Brightspace by D2L is a robust and flexible learning management system (LMS) with tools that empower both educators and learners. Yet many of its best features often go unnoticed. Whether you’re a Brightspace veteran or a newcomer, here are some key tips and tricks to help you streamline your course management and elevate the learning experience.

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Bulk Edit: Save Time with Course-Wide Adjustments

The Bulk Edit feature within a course’s Table of Contents allows instructors to quickly make changes to multiple content items at once—a major timesaver during course setup or mid-semester adjustments.

What You Can Do:

  • Rename multiple topics or modules.
  • Add or update due dates and availability settings.
  • Change visibility (e.g., hide/publish multiple items at once).

This is especially helpful after copying course content from previous terms and needing to quickly reset dates or update naming conventions.

Pro Tip: Use Bulk Edit in conjunction with Manage Dates (next section) for efficient pre-semester setup.

Go to Guide: Bulk Edit Modules & Topics

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Manage Dates: Keep Your Course Schedule in Sync

When transitioning your course from one semester to another, the Manage Dates tool is your go-to resource. It gives you a centralized view of all start, due, and end dates across:

  • Assignments
  • Quizzes
  • Discussions
  • Content modules & topics

You can easily shift all dates forward or backward using the Bulk Offset feature, or selectively adjust individual deadlines.

Go to Guide: Bulk Editing Dates using Manage Dates 

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Notifications: Stay Informed, Keep Students Engaged

Brightspace’s Notification System helps both instructors and students stay updated on important course activities. All new user accounts are configured to receive course announcement emails by default. Users may opt out of these notifications if they choose to.

Alerts Include:

  • Assignment submissions
  • Discussion activity
  • New content or announcements
  • Grade updates

You can choose to receive notifications via email, SMS, or both.

🎯 Instructor Insight: Instructors, please encourage your students to adjust notifications at the beginning of the semester. This significantly improves student engagement, reduces missed deadlines, and supports proactive learning habits.

Go to Guide:  Managing Brightspace Notifications

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Assignment Categories: Organize and Simplify Grading

Assignment Categories allow instructors to group related assignments under specific headings in the Assignments tool. While they don’t impact grading calculations (unlike gradebook categories), they provide:

  • Clearer structure for students
  • Easier navigation
  • Better course organization for instructors

Example: Group weekly reflections under a “Journals” category or segment quizzes by unit.

Note: Assignment categories are distinct and separate from gradebook categories. Assignment categories are purely for aesthetic purposes while gradebook categories serve a function.

Go to Guide: Assignment Categories

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Enabling Final Grades for Students: Ensure Visibility

By default, final grades in Brightspace are not visible to students. Final Grades do not have to be just for the end of the term, it can be a useful tool to show students where they stand in the course as the term progresses. To share them, you need to both calculate and release the final grade explicitly. 

Why It’s Useful:

  • Encourages self-monitoring: Students can track their progress in real time.
  • Reduces grade-related anxiety: No surprises at the end of the term.
  • Improves transparency: Shows how each activity contributes to the overall grade.
  • Supports formative feedback: Helps students understand where to improve.

Pros and Cons of Treating Ungraded Items:

  • Drop ungraded items:
    • Pro: Allows students to see a more realistic representation of their performance as ungraded items don’t artificially lower their grade.
    • Con: Instructors must manually enter zeros for incomplete items to ensure accurate final grade calculations.
  • Treat ungraded items as 0: 
    • Pro: Ungraded items are automatically treated as zeros which eliminates the need for manual input by instructors.
    • Con: Any item that isn’t completed or has yet to be assigned will make the final grade inaccurately lower than the true performance of the student.

Go to Guide: Releasing Final Grades to Students

Final Thoughts

With these Brightspace tips and tricks in your toolkit, you can simplify your course management, increase efficiency, and foster a more responsive and engaging learning environment for your students. 

But that’s not all! Don’t be afraid to explore the platform further as Brightspace is full of hidden gems waiting to be discovered.

Looking for step-by-step instructions? Be sure to visit our Knowledge Base or explore D2L’s Brightspace Community for detailed documentation, video walkthroughs, and community forums.

