Pedagogy 2025

Abstract

This presentation outlines strategies for addressing AI use among undergraduates in introductory level history courses. By acknowledging the issue of AI usage directly at the onset of the course, offering assignments that encourage students to engage the material on their own terms, and dealing with AI usage in proactive ways, instructors can help students better understand the nature of education, and benefit from the results that come of their engagement and efforts. Explaining to students the nature of education is vital to getting students to believe that their work is “good enough” on its own merit. Once students trust that their ideas can lay a foundation for growth and improvement, students usually come to realize that AI usage is not only unnecessary, but detrimental to their long-term success and fulfillment. Offering assignments that give students a chance to build their own understandings of themes and topics they are genuinely interested in, rather than reciting content that has been predetermined as compulsory, obligatory, or otherwise necessary for their understanding of the course topic, goes a long way in preventing students’ dependence on AI usage. Despite the best efforts of an instructor to prevent AI usage, some students will inevitably default to using it. Sometimes, it’s because they’re overwhelmed, other times, because they’re looking for an easy way out. In any event, strategies that invite them back to the table, rather than applying punitive measures, often show results that bear out over the course of their academic career.