AI Fluency: Developing Instructional Content and Learning Activities
Creating instructional materials and learning activities often requires careful thought, time, and creativity. AI tools can support this work by helping instructors organize ideas, refine explanations, and explore new approaches to teaching. When used intentionally, AI becomes a partner that can lighten the cognitive load of preparation while allowing instructors to stay focused on the parts of teaching that matter most. This article introduces key ways AI can be used to support content creation and activity planning, while keeping instructional judgment, accuracy, and student learning at the center. Full prompting examples and step-by-step guides are available in the workshop handouts linked throughout this resource.
Teaching with AI in Content Creation
AI can support instructors by making certain parts of content creation more manageable. Many teaching tasks, such as organizing material, drafting examples, revising explanations, and preparing lesson components, require time and careful attention. AI tools can help generate early versions of these materials so instructors can focus their energy on decisions that rely on expertise, judgment, and creativity.
The purpose of using AI in this process is not to hand content creation over to a tool. Instead, AI serves as a thinking partner that helps instructors begin, extend, or reshape ideas. When developing a lecture outline, writing a study guide, or creating a short explanation for students, AI can offer suggestions that provide a useful starting point. From there, the instructor adapts and refines the material to match the needs of the course, the discipline, and the students.
When used thoughtfully, AI becomes part of the preparation process and supports instructors without replacing their voice or the pedagogical decisions that guide instruction. This approach helps manage workload while ensuring that the content students receive remains accurate, intentional, and connected to the goals of the course.
Keeping Your Instructional Voice at the Center
Even when AI offers helpful drafts or organizational support, your instructional presence remains the most important part of any material you share with students. Students rely on your voice, your clarity, and your perspective to understand the purpose of a lesson and how it fits within the course. AI can provide ideas, but it cannot replace the insight that comes from knowing your discipline, your students, and the learning environment you create.
In the instructional content workshop, instructors were encouraged to ask themselves whether the material still felt like their own after AI assistance. This reflection helps ensure that the content maintains the tone, emphasis, and examples that make your teaching unique. Your expertise is essential for deciding what to keep, what to revise, and what to set aside. AI may produce text that is smooth and organized, but only you can ensure that the material is accurate, relevant, and aligned with the goals of your course.
Keeping your voice at the center also supports student trust. When students can recognize your style and reasoning in the material, they feel more connected to the learning experience. This connection becomes even more important in courses where much of the work happens online, because clear and consistent instructor presence helps students stay engaged and confident in their understanding.
Using AI to Support Instructional Materials
AI can help instructors prepare many kinds of instructional materials by offering early drafts, reorganizing complex information, or suggesting ways to make content clearer for students. These uses help instructors begin the work more efficiently, but the final decisions still rely on your expertise and understanding of the course. In the instructional content workshop, instructors used AI to simplify dense readings, create study guides, refine explanations, and prepare outlines for lectures or videos. These activities showed how AI can serve as a starting point that you shape and improve.
AI can also support accessibility and clarity. For example, you can prompt AI to rewrite a passage in plain language, generate alt text for images, or reorganize long explanations into shorter sections that are easier for students to follow. These uses do not replace instructional choices but help instructors adjust materials so they are easier to read, navigate, and understand. When paired with your review and revision, AI-assisted adjustments can make materials more welcoming and inclusive for a wide range of learners.
AI tools are most effective when they are used to prepare drafts or explore possibilities rather than to create final content. Whether you are planning a lesson, updating a slide deck, or writing a short explanation for a concept students often struggle with, AI can give you options that you refine. This partnership allows you to keep your teaching goals at the center of your materials while also using technology to support clarity, organization, and accessibility.
Using AI to Brainstorm Learning Activities
The instructional materials workshop includes many examples of how AI can support activity design. The categories below provide a short overview of what AI can help with in each area. You can access the link to the corresponding tab in the workshop guide for full prompts and examples.
Direct Instruction and Lectures
What AI can help with
AI can offer draft outlines for lectures, suggest examples to illustrate key ideas, identify missing explanations, or reorganize concepts into a more coherent flow. It provides instructors with a starting point that is refined and adapted to match the goals of the session.
Tips for instructors
- Share the learning objectives and student level.
- Ask AI to highlight unclear areas that may need more explanation.
- Use AI’s structure as a draft, then revise to bring back your voice.
Lecture Notes
What AI can help with
AI can reorganize or simplify existing notes, rewrite dense sections in plain language, and point out places where students may struggle. These suggestions help instructors create notes that support student understanding.
Tips for instructors
- Provide the notes and ask AI to identify areas for clarification.
- Request multiple reading levels if appropriate.
- Evaluate all rewrites for disciplinary accuracy.
Study Guides
What AI can help with
AI can summarize key ideas, create guiding questions, and suggest practice problems that align with course objectives. It helps instructors prepare focused materials for exam or unit review.
Tips for instructors
- Share the topics or chapters that will be included.
- Ask AI to outline major themes or relationships among concepts.
- Ensure questions reflect the appropriate cognitive level.
Class Announcements
What AI can help with
AI can draft weekly announcements, reminders, or check-ins that are friendly and consistent. It can help instructors maintain regular communication without starting from scratch each time.
Tips for instructors
- Provide the week’s goals or tasks.
- Ask for a tone that matches your teaching style.
- Review to ensure accuracy and alignment with your schedule.
Instructional Videos
What AI can help with
AI can generate script outlines, suggest visuals or examples, and help structure explanations for clarity. It can also propose ways to break content into short, digestible segments.
Tips for instructors
- Share the topic and goal of the video.
