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AI@ACC Panel 2: Reimagining Curriculum for the AI Era

Banner illustration for “AI@ACC Panel Series: A Space for Questions” featuring the ACC Teaching & Learning Excellence Division logo and the Office of Academic Technology. A speech bubble icon with a microphone appears on the left. Below, large text announces: “Panel 2: Reimagining Curriculum for the AI Era”. The background includes abstract network lines and nodes in purple and gray tones.

AI@ACC Panel 2: Talking to your Students about AI Ethics

AI@ACC Panel 2 featured Herb Coleman, Janey Flanagan, Susan Meigs, and Tina Buck in a thoughtful, energetic redesign chat where we dug into the new Blackboard AI Conversations tool. Mentimeter showed strong support for AI disclosure and clearer goals, with “everyone” claiming AI literacy as shared work.

View the session summary or watch the session recording to dive in deeper!


AI@ACC Panel Series is a four-part, cross-disciplinary, dialog-based conversation series developed through Austin Community College’s (ACC) participation in the AAC&U Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. Grounded in national research, the series explores how artificial intelligence is shaping teaching, learning, assessment, and the future of work in higher education across teaching, support, and workforce roles.

Designed as a low-pressure entry point, this series centers real questions, lived experience, and diverse perspectives rather than tools, mandates, or hype. Ethical concerns, including bias, labor, environmental impact, and academic integrity, are acknowledged and respected throughout. No prior AI experience is expected. Questions and uncertainty are welcomed.

AI@ACC is a space for inquiry, not compliance. The series is exploratory and reflective rather than directive. While AI raises serious concerns, disengagement does not ultimately protect students. These conversations focus on helping educators and staff thoughtfully support students as they navigate evolving academic and workplace norms.

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Faculty White Papers

Mastering the Art of Rehearsal: Utilizing Digital Tools for Enhanced Speech Delivery and Self-Assessment

Whimsical illustration of a Great White shark with an expressive, open mouth and a small kitten sitting at a wooden desk with a tripod-mounted smartphone between them and a notebook and pencil on the desk. The walls are wood-paneled and warm sunlight filters through a nearby window. To the right of the image there is a plain golden background with two circular shapes and black text on top that says "Mastering the Art of Rehearsal: Utilizing Digital Tools for Enhanced Speech Delivery and Self-Assessment, “LMC” Lisa Marie Coppoletta, Adobe Creative Campus Course Redesign Fellowship".


Learn how “LMC” Lisa Marie Coppoletta transformed her students’ public speaking anxiety to professional confidence in her Speech Communication course. This white paper details how structured preparation and collaborative reflection fosters confidence and produces polished presentations.

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Faculty White Papers

Redesigning ACNT 2330 with AI-Enhanced Exam Preparation

Colorful widescreen illustration of a friendly AI tutor named Sam displayed on a computer screen in a study workspace with books, notes, and stationery. A large rounded panel on the left contains the title “Redesigning ACNT 2330 with AI-Enhanced Exam Preparation", the author's name Okera Bishop, and a subtitle that says Artificial Intelligence for Teaching & Learning Fellowship White Paper.


Discover how Okera Bishop utilized an AI-powered tutor to support exam preparation in an aysnchronous accounting course. This white paper details how this approach increased student confidence, eliminated failing exam scores, and reduced score variability, highlighting AI’s value for targeted practice.

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AI@ACC Panel 1: Talking to your Students about AI Ethics

Banner illustration for “AI@ACC Panel Series: A Space for Questions” featuring the ACC Teaching & Learning Excellence Division logo and the Office of Academic Technology. A speech bubble icon with a microphone appears on the left. Below, large text announces: “Panel 1: Talking to Your Students About AI Ethics.” The background includes abstract network lines and nodes in purple and gray tones.

AI@ACC Panel 1: Talking to your Students about AI Ethics

AI@ACC Panel 1 brought together Alex Watkins, Toño Ramírez, Andy Kim, and Mavis Klemcke for a candid, laugh-a-little conversation about syllabus policies, student fears, and what transparency really means. Mentimeter results showed big love for openness and process over policing.

View the session summary or watch the session recording to dive in deeper!


