6 Activities for a Human-Centered AI Pedagogy (opinion)
In his illuminating book Co-Intelligence, Ethan Mollick describes the potential for human-AI collaboration. He suggests that it will be critical for humans to remain “in the loop” when engaging with generative AI tools: “By actively participating in the AI process, you maintain control over the technology and its implications, ensuring that AI-driven solutions align with human values, ethical standards and social norms. It also makes you responsible for the output of the AI, which can help prevent harm.”
To foster this kind of “human-in-the-loop” learning in the classroom, we as teachers can structure opportunities for our students to assess, compare, troubleshoot, reflect on and improve generative AI outputs through back-and-forth iteration; we can also create new alternative grading policies and assessment structures that celebrate the fluid process of learning, which involves mistake-making, reflecting, pivoting, trying again and explaining lessons learned. By keeping our students in the loop, we can try to foreground the critical thinking and ethical decision-making skills that will help students drive generative AI engagements toward a future that is more dignified and enriching for more people.
This is a grand vision, for sure. But, because visions of this AI-integrated future are pushed onto us by companies and corporations with products to sell, we often hear “AI” alongside terms like “personalization,” “efficiency” and “productivity” rather than terms like “relationships,” “community” or “conversation.” Indeed, I find it regrettable that, like many of the other terms driving today’s discourse on AI, this “loop” of human-AI collaboration is so often envisioned as involving one individual student working alone with an AI tool.
As an educational developer, one of my biggest concerns about generative AI is that in our fascination with these tools, we abandon decades of research that has illuminated the benefits of another kind of co-intelligence we’ve had all along—the kind of intelligence that emerges from the human-human interactions and collaborative potentials we hold as educators and students. Whether it be the deep relationships and communal spaces that cultivate transformative learning, the collaborative work between students and their peers, or a radical co-creation of learning experiences with students, a truly human-centered AI pedagogy must be anchored in values that bring humans closer together.
And what if this were to be our compass? We might ask questions like: Does grading with AI bring us closer to our students? Are students cheating because of AI, or because they feel completely anonymous? Is this homework assignment truly putting learning at the center? What does my ideal classroom community look like and how might we share accountability with one another when it comes to our AI use in the classroom?
These are difficult questions, and it can be helpful to start by simply reflecting on the human values, skills and concerns that matter to you. Below, I provide six human-centered values and simple AI-integrated activities we can use to center those values in the classroom. These activities emerged from my work developing Analog Inspiration, a card deck designed to help educators center human learning when integrating AI into their classrooms. Each activity makes the double move of (1) placing students in the loop via collaboration, critical oversight or metacognitive reflection on generative AI outputs while also (2) creating the potential for closer connections between educators, students and peers.
- Agency. Share a folder of readings, concepts or problems. Ask students to sign up for one and teach the class their chosen concept. Or better yet, leave your final week of the syllabus open and ask students to develop a presentation or learning module based on something they think the course is missing. In either case, encourage them to use AI as a thought partner, helping to explore directions and brainstorm ideas.
- Belonging. Ask students to write you a short letter titled “What I want you to know about me as a learner.” Then, have them prompt AI to write a generic version of the same letter and compare the two: “What’s missing from AI’s letter? What is uniquely you?” Discuss insights as a class, celebrating folks’ unique strengths and experiences. Describe together what belonging in your classroom can look like.
Bonus: Write students a companion letter titled “What I want you to know about me as a teacher.”
- Critique. Ask AI to generate a passable but uninspired response to one of your assignments. During class, share this AI-generated work with students, along with your rubric for the assignment. Ask students to evaluate the AI’s work—first individually, then with a partner to calibrate critiques. End with a class debrief to share insights and develop a shared understanding of assignment criteria.
- Motivation. Ask students to provide AI with two to three paragraphs about the things in life that really spark their curiosity and give them excitement, along with potential careers or things that they would like to pursue. Then, invite students to upload your syllabus or an upcoming assignment prompt and ask AI, “Why should I care about this assignment? What skills or knowledge might I gain? How do these align with what I hope to be or do?”
- Patience. Pause your lecture for five minutes. Ask students to share one question or idea they are having about today’s material with AI. Then, invite them to pair up and share their AI interactions. Normalize the time, space and conversation it takes to deepen the understanding and exploration of your course concepts.
- Voice. Center student voices, literally. Invite students to submit weekly short voice memos or screencasts instead of written responses. Students might respond to a reading in their own words, explain their process of solving a problem or critique an AI-generated output they received. Not only does this make student thinking more visible; it also gives students practice talking about course material, helping to prepare them for in-class discussions.
Whether we want to ward off, wrestle with or welcome this alien AI mind, it seems to me that the most important action we need to be taking as educators in this moment is to add more humans into the loop wherever and whenever possible. This means structuring more collaborative activities where two or three students engage with AI to compare perspectives and envision different next ways forward; it means gathering together with other teachers in our community to have conversations about AI and share ideas and experiences; it means leaning into those difficult conversations about the impacts that AI is having on our environment, our cultural sense of truth, the conditions of human labor and the perpetuation of human biases; and ultimately, it means redesigning not only our assessments and policies but also the relationships that have always anchored the work of teaching.
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