Objectives:

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Important Notes Regarding Implementation:

• This lesson plan is designed to help students develop their own understandings of how AI use can impact their own voice.
• Instead of (or in addition to) external restrictions on how they can use AI to complete their assignments, a successful implementation of this lesson will result in intrinsic action by students to regulate their own AI use. At the very least, the class should walk away with shared language and reasoning that can be utilized to justify AI policies.
• Remember, as a facilitator your job is to probe students to develop their own thoughts, not to push your own view onto them.

Warm-Up: Discuss “Voice”

Recommendation: Do not mention AI at the beginning of this lesson. They should first explore “voice” before thinking about how AI might play a role.

Warm-Up Questions:
You often hear people say: “It is important for everyone’s voices to be heard.” or “Use your voice to stand up for what you believe in.”

• What does it mean to have a voice?
• Why is it important to have a voice?
• What are some reasons someone might not fully develop or use their voice?

Facilitation Recommendation:
For each question:

• Give students independent thinking/ reflection time (jotting down thoughts on a paper)
• Have students discuss in partners or small groups
• Discuss as a whole group
  • Tip: Encourage students to share something someone else said in their group that they thought was interesting or made them think in a new way.

AI Inquiry

Framing: AI (LLMs) functions by simulating human language. It is often used to complete tasks that require writing and generating organized ideas.

• If you would like to provide the context, you can show your students the beginning of this video. (Watch this ahead of time and decide on a stopping point for your class.)

Discussion Questions:

• Does AI have a “voice”?
• If you use AI to help with your work, is the result still your voice? Why or why not?
  • Does it matter? Why or why not?
• Can AI strengthen your voice, or does it replace it?
  • Does it matter? Why or why not?
• What happens if everyone starts using AI to generate their ideas for them?

Acceptable AI Uses (Brainstorm + Discuss)

Purpose: The students are going to come up with uses of AI that might be helpful to the development of their voice. Then, the class has open discussion about different proposals, with a focus on whether the use-case is indeed acceptable/ encouraged.

Discussion Question: What are some ways you might use AI to help develop, or strengthen, or own voice, if there are any?

Facilitation Suggestion:

1. Break students into small groups of 2 or 3 to come up with 2-3 ideas and why they think this use-case can strengthen their own voices. Or, students can say there are no uses that do so, but they need to discuss why this is the case (but they should only do this after they try to come up with beneficial uses).
2. As they discuss, float around the room and try to flag a few interesting ideas that you want to be brought up to the whole class.
3. Come back as a whole group and have groups present their idea and supporting reasoning to the class.
4. After each group presents, open it up for discussion around these questions:
   1. Do you agree that this use-case is a beneficial one that can strengthen your own voice?
   2. What are some drawbacks that they might have not considered?
5. Important: As you go, make a list of acceptable use-cases that you are convinced are beneficial (or key criteria that emerge that make use-cases beneficial). As the instructor, you have final word on what is acceptable for your assignments, and this discussion can help you justify your policies.

(Optional) Reflection: Personal AI Commitments

Purpose: Coming off this lesson where students are discussing as a whole group how AI connects to human voice, it is important for students to have time to do some personal reflection and commitment.

Prompt: After this discussion, what personal policy are you going to commit to regarding your own AI use?

• (Important: As the teacher, you have final say on acceptable technology use for your assignments. These are personal policies that students will hold themselves to, thus reinforcing the intrinsic motivation to use AI properly.)
• They should write their responses on a half-sheet of paper.
• Have them sign their name at the bottom.

*Suggestion: Collect their Personal AI Commitments, photocopy them so you have copies/ evidence of their commitments, and return PACs to the students to put somewhere safe at home/ in their binders. Some time in the future, have students reflect about what it is like to hold themselves to these commitments.