Making Space to Navigate GenAI: Dartmouth's December 2025 GenAI Teaching Institute

  • Two people are seated at a table having an animated discussion. A person on the left side of the frame, wearing a winter scarf and hat, is talking and smiling to a person who is resting his chin on his hand and listening intently.

"I was skeptical about AI coming into this workshop, but now I am open to exploring the ways it might enhance what my students are learning. And [now] I have a lot more skills in knowing how to do that." – GenAI Teaching Institute participant

Ask faculty how they're handling generative AI (GenAI) in their courses and you'll hear responses ranging from deep experimentation to principled rejection—and everything in between. Answers also vary by discipline; an obvious pedagogical opportunity in one field can be a fundamental threat to learning goals in another.

With many students using these tools and many professions now requiring proficiency, a number of faculty members are seeking support to build GenAI learning opportunities into their courses with a thoughtful lens.

At Dartmouth's GenAI Teaching Institute in December 2025, twenty-three faculty participants spent two days working through what GenAI means for their teaching, their disciplines, and their students' learning. Overall, they sought purposeful ways to help students use GenAI tools effectively, appropriately, and critically without undermining their learning.

What Participants Experience

The GenAI Teaching Institute offers something important in teaching practice: protected time to experiment, discuss, and design without the pressure of immediate implementation. Over the two days, instructors:

  • Gain hands-on experience with multiple AI models and their specific strengths
  • Create frameworks for addressing student questions about appropriate AI use
  • Explore pedagogical strategies that maintain rigor while acknowledging AI tools exist
  • Build a network of colleagues experimenting with similar questions across disciplines
  • Revise an assignment for an upcoming course

Establishing Shared Footing on How These Tools Work

To thoughtfully integrate GenAI into courses and assignments requires both technical understanding and intentional pedagogical reflection. Led by facilitators and speakers from Learning Design and Innovation, DCAL, Research Computing, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Libraries Research Facilitation team, the institute was intentionally structured around this premise.

The first day focused on peeling back the curtain on GenAI through hands-on exploration, tackling common misconceptions about how the tools work, and differentiating between various GenAI tools and the underlying large language models (LLMs) that power the text-generating tools. One demonstration explored misconceptions about LLMs, emphasizing that they don't actually "know" things in the traditional sense but rather generate text based on statistical likelihood in a given context. This insight continued to resonate throughout the workshop, helping faculty make informed decisions about when and how to use these tools—and when not to use them.

"I liked the [segment] on misconceptions...I had a lot of moments where I got to reflect back to those cleared misconceptions later in the workshop."  – Institute participant

Participants also had an opportunity to experiment with different large language models using Dartmouth Chat, learning about various features like system prompts and testing different tools such as image generation and web search. The Dartmouth Chat interface allows faculty, staff, and students to compare multiple models' responses to the same prompt, side by side. An added bonus is its privacy protections, including options for "walled-off" chats within Dartmouth's computing environment (read about data privacy).

Navigating Ethical Complexities

Later on Day 1, participants unpacked the ethical considerations around GenAI use in their specific teaching contexts. Articulating the core values that guide their work as educators in their particular field, they set the foundation for thinking deeply about their own GenAI concerns and how they might navigate those concerns with students. 

Faculty surfaced concerns related to fairness and equity, independence and preparedness, evaluation, self-awareness, and environmental impacts. They talked about preserving and protecting students' curiosity, desire for learning, intellectual skepticism, and ability to work collaboratively. They also began thinking through how they could build infrastructure to protect those values while integrating GenAI into course assignments.

"I enjoyed the ethics/values discussion. It was a great way to frame what discomforts many of us about the tool. I also enjoyed talking with a partner about how ethical issues have shown up for us." – Institute participant

From GenAI Know-How to Applications in Teaching

The second day shifted focus to practical implementation, and participants were guided through a multistage process of redesigning one of their course assignments by integrating GenAI as a learning tool—and workshopping it with peers and institute facilitators.

Participants started by running their assignment through multiple LLMs to see what the tools do well and poorly, then reflected on alignment with their course learning objectives.

The day's centerpiece—kicked off with an overview on design thinking and journey mapping led by Rafe Steinhauer from the Thayer School of Engineering—was dedicated time for assignment revision and creation. Working with peers and facilitators in pairs and small groups, participants designed student experiences that intentionally leverage GenAI while maintaining focus on learning outcomes.

One participant changed an assignment in which students devise their own work plan for a case study on a policy-focused protagonist. In the revised assignment, students will first create their own step-by-step plan for developing the case study, and then use Dartmouth Chat to generate a plan for the identical task. The comparison will give students an opportunity to identify possible missed steps—and to see how detailed their thinking was versus AI. In the final step, students will adjust their plan, incorporating anything useful and discarding any hallucinations or off-track ideas. Overall, this participant's goal was to "help students learn when AI is a helpful tool and to think about the balance of the costs of AI (environmental, ethical concerns) against how it is able to support their own learning."

Continuing to Iterate Based on Faculty Needs

The institute is designed as an iterative offering that evolves with participant feedback and the rapidly changing GenAI landscape. DCAL and LDI actively monitor changes to Dartmouth's GenAI landscape, discussions and guidance from the Education and Pedagogy Subcommittee of the Faculty Leadership Group on AI, and experiences from our peers. We will continue adjusting the institute and the support we provide to make sure it remains practical and grounded in faculty needs. 

Join the Next Cohort

The next two-day GenAI Teaching Institute runs March 24 and March 26, with applications due February 9.

Beyond the Institute: Ongoing Support

The Teaching with GenAI Institute is part of DCAL and LDI's Teaching and GenAI Initiative, which includes grant programs, ongoing communities of practice, and resource development. Faculty interested in deeper engagement can apply for a Generative AI Teaching Grant, which provides project support, community connection, and stipend funding.

We recognize that thoughtful GenAI integration isn't right for every course or learning objective. For faculty who determine that limiting or prohibiting GenAI use best serves their pedagogical goals, we offer consultations, guidance, and workshops on crafting clear policies, designing AI-resistant assessments and assignments, and communicating expectations to students—including the upcoming workshop on designing authentic assessments.

In addition, DCAL and LDI continue to provide a wide range of programs to enhance teaching and learning across all disciplines. We encourage you to explore our other upcoming offerings, including: