AI-Integrated Homework Assignments

Here's an example from Jamie's Cognitive Psychology and Education course. She writes: "Goals were to get students thinking about cognition and how it can be applied to education, to try out AI if they haven’t before or in a new way, and to show how prompting can impact the value of what AI can provide."

This is the first weekly activity for the semester. It is also the first time we will try to use AI to support learning! From research, we have learned many different things about cognition and learning that have clear, concrete implications for education. This is what we will focus on this semester, but you can already have AI help you use this knowledge to start planning how to do your best and learn most effectively in this class! This week's activity will include a short AI activity as well as a question to assess your understanding of the week's topic. 

When using AI for the question(s), you may choose any platform that you choose.

Note that you do NOT need to sign up for an account if you don't have one yet - you can use UVA's licensed version of CoPilot while logged in with Netbadge to use it without creating a personal account, and so that no data you use is stored in any way or used to train future models. [Editor's note: This is no longer true. As of spring 2025, UVA's Copilot stores interactions with users.]

Please note which platform you use for the responses (e.g., CoPilot, ChatGPT4.0, Claude). 

Can GenAI help students with planning for academic success? As an example of the potential for combining the course subject with our first adventure in AI-supported learning, you will work on identifying a plan for your semester to set yourself up for success. 

For this first question, spend just a minute or so thinking about how to prompt an AI platform to use what is known from cognitive psychology research to help you come up with a plan for your semester. Feel free to include anything you think would be helpful in generating a helpful plan. If the platform asks you a question, answer it to get better responses.

Copy and paste your AI conversation here as your response to this question. 

Respond to ONE of the prompts below...

Consider whether your prompt was successful in creating a plan. If you don't have much experience creating prompts that allow interaction and personalization / customization of the response, you might want to try again with the example prompt below (and respond to the AI as needed). If your experience did provide a good back-and-forth experience with success in generating a plan, you might prefer to respond to the second prompt. It's your choice, only do one.  

A) Try again to generate the plan with the following prompt: "Act as a professional educator coach with expertise in research in cognition and learning. I am (an undergraduate/a graduate) college student with a busy schedule of classes, hobbies, and an internship. Please help guide me in creating a plan for my semester to be effective in my courses. For every interaction, ask me questions that will help you provide a more effective and personalized answer one at a time, such as about my schedule and study strengths and challenges." Copy and paste your conversation with the GAI as your response.  

B) Most research on cognition and learning has not directly considered the potential impacts of AI on education. Consider what you think are the most important risks/challenges and potential benefits/opportunities of AI and what you think is the most pressing need for research to study when it comes to AI and education. Respond in one of two ways: Either 1) Summarize the ideas that seem most pressing to you, and describe ways that you can imagine what that research might look like as your response, or 2) Have a discussion with a GAI platform with at least a few back-and-forth interactions discussing the challenges and how to avoid them and/or the opportunities and how to take advantage of them (or both), and copy/paste that conversation as your response here. 

Here's an example Jamie used in multiple courses. Jamie writes: "Some weeks I have my students use AI for a Feynman-style review. They seem to like this! I have a template I use and still tweak, but it changed a lot each week from earlier versions to do things like be specific about how much background students got on the topic, how many question to ask, etc."

Put the following prompt into your preferred GenAI platform to test your understanding of memory. (Remember, using CoPilot behind netbadge allows you to not need to create a new account, but you may use any platform you prefer - I personally like ChatGPT best for now). Copy your full interaction with the GenAI platform as your response.

I want to test my understanding of [topics] using the Feynman method. Consider that I have read a few short research articles, one about [add info] and two about [add info], and [anything else]. I've also had about two hours of time learning about each of these two topics. Use this information about readings and time learning to estimate the level of my knowledge. I'll explain the concept as if I'm teaching it to a beginner. Please ask me one question at a time with about 10 questions total, challenge unclear points, and identify areas where I need more depth or could simplify. After the dialogue, provide a summary of my understanding, highlighting strengths and areas for improvement.

Here's what this might look like for a student in Jamie's Infant and Child Development course:

I want to test my understanding of children's self-regulation development using the Feynman method. Consider that I have read a short chapter that reviewed biological, physical, and cognitive self-regulation, and we discussed executive functions. I've also had about two hours of time learning about these topics. Use this information about readings and time learning to estimate the level of my knowledge. I'll explain the concept as if I'm teaching it to a beginner. Please ask me one question at a time with about 6 questions total, challenge unclear points, and identify areas where I need more depth or could simplify. After the dialogue, provide a summary of my understanding, highlighting strengths and areas for improvement.

In this assignment from Jamie's Cognitive Psychology and Education course, Jamie has her students critique a case study generated by an AI tool. Jamie writes: "I have students use AI to generate a case study they can then use to answer questions, so that the content of the question is related to their interests and is different for each student."

Objective: Demonstrate your basic understanding of research methods by using generative AI to create a mini case study and then critique it based on concepts from the lecture.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Generate a Mini Case Study: Use a generative AI tool (such as ChatGPT) to create a brief research scenario in cognitive psychology and education. You can prompt the AI for a study involving a specific topic of interest, such as "the effects of digital learning tools on student engagement" or "the relationship between sleep and academic performance." Try to think of a question / topic you are actually curious about! 

Prompt Example: "Generate a brief example research study that tests how digital learning tools affect student engagement in a classroom setting." (Note: do not use this exact example; write a prompt related to what you want to know about! If you really do want to know about this topic, you can modify the prompt in any way to make it more detailed, add context, etc. but don't copy/paste exactly.) 

Copy and paste your chat with GPT including your prompt and the provided mini case study as your response here. 

Task 1: Critique the AI-Generated Case Study:

Critically evaluate the AI-generated case study by addressing the following:

• Research Question: Is the research question clear and relevant to cognitive psychology and education? If not, how would you improve it?
• Research Design: What method does the case study use? Identify one strength and one weakness of the proposed research design (e.g., experiment, survey, etc.).
• Sampling & Participants: Evaluate the proposed sampling method and participant group. Are they appropriate for the research question? If not, what changes would you suggest?
• Data Collection & Analysis: Assess the data collection tools or techniques. Are they suitable for answering the research question? Suggest one way to improve data collection or analysis.

You should NOT use GAI for this part! It should all be your own thinking/responding. 

Task 2: Provide a Revised Version:

After critiquing the case study, briefly rewrite one key aspect (e.g., research question, method, sampling, or data collection) to improve it, based on your critique. Your revision should demonstrate a deeper understanding of research methods. Again, you should not use GAI on this part, either. Though after you respond, feel free to see how GAI responds to your critiques and revisions!