Education is about creating pathways to success for all students, and accessibility tools play a key role in making that possible. By offering inclusive learning support, we reduce barriers, embrace diverse learning styles, and promote a greater sense of belonging. As part of this commitment, we’re highlighting two valuable tools: ReadSpeaker and TextAid.

ReadSpeaker is a text-to-speech tool that allows students to listen to course content, including documents, pages, and quizzes – directly within Brightspace. It’s especially helpful for students with visual impairments, learning differences like dyslexia, or those who prefer auditory learning.

For expanded support beyond Brightspace, TextAid—a companion tool from ReadSpeaker—provides additional features such as writing assistance, translation, and annotation. Its browser extension also enables students to listen to web pages and personal documents, making it a flexible and valuable tool for both academic and everyday learning.

How to Access ReadSpeaker

ReadSpeaker in Brightspace – ReadSpeaker’s “Listen” button and options show up automatically throughout your Brightspace course pages or uploaded text documents.

TextAid Application – For more advanced learning support, students can use TextAid, a companion tool from ReadSpeaker. It extends accessibility support beyond Brightspace to personal study materials and even websites. TextAid requires a personal license. Contact the Office of Disability, Access, and Inclusion (DAI) for a license. 

What ReadSpeaker Does for Instructors

  • Supports inclusive teaching & UDL
  • Helps meet accessibility compliance
  • No setup required — built into Brightspace
  • Automatically works on most course content
  • Reduces the need to create separate audio files
  • Encourages self-paced, flexible learning
  • Promotes student independence and engagement
  • Enhances comprehension and accessibility in courses

What ReadSpeaker Does for Students

  • Listen to course content in Brightspace
  • Customize voice, speed, and text display
  • Read and listen at the same time
  • Use masking and highlighting to stay focused
  • Great for diverse learning needs (dyslexia, ADHD, ESL)
  • Access on desktop, tablet, or phone
  • Use TextAid for documents and web pages
  • Study on the go or offline (via MP3s, if enabled)

Tutorial and Resources

ReadSpeaker FAQ Guide: Accessibility Support for Instructors and Students

ReadSpeaker TextAid Quick Student Guide

Learn More About ReadSpeaker

URI Office of Disability, Access, and Inclusion

By integrating tools like ReadSpeaker and TextAid into our learning environment, we take meaningful steps toward making education more accessible, flexible, and supportive for all students. Whether you’re an instructor looking to enhance inclusivity in your course or a student exploring new ways to engage with content, these tools are here to help you succeed. If you have questions or need help getting started, don’t hesitate to reach out to the IT Teaching and Learning Services— we’re here to support you every step of the way.

New for 2025, the Course Merchant storefront provides a professional and user-friendly experience for the Brightspace Engage platform. Available to all URI departments and colleges, the combination of Course Merchant and Engage will allow students to easily search for available classes and submit payment. At the same time, these students’ Engage accounts will be created automatically, and they will be enrolled directly in their course, reducing administrative burdens on URI staff.

Engage is specifically designed for professional development, training, and non-credit bearing classes offered to the general public. To learn more, and discover what Engage can offer you, please reach out to the the IT Teaching and Learning Services team for a consult.

CCR AI/ML Seminar: Machine Learning Approaches for Characterizing Global Sea Surface Temperature Fields

The Center for Computational Research is planning a series of monthly talks on AI/ML techniques and applications across various scientific domains. We envision the talks to strike a good balance between depth and breath. The goal of these talks will be to (i) introduce the particular AI/ML technique to fellow faculty and graduate students who have a basic understanding of deep learning and (ii) present a variety of applications in different domains without assuming deep domain knowledge. Each event will start with a 45 minute talk with 15 minutes for questions and a subsequent 30 minute networking session for brainstorming and further discussion. The speakers will be URI faculty from a number of colleges.

Details on the first talk appear below.

