Center for Excellence in TeachingAssignment Description Template
This Assignment Description Template offers a clear, adaptable format you can use to support student success and transparency on assignments.
Sources: CET | Formats: Document | Audience: Faculty | Disciplines: All Disciplines
AI for Brainstorming and Editing (ABE) Tool in WRIT 340
For this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Liz Blomstedt and Jen Bankard, USC Dornsife Writing Program, demonstrate how they developed and use the AI for Brainstorming and Editing (ABE) tool in Writing 340 to support weekly writing assignments, strengthen hooks and counterarguments, and help students reflect on their writing process and revisions through instructor-visible timelines and change summaries.
Sources: USC Faculty | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines
Integration for Engagement: Teaching with AI
In this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Ian Spatz, USC Price School of Public Policy, shares how he incorporates AI into weekly reading assignments, using structured prompts to support student engagement, deepen analysis of course materials, and encourage critical evaluation of AI-generated responses.
Sources: USC Faculty | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines
Beyond Role-Play: Using AI-Generated Patients to Practice Pain Management Interviews
For this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Mariela Padilla, Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC, demonstrates how she uses AI-supported role play scenarios to help students practice pain management conversations, emphasizing clinical communication skills, empathy, and responsible use of AI in patient interactions.
Sources: USC Faculty | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines
Prompts and Queries: Guiding Introductory Biology Students Through Effective Use of AI
In this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Rita Barakat, USC Dornsife (Biology), shares how she redesigned formative assessments in introductory biology to guide students in using generative AI through carefully structured prompts, problem sets, and reflection questions that build critical thinking and help them evaluate AI output.
Sources: USC Faculty | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines
Design, Test, Refine: Using AI to Build Better Assignments
For this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Mathew Curtis, USC Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication, walks through a framework for using AI at three progressive levels to refine assignment prompts, generate examples, anticipate student confusion, and stress-test assignment design against course learning objectives.
Sources: USC Faculty | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines
The 24/7 Office Hour: Bridging the Communication Gap with Custom GPTs
For this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Wanmeng Li, USC Dornsife (East Asian Languages and Cultures), demonstrates how custom GPTs and retrieval-augmented generation can automate routine student questions, reduce repetitive emails, and create course-specific Q&A bots grounded in syllabi and other class materials.
Sources: USC Faculty | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines
The First Click Matters: Using AI in Brightspace Design
For this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Raffaella Ghittoni, USC Dornsife (Biology) shares a Brightspace banner challenge where students to create AI-generated or self-designed course images, encouraging early syllabus review, creativity, class discussion, and thoughtful engagement with course content.
Sources: USC Faculty | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines
Teaching Research Judgment Through Annotated Bibliography
In this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Deborah Natoli and Minh Trinh, USC Price School of Public Policy, share how they redesigned an annotated bibliography assignment using AI tools like NotebookLM, including a structured guide for students to log AI use and verify sources while building AI literacy and critical evaluation skills.
Sources: USC Faculty | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines
AI and Accommodations: Office of Student Accessibility Services
For this Spring 2026 Faculty Showcase on Accessibility and AI, Crystal Velasco, USC Office of Student Accessibility Services, along with Jason Dove and Sakib Shariar from the USC Brightspace Team, explore how AI technology intersects with student accommodations, highlighting how tools like speech-to-text, captioning, screen readers, and note-taking tools are already part of many students’ learning. They also demonstrate how Brightspace’s Panorama tool supports accessible course design by identifying barriers, flagging issues, and generating alternative formats that help ensure course materials work effectively with assistive technologies.
Sources: USC Community, USC Faculty | Formats: Video | Audience: Faculty, Staff, TAs | Disciplines: All Disciplines