the cornerstone of engaging with AI within the context of academia.

However, beyond having an AI statement in your Course Syllabus (sample statements), it is necessary to clearly communicate your parameters and expectations of how AI is to be used with each assignments and which tools are “approved”, as well as what responsible use of AI as a tool looks like.

Three activities that can support discussing responsible AI use in your course are:
1. Create an Anonymous Survey using Mentimeter asking how your students are using AI. You can use the list of questions on AI in Education (site created by our wonderful Ed Tech team) under the category “Ask your students questions about AI”.
2. Create a Formative Quiz using Kahoot asking your students if they are aware of the ethical and academic implications (sanctioned and unsanctioned) use of AI. Refer to TRU’s Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Students to generate questions.
3. Encourage students (or offer a bonus 5%) to book an appointment with a Writing Centre Tutor or book a class presentation with the Writing Centre Coordinator (jegoddard@tru.ca). Tutors are trained to support students’ understanding of both institutional policies and individual instructor guidelines around responsible AI use and demonstrate transparent documentation and citation according to the preferred citation style.

If interested in further ways to communicate with your students using a variety of different tools and methods on responsible AI use, as well as declaring your AI parameters in your course syllabus and on assignments, consider registering for our Responsible Design with AI for your Course Curriculum workshop on September 18 from 9:00-11:30am via MS Teams.

References

Eaton, S. E. (2025). From Plagiarism to Postplagiarism: Navigating the GenAI Revolution in Higher Education.