Four-minute lightning talk. Eight slides. Use the timing marks as rehearsal targets.
0:00–0:20 (20 seconds)
What would student success look like if students learned to teach themselves with AI? Imagine someone stuck in a math course who knows how to get help and check their understanding. My starting assumption is that students want to learn. We can help them learn how.
0:20–1:00 (40 seconds)
In the Plato remix, students use Phaedrus as a model for a contemporary dialogue about AI. They define characters with different positions, ask AI to draft their exchange, and revise it to sharpen those perspectives. They decide which missing viewpoints would make the conversation more interesting. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Students had not seen AI’s potential to help them explore new perspectives. Directing and revising the dialogue gave them a way to experiment with that possibility while keeping their own judgment central.
1:00–1:40 (40 seconds)
Complicate the Obvious begins with a familiar question: what is a healthy diet? Students use course readings to investigate the AI answer’s assumptions and omissions, then develop follow-up questions and their own analysis. Again, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Students came away with a better understanding of generic responses and silences: what an answer leaves out even when it sounds reasonable. Their historical knowledge gave them specific ways to question that answer and see why the omissions matter.
1:40–2:25 (45 seconds)
For the fast-food article in American food history, students brought an AI summary and also skimmed the text themselves. We framed the class conversation around what AI did and did not do with the reading. The engagement was very lively. My sense was that students learned more than they would have in a regular discussion of the article. Part of that was getting out of my own discussion rut. Comparing AI’s treatment with the text gave us another way into a reading I might otherwise have discussed in familiar ways.
2:25–2:50 (25 seconds)
These observations come from American food history, critical thinking with AI, and diet, health, and expertise. Many students had little practice using AI productively. Many were skeptical and wanted a say in its use. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive about getting help to explore what AI could contribute to their learning.
2:50–3:10 (20 seconds)
Other assignments include checking summaries of historical diet texts, investigating a difficult reading, designing an AI learning exercise for classmates, and researching a historical technology for a shared website. Each gives students a specific purpose for using AI and a reason to evaluate its contribution.
3:10–3:35 (25 seconds)
For me, this comes down to agency and transparency. Students need practice making decisions about AI, including when to go beyond it. I need to explain why an assignment matters and provide support for doing it. The work should make their own thinking visible, and the learning purpose should be clear.
3:35–4:00 (25 seconds)
I think AI belongs at the center of our conversations about student success because learning with it needs teaching. What would help your students learn when they get stuck? We can design assignments around that question and help students discover possibilities they have not yet seen. The materials are linked here.