The widespread availability of artificial intelligence tools means faculty need dedicated support to help them explore the ways AI is impacting teaching in their disciplines and how, if at all, to integrate it in their own courses.

With the Notre Dame Teaching Well with AI Academy (NDTWAA) and the Lab for AI in Teaching and Learning (LAITL), Notre Dame Learning has launched two initiatives in recent months designed to work with instructors in just this manner.

During the spring semester, more than two dozen faculty from across the University’s colleges and schools participated in the first-ever NDTWAA. The academy was developed and led by Alex Ambrose, professor of the practice at Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and director of LAITL; Steve Varela, director of OIT’s Teaching & Learning Technologies; Kevin Abbott, academic tech specialist in Teaching & Learning Technologies; and Ardea Russo, director of the Office of Academic Standards.

“Instructors should make their own decisions about whether to use AI in the classroom or incorporate it into their assignments, but I think we’ve reached a point where everyone can benefit from basic AI literacy, at least as it pertains to higher education,” Russo said. “But everyone is also so busy that unless we deliberately make time to explore these tools, it is unlikely to happen. We wanted to create a dedicated space to focus on AI, how it can be helpful in academia, and what its limits and risks are to bring more people into the conversation.”

NDTWAA met monthly from January through May, with the first session introducing the foundations of AI in teaching and learning. The academy’s organizers and invited guest speakers subsequently led faculty through strategies for leveraging AI for course design and syllabus development; setting clear expectations around students’ use of generative AI in their assignments; and crafting slides, generating discussion and poll questions, and designing interactive learning activities with AI assistance.

“This is must-know information in this new era, even if its broader implications for pedagogy still need to be worked out. I’m very grateful to ND Learning for the care that went into this, and for charting the narrow path between AI proselytizing and AI doomsaying.” 
—David Gibson, associate professor of sociology

Throughout, participants earned digital badges for completing challenges that they can display on their social media profiles and Canvas sites to document the skills they attained or refined.

The final meeting on May 2 was an opportunity for participants to reflect on the relevance of various AI-use frameworks to their specific disciplines, how their fields might need to evolve in response to the ever-expanding capabilities of technology, and their thoughts on what AI means for both society generally and educators specifically.

“We’re at both ends of the spectrum,” Varela observed during that concluding session, “from excitement over the opportunities this opens up to concerns over disruptions, particularly in higher education.”

Kevin Guidry, assessment program director in the Kaneb Center, also talked with the group about how the work individuals did through the academy might start to translate to department- and program-level support for adapting curricula in light of AI.

“The academy was carefully conceived and executed, imparting a wealth of information about what AI can do for instructors and, for better or for worse, for students,” said David Gibson, an associate professor of sociology who participated in NDTWAA. “This is must-know information in this new era, even if its broader implications for pedagogy still need to be worked out. I'm very grateful to ND Learning for the care that went into this, and for charting the narrow path between AI proselytizing and AI doomsaying.”

Elena Mangione-Lora, a teaching professor of Spanish, noted that while AI is great for improving how systems work, it can’t replicate the human connection that is built between teacher and students, which in turn facilitates a fuller learning experience. In the case of disciplines like hers, that means opening students up to the culture, art, and music of the language they’re studying.

“I’m going to speak passionately to students about the fact that if you have nothing to say and have no one to say it to, speaking/knowing another language is meaningless,” she said.

Notre Dame Learning plans to continue offering the academy on a regular basis. While the first cohort of participants began meeting a couple of months before the official founding of the Lab for AI in Teaching and Learning, NDTWAA will be among the new lab’s core components moving forward and central to realizing its goals.

Under the direction of the Kaneb Center’s Ambrose, LAITL will convene faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows, and undergraduate research assistants interested in advancing AI literacy in education, exploring AI-driven teaching and learning innovation, and fostering AI collaboration across campus and institutions.

The lab builds on an extensive foundation of workshops and on-demand resources related to AI that Notre Dame Learning has developed over the last two academic years.

“The AI genie is out of the bottle—and it’s not going back,” Ambrose said. “When ChatGPT launched, there was no instruction manual. I was inspired by the faculty who participated in this first NDTWAA and their willingness to consider what AI literacy means for themselves, their students, and the future. In my 10 years at the Kaneb Center, I’ve never seen such deep, cross-disciplinary engagement.

“We’re witnessing a pivotal shift in how many of us teach, assess, and learn, and that’s exactly why LAITL was created. The lab will accompany Notre Dame faculty as they explore the degree to which AI impacts teaching in the various disciplines and help them make informed decisions about if, when, and how to incorporate it into their classrooms.”

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About Notre Dame Learning

Notre Dame Learning houses the Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the Office of Digital Learning, bringing together their teaching and learning expertise along with that of the OIT’s Teaching & Learning Technologies group to serve as the hub of learning excellence and innovation at Notre Dame. Working in collaboration with instructors, departments, and colleges, Notre Dame Learning aims to enable effective and engaging learning for all students through research-based strategies and effective use of technologies across all modalities.

Originally published by ND Learning at learning.nd.edu on May 29, 2025.