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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.

Join us Thursday, January 8, from 9 am – Noon, at the High Country Conference Center and Zoom, for a keynote presentation from José Bowen, author of Teaching with AI, to explore practical applications of AI in higher ed, followed by a panel of NAU Experts, who will discuss AI from multiple critical perspectives.

Read the book, Teaching with AI.

Teaching Day in-person seats are now full. Register to Attend Online

The Opposite of Cheating presents a positive, forward-looking, research-backed vision for what classroom integrity can look like in the GenAI era, both in cyberspace and on campus. Accordingly, the book outlines workable measures teachers can use to better understand why students cheat and to prevent cheating while aiming to enhance learning and integrity. Facilitated by Alana Kennedy. Register here.

Tuesday | February 3 | 2:30 – 3:30 pm | Zoom
Tuesday | February 17 | 2:30 – 3:30 pm | Zoom
Tuesday | March 17 | 2:30 – 3:30 pm | Zoom
Tuesday | March 31 | 2:30 – 3:30 pm | Zoom
Tuesday | April 14 | 2:30 – 3:30 pm | Zoom

BONUS MATERIAL

View this recording of a webinar facilitated by Tricia Bertram Gallant and David Rettinger, authors of The Opposite of Cheating, who share a positive, research-informed vision for fostering learning and integrity in the GenAI era. Read the book.