Speaker: Peter Cornillon (GSO)
Date/Time/Location: May 1st, 3pm, 112 East Hall.
Title: Machine Learning Approaches for Characterizing Global Sea Surface Temperature Fields
Abstract: Sea surface temperature (SST) fields derived from satellite-borne sensors offer an ideal dataset for exploration using machine learning techniques. In this presentation, I will describe the use of an auto-encoder, in combination with a flow equalization technique, to identify outliers in a 20-year, global, twice-daily archive of SST fields. I will then demonstrate how this same approach can be applied to evaluate the performance of a global ocean circulation model.
Switching gears, I will introduce a machine learning model based on contrastive learning applied to the same SST datasets—this time to uncover and categorize fundamental spatial patterns within the fields. Finally, I will briefly touch on an analysis of the latent space produced by the contrastive learning model, with a focus on estimating the intrinsic dimensionality of SST field variability.

 

A Days Journey through the AI @ URI 2.0 Summit

Come with me on a journey exploring AI in teaching learning @ URI. It began as the URI Academic Summit welcomed faculty back to campus in January to discuss AI @ URI 2.0. Opening the event, a URI panel of staff, administration and faculty discussed where URI has come since the last Academic Summit in 2024 on AI and the future based on recommendations from the AI task force report. It is important to clarify that AI includes machine learning, neural networks, and robotics (around for decades), most of the topics for today’s summit address the narrower field of AI: generative AI which became rapidly widespread through open source products (such as ChatGPT). 

Innovative AI Integration in Teaching and Learning Breakout Session

This session explored the innovative ways faculty are incorporating AI into their classrooms. We heard from URI faculty, who are listed below, who have used AI for activities such as group work, individual projects, and programming assignments. Discussion included understanding the impact of AI on student learning and engagement and best practices for motivating students to use these tools effectively.

AI in Business Assignment for Game Creation

Christy Ashley, Marketing/Business
Christy Ashley discussed how students in her business courses made choices about AI tools for game creation. A guest speaker from Hasbro shared insights into how games are developed, and then she showed an example of the differences in game development using AI. Students often approached AI by simplistically replicating her work, not developing their own game creation.

Additionally, there were realtime considerations that impacted the use of the AI such as loading issues. Ashley highlighted the value of experimenting with new approaches in the classroom, experiencing mistakes, and thoughtfully reflecting on how to improve them for future use.

AI in Classroom Discussions and Assignments

Steven Atlas, Marketing/Business
Steven Atlas explored AI’s integration into classroom discussions, embedding learning about AI through discussion forums. He expressed the importance of determining clear parameters for the students. He also introduced optional AI supplements to assignments, allowing students to experiment with AI-generated content and refine their understanding.

For final projects, Steven encouraged students to use AI to develop research questions and benchmark AI behavior against human decision-making. This approach, particularly in marketing research, allowed students to explore how AI processes information differently from humans.

AI in Biology Education

Nic Fisk, Cell & Molecular Biology
Computational biologist and education researcher Nic Fisk emphasized designing assignments suiting the desired learning outcome, which may include how AI is used in research. They contrasted Google and ChatGPT in long-term retention, generalizability, and transfer of skills developed using these tools. They also noted that students’ frustration when they encounter AI-generated errors provides opportunities for learning. For example, prompting a generative AI and identifying missing nuances or important details can help students focus on the interesting elements of their writing or research.

AI’s Analytical Power in Research: Will and Christy

Will and Christy
Will and Christy discussed examining AI’s capabilities in deep analytics, contrasting human limitations with AI’s ability to process vast amounts of data. They highlighted how AI can significantly enhance research methodologies, but also raised concerns about over-reliance on AI-generated insights.





AI in Philosophy and Writing

Will Krieger
Will Krieger explored AI’s role in philosophical writing, emphasizing structured approaches to AI-assisted writing. Writing has always been the way we thought we need to assess philosophy. He has been exploring the outcomes of assignments and courses to consider integrating AI into the process. He implemented a three-submission assignment:

1 – A written detailed prompt asking for a detailed outline specifying sources, material, and objectives.
2 – Use AI to generate a structured essay based on the outline.
3 – Refine the AI-generated material into a final human-authored submission.

This three-submission assignment increases the instructor workload for assessing. Will found that this method worked well for half of the students, reinforcing the idea that specificity in AI prompting leads to better outputs.

AI’s Analytical Power in Research: Will and Christy

Vanessa Harwood
Vanessa Harwood, from the Communication Disorders field, discussed AI’s impact on speech-language pathology as it relates to the arduous chore of phonetic transcription. She noted that while AI can transcribe adult speech accurately, it often struggles with pediatric speech, and more so speech sound disorders.

