AI Tools for Teaching and Learning

SOC 160: Asian Societies

Pilot, Verify, Integrate

Reflection on Instructional Change:

For the AI Tool for teaching and Learning Workshop, I incorporated an in-class assignment where students were asked to use AI to do preliminary research on the topic of “Food as Resistance” in Asia. I made it explicit that the assignment was meant for them to verify any bias and misrepresentation in the information provided by the AI tool.

My intent behind the assignment design was to allow students to verify for themselves the usefulness of AI as an information gathering tool while cautioning them of the veracity and legitimacy of said information. A surprising number of students, while familiar with various AI generators, had never used the tools. I spent considerable class time teaching some students the how-to of entering the prompts and understanding the feedback from the AI generator.

Students well versed in AI use seemed attuned to the dangers of solely relying on AI for factual information. Many of the students who were just getting introduced to AI found it useful to gather information and use it as a stepping stool. Some students found the information generated accurate and reliable. The exercise was very valuable in helping students realize the strengths and weaknesses of AI as an information gathering tool. It also made me realize the different levels of learning curve among the students and alerted me of the inadequacy of my guidelines and the stark absence of a how-to tutorial for the assignment.

Evidence of Instructional Change

Evidence of Instructional Change

Prompt for in-class assignment	Student Feedback	AI tools for teaching and learning Certificate

Practice and Reflect Teaching and Learning with AI:

Through the workshop I became more AI literate than before. Some of the larger concerns I had about the use of AI (without having used it in the academic realm) still remain. I still worry about non-equitable student access to AI because of factors like unease in AI use for AI newbies and about students using AI for generating end products rather than for idea generation. Equipped with knowledge gathered during the workshop, I am, however more comfortable sharing these concerns with students in classroom setting via the integration of exercises like the one I used in the “Observe and Analyze” session. I will continue to learn more about the exciting possibilities that AI offers and will look for ways to incorporate these in the classroom setting.

Course Syllabus

160 Syllabus Spring 2025 Syllabus.pdf

Faculty Bio

Faculty Bio
Faculty Picture	Faculty Professional Background
	Nitika Sharma is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at California State University-Sacramento. She earned her doctorate in Sociology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her teaching and research interests include diaspora studies, sociology of race and gender, Asian American studies and refugee studies. She draws on decolonial and feminist theoretical frameworks and uses qualitative methods to study the social and behavioral processes of marginalized groups of people and the identity making that emerges out of these processes.

Funding Source
	This work was supported by: US Department of Education P031S230256 and P031C210012 *Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the US Department of Education.