AI@ACC Panel Series is a four-part, cross-disciplinary, dialog-based conversation series developed through Austin Community College’s (ACC) participation in the AAC&U Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. Grounded in national research, the series explores how artificial intelligence is shaping teaching, learning, assessment, and the future of work in higher education across teaching, support, and workforce roles.

Designed as a low-pressure entry point, this series centers real questions, lived experience, and diverse perspectives rather than tools, mandates, or hype. Ethical concerns, including bias, labor, environmental impact, and academic integrity, are acknowledged and respected throughout. No prior AI experience is expected. Questions and uncertainty are welcomed.

AI@ACC is a space for inquiry, not compliance. The series is exploratory and reflective rather than directive. While AI raises serious concerns, disengagement does not ultimately protect students. These conversations focus on helping educators and staff thoughtfully support students as they navigate evolving academic and workplace norms.

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Faculty White Papers

AI-Powered Chatbot Assessments in Online Anatomy & Physiology: A Mixed-Methods Study White Paper

Illustration of a student participating in an online anatomy and physiology assessment, speaking with a virtual human patient on a laptop screen. A transparent 3D human body and brain model appear beside the workspace, with medical charts and icons in the background. At the top of the page there is text that says: AI-Powered Chatbot Assessments in Online Anatomy & Physiology: A Mixed-Methods Study White Paper, Jaime Cantú, Artificial Intelligence for Teaching & Learning Fellowship.


Follow along as Jaime Cantú compares traditional tests with AI chatbot assessments in his online Anatomy & Physiology courses. This white paper reveals how chatbots can foster deeper understanding, stronger explanation skills, and lower test anxiety through patient-centered dialogue.

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Ask an ID: Backward Design: Rethinking Curriculum for Accelerated Sessions

Illustration of a colorful, cluttered desk with stacks of books, a coffee cup, keyboard, and a computer monitor displaying the text "Backward Design: Rethinking Curriculum for Accelerated Sessions". Below the desk, the phrase "Ask an Instructional Designer" is written in bold, playful text.

Ask an ID: Rethinking Curriculum for Accelerated Sessions

Dear Instructional Designer,

I am an Adjunct Professor who has been at ACC for 20 years. I have always taught a 16-week course but I was just assigned a 12-week session for the first time. I am unsure how to best approach and manage this new session given the difference in length and would appreciate any guidance you can provide.

– Course Compressor

Dear Course Compressor,

I can certainly understand how this shift in course length presents a new challenge. Not to worry – here are some tips and resources to help you make this adjustment a smooth one for both you and your students.

Backward Design is how we usually look at course structure. We start with the learning outcomes, what we want the students to be able to demonstrate, and then figure out the materials, activities, and assessments that go with each objective. You can access an example ACC course map here, which I encourage you to fill out. You want to look at your 16 week course objectives and figure out what is absolutely required, what is important, and what is just “nice to know” and cut out some of those. Trying to fully condense a 16 week into 12 without cutting anything isn’t generally recommended because of cognitive load theory and the spacing effect.

Rethink if you want to move from weekly modules to “unit” modules. A typical pattern is to fold Weeks 1–2, 3–4, 5–6, etc., into combined modules with clearer themes.

Be clear to the students about what is going on. Explain that they are in an accelerated course so things are going to move faster than they may be used to. Remind the students that it will be imperative to stay on top of their work and outline in every module what they need to Read or Watch, what they need to Do, and what the Assessment will be. Connect the learning outcomes to those activities to help them understand why they are doing what they are doing. And give them a ballpark figure of how much time you are expecting each chunk to take. I like to create a PDF course schedule with the dates of the term and all the due dates so that they can print it or save it and cross things off. 

You also want to use frequent, smaller check‑ins (quick quizzes, minute papers, short reflections) to monitor learning and catch problems early when things move faster. This is especially important because students in shortened terms can experience more stress and less recovery time between tasks.

It’s a lot to generate so I recommend leaning on Google Gemini for help. It’s in your Google Workspace Tools. Make sure you use your ACC linked account so that all of your course materials will stay secure and make sure to double check every single thing it generates for students because there can always be hallucinations and errors with generative AI.

I hope this helps you! Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any further questions or to set up a 1:1 meeting.