- Request recommendations for pacing or emphasis.
- Add your own stories, examples, or clarifying details.
Instructional Audio or Podcasts
What AI can help with
AI can outline episodes, propose interview questions, and help draft scripts. It can also support accessibility by creating summaries or transcripts to accompany the audio.
Tips for instructors
- Provide the episode purpose and key ideas.
- Ask AI to suggest segment breaks or transitions.
- Review scripts for tone and discipline accuracy.
Interactive Modules
What AI can help with
AI can propose module sequences, interactive checkpoints, or guiding questions. It helps instructors think through the learning flow and identify natural places for student engagement.
Tips for instructors
- Share the module goal and any required outcomes.
- Request ideas for interactions that encourage practice and reflection.
- Revise to ensure activities match your course platform and students.
Accessibility and Clarity Support
What AI can help with
AI can rewrite text for readability, generate alt text, reformat content, and identify language that might confuse students. These supports help instructors make materials more usable for all learners.
Tips for instructors
- Ask AI to check for reading level or clarity.
- Request alternative versions of an explanation.
- Make final decisions to keep materials aligned with disciplinary accuracy and student needs.
Ensuring Accuracy, Alignment, and Accessibility
Accuracy
AI can generate useful drafts and helpful ideas, but every output still requires careful review to ensure it is accurate, aligned with learning goals, and accessible to students. In the instructional content workshop, instructors were encouraged to treat AI responses as starting points that need checking, editing, and reshaping. This step is essential because AI can produce explanations that sound confident yet include incorrect details, missing context, or mismatches with the discipline.
Alignment
Alignment is especially important when using AI to create content or activities. Instructors can ask AI to identify which learning objectives the material supports, but the final decision must come from a clear understanding of the course. Reviewing AI-generated materials with your objectives in mind helps ensure that every example, explanation, or activity reinforces the skills you want students to build. This also prevents activities from drifting off-topic or focusing on ideas that do not belong in the course.
Accessibility
Accessibility is another key consideration. AI can help rewrite text in plain language, generate alternative formats, or point out areas that may be confusing for students. Still, instructors must ensure that the material remains accurate and discipline appropriate. Combining AI-supported revisions with your knowledge of student needs helps create materials that are easier for everyone to understand, navigate, and engage with.
Using AI responsibly in instructional content creation means balancing efficiency with thoughtful review. When instructors remain attentive to accuracy, alignment, and accessibility, AI becomes a supportive tool that enhances planning while keeping teaching quality and student learning at the center.
Try It: Instructional Content Practice
Use the scenario below to practice applying the strategies from this article. This activity mirrors the hands-on work from the instructional content workshop and can be completed using any AI tool.
Scenario
You are preparing instructional materials for an upcoming module on information literacy and source evaluation in a 200-level course. Students often struggle to distinguish between explanation, opinion, and evidence, so you want to create clear and accessible resources that help them practice evaluating sources.
You currently have a long, text-heavy reading assigned for the module, and students report that it feels overwhelming and difficult to navigate.
Your Task
Use AI to create a clearer and more engaging set of instructional materials for this module. Your goal is to make the content easier to understand without losing disciplinary accuracy or your instructional voice.
Steps to Try
Step 1. Provide the AI with context.
Share the module topic, the student level, and any concerns you have about the current materials. You may paste a small excerpt or summarize the goals of the reading.
Step 2. Ask the AI to create an initial support resource.
Try prompting the AI to create one of the materials below:
- a simplified explanation
- a short study guide
- a student-facing overview of key ideas
- a set of guiding questions
Choose one format and review the draft.
Step 3. Ask the AI to identify unclear or confusing parts of the original content.
Request suggestions for rewording or reorganizing to improve clarity or accessibility.
Step 4. Use the AI to brainstorm a short learning activity.
For example:
“Suggest a brief in-class or online activity that helps students apply these ideas to real sources they might encounter.”
Step 5. Revise the materials using your expertise.
Ensure that everything remains accurate, aligned with your objectives, and reflective of your teaching style.
Optional Variations
- Ask AI to generate two different versions of the same explainer, one in plain language and another that uses discipline-specific vocabulary.
- Ask AI to produce example sources that students could evaluate in class.
- Have the AI propose three short video or audio script outlines and choose the one that fits your teaching preferences.
Reflection Questions
- Which parts of the AI-generated materials supported your goals, and which required the most revision?
- Did the AI help you notice areas of the original content that were unclear or inaccessible to students?
- How did your revisions ensure that the material still reflected your instructional voice?
- What activity ideas felt most effective for encouraging student engagement and independent thinking?
- How might you incorporate AI into future planning without allowing it to determine the instructional approach?
Thoughtful use of AI can make instructional content and activity planning more efficient while still keeping teaching decisions grounded in human insight and disciplinary expertise. When instructors review AI-generated ideas with attention to accuracy, alignment, and accessibility, these tools become supportive partners rather than sources of content. The next article in this series will explore advanced uses of AI in teaching and learning, highlighting strategies that extend beyond course design, assessment, and instructional materials to support innovative, forward-looking instructional practice.
The AI Fluency Article Series
- AI Fluency: 101 for Instructors
- AI Fluency: Prompting Basics
- AI Fluency: Course Design
- AI Fluency: Designing Assessments and Summarizing Student Work
- AI Fluency: Developing Instructional Content and Learning Activities – Current Read
Workshop Information
AI Fluency Series
Creating Instructional Content Using AI
Developing Learning Activities with AI Help
If there are no available workshops, please feel free to request an instructional consultation about this topic.