AI is becoming a part of everyday life, and teaching is no exception. For instructors, this can be a real advantage: AI tools can help spark ideas, clean up instructions, organize course materials, and make online content clearer and more accessible for students. One of the biggest advantages of AI is that it can take some of the busywork off your plate, so you can focus more on teaching and connecting with students. Regardless if you are building a brand new course or refining a course you previously taught, there are a lot of useful applications for AI in course design. AI helped me better organize my lesson plans, gave me a springboard for activities in class sessions and refined my grading rubrics for assessments. AI can be a legitimate time-saver for organizing and refining your course materials and getting feedback on specific aspects of your instructions, rubrics, or assignments.

It’s important to note that AI isn’t a substitute for your expertise. AI outputs are not perfect and should be reviewed for accuracy. During my trials and tribulations using AI, I prompted ChatGPT to create lecture slides for a course. These lecture slides were practically unusable because there were numerous errors, inaccurate facts and nonexistent articles that were cited. What I found most useful was having AI organize and structure the slides, lesson plans and activities. 

This teaching tip offers practical ways in which faculty can use AI to help design their courses and support learning ideas without substituting it for real instruction. It focuses on low-stakes prompts to integrate AI into your classroom, improving workflow and sparking new ideas so students’ best interests are at the center. 

Drafting and Revising Course Materials

AI is especially helpful when you’re staring at a blank page or trying to refresh older course content. It can:

• Draft or update syllabi, module overviews, announcements, and assignment descriptions.
• Rewrite text to make it clearer, more concise, or better suited for your students.
• Convert assignment descriptions into TILT-aligned instructions (Purpose → Task → Criteria).
• Turn long readings or lectures into summaries, outlines, or learning guides for Moodle.

Prompts to try

• “Rewrite my Week 3 assignment using TILT formatting and make the instructions clearer for online students.”
• “Create a concise module introduction for Week 3 based on this lecture outline.”
• “Turn this 50-minute lecture into an outline that works for an online module.”

Improving Clarity, Structure, and Accessibility

AI can be a great partner in helping make your course easier for students to navigate, especially in online or hybrid formats. It can:

• Suggest ways to break up or sequence content to reduce confusion.
• Translate dense, technical language into student-friendly wording.
• Generate alt text, figure descriptions, and transcript summaries for multimedia.
• Point out areas where instructions might be unclear or overwhelming.

Prompts to try

• “Write alt text and a brief figure description for this image following digital accessibility guidelines.”
• “Simplify this paragraph to a 10th-grade reading level without losing important ideas.”
• “Rewrite these instructions to be clearer for asynchronous students.”

Supporting Learner Variability

AI makes it easier to offer students multiple ways to access and practice course material, a course design approach offered through Universal Design for Learning (UDL). You can use AI to:

• Create summaries, outlines, visual representations, or scripts of complex content.
• Build low-stakes practice quizzes or study aids from readings and lectures.
• Scaffold assignments with examples, templates, or step-by-step support.
• Reword dense instructions to lower cognitive load and improve clarity.

Prompts to try

• “Create a 10-item self-check quiz from this reading that students can use to practice.”
• “Give me a summary, a visual outline, and key bullet points from this chapter.”
• “Provide two beginner-friendly examples to help students get started on this assignment.”

Generating Creative Activities and Engagement Strategies

If you’re looking to refresh your discussions or add variety to your online modules, AI can help you brainstorm ideas that fit your course. For example, it can help you design:

• Discussion prompts, case studies, or real-world scenarios.
• Activities like debates, role-plays, hot takes, or reflection prompts.
• Small group, or icebreaker ideas connected to weekly topics.
• Initial drafts of H5P activities or interactive elements.

Prompts to try

• “Give me three engaging discussion prompts for Week 4 that encourage deeper analysis.”
• “Create a short case study I can use to spark conversation in my online module.”
• “Suggest two interactive activities (role-play, simulation, or hot take) that fit this week’s topic.”

Closing Thoughts

AI won’t replace your teaching or your expertise, but it can help you work more efficiently, create clearer materials, and support a wider range of learners. Used well, AI can give faculty more time and space to focus on what matters most: teaching, connecting with students, and building meaningful learning experiences.

About the Author

Chad Bousley is a Senior Instructional Designer at e-LIS, who helps faculty with online course design, creating interactive activities, and implementing online teaching best practices. Outside of the classroom, Chad enjoys learning foreign languages and playing guitar.

Others may share and adapt under Creative Commons License CC BY-NC.

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