Available through ACUE Commons, the AI for Higher Ed Endorsement will empower you to integrate AI into your teaching strategy while maintaining academic rigor and integrity. From the ACUE Commons home page go to Quick Studies.  All NAU faculty have access to the ACUE Commons.

To register and sign in, follow these instructions:

Establish your account with the ACUE Commons by registering here. Use your NAU email address. You will receive a confirmation email from Support@Acue.org.  (Learn more on this webpage: TLC/ACUE Commons)

The Teaching and Learning Center will host an in-person webinar viewing of “Authentic Assessment in the GenAI Age” followed by a short discussion facilitated by Amy Rushall. This live OneHE webinar will explore how authentic assessment can be reimagined in the AI era by shifting focus from policing student work to making learning visible over time. Read more about this webinar.  

Wednesday | February 25 | 2:00 – 3:00 pm | Cline Library AI Hub (in person)

How can I use AI ethically to help me save time with certain tasks as a faculty?

Week of Feb 23:

Monday | February 23 | 12:00 – 12:45 pm | Zoom
Wednesday | February 25 | 3:00 – 3:45 pm | Zoom
Thursday | February 26 | 1:00 – 1:45 pm | Zoom

Register below to explore practical strategies for using generative AI to support writing instruction, along with ethical approaches for providing AI assisted feedback. This session emphasizes simple, effective ways to integrate generative AI while ensuring students continue to receive meaningful instruction and feedback from their professors.

Wednesday | February 25 | 11:30 – 12:30 pm | Zoom

This intermediate AI Learning series takes faculty beyond “good prompts” into repeatable AI workflows for teaching, research, and administrative productivity that is grounded in prompt/context engineering and disciplined iteration.  Participants will design an AI-enhanced assignment sequence with a grading approach that differentiates AI-assisted and AI-independent work in that assignment, as well as develop a responsible-use implementation plan that can be used in their courses to help align integrity, bias awareness, and privacy constraints.  Each day is hands-on and artifact-driven, emphasizing verification, transparency, and practical adoption in real coursework and faculty need contexts. Facilitator: John Gartin

Fridays | April 3, 10, 17 | 12:00 – 1:00 pm | Zoom

Register to attend in person | Register to attend online

Register to attend in person | Register to attend online

9:05 – 9:50 am
FACTBot: Faculty Assistant for Critical Thinking
Presented by Michelle Miller, Department of Psychological Sciences
Critical thinking is a particularly difficult skill to address in college courses. This project tests a custom GPT that helps suggest and build activities to reinforce critical and higher-order thinking aligned with a specific discipline or field, based on a specific set of resources provided by the creator of the GPT.

10:05 – 10:50 am
Using GAI in Lesson Planning
Presented by Marti Canipe, Department of Teaching and Learning
I will share the results of an intervention that helped elementary education majors learn to use GAI as part of their lesson planning process. These results include how students used or did not use GAI and their perceptions about the use of GAI.

11:05 – 11:50 am
From Perils to Pedagogy: Generative Artificial Intelligence as Forms of Visual and Verbal Communication in the Introductory Communication Analysis Course
Presented by Jermaine Martinez, School of Communication
Generative A.I. hallucinations and algorithmic bias pose risks for higher education, yet within COM101’s focus on applying communication theory to public messages, these same features become pedagogical opportunities. They reveal Anton’s (2023) notion of “superabundance,” showing how GenAI draws from sprawling histories of human symbolism. This project demonstrates how we can shift from peril to pedagogy by introducing students to receiver-oriented, critical, and media-ecological frameworks to identify and analyze algorithmic bias and describe how GenAI hallucinations often feel “truthful.”

Register to attend in person | Register to attend online

9:05 – 9:50 am
Conversations with Conservationists: Using AI to Aid Conservation Education
Presented by Derek Uhey, School of Forestry
AI can allow students to go beyond readings to engage with famous conservationists, asking them questions about modern day issues. In this presentation I’ll explore how successful these AI lessons were and student attitudes towards using AI in conservation. Overall, students valued learning AI tools and having conversations with AI generated conservationists but had ethical concerns about using AI in conservation and education. As a class we formed a code of conduct to guide use of AI in the classroom and the field of conservation.

