Process Over Product: Developing AI Competencies for Professional Practice

Generative AI tools are used daily in many of our students’ future practices and industries. These tools merge knowledge, thinking, and skills across broad areas of study, underscoring that liberal arts education is well-suited to facilitating learning on how to use, apply, and anticipate the consequences of Generative AI use. This session shares the structure and findings from the course “Creating with Generative AI: Shaping the Future,” offered in the Spring and Fall of 2024 by the College of Creative Arts, and is part of the liberal education requirement at Miami University.

This first-year course, which enrolls 40-55 students, combines hands-on activities to develop Generative AI skills, design thinking methodology, futures studies, “wicked problems,” and an analysis of pop culture’s examination of human-machine interactions to help learners develop technical competency and critical thinking skills. This session will highlight specific teaching strategies, explain how specifications grading is used for competency development, share student outcomes, and provide practical insights for educators interested in integrating AI education with liberal arts approaches.

Outcomes

After attending this session, participants will be able to: 1) Identify strategies for integrating liberal arts approaches with AI skill development to help students become doers and leaders in the workplace. 2) Apply insights from a successful first-year AI course to develop learning experiences that combine technical skills with ethical consideration and creative problem-solving. 3) Explain how specifications grading, which emphasizes iterative improvement through multiple revision cycles, supports student development of AI technical skills and critical thinking.

Evidence

The session will present products from the Spring and Fall 2024 course offerings. These include: 1) Themes and responses from an assignment called “Let’s Talk About,” where students posted questions about AI for class discussion. 686 “Let’s Talk About” questions were posted over two semesters, and I will share a few main themes that reveal concerns about workforce preparedness, AI ethics, and ways course content sparked inquiry. 2) Examples of student work and specially designed course materials to demonstrate ways learners engaged with and applied course content.