Huang Jua, Assistant Professor of English
“What I always tell pre-service and in-service teachers is that the decision to integrate AI tools should be based on your own learning and understanding of AI tools,” Huang said. “It’s a new technology and a lot of people are saying it’s bad, so thinking I won’t use it is not a healthy way to make decisions as an educator.”
Throughout the semester, students explored different AI platforms and looked at the pros and cons of each. They created lesson plans, assignments, and classroom activities to help future students think critically about how AI will impact their work.
Michael Moses is a second-year English major from Wilmington, Delaware, who wants to become an English teacher. Before taking the course, he said he had little experience with AI because he was concerned about academic integrity.
“I had never really investigated it myself,” he said. “This class was about the only time I felt it was reasonable to start using it.”
Moses recently presented a “micro-teaching” project with class partners using NotebookLM, an AI tool that analyzes uploaded materials rather than pulling information broadly from the internet. In their classes, they asked students to watch videos, take independent notes, take quizzes, and then compare their notes to AI-generated notes on the same material.
This assignment is designed to help students think critically about whether AI-assisted learning actually improves understanding.
Students then reflected on which notes they found more useful and why.
“It was actually really fun,” Moses said. “I don’t think there has ever been a project like this before.”
Looking back at AI literacy
Huang said reflection is one of the most important parts of preparing future teachers for AI-integrated classrooms. In addition to lesson plans, students draft their own AI philosophy statements and classroom AI policies, asking them to think carefully about what role they think AI should play in education.
Moses now sees AI not as something teachers should fear, but as a tool students need to understand.
“It is important to teach both its uses and misuses,” Moses said. “We have to guide our students into this age of AI, not just teach them about it.”
He wasn’t the only student to improve his AI literacy. Most of the students on the course were not interested in becoming teachers, which Huang said was a bit surprising but also gratifying.
“AI literacy is important for everyone as technology continues to shape the workplace and daily life,” Huang said.
Senior Natasha Kapadia, who is double majoring in political science and communications and plans to become a journalist, agreed. Although she was initially nervous about the challenge of learning about an AI platform and presenting to her class about how it would work in future classrooms, the experience helped her realize how big an impact AI could have on her life.
“As someone who wants to be a writer myself, this is a big part of my world. There were a lot of AI platforms that I didn’t even know existed,” she said. “Claude is so advanced it’s scary.”
Huang believes that AI’s greatest value is as a thinking tool, such as brainstorming, generating counterarguments, or identifying gaps, when applied with solid subject matter knowledge, critical judgment, and responsibility for the end result.
“We want students to suffer a little bit in the process,” she says. “You can’t learn without the hard parts.”
For Moses, this experience strengthened his interest in becoming a teacher at a time when education is rapidly evolving.
“There is always an argument that education needs to change,” he said. “Teachers are a valuable resource.”