10:05 – 10:50 am
See, Touch, Learn: Enhancing DPT Students’ Palpation Skills and Anatomical Knowledge with AI Musculoskeletal Ultrasound
Presented by Michael Morgan, Department of Physical Therapy and Athletic Training
This presentation highlights a TRAIL-funded pilot integrating AI-enhanced musculoskeletal ultrasound into a first-year DPT anatomy course to help students see, touch, and learn more effectively. After introducing the technology in accessible terms for a cross-disciplinary audience, the session presents detailed results across cognitive, psychomotor, and affective learning domains. Data demonstrate meaningful improvements in anatomical understanding, palpation accuracy, and learner confidence. The project offers a scalable model for transforming anatomy education with AI-supported imaging.

11:05 – 11:50 am
From Classroom to Clinic: Workshop Series Integrating AI into Healthcare Education Training
Presented by Sarah Bolander, Department of Physician Assistant Studies; Zac Baker, College of Health and Human Services; and Carrlene Donald, Department of PA Studies
This session highlights a three-part workshop series that equips graduate healthcare students with essential AI skills. Covering ethical foundations, practical applications in didactic training, and integration into clinical practice. Attendees will gain insights into how AI can support learners, with examples from healthcare training. This session will also leverage AI tools to create personalized, high-quality study resources aligned with adult learning theory.

Register to attend in person | Register to attend online

9:05 – 9:50 am
Using the Socrates Learning Tool to Promote Interactive Learning in a Large Class
Presented by Nick McKay, School of Earth and Sustainability
This project integrated Socrates, an AI-powered teaching tool, into ENV 115 (Climate Change), a large-enrollment course serving 130-200 students. Socrates uses Socratic questioning to recreate small-class learning experiences at scale, guiding students through personalized inquiry-based discussions. The tool enhances critical thinking while automating quiz generation and identifying student misconceptions. Building on successful pilots at Cornell in similar courses, this implementation demonstrates how AI can effectively scale personalized learning in large lectures while optimizing faculty effort and improving accessibility.

10:05 – 10:50 am
Enhancing CS136 Lab Learning with an AI-driven Conversational Agent
Presented by Ana Paula Chaves, School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems
In this presentation, we will present the results of using an AI-driven Conversational Agent to tutor CS 136L students when developing programming skills. The agent was developed by an NAU lab and embedded into a coding platform that students use to write code. The outcomes show positive results when students use it for problem-solving tutoring, but over-reliance on the agent results in a lack of independence when writing code.

11:05 – 11:50 am
Empowering Business Students to Thrive in the AI Era: A Practical and Research-Driven Approach
Presented by Yichuan Wang, Department of Management, Marketing, and Information Systems Management
The presentation, Empowering Business Students to Thrive in the AI Era: A Practical and Research-Driven Approach, showcased real-world applications of artificial intelligence across industries. Guest speakers from DriveTime, Circle K, and Intel introduced how AI had been applied to supply chain management, pricing strategies, and marketing practices. I also presented my research on text mining of ESG reports, illustrating how students connected academic methods with practical business challenges to prepare for future success.

Register to attend in person | Register to attend online

9:05 – 9:50 am
AI as a Creative Partner: Teaching Scalable Content Production in Strategic Communication
Presented by Amy Dryden, School of Communication
This project introduced Strategic Communication students to real-world AI workflows used in modern advertising. Students created original content and used generative AI to repurpose it into full, multi-platform campaigns. The experience strengthened their strategic thinking, ethical AI use, and professional portfolios, preparing them for internships and jobs that increasingly rely on AI-assisted content creation.

