Dear Faculty Colleagues,
Over the past few years, many of you have been actively engaging with the opportunities and challenges that artificial intelligence presents in our classrooms as generative AI tools become more widespread. Across schools and departments, important conversations are shaping a growing set of shared practices for teaching and learning at Yale in this evolving landscape.
As you wrap up the semester and think ahead to the next academic year, we write to share a collection of new and updated resources developed by the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning in partnership with Yale faculty and students. These materials are designed to be adaptable and responsive to your experiences planning courses and working with students. As AI capabilities and tools are changing rapidly, we encourage you to consult Yale’s guidance and resources, which are regularly updated.
These resources reflect the varied ways AI is relevant to and used across disciplines, acknowledging that approaches effective in one field may not translate directly to another.
They include the following:
- The Poorvu Center’s Guiding Principles for Teaching and Learning support your decision-making and conversations about AI in the classroom. These guiding principles and observations were developed in consultation with Yale faculty across disciplines, including those serving on the Poorvu Center Faculty Advisory Board and the Provost’s Office AI Faculty Working Group.
- AI-Resilient Assessment Resources provide information for grading, classroom assessments, and evaluation methods that are less vulnerable to AI use that circumvents learning.
- AI Guidance for Students, developed with students working with the Poorvu Center, offers strategies to promote student learning with and about AI.
Several events this spring also offer opportunities to exchange ideas and tailor your courses, including:
- The Course (Re)Design Institute (registration open through April 17) is a three-day program hosted by the Poorvu Center to support course design and revision.
- The AI at Yale Symposium on April 28 convenes Yale faculty, staff, and students from across Yale to share innovations, applications, impacts, and critical perspectives related to machine learning and generative AI.
AI is prompting important questions about how and what we teach, how students learn, and how we assess their work. We hope you find these resources useful as you plan for the coming academic year, and that they support the creativity and rigor that define scholarship and teaching at Yale.
The AI at Yale website also offers information about AI resources, guidance, and opportunities, including those for many of you who are engaging, developing, and studying AI in your research and scholarship.
Thank you for your engagement and for the care you bring to your teaching. For questions or to continue the conversation, please contact Jenny Frederick, Associate Provost for Academic Initiatives, at jennifer.frederick@yale.edu.
Sincerely,
Scott Strobel
Provost
Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
Jenny Frederick
Associate Provost for Academic Initiatives and Executive Director, Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning