Artificial Intelligence and Undergraduate Student Learning

Principles for approaching the use of artificial intelligence in undergraduate education.

Student learning is the priority of undergraduate education. Instructors and students share responsibility for making their best efforts to enhance the student learning experience. As artificial intelligence technologies (including generative AI, such as large language models, and AI agents or agentic AI) rapidly evolve, they present us with fundamental questions about whether, how, and to what extent these tools can or ought to be used in educational settings. Learning is a process, and when AI is employed, it should be used critically by both students and instructors to ensure it facilitates rather than bypasses the learning process. Further, students and instructors should recognize that both technologies and uses of AI are dynamic and are subject to ongoing review for their role in teaching and learning.

The Arts & Sciences Undergraduate Education Advisory Committee has provided a statement on the obligations and expectations of students and instructors that support learning. Working from those norms and practices associated with undergraduate courses, this committee has created a set of principles for approaching the use of artificial intelligence in undergraduate education. The following principles are founded on a shared understanding that students need to cultivate cognitive abilities that are often degraded by reliance on AI and to maximize creative and collaborative skills that AI cannot currently replicate. Students and instructors are encouraged to consider these principles as they engage in teaching and learning in A&S. Further institutional guidance, information, and resources are available from the Center for Teaching and Learning.

Guidance for undergraduate students

Prioritize your learning 

  • Be responsible for and assume an active role in your learning and education with the understanding that knowledge and proficiency emerge from specific actions on the part of the learner, such as thinking, speaking, writing, listening, and doing
  • Determine whether AI is allowed in a specific course or learning context; if the use of AI is allowed, consider whether engaging with it would support and enhance your learning rather than replace it 
  • Maintain the integrity of human agency and interpersonal connection in learning

Critically use AI tools

  • Understand that using AI in a course is the equivalent to help received from external persons and resources as well as a form of assistance that may, depending on specific course policies, be considered a violation of academic integrity
  • Learn about the uses, applicability, and limitations of AI tools in specific disciplines and courses
  • Evaluate and utilize AI tools and their output critically
  • Maintain essential human oversight of AI-produced information through validation of AI outputs to ensure truth and accuracy

Be aware of the ethics of using AI tools

  • Recognize the potential harms of AI tools, including, but not limited to, concerns regarding bias, misinformation, plagiarism, intellectual property rights, and environmental effects
  • Engage with AI in an ethically principled way that inspires trust in your actions
  • Refrain from inputting faculty-generated content or content generated by another student into AI without that person’s explicit consent, given privacy concerns, copyright issues, and instructor intellectual property

Maintain transparency

  • Disclose whether, when, and how you have used AI

Respect academic freedom

  • Recognize and comply with faculty judgment, expertise, and decision-making in the classroom, including whether, how, and to what extent AI is incorporated into a course and students are permitted to use AI in a course (and in keeping with the principles above)

Guidance for instructors

Prioritize student learning 

  • Encourage students to be responsible for and assume an active role in their learning and education with the understanding that knowledge and proficiency emerge from specific actions on the part of the learner, such as thinking, speaking, writing, listening, and doing
  • Design educational experiences that maintain or encourage the integrity of human agency and interpersonal connection in learning
  • Prioritize students’ development of metacognitive skills and acquisition of necessary knowledge (as articulated in course objectives and learning goals)
  • Determine whether the use of AI is beneficial for student learning and, if so, use it in a way that supports and enhances learning rather than replaces it 
  • Craft assignments and assessments (with or without AI) with the intent to facilitate student learning and acquisition of skills at each developmental level

Critically use AI tools

  • Understand the uses, applicability, and limitations of AI tools in specific disciplines, courses, and academic and workplace contexts
  • Help students understand that using AI in a course is the equivalent to help received from external persons and resources
  • Evaluate and utilize AI tools and their output critically
  • Maintain essential human oversight of AI-produced information through validation of AI outputs to ensure truth and accuracy

Be aware of the ethics of using AI tools

  • Recognize the potential harms of AI tools, including, but not limited, to concerns regarding bias, misinformation, plagiarism, intellectual property rights, and environmental effects
  • Use AI in the classroom in a way that is ethically principled and promotes inclusive participation and equitable learning 
  • Ensure student privacy and data protection by using, whenever possible, WashU-secured AI tools (which are FERPA and HIPAA compliant)
  • Refrain from inputting student-generated content (or other information connected to specific students) into AI without the student’s consent

Maintain transparency

  • Establish the practice that both students and instructors will disclose whether, when, and how AI has been used
  • Communicate openly in course policies and in the classroom about expectations, acceptable practices, and potential pitfalls of AI

Practice academic freedom

  • Exercise faculty judgment, expertise, and decision-making in the classroom, including whether, how, and to what extent AI is incorporated into a course and students are permitted to use AI in a course (and in keeping with the principles above)

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