Social Sciences & Humanities Classroom Resources & Examples

Looking for sample AI usage policies and syllabi? Visit our Sample AI Usage Policies & Syllabi webpage.

Teaching Writing with Generative AI

BU writing instructors brainstormed this list of teaching ideas in the spirit of exploration and experimentation.

Broadly speaking, instructors may want to keep the following goals in mind when working with AI as they plan assignments and activities:

1. Better understanding of the role of AI in writing and research pedagogy;
2. Building AI expertise among faculty and informing future AI policies for different assignments, courses, and programs;
3. Understanding what students know about AI and how they use AI;
4. Developing students’ AI literacy and fostering a critical, ethical disposition toward AI.

View their website for more information and additional activities.

AI & Gen AI Overview

Margaret Wallace discusses AI & GenAI literacy, pedagogy, foundations, ethical considerations, and more in the below presentation.

Writing, Philosophy, & Ethics

Christopher McVey’s course WR152 tackles some of the most urgent philosophical and ethical questions surrounding AI. As GenAI and machine learning increasingly shape fields like medicine, finance, media, and personal relationships, McVey’s students explore how AI is transforming society and what that means for our concepts of truth, agency, love, and even what it means to be human.

Through interdisciplinary discussion and independent research projects, students examine topics ranging from algorithmic bias and AI governance to robot rights and AI consciousness. The course draws a diverse mix of students across STEM and the humanities, encouraging fresh, critical perspectives on AI’s role in our world. Student research projects over the last three years have spanned a wide array of writing topics, based on what they are interested in, allowing students majoring in data science, computer science, or engineering to explore their interests just as much as those in social sciences and humanities. 

Fashion as History

In Arianne Chernock’s class CAS HI 451, students use LLM’s to produce an essay on a historical event or topic, and then the students use this in critical reading and source-checking, engaging in the methods of historiography and deeper analysis. This class teaches prompt design, and its importance in shaping the output and refinement of the genAI which is essential for close reading and source-related issues in the study of history.

Designing a Stuttering Chatbot: A Speech-Language Pathologist’s Exploration of AI for Clinical Training

In her first two years as a clinical lecturer, Caroline Brinkert turned to AI with curiosity as she attempted to find and define her teaching philosophy. Drawing on her clinical background as a speech-language pathologist, she designed AI-based simulations—including a custom chatbot that stuttered—to help graduate students practice counseling skills in realistic, emotionally charged scenarios. This reflection explores how embracing generative AI transformed Caroline’s novice teaching practice and established her identity as an educator. Rather than replacing the human elements of teaching, AI helped reveal them- offering space for risk and resulting in growth.