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.
Resources: CET
Assignments
This resource supports instructors in designing purposeful, transparent assignments that promote student learning and are manageable to assess. It includes research-informed strategies, templates, and examples adaptable across course contexts.
Teaching With AI
A practical guide to navigating the opportunities and challenges of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in your teaching. It offers strategies, examples, and prompts to enhance learning, streamline teaching, support students, and address key ethical and pedagogical concerns.
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What’s your p(doom)?
For this Spring 2025 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Helen Choi, Viterbi School of Engineering, shares her “What’s your p(doom)?” assignment in which students make and justify a personal calculation of the probability of “doom” (e.g., social, environmental, political, economic collapse) in relation to AI technology. Keywords: AI, artificial intelligence.
Envisioning a purposeful future with AI technology
For this Spring 2025 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Elisabeth Arnold Weiss, Viterbi School of Engineering, shares the design principles and learning impact of her “Future Stories Project” assignment in which students compose two complementary narratives that envision the future of the LA Memorial Coliseum: one using traditional written storytelling and the other using AI image generation tools. Keywords: AI, artificial intelligence.
AI inclusive teaching: Adaptive learning, custom GPTs, and practical strategies
For this Spring 2025 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Misha Kouzeh, Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, describes strategies for building student AI literacy and for using AI to personalize learning. Keywords: AI, artificial intelligence.
Using AI to teach negotiation and mediation
For this Spring 2025 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Peter Carnevale, Marshall School of Business, describes an assignment he redesigned to have students practice key negotiation and mediation skills by engaging in a role play with AI. Keywords: AI, artificial intelligence
Choosing the right AI tool for my classroom: A focused use case for STEM and beyond.
For this Spring 2025 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Tina Austin, Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, presents an approach to selecting AI tools and tasks that align with STEM course learning objectives and deepen student engagement with content. Keywords: AI, artificial intelligence.
What does a robot sound like on the page?
For this Spring 2025 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Andrew De Silva, Dornsife College of Arts, Letters and Sciences, shares insight on comparing human- and AI-produced writing using a sample essay prompt from the Dornsife Writing Program. Keywords: AI, artificial intelligence
AI Tutorial: Mindful Applications
In this Spring 2025 Faculty Showcase on AI in Teaching, Jane Lah and Neha Rao, USC Libraries, provide an overview of a student-facing mini-course, “AI: Mindful Applications,” designed to provide undergraduate students with a self-paced tutorial on informed and ethical use of generative AI in writing and research. Keywords: AI, artificial intelligence