Dear colleagues, 
Navigating artificial intelligence in the classroom is complex. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Many UT faculty members are exploring novel and engaging ways to unlock student learning with AI. Others are experimenting with promising interventions to help students refrain from using AI to bypass the thinking, human connection and productive struggle that meaningful learning requires. As AI continues to shape education and society, The University of Texas at Austin is uniquely positioned to define what great teaching looks like through our campus community’s deep disciplinary expertise and commitment to AI-Forward – AI-Responsible practices.  
To help you prepare for the fall, below are key steps you can take to shape your approach to AI pedagogy.  
Start With Your Learning Outcomes  
Before deciding whether, or how, to use AI, start with the end in mind: What do you want students to know and be able to do after their journey in your class? At UT Austin, the definition of responsible adoption of AI for teaching and learning includes using AI in ways that facilitate the achievement of learning outcomes and not using it in ways that would harm or inhibit learning. Some students may use AI to game the system. Others seek to use it safely, effectively and ethically and are equally concerned about the dangers to their learning. Responsible AI use varies by discipline and may look radically different in each of the classes our students take. Students need our guidance about when and how AI use is appropriate, and when it would be detrimental.  
Implement New Syllabus Requirements   
As an official agreement between you and your students, the syllabus is the best place to articulate your learning outcomes as well as how AI should and should not be used in your courses. Clearly communicate your AI expectations to students in your syllabus. This summer, we shared information about new requirements for syllabi, including AI policies. UT’s Simple Syllabus tool and Editable Syllabus Template come pre-populated with required and recommended policy language, along with guidance for writing your course AI Policy Statement.  
Interested in using AI directly in the classroom? Try Socratic Tutoring with UT Sage  
With UT Sage — UT’s AI tutoring platform — instructors can make Socratic AI tutors grounded in their own course materials and share them with their students in Canvas. UT Sage is a tool developed and operated by UT and comes with all the University’s data, privacy and security protections. Faculty and instructional staff members across campus have built UT Sage tutorbots for a wide range of purposes: practicing communicating in foreign languages, indexing of dance history content, pharmacotherapeutics review, chemistry problem sets ahead of midterms, adaptive assessment in a large psychology course and encouraging productive struggle around clinical topics among surgery clerkship students. You can build a UT Sage tutorbot that walks students through an assignment or concept in 15 minutes or less. 
Contact the Office of Academic Technology or sign up for our Getting Started with UT Sage workshop on Thursday, Aug. 20 at 3 p.m.
Sign Up for UT Sage Training
No single initiative will define great teaching in the AI era. How we teach and what our students learn will be defined by what UT Austin faculty members discover, test and share, discipline by discipline during the coming years.  
We look forward to building compelling exemplars of effective AI pedagogy together.  
For additional resources, including opportunities to share examples of effective implementation or intervention, navigate to our AI Pedagogy Semester Start Guide.  
Hook ’em!
JULIE SCHELL
Assistant Vice Provost
Office of Academic Technology
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