Generative AI Basics: Strategies for Staying AI Literate

Generative AI tools are evolving rapidly and the 'basics' of using them effectively as an educator are changing just as quickly. Here's one possible set of strategies for staying 'AI literate.'

Start with Your Institution's Resources

Many institutions are racing to provide training, documentation, workshops, opportunities for discussion, and guidelines to help their faculty navigate Generative AI. Since these likely align with your local resources, policies, and support structures, these are a good place to start. These resources typically don't get into the nitty-gritty of the issues and concerns specific to geoscience classrooms. But for basic literacy, they can be a useful place to start.

Explore What Other Institutions and Organizations Are Providing

Every institution's guidance on Generative AI use started at ground zero in 2022 when ChatGPT came on the scene. They've all evolved in different directions, so you may find resources that clarify and compliment what your own institution is providing by looking further afield. Here are some examples:

• Artificial Intelligence Teaching Guide from Stanford
• Student Guide to AI from AAC&U and Elon University
• AI Literacy in 30 minutes for Bates College first year students from the RIOS Institute
• AI Resource list and 5-hour online course (free) from Educause
• AI Fluency online courses (free) from Anthropic
• Using AI Right Now, a practical starting place, up to date in summer 2025, from Ethan Mollick

Engage with the Ethical Issues

There are a range of ethical issues that have been raised around the use of AI. As an informed user (or non-user), you'll want to make sure you've explored these issues, that your AI policies and use are consistent with what you've found, and that you're ready to engage with your students' perspectives on these issues. Our AI Ethics page provides one starting point.

Two Core Skills

Regardless of where you start, you'll want to gain fluency in two core skills:

• Writing good prompts and directing a 'conversation' with an AI in ways that are productive.
• Controlling what external resources the AI is consulting in giving its response. Early LLM's could only consult their internal knowledge, which increases the frequency of responses that are generic, out of date, or complete hallucinations It has become common to refer to AI responses that include completely fabricated 'facts' as hallucinations. There are a variety of ways to get the AI to take into account more targeted or up-to-date resources. This may include the ability for the AI to do web searches, or to consult documents you've explicitly uploaded (e.g. a relevant article) or the option to copy and paste relevant text or images directly alongside your prompt.

These are evolving practices, often specific to a particular tool.

Connect to a Few Trusted Sources for Regular Updates

With the landscape changing so quickly, it can be a full-time job to keep up. There are a number of folks already doing that work and sharing their syntheses regularly. So locate ones that resonate with you and get connected to just a few sources for regular updates. This might be having a monthly chat with an informed colleague, joining a group on your campus, or subscribing to a newsletter. Here are a few examples we've found. We'd like to hear what sources you've found most useful:

• One Useful Thing, from Ethan Mollick
• AI + Education = Simplified, from Lance Eaton
• AI x Education, an AI newsletter

Get Hands-on Regularly

There's no substitute for hands-on experience. Most of the resources above will guide you toward playing with these tools as a means to gain literacy. But with the capabilities of the tools changing rapidly, it's worth revisiting your initial experiments. The task that AI failed at 6 months ago may be one that the latest models can handle.