Using AI as a Professor

This course equips university professors, lecturers, and instructional designers with the knowledge and skills to integrate five frontier AI tools—Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen AI, and Z-AI—into their course design and teaching workflows. Spanning six weeks (26–32 hours) across three modules, the course progresses from foundational AI literacy (Module 1: The Tool-Aware Professor) through course production (Module 2: The AI-Powered Course Designer) to platform-based delivery (Module 3: The Platform-Enabled Educator). Throughout, the professor remains in charge: AI drafts and generates, while t…

Course outline

Module 1: The Tool-Aware Professor

Module 1, "The Tool-Aware Professor," establishes a foundational framework for educators to understand, evaluate, and effectively deploy AI tools in academic settings. The module opens by profiling five major AI assistants—Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen AI, and Z-AI—emphasizing t…

  • Topic 1.1 — Meet the Players This Topic introduces professors to the landscape of AI tools and the underlying technology that powers them. The first lesson profiles five AI assistants—Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen AI, and Z-AI—emphasizing that no single tool is universally best; effectiveness depends on mat…
  • Topic 1.2 — Trust and Prompting for Education This Topic, "Trust and Prompting for Education," equips educators with two complementary skill sets for working with AI in academic settings. The first lesson (1.2.1) addresses critical evaluation of AI outputs, introducing the central principle "Decide trust before you ask, not …
  • Topic 1.3 — Module 1 Capstone This lesson introduces a systematic workflow for critiquing and redesigning academic syllabi using multiple AI tools. It establishes the pedagogical importance of syllabi as contracts, roadmaps, pedagogical statements, and first impressions, then presents the "Anatomy of a Strong…

Module 2: The AI-Powered Course Designer

Module 2, "The AI-Powered Course Designer," equips educators with a comprehensive, AI-assisted workflow for transforming syllabi into fully realized, pedagogically sound courses. The module progresses through five interconnected topics: establishing course architecture via the Mo…

  • Topic 2.1 — From Syllabus to Structure This Topic, "From Syllabus to Structure," comprises two lessons that together equip instructors with an AI-assisted workflow for transforming a syllabus into a well-structured course. Lesson 2.1.1 introduces the Module/Lesson Tree—a hierarchical model (Course → Module → Lesson → …
  • Topic 2.2 — Generating Lecture Materials This Topic, part of Module 2 in the course "Using AI as a Professor," equips educators with a complete workflow for generating classroom-ready lecture materials from their own source documents. Lesson 2.2.1 introduces the foundational concept of grounding—anchoring AI outputs to …
  • Topic 2.3 — Creating Assessments with AI This topic covers the AI-assisted creation of assessments, comprising two lessons. The first lesson focuses on quizzes and formative assessments, introducing a six-step Quiz Generation Pipeline that moves from source material preparation through learning outcome alignment, questi…
  • Topic 2.4 — Enriching with Resources This lesson introduces a systematic five-step Resource Matching Pipeline for finding and evaluating educational resources using AI tools. The pipeline moves from identifying specific learning outcomes written in Bloom's Taxonomy language, through determining appropriate resource …
  • Topic 2.5 — Module 2 Capstone This capstone lesson synthesizes the skills from seven preceding lessons into a single, coherent teaching module built with strategic AI assistance. It presents a framework of eight deliverables, a seven-step production pipeline, a multi-tool AI strategy, and a self-assessment ru…

Module 3: The Platform-Enabled Educator

This Module, "The Platform-Enabled Educator," equips professors to move from identifying teaching problems created by generative AI to making evidence-based decisions about adopting AI course-authoring platforms, and ultimately to building and publishing complete courses within t…

  • Topic 3.1 — AI Course-Authoring Platforms This Topic, "AI Course-Authoring Platforms," comprises two lessons that together establish both the problem space and the evaluation framework for AI-powered course-delivery platforms. Lesson 3.1.1 defines the foundational challenges generative AI has created for university teach…
  • Topic 3.2 — Building a Course in a Platform This Topic, "Building a Course in a Platform," is part of Module 3 "The Platform-Enabled Educator" in the course "Using AI as a Professor." It comprises three sequential lessons that guide educators through the complete workflow of constructing a course within an AI course-author…
  • Topic 3.3 — Module 3 Capstone This capstone module concludes Module 3 (The Platform-Enabled Educator) in the course "Using AI as a Professor," unifying the module's dual narratives — the professor as the platform's student and as its professor. Lesson 3.3.1 guides learners through the complete publication and…

What you get

AI tutor in context

Ask about any lesson; the tutor answers from this course's own material.

Hint ladder

Step-by-step hints that guide you to the answer instead of giving it away.

Quizzes with scoring

Check your understanding and surface weak spots as you go.

Debate mode

Argue a concept with the tutor to deepen and test your grasp.

XP, streaks & badges

Steady study turns into visible progress across the course.

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