Talking with Your Students about AI

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The Challenge

Generative AI has created new challenges for teaching and learning. On the one hand, when used creatively and appropriately these new technologies can support learning and offer opportunities for students to become more intentional about ethical and responsible use. But without a shared understanding of boundaries and expectations, students will likely use it to bypass their learning. This is why it is so important to lean into conversations about AI with your students, at the beginning and throughout the course.

Common Ground

Northeastern provides the following resources to help faculty and students establish a baseline for expectations:

Standards and Recommendations for the Use of Generative AI in Teaching and Learning: Developed Responsible AI Faculty Working Group, the AI Faculty Fellows, and CATLR, with input from the Office General Counsel (OGC) and members of the Chancellor’s and Provost’s Offices.
AI at Northeastern: A Student Guide: Developed with input from faculty in every college, undergraduate and graduate students, and representatives from the Offices of the Chancellor and Provost.

Both you and your students have guidance that emphasizes similar core principles: aligning AI use with learning goals, understanding when struggle builds capacity, and maintaining academic integrity.

More Than A Policy

You might have a clear vision of the guidance you want to provide for your students, or you might be less certain. There’s still much to figure out about effective uses of AI in teaching and learning, but engaging students in dialogue about ethical and responsible use matters most, including when not to use AI. Rather than presenting a policy that’s only addressed in the first class, consider framing AI usage as an ongoing conversation throughout the semester.

Students are more likely to accept and follow class policies when they have a voice in shaping them and opportunities to practice or reflect on them. This collaborative approach to establishing AI norms helps students develop the critical judgment and self-regulation they’ll need as AI becomes ubiquitous in their personal and professional lives. When students understand both your pedagogical reasoning and their own developmental needs, they become equipped to make choices that serve deep learning rather than just task completion.

This shared foundation creates possibilities for collaborative exploration of AI’s role in authentic learning. What follows is three different approaches that you might consider depending upon what your level of comfort is to make AI a more extended conversation:

1. The Bridging Pathway uses the guidance for faculty and students as a gateway to discussing AI in specific situations within the course.

2. The Co-Development Pathway opens up the possibility to build and revisit guidance about AI use in the course as part of an ongoing conversation with students.

3. The Integration Pathway positions AI as a recurring theme to be connected to different parts of the course encouraging new insights as students encounter new ideas and try new activities.

Fostering Ongoing Dialogue: Three Approaches

1. The Bridging Pathway

Challenge: “I want to connect my course-specific needs with the broader principles students are learning”

Quick win: In your first week, ask students to identify one way AI might help them learn your subject better and one way it might prevent deep learning, using examples from their student guide.

Start by explicitly acknowledging that students have both Claude access and institutional guidance. Share the recommendations and guide, then explore together what the student guide’s principles look like in your discipline. When the guide says “struggle is good for your brain,” ask students what productive struggle means in your field and how AI might support or interfere with that process.

Use scenarios from your course context to practice applying both the faculty standards (learning goal alignment, transparency requirements) and student principles (golden rule, building capacity). You may do this as they naturally occur in the course related to course content or intentionally plant these conversations throughout the course. For instance, you can foster conversation using the traffic-light approach (green=ok to use AI; yellow=some considerations; red=do not use) as explained in this article on articulating AI guidelines. This helps students see that thoughtful AI use requires ongoing judgment, not just rule-following.

Value Added to Learning: When students practice applying shared principles to discipline-specific scenarios, they can develop transferable judgment that serves them across all their courses.

2. The Co-Development Pathway

Challenge: “I want our AI approach to develop as we all learn more about effective integration”

Quick win: After your first major assignment, ask students what they learned about AI’s impact on their learning and share one insight you gained about AI’s role in your teaching.

Everyone is navigating this new environment together; this is an opportunity to position yourself as a co-learner with your students. Share how you’re using the faculty standards to make decisions. Invite students to reflect on how their AI use evolves as they pause and reflect with each educationally-related use of AI: “How do I know when I’m actually learning versus just getting answers?”

Create regular check-in moments where students share discoveries about AI’s impact on their learning in your course, then adjust your approach based on what you learn together. This models the kind of reflective practice the student guide advocates while honoring your autonomy as outlined in the faculty standards.

Value Added to Learning: When students see faculty thoughtfully evolving their AI approach, they’re more likely to engage in ongoing reflection rather than seeking shortcuts.

3. The Integration Pathway

Challenge: “I want AI conversations to be naturally woven into how we learn together all semester”

Quick win: For your next assignment, include this prompt: “Describe one moment where you chose to use AI and one where you chose productive struggle instead. What did each choice teach you?”

Make AI reflection an ongoing part of your course by connecting it to specific learning moments throughout the semester. When introducing complex concepts, explore with students when AI might help them organize ideas versus when working through confusion themselves builds understanding.

Use the student guide’s emphasis on different course approaches to help students develop discipline-specific AI judgment. Have them document not just what they did with AI, but how their choices aligned with both your course goals and their own development as learners in your field.

Value Added to Learning: When AI reflection becomes part of regular learning activities rather than separate compliance exercises, students develop more sophisticated thinking about appropriate use.

General Guidance

Start with your comfort level. Choose one approach that resonates with your teaching style and course structure. You can always expand your approach as you and your students develop more experience with these conversations.

Build on existing course elements. Rather than creating entirely new activities, integrate AI reflection into assignment introductions, class discussions, or existing reflection prompts. This makes implementation more manageable and helps students see AI considerations as part of learning, not separate from it.

Embrace the learning process. This semester is different for everyone. Position uncertainty as an opportunity for collaborative exploration rather than a problem to solve perfectly from the start.

The goal isn’t to become an AI expert overnight or to have perfect policies from day one. Instead, focus on creating space for ongoing dialogue that helps students develop the critical thinking and ethical reasoning they’ll need long after your course ends.

By leveraging the shared foundation of institutional guidance, you’re fostering the kind of reflective, intentional learning that serves students throughout their academic and professional lives. The conversations you start this semester about thoughtful AI use will equip students with judgment skills that extend far beyond any single tool or course.

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