Your faculty and educators in training want help navigating AI.
Give them the frameworks to do it well.
The AI for Educators series is a licensed professional development curriculum that builds critical AI literacy for faculty and educators in training — grounded in research, practical from day one, and designed for multilingual educators in higher education. Trusted by UC Davis.
“Empowering scholars to understand both the strengths and limitations of these technologies is such an important skill.” — UC Davis Continuing & Professional Education
Three courses. Modular delivery. Can be taught individually or as a sequence.
Crafting Effective Prompts for AI-Powered Tools
Strategic, tool-specific prompt writing for teaching and research tasks — covering Claude, Perplexity, Consensus, MagicSchool, and Curipod. Faculty leave with a ready-to-use prompt library. Topics covered in this course include:
Why prompt writing matters when using AI tools
What makes a good prompt? Tool specific prompt guidelines and templates for prompt design
Tailoring prompt writing for specific purposes and projects
AI tools designed for educators and researchers
Demonstrations of prompts in action - specific AI tools for educator tasks
Evaluating and identifying the language features of effective prompts
Applying prompts to real projects
Ethical considerations when sharing information with AI
Popular AI Tools for Educators
Hands-on experience with AI tools reshaping teaching and scholarship. Evaluation criteria, ethical integration, and discipline-specific applications — from course design to research acceleration. Topics covered in this course include:
AI tools used by educators around the globe
AI tools that can serve as teaching assistants to support a range of educator related tasks and content development such as lesson planning, activity and assessment, student engagement, individual and group assignments, and more.
Ethical considerations when using AI tools in educational contexts and for educational purposes
AI Tools for Research Writing in English
Designed for English-learning faculty navigating teaching, research, and publication in English. Sequential workflows from research question development through drafting and assistance, with a critical lens on rigor, reliability, and both academic and professional integrity. Topics covered in this course include:
How to use AI tools strategically to streamline research workflows, from brainstorming ideas to organizing sources and drafting research writing for academic courses and/or publication
Which AI features can help scholars save time, find rigorous and relevant references, generate researchable questions, and organize outlines for writing projects
How to use AI-powered tools to develop a coherent, well-formatted, and appropriate outline for a research writing project
Ethical considerations and guidelines when using AI tools for research and research writing
What Your Institution Gains
FOR ADMINISTRATION:
Proactive positioning on AI
Support for international faculty and visiting scholars
Faculty retention signal
FOR DEPARTMENTS:
Cross-disciplinary faculty support
Responds to AI-inclusive curriculum calls
Documented PD for P&T
FOR FACULTY:
Practical, instruction-ready skills
AI that deepens research without replacing expertise
Discipline-relevant training
AI for Educators
Critical AI Literacy training for educators across disciplines
-
This course answers the question “what AI tools do educators use?” Participants learn about AI tools that educators are using around the globe and how to make informed decisions about how to use these tools to support different teaching and learning needs. The modules throughout this course provide a practical guide to using a range of AI tools loved by educators from K-12 to higher education. The course includes demonstrations of AI tools selected for their established use globally, range of features that support diverse learning contexts, and resource access and relevance for educators across teaching contexts.
-
This course focuses on how educators and education researchers are using AI strategically and ethically to facilitate research and research writing. The lessons and demonstrations are designed to guide participants through ethically, engaged, productive research and writing processes to support educator career works. The course includes demonstrations focused on detailed learning of tools like Consensus, Perplexity, Claude, and citation management tools. The course guides students through how to use each tool effectively, including tool-specific prompt writing and best practices. Students also learn how to strategically implement these tools as research assistants, supporting the development of a research writing project from initial stages of reference finding and research question generation to thorough research writing outline development. Students will learn not only how to leverage these AI tools for their own research writing but how to mentor junior scholars in the use of these tools in their own research processes.
This course is designed for scholars at every stage who want to write high-quality, well-researched papers for publication in English. This course introduces AI tools built specifically for the demands of academic writing for which accuracy, reliability, and rigor matter most.
-
Not all AI tools are designed for the same purposes. In this course participants learn strategic, AI-model specific writing steps to effectively tailor prompts for use with vetted AI tools suitable for teaching and research in higher education. Faculty gain access to a rich library of prompts designed for a range of research and teaching related tasks, learn informed tool selection, and how to effectively write prompts for AI tools that support a range of educator demands.
AI is reshaping higher education and faculty need training to keep up. AI for Educators is a licensed professional development curriculum grounded in critical ai literacy — covering AI tool evaluation for teaching tasks and research writing workflows.
This professional development series builds institutional capacity for responsible AI integration while offering faculty strategic and relevant applications of tools to support their full plate of teaching, mentorship, intellectual creativity, and publication — without undermining their expertise, language development, or academic integrity. On the contrary, this training sets faculty up with skills to apply relevant AI tools to their work in ways that feel additive, user friendly, and discipline responsive. Faculty also complete this course feeling better prepared to mentor junior scholars, graduate student teaching assistants, and students in their use of AI for education purposes.
Your faculty are already encountering AI in classrooms, research, and administrative work. Give them the frameworks to engage strategically, ethically, and effectively.
Read about the AI for Educators curriculum and its success at the University of California, Davis
Flexible Implementation
Modules can be taught individually or sequentially.
A great addition to international education offerings, continuing and professional education programming, teacher training programs, and faculty professional development series.
Client Reviews
“The most useful course in recent memory. Thank you!”
— Senior Lecturer and participant in Popular AI Tools for Educators
“The teaching and presentation of materials is top-notch.”
— Senior Lecturer and participant in Popular AI Tools for Educators
“We love seeing how you’re integrating critical thinking and hands-on exploration of AI tools into your training. Empowering scholars to understand both the strengths and limitations of these technologies is such an important skill. Excited to see the impact of this series!”
— UC Davis Continuing and Professional EducationWhen faculty and students use AI for research writing, grant proposals, literature reviews, or teaching materials, they must:
Evaluate linguistic appropriateness for their discipline, audience, and purpose
Identify and correct genre-specific errors AI commonly makes
Prompt effectively using metalinguistic awareness (understanding how language works)
Recognize when AI outputs perpetuate problematic language ideologies or biases
Adapt AI-generated content to meet specific rhetorical situations
Meet Your Instructor
Meet Dr. Marinka Swift
Applied linguist and curriculum designer. 15+ years working with international educators in higher education.
Designer of UC Davis's Bolashak Scholars AI for Educators program.