10:05 – 10:50 am
The Future of Learning: Integrating AI into Teaching Cognition and Psychology of Creativity Courses
Presented by Viktoria Tidikis, PhD, Department of Psychological Sciences
In this presentation, I will showcase how AI tools were integrated into two psychology courses to enhance creative and cognitive learning. Students engaged with generative AI as a brainstorming partner, a study tutor, and a cognitive-bias analyzer, allowing them to compare human and AI idea generation, practice critical evaluation, and explore creativity. These assignments demonstrated AI’s potential as both a creativity catalyst and a critical-thinking tool.

The accepted instructional proposals, which represent six of NAU’s colleges, are:   

• Sarah Bolander, Department of Physician Assistant Studies: Integrating AI into Graduate Health Education: A Workshop Series 

• Marti Canipe, Department of Teaching and Learning: Using GenAI in Lesson Planning 

• Ana Paula Chaves, School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems: Enhancing CS136 Lab Learning with an AI-driven Conversational Agent 

• Amy Dryden, School of Communication: AI as a Creative Partner: Teaching Scalable Content Production in Strategic Communication 

• Marco Gerosa, School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems: LLM-Generated Feedback for Reflecting Upon Design Trade-offs in Software Engineering 

• Sara Kien, Department of Psychological Sciences: Developing an AI Chatbot to Support Critical Thinking in a Research Methods Course 

• Jermaine Martinez, School of Communication: From Perils to Pedagogy: Generative Artificial Intelligence as Forms of Visual and Verbal Communication 

• Nick McKay, School of Earth and Sustainability: Instructional-Track: Scaling Socratic Learning with AI: Enhancing Engagement in Large Classes 

• Michelle Miller, Department of Psychological Sciences: Interactive Tools for Enhancing Critical Thinking Across Disciplines 

• Michael Morgan, Department of Physical Therapy and Athletic Training: See, Touch, Learn: Enhancing DPT Students’ Palpation Skills and Anatomical Knowledge with AI Musculoskeletal Ultrasound 

• Landi Morris, Department of Economics, Finance, and Accounting: Career-Ready Skills in Accounting and Finance: Validating Generative AI’s Interpretation of the Internal Revenue Code 

• Viktoria Tidikis, Department of Psychological Sciences: The Future of Learning: Integrating AI into Teaching Cognition and Psychology of Creativity Courses 

• Derek Uhey, School of Forestry: Conversations with Conservationists: AI-Simulated Dialogues for Environmental Education 

• Yichuan Wang, Department of Management, Marketing, and Information Systems Management: Empowering Business Students to Thrive in the AI Era: A Practical and Research-Driven Approach 

Learn more about the innovative work our TRAIL-supported faculty did to incorporate AI into their courses. Each presentation is described below and was recorded separately during AI Week: March 24-28, 2025. Click on this link to access the ten TRAIL Blazer Showcase Video Presentations.

Lessons Learned while Integrating GenAI in ENV 360: Enhancing Fieldwork, Classwork, and Technical Writing
Presented by Nicholas McKay, Associate Professor, School of Earth and Sustainability

I integrated generative AI (GenAI) into multiple aspects of an upper-division Environmental Sciences course, supporting field and classwork, and technical writing. Students used GenAI for multiple components of the class, including transcribing field and lecture notes, studying for exams and refining technical reports. Some applications were more successful than others, with feedback on writing and exam preparation being the most successful. Despite some hiccups, students appreciated the opportunity to learn to work with emerging tools.

The Perils and Possibilities of Using Generative AI in Indigenous Literary Studies
Presented by Jeff Berglund, Professor, Department of English

Students from Fall 2024 classes on post-Civil War American Literature and U.S. Multi-Ethnic Literature will join me to share their experiences using AI, specifically Co-Pilot, in units featuring Indigenous writers. Our discussion will focus on the best uses of AI we discovered as well as the limits and dangers of relying on AI-generated information with limited access to culturally sanctioned knowledge. Contributors:  Jeff Berglund with Daniela Alfaro Alas, Andi Casten, Sydney Freeland, Kayla Garcia, Skye Kind, Lincoln Lambert, Taryn Toombs, and Paige Yaklin.

