AI Essentials: Faculty Quick Start Guide
This guide provides a clear overview of what AI Essentials is, why it matters, and how faculty may choose to incorporate or promote it within their courses. The guide emphasizes that participation is entirely flexible and that faculty retain full autonomy over their course design, instructional approach, and policies regarding AI use.
Download the Quick Start Guide
Course Integration Resources
Al Essentials is a foundational training experience designed to support the development of AI literacy at Penn State. This document is provided as a ready-to-use resource with language and activities to integrate AI Essentials into your course. Faculty are welcome to use any option as-is, adapt the language to fit their instructional voice and discipline, or set them aside entirely. Including any of these materials does not imply that AI is permitted or required in your course. Activity descriptions are provided to supplement any AI Usage Guidance Policy you include in your syllabus that aligns with your teaching approach. Assigning or including AI Essentials in your course does not equate to requiring students to use AI or allowing AI usage in your course. AI Essentials supports students in acquiring foundational AI literacy so that they can make informed and ethical decisions.
Download the AI Essentials Course Integration Resources
Course Insights
Developed by Penn State IT’s Data Empowered Learning team in collaboration with the Office of Faculty Affairs, Course Insights provides a holistic view of the student learning experience, empowering instructors to explore the relationships between course engagements and learner activity to outcomes in their courses, helping you shape pedagogical strategies, course administration, and out-of-class student support needs.
Download the Course Insights and AI Essentials Completion Guide
AI Essentials — PowerPoint Slides by Level
To help you seamlessly introduce the AI Essentials module to your students, we have developed a suite of ready-to-use PowerPoint decks. These resources are designed to directly align with the integration "lift levels" outlined in the Course Activity Suggestions and Options document, allowing you to easily choose the level of engagement that best fits your course goals—whether you simply want to mention the training in passing or fully integrate it into your curriculum.
Design choices for faculty use:
- Agnostic styling: Clean, neutral design that blends in with your existing materials.
- Consistent structure: Each deck starts with a title slide and a context slide, features one slide per option, and ends with a shared "How to Access" closing slide.
- Ready to customize: All sample language is pulled directly from the source document and is clearly labeled as editable starting points.
- Plug-and-play: Faculty can easily drop any individual slide directly into an existing course deck.
Review the options below to find the deck that best aligns with your planned approach:
File | Level | Slides | Best For |
Lowest Lift | 4 slides | Options 1A & 1B — minimal/informational or contextual framing | |
Easy Lift | 6 slides | Options 2A, 2B & 2C — general, disciplinary, or readiness framing | |
Moderate Lift | 6 slides | Options 3A, 3B & 3C — extra credit, participation, or reflection prompts | |
Require It | 6 slides | Options 4A, 4B & 4C — standalone, rationale-forward, or integrated |