The Centre for Faculty Development and Teaching Innovation (CFDTI) is committed to providing up-to-date, relevant and pedagogically informed resources and support to enable the informed and responsible exploration and integration of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in teaching and learning. Through our collective efforts, we will be able to provide guidance on when, where and how GenAI can support and enhance our teaching practices and the learning experiences of students.
GenAI technology is evolving quickly, which in turn means that our understanding of it and its impacts on teaching and learning are changing day by day. We offer the following guidelines for faculty as a starting point, recognizing that they are fluid and subject to evolution as we continue to learn and adapt to new GenAI technologies.
Determining if and when to use GenAI
Context Matters
The impacts and uses of GenAI vary across disciplines and industries, which means when, where and how it is integrated into teaching and learning will differ between program areas, courses and even from one assignment to another.
Using GenAI is an Informed, Professional Decision
Faculty, as educators and knowledgeable experts in their fields, have the agency to determine the use of GenAI in their teaching practice to prepare content, materials and resources for learners.
Making it Meaningful
When used, GenAI should be appropriate to the context and meaningfully integrated to support student learning. Consider how GenAI use aligns with learning outcomes, the learning experience and the preparation of learners for the future of work.
Using GenAI Critically and Responsibly
Taking Responsibility for Developing your own Critical GenAI Literacy
- Commit to the continual development of your own critical GenAI literacy in order to critically evaluate the affordances and limitations of GenAI and act accordingly when considering the inclusion of GenAI within your teaching practice.
- Make informed decisions about how and when to integrate GenAI by evaluating
- GenAI functionality and its affordances for teaching and learning;
- limitations such as misinformation, fabrications*, biases and stereotypes; and
- emerging ethical concerns and impacts involving data management, data sharing, data sovereignty for Indigenous communities and sustainability.
- Consider how you can centre decolonization, equity and inclusion in your approaches to integrating GenAI, considering especially how its affordances and limitations may reduce or amplify existing inequities in your classroom.
* When large language models (LLMs) generate false information, sometimes referred to in ableist language as “hallucinations”.
Privacy and Data Security
- When engaging with GenAI tools, you are responsible for the information you share with the tool.
- Confidential, personal or information for which you do not hold the copyright should not be shared (please refer to the FAQ below for a definition of these terms).
- Student, faculty and colleagues’ work may not be shared, in part or in full, without their informed consent. This includes using GenAI as a tool to assess or grade student work (for example, to detect if they have used GenAI).
- Information considered the property of the College (e.g., policies, internal documents, learning resources) also may not be shared, in part or in full, unless there is a license or permission that explicitly allows such use.
- GenAI companies are mainly private and assert ownership of data used in the services they provide. Review user agreements inclusive of privacy and data management policies.
Reliability and Information Integrity
- All GenAI outputs should be reviewed for accuracy and credibility (tools such as ChatGPT are known to make up facts and sources) and revise as needed.
- Remember that GenAI is known to reproduce the prejudices and biases of its sources and may not be representative of diverse perspectives. You are responsible for the GenAI generated content you choose to incorporate into your curriculum and teaching practice.
Using and Modelling the use of GenAI
- When using GenAI to develop teaching and learning resources, use your own critical GenAI literacy to determine when it is appropriate or necessary to cite or document your own use of GenAI specific to the context in which you are teaching or working (because it’s not necessarily straightforward).
- To support student’s GenAI literacy, consider modelling the appropriate acknowledgement of GenAI use through documentation and/or citation when using GenAI in your own work.
Providing Student Guidance and Support
Digital Equity
When asking students to engage in its use, be mindful of the potential inequity in GenAI tools and access. Students who can afford paid versions of GenAI platforms may benefit from their upgraded features, functionality and performance. Furthermore, those studying from abroad may be limited in their access to GenAI due to government regulations and censorship.
Access and Accessibility
- GenAI can support access and the accessibility of educational technology by helping learners meet their access/accessibility needs. Explore opportunities for GenAI to make more equitable and accessible education for all and bear in mind that blanket prohibitions may interfere with meeting these needs.
- Remember that technology is not inherently or always accessible and consider any barriers you might be introducing into your course by integrating GenAI use.
- Unless GenAI is part of a software application licensed by the College, and to the extent that it requires students’ informed consent, the use of GenAI by students is voluntary. For students with concerns, negotiate a mutually agreed upon alternative (please refer to the FAQ below for more information).
Making it Part of your Curriculum
- Foster open and ongoing communication around the developing nature of GenAI tools and technologies with students.
- If integrating GenAI into your course, teach students GenAI literacy so they use GenAI critically and responsibly. Many students may not be aware of the affordances, limitations and risks. Please refer to Talking to students about Generative AI.
Being Explicit about your Expectations
- Provide explicit guidance to students (through clear written communication) about the incorporation of GenAI in activities and assessments. Explain why GenAI is or is not a part of course work or an assessment process. Outline student responsibilities including when it can be used, how it can be used, and how the attribution of its use should be stated. This includes communicating preferred citation and documentation practices.
- Provide explicit guidance to students if and to what extent it is permissible for them to share faculty-generated curriculum with GenAI.
- Discuss with students the use of GenAI in academic settings and the importance of upholding academic integrity and abiding by Centennial College’s Academic Honesty and Plagiarism Policy (AC100-11).
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
For further information, please visit our frequently asked questions.
This document was informed by national and provincial post-secondary institutional guidelines and recommendations on the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence and in consultation with Centennial College faculty.
This work licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 licence. This licence allows you to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes only and only so long as attribution is given to the original source.