Tackling AI Anxiety with Art Students
Presented by David Politzer, Director, School of Art + Design

During the Fall 2024 semester, Politzer integrated AI tools into ART 499: Interdisciplinary Critique, a course focused on analyzing and discussing student artwork. The goals were to ease AI anxiety and enhance students’ preparation for critique. Students used ChatGPT to role-play critiques and attempted to recreate their art projects using Midjourney. In his presentation, Politzer will share insights and outcomes, and demonstrate sample assignments.

Educational Leaders and AI: Exploring the Emotional Side of AI Adoption
Presented by Blue Brazelton, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Leadership

Technology and unfounded enthusiasm or fearful avoidance, pick your favorite trope. Across 3 graduate courses covering the intersection of education and technology, my work examined the ways emotion affected students studying educational leadership. Using the Technology Acceptance Model as a framework, the AI experiences and emotions of over 50 graduate students are contextualized as part of an on-going conversation about disruptive technology and schooling.

Dialogues with Generative AI: Exploring Human-AI Adversarial Collaborations
Presented by Jonna Vance, Associate Professor, Philosophy Department

This talk discusses an ongoing project to help students improve their reasoning and communication through adversarial-collaborative dialogues with large language models. The talk describes a series of pedagogical challenges professors independently face and how the project has helped meet them. The challenges include: helping students understand the costs/benefits of offloading work to AI; helping students effectively reason with others; providing real-time non-threatening critical feedback to students; and improving students’ ability to accurately identify and explain patterns of excellence/deficiency in their own work.

Improving Student Learning Outcomes with a Generative AI Peer Review Partner
Presented by Kiley Huntington, Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Social Work

The presentation will discuss the use of generative AI as a peer review partner in an online asynchronous undergraduate writing intensive course. The goal of the project was to improve student writing outcomes by providing students with access to a supportive “peer reviewer” throughout the course. The presentation will also discuss the challenges and opportunities of using generative AI in the classroom.

Fostering Solution Diversity: Teaching Software Engineering through LLM-Generated Alternatives
Presented by Marco A. Gerosa, Professor, School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems

Numerous LLMs are available, giving access to diverse solutions for the same problem. Students need to develop skills in analyzing and selecting context-appropriate approaches. To address this, we tasked Software Engineering and Software Architecture students with generating and comparing multiple solutions and reflecting on the process. In this presentation, we will discuss student perceptions and benefits of this approach and how this initiative fits in the overall research conducted in our group.

An AI Literacy Module for Students Across the Disciplines
Presented by Alana Kuhlman, Associate Teaching Professor, English

As a relatively new and constantly emerging technology, students tend to have varying levels of knowledge about generative AI and its ethical and appropriate use inside and outside of the classroom. Likewise, faculty may exhibit similar discrepancies in generative AI knowledge, usage, and classroom instruction/integration. This TRAIL project aimed to fill these gaps by developing a generative AI literacy module for students that was piloted in ENG 100 and ENG 405–writing support courses offered by the Lumberjack Writing Center–and by sharing this module for possible use with faculty across the disciplines. This presentation will provide an overview of the module and the results of an IRB-approved study that explored students’ and Writing Assistants (tutors) experiences with the AI module and any perceived benefits.

Harnessing AI in the Strategic Communication Classroom and Workplace
Presented by Janice Sweeter, Associate Professor, School of Communication

My research explores the rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) interventions in the classroom and exposure to AI in the strategic communication workplace, culminating in a collaborative study assessing student awareness and understanding of AI, AI contribution toward career readiness, and other factors.

Chatbot activities in the Spanish classroom: challenges and possibilities
Presented by Yuly Asención-Delaney, Professor, Department of Global Languages and Cultures

This session addresses the benefits and challenges of using chatbots in Spanish classes at NAU  as tools that can simulate real-life interactions in the target language. The presenter will describe some chatbot activities implemented in Spanish classes and discuss students and instructors’ perceived usefulness of this AI-powered language practice.