Backwards by design,

Your Instructional Designer

Additional Resources:

Achieving the Dream Preparing Shortened Academic Terms (page 20-22)

Planning a Compressed Course Montclair State

Six effective ways to teach accelerated courses

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Ask an ID: Equitable AI Solutions

Illustration of a colorful, cluttered desk with stacks of books, a coffee cup, keyboard, and a computer monitor displaying the text "Equitable AI Solutions." Below the desk, the phrase "Ask an Instructional Designer" is written in bold, playful text.

Ask an ID: Equitable AI Solutions

Dear Instructional Designer,

My students are working on Economic Research Projects. When they use the free Chat GPT, it is not enough, so they sometimes get kicked out before accomplishing their task. I want to avoid equity issues for the student who doesn’t own a subscription to OpenAI. So am looking for a free alternative to put all students on equal footing. Do ACC students have free access to Perplexity or another AI that is suitable for economic research?

-AI Instructor

Dear AI Instructor,

I got your request and I have some answers for you but the bigger answer is there is an GAI Strategic Planning Committee that is working on guidelines and investigating potential tools for ACC. As it is right now, ACC does not offer students any specific AI tools. However, there are quite a few free models that we have access to and combining them can get you pretty far. 

First, you mentioned Perplexity and I have the free version of this tool. I use it extensively to find research materials and I haven’t hit the paywall yet. I would recommend to your students to use the Spaces feature to collect their research. Depending on what you are researching, users can also change the focus of the research to rely on academic sources, or social media sources, or the internet at large. These different focus areas change the results dramatically and can be very interesting. 

Another tool that I recommend is Consensus which is an AI tool designed to search only academic papers. Like Perplexity, it footnotes every source it mentions with a link to the actual paper and it also creates academic citations.

Scispace has unlimited usage at the Basic level but it doesn’t do as thorough a job as the paid account. It’s similar to Consensus and only uses academic papers. The cool thing about this tool from a teaching POV is that it asks some clarifying questions to make sure it understands exactly what the user is looking for. It will then do a search and order its finding by relevance. Each paper will have an “Insights” column automatically added so I can see if the paper is applicable. I can make columns to quickly compare conclusions or methods of different papers to find exactly what I’m interested in.

You are definitely not alone in your concerns about student equity. I think these tools will all come at a price in the future and it could cause lots of harm to our students at that point. But right now, since all the tools are competing with each other and experimental, the free versions are really helpful and always provide more information than I can handle!

I hope this information addresses your question. If you need any further assistance, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Yours in AI and insight,

Stephanie Bogdanich, Instructional Designer

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Faculty White Papers

Fostering Critical Thinking Skills with AI

Illustration of a diverse group of students sitting around a table, engaged with laptops and tablets. At the center, a text box reads: “Fostering Critical Thinking Skills with AI – Artificial Intelligence for Teaching & Learning Fellowship White Paper – Lei Ji, Ph.D.”

Examine how AI enhances students’ analytical skills in economics while addressing misinformation and academic integrity. Lei Ji discusses why evaluating AI-generated answers helps students develop deeper understanding and improves critical thinking.

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Faculty White Papers

Integrating AI Tools into Information Literacy Sessions: Enhancing Student Research Skills

A diverse group of students sits around a table in a library, enthusiastically collaborating with laptops, notebooks, and tablets. They are smiling and engaged in discussion, suggesting a productive research session. Bookshelves fill the background. A blue banner at the bottom reads: “Integrating AI Tools into Information Literacy Sessions: Enhancing Student Research Skills.” Below that, it lists the author: “Mavis Klemcke – Artificial Intelligence for Teaching & Learning Fellowship White Paper.”

Discover how AI tools can transform Information Literacy sessions, improving student research, citation accuracy, and confidence. In this white paper, Mavis Klemcke explores AI integration in libraries to foster critical thinking and ethical information use.

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Faculty White Papers

Educator’s Reflections on Integrating Technology in an ESOL Classroom

A diverse group of six smiling young adults stand in front of a colorful world map, each holding a tablet or laptop. Above them is a title that reads: “Educator’s Reflections on Integrating Technology in an ESOL Classroom – Anna Moreno, M.Ed., Adobe Creative Campus Fellowship White Paper.” The group appears to represent students engaged with educational technology.

Explore the role of interactive technology on student engagement and learning in an ESOL writing course led by Anna Moreno. This white paper examines student and instructor perceptions, highlighting key benefits, challenges, and best practices for tech integration into language education.

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