However, AI tools can significantly reduce documentation time by encoding phonetic transcriptions that are arduous. She advocated for a three-step AI-assisted process that improves efficiency without sacrificing accuracy, where there is a cross check of AI output, ultimately reducing the time spent on transcribing and increasing the time spent with patients. 



Session Wrap Up: AI as a Tool for Thoughtful Integration

The panel concluded with a call for thoughtful AI integration in education. Faculty recognized AI’s ability to create efficiencies, but have also emphasized that it should not replace critical thinking. By understanding AI’s strengths and limitations, faculty can design courses that leverage AI’s benefits while maintaining academic rigor.

Keynote: Courage, AI Systems, and Troubles We Cannot Avoid

Dr. Vance Ricks

Dr. Ricks delved into AI ethics, discussing values in AI design, issue-spotting, and professional responsibilities. He introduced concepts of moral and techno-moral courage, drawing on Shannon Valor’s philosophy of ethical AI use. Key themes included:

  • The importance of intelligent hope and intelligent fear in AI adoption.
  • Recognizing AI as a socio-technological system embedded in broader social contexts.
  • Ethical considerations surrounding AI-driven decisions, especially in teaching and evaluation.

Broader Implications for Teaching Practices


Faculty acknowledged that both students and professors could misuse AI, raising concerns about academic integrity. The conversation emphasized:

  • The historical parallels between AI and past technological fears in advancements like Y2K, calculators, and Wikipedia.
  • The need for well-structured assignments that encourage critical engagement with AI.
  • Institutional approaches to shaping AI adoption in education, balancing efficiency with depth of learning.
Image for 2025 AI at URI 2.0
Ultimately, AI’s role in education will continue to evolve, and educators should remain adaptive, ensuring that AI serves as an enhancer to rather than a replacement for meaningful learning.
– Dr. Amanda Jensen

On the third floor of the Memorial Union, a formerly quiet office has become a bustling hub of activity. Thanks to the collaboration of departments across the University, and an enthusiastic and dedicated group of students, Room 317 is now home to the Rhody eLab.

The space features 5 high performance gaming gaming stations, a growing catalog of games to play, and is URI’s first dedicated esports space. It it open to all students following the completion of a Code of Conduct, and more information can be found at our website: https://web.uri.edu/rhody-esports/elab/.

For more information, or if you’re interested in collaborating, please contact us at: rhodyesportscoalition@etal.uri.edu

Image for eSports with Rams playing games on computers

After 42 years of dedicated service, Janie is retiring from her service at URI. She has served in a variety of roles in the IT department throughout her career at URI. She began her work as part of the Academic Computer Center in 1982, supporting programming and modeling software, research and external clients on the Prime minicomputer. She earned her URI MBA amidst the arrival of microcomputers and personal digital assistants. Janie was part of the original Help Desk pilot in Tyler prior to it becoming funded and growing into today’s IT Service Desk in the Library. She also ran the original Apple Higher Education Purchase Program on campus prior to it transferring to the URI Bookstore.

Photo of Janie Palm

Starting in 1997 she served as Manager of Instructional Technology and Media Services, supporting technology solutions for remote and in-classroom teaching and learning and diverse multimedia production facilities. She contributed to learning space design efforts and oversaw the project implementation for electronic access and installed presentation capability in general assignment classrooms. One significant result of the long-term collaborative efforts of IT, Enrollment Services, Capital Planning, Capital Projects and Custodial during this time is the Joint Classroom Steering Committee. In 2019 Janie joined the newly created IT Teaching and Learning Services team, focusing on faculty support for EdTech, the learning management software, as well as applications that foster collaborative and accessible learning.

Over the years, Janie has served on countless University committees and working groups, and embraced the URI community as a family. She has been directly involved with dozens of grants, including writing, review and implementation. She has represented URI beyond the campus through conference presentations at EDUCAUSE and NERCOMP, CCUMC committee service, serving as our NERCOMP institutional representative, and maintaining connections with peers at regional schools, even coordinating the hosting of the Boston Prime Users Group conference at the Kingston campus one summer. She is well known on campus for her compassion and expertise, and her dedication to supporting students, faculty, and staff have made an enduring impact on the URI community.

We will miss her dearly, and wish her well in her retirement pursuits. 

Congratulations on a remarkable career! 

Peter Phipps

Peter Phipps is a part-time faculty member in the Journalism department with 45 years of experience as a reporter, columnist, and senior editor for Providence Journal, Akron Beacon Journal, and Cleveland Press. He has taught Journalism for about 20 years at Emerson and URI.

Image with logos for Mentimeter, Google Docs and Brightspace

Introduction

Peter Phipps brings decades of journalism experience to URI’s classrooms, where he teaches a variety of courses including Media Law, History of Journalism, Introduction to Mass Communications, News Writing and Reporting, and Journalism and Criticism. When faced with the challenge of engaging 245 students—140 of them freshmen—in his Introduction to Mass Communications course, Peter recognized that traditional teaching methods wouldn’t suffice. He sought out digital tools that could help him manage such a large class while maintaining student engagement and facilitating meaningful group work.

Throughout his teaching experience, Peter has come to understand a fundamental truth: no matter what tool or professor is involved, student engagement ultimately depends on students’ willingness to participate. This realization led him to develop a multi-faceted approach using three key digital tools: Mentimeter for real-time engagement, Brightspace for course management, and Google Docs for collaborative work.

Mentimeter it’s free for students with lots of polling options, word cloud, multiple-choice questions, etc.

Peter Phipps

Is Mentimeter free?

Yes! Free users can create unlimited presentations with any question type and host up to 50 participants per month. To exceed 50 participants, an account upgrade is required.

Teaching Tool Usage

Before implementing digital tools, Peter had reached out to TLS on several occasions for tools and resources that he could use. He had found their consultation to be helpful in pursuit of which tools URI has as well as support/training for the various functionalities of these tools. This guidance helped him in developing strategies for managing his large class size.

Within the course, Peter structured his 75-minute classes into three carefully planned segments: 35 minutes of lecture, 25 minutes of polling activities and discussion, and 15 minutes for quizzes. To facilitate this structure, he implemented Mentimeter as his primary engagement tool, using it independently of slideshow presentations to conduct real-time polls and create word clouds. While the tool proved effective during periods of high attendance, its inability to track attendance became a significant limitation in a class where he knew only 10 of 245 student names.

The backbone of his course organization relied on Brightspace, where he divided his 245 students into 45 groups. This experience taught him valuable lessons about group dynamics in large classes. Initially creating groups of 5-6 students, he discovered this size was too large for effective collaboration. Through trial and error, he determined that three students per group would be ideal, though this would create the logistical challenge of managing 82 groups.

To facilitate collaborative work, Peter initially used Brightspace’s Locker feature but later transitioned to Google Docs. This platform provided students with more space and flexibility to organize their research and data. Each group designated one member as their document organizer, creating a clear structure for their collaborative work. However, the transition between platforms revealed communication challenges, as some students missed the announcement and continued using Brightspace Locker, resulting in temporary grading complications.

How do my students join a presentation using Mentimeter?

No installation is needed. Students can join by entering the code at menti.com, scanning the QR code, or using the voting link. They can vote directly from their smartphone or internet device.

Screenshot image for word cloud from Mentimeter

Sample Word Cloud from Mentimeter

Student Experience & Feedback

The implementation of these digital tools revealed several crucial insights about managing large classes. Student participation demonstrated a clear correlation with physical presence, as attendance dropped dramatically from 240 to 80 to 11 students over time. This decline significantly impacted the effectiveness of interactive tools like Mentimeter. Despite these challenges, some groups showed remarkable engagement with the material. One group particularly stood out by pursuing an academic investigation into the relationship between screen time and eye strain, demonstrating the potential for meaningful research even in a large introductory course.

How to create your first Mentimeter Presentation?

Resources

Mentimeter – A free online polling tool used to create interactive engagement and shape teaching approaches.

Brightspace Groups – Learning management system used for grading and organizing class groups.

Google Docs – Collaborative platform used by groups to collect research data.

View More Faculty Success Stories >>

 

 

In today’s digital education landscape, creating engaging and interactive learning materials is no longer optional—it’s essential. Lumi Education, a platform dedicated to simplifying the creation of interactive content, is helping educators, trainers, and content creators transform their teaching approaches. 

Lumi Education is one of the H5P, or HTML5 Package, editors available to create activities that allow faculty to develop a variety of interactive content for their Brightspace courses. This includes matching games, branching scenarios, and more.

Lumi Logo

Among Lumi’s many options, the Hotspot content type stands out as an innovative way to make visual content interactive and dynamic.

Here’s a closer look at Lumi Education’s Hotspot content type and how it can enhance your teaching or training materials.

Lumi Platforms

Lumi offers two main platforms for creating and managing interactive content: the Lumi Desktop application and Lumi Cloud. Both have their advantages and understanding the difference can help you choose the best option for your needs.

Lumi Desktop refers to their free downloadable app that allows users to create, edit content, and save files to their computer, while the Lumi Cloud refers to an online version of the editor that is accessed through a web browser with options of a free or paid plan.

What Is the Hotspot Content Type?

The Hotspot content type allows you to take any image and make it an interactive learning experience just by adding clickable spots that will expand and provide more information. It’s an excellent tool for creating visually engaging content that keeps learners actively involved.

Why Use Hotspot Activities?

Enhance Visual Learning
Visual aids are powerful tools in education, and the Hotspot content type makes them even more impactful. By adding interactivity, static images become rich educational experiences. Learners are encouraged to explore details, leading to deeper understanding and retention of information.

Foster Engagement
In traditional learning, students often passively consume information. With hotspots, they actively participate by exploring and interacting with the content. This approach helps keep learners engaged and motivated to dive deeper into the material.

Versatile Applications
Whether you’re teaching geography, anatomy, or art history, the hotspot feature can adapt to any subject. Highlight key landmarks on a map, label body parts, or analyze famous artworks—all with a single tool.

Learn About Berries – Sample Hotspot Content from H5P.com

Key Features

Customizable Hotspots: Place hotspots anywhere on your image, linking them to explanations, videos, external resources, or quiz questions.

Interactive Feedback: Build hotspots into activities that provide instant feedback. Whether it’s identifying landmarks on a map or labeling parts of a diagram, learners get real-time validation or correction.

Responsive Design: Hotspot activities are optimized for all devices, ensuring a seamless experience for learners on desktops, tablets, or smartphones.

Versatile Media Options:Incorporate text, images, videos, and links within hotspots, offering diverse ways to communicate information and appeal to different learning styles.

Creating Hotspots Activities with Lumi

Lumi makes it simple to create your own hotspot content using their free H5P Desktop Editor or the Lumi Cloud platform. Here’s a quick overview:

  1. Choose an Image: Select a high-quality image relevant to your lesson or topic.
  2. Add Hotspots: Use the intuitive editor to place hotspots on specific areas of the image.
  3. Insert Content: Link each hotspot to rich media such as text explanations, videos, or quizzes.
  4. Test and Share: Preview your activity to ensure it’s functioning as intended, then share it with learners via a web link or embed it in your LMS.

Need help exporting Lumi content as a SCORM package?

Check out the comprehensive guide from TLS: SCORM Export Guide.

Real-Life Applications of Hotspot Content

  • Geography Classes: Highlight countries or regions on a map with additional facts about each location.
  • Language Learning: Label items in a room or vocabulary-specific images to help learners build their lexicon.
  • Science Labs: Create interactive diagrams of cells, organs, or ecosystems.
  • Art and History: Analyze artworks or artifacts by embedding information about techniques, context, or artist biographies.

More real-life hotspot examples: https://h5p.org/image-hotspots#example=63175 

Conclusion

The Hotspot content type is a game-changer for educators who want to move beyond traditional teaching methods. Lumi Education makes it easy to create, customize, and share these engaging activities, helping learners stay interested and retain knowledge more effectively.

In today’s classrooms, the availability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is impacting learning—it is a time of raising questions as AI provides a variety of options and insights. AI tools can now assist students in writing, problem-solving, and research; offering new levels of convenience and access. But, while these tools can be helpful, they also bring challenges. As educators, it’s crucial to not just introduce AI, but to cultivate an environment of critical thinking that balances both caution and curiosity, all the while empowering students to ask: What might be missing? Can I trust this output? and What does it mean to use AI responsibly?

Critical thinking has long been a cornerstone of higher education and intellectual development. In an AI-enabled world, students need to learn to go beyond using these tools; they need to understand how to generate insights through verifying information, as well as understanding the possibilities and limits of technology.

A group of students viewing screen togetheter vith AI background theme

When students engage in critical thinking with AI, they’re better prepared to:

  • Think creatively and independently: Critical thinking encourages students to consider multiple perspectives and solutions, rather than simply relying on AI-generated answers. This independence nurtures innovation and personal insight.
  • Distinguish fact from fabrication: While AI can generate vast amounts of text, not everything it produces is accurate. Encouraging students to fact-check and cross-reference helps cultivate a healthy skepticism.
  • Challenge assumptions: AI often reflects only its training data. By guiding students to analyze the sources (including question potential biases) and recognize how assumptions shape information, it can help foster critical thinking.

Key areas to explore in AI’s limitations include:

  • Accuracy and Misinformation: AI produces results based on patterns in data rather than true understanding. Students may mistake plausible-sounding, yet incorrect information, for fact, undermining their knowledge and learning integrity.
  • Data-Driven Biases: AI systems inherit biases from the data used to train them, potentially perpetuating skewed perspectives. Encouraging students to question these biases nurtures an awareness of how assumptions shape content, fostering a more discerning, balanced view of information.
  • Risks to Independent Thought: Over-relying on AI can hinder a student’s own critical thinking skills. While AI might offer shortcuts, true learning often comes from grappling with complexity, not from accepting easy answers.

Ultimately, while AI may seem to provide quick solutions, it cannot replace critical thinking. Many AI-generated responses appear confident and well-formatted, however although outputs may: miss nuance, need detailed fact checking, or reflect underlying biases from source materials. Approaching AI materials with critical thinking can help students in recognizing these pitfalls and develop habits of inquiry that can prevent them from adopting AI’s suggestions without expert review.

As an institution of higher education, we have the ability to foster a mindset of inquiry. Consider the following strategies to help students and ourselves engage thoughtfully and critically with AI:

  1. Encourage Source Verification: Just as we ask students to cite sources in their own work, we can guide them to question AI sources and verify AI-generated content. This practice reinforces the importance of credible information and builds a habit of checking facts.
  2. Examine AI’s Limitations Together: Bring AI-generated outputs into class discussions; exploring where they succeed and where they fall short. This exercise helps students recognize that AI’s “knowledge” is limited, often lacking the context, depth, and human judgment necessary for complex analysis.
  3. Practice “Spot the Error” Activities: Regularly review AI outputs in class to identify inaccuracies, ethical concerns, or biases. This approach not only develops a critical eye, but reinforces the idea that AI should be questioned and evaluated, and not just passively accepted.
  4. Engage in Ethical Dialogues: The ethics of AI use extend beyond academic integrity, it also includes privacy issues and potential societal impacts. Encouraging students to reflect on these implications fosters a responsible mindset, helping them consider the broader impact of their technology use.
Critical Thinking and Ai image

 

While AI tools can provide new educational possibilities, there’s value in asking when to use AI. Asking the question of whether AI truly serves the learning objectives of the course and assignment. Some lessons may be better learned by working through challenges without automated assistance, promoting creativity, resilience, and deep, independent analysis. However, by selectively incorporating AI, educators can help students appreciate it as a tool that, while powerful, doesn’t replace the need for human insight and critical judgment.

Encouraging thoughtful reflection with a little skeptism toward AI helps students maintain their intellectual independence. Rather than seeing AI as a replacement for their own reasoning, they’ll learn to use it as a complement to their critical thinking. This balanced approach supports a learning environment where technology is seen as a helpful aid but not an unquestionable authority.

In an AI-enhanced world, it’s more important than ever to cultivate critical thinking and intellectual independence in students. Through a balanced approach—one that blends curiosity with caution —we can empower students to use AI responsibly and thoughtfully. Let’s encourage our students to ask questions, challenge outputs, and think critically so that, no matter where technology advances, they are equipped with critical thinking, curiosity, and insight.