ATXpo 2025 IdeaLabs
This group focuses on the application of AI and other technologies to enhance instructional design, content creation, assessment, and overall learning experiences.
#1: Curious about Custom GPTS? Learn about Creating AI Tools for Teaching
Are custom GPTs better for teaching and learning than commercial GenAI tools? The Center for Equity and Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CEETL) is currently piloting custom GPTs to support student learning in first-year and upper-division writing courses. Working with faculty, we have created assignments with corresponding custom GPTs to teach students how to optimize rhetorical load sharing (Knowles 2024) with LLMs while avoiding the dangers of over-reliance and maintaining principles of ethical and responsible use. We will share our rationale for using custom GPTs; our best-practice parameters for teachers interested in creating a GPT; and the challenges teachers may face as they implement GPTs into course assignments. We will provide opportunities for participant engagement and welcome participant questions, experiences, and perspectives.
Jennifer Trainor, Anoshua Chaudhuri
San Francisco State University
#2: Enhancing Student Learning and Critical Thinking with NotebookL
In Spring 2025, I implemented an AI Study Guide/Podcast assignment in BUS1 20 (Intro to Financial Accounting). The assignment first asks students to create a study guide on a particular topic, using all their notes and materials to synthesize information on the topic. Next, students upload their study guide to NotebookLM and use the “Audio Overview” feature to generate a podcast based on their study guide. Students then critique the AI-generated podcast and make tweaks to their study guide to ensure the podcast is accurate and informative. This was an at-home assignment.
Suzanne Haley
San Jose State University
#3: Enhancing Team Dynamics Through AI-Driven Simulations
This project was centered within a cross functional team building activity where members engaged in an AI course design meeting simulation. Trained to simulate a faculty member persona and real project challenges, our bot introduced new criteria aimed to put the project timeline and quality of deliverables at risk. Team members worked together to negotiate and strategize with the bot while generating collective best practices for maintaining team cohesion and handling project scope challenges. The simulation highlighted the value of bot-based interactions for enhancing team processes in lower-stakes environments to prepare them for more critical project engagements.
Andrea Taylor, Diane Lee, Justin Willow
Stanford University
#4: Faculty GenAI Integration Projects: Discoveries & Insights from the USF ETS GenAI Certificate Program
Over the past year, many USF faculty members have chosen to complete the ETS GenAI Certificate program, which lays a foundation for AI literacy, GenAI tool skills, and secure use, as well as assessment adaptation to address the academic changes these technologies present. For the certificate’s culminating project, faculty create an adapted student-facing assignment or other instructional artifact integrating generative AI, with surprising results. This session overviews the certificate program’s curriculum and explores the ways faculty have interpreted this charge, noting project trends and future training opportunities to support GenAI integration and management in higher education courses.
Jill Ballard
University of San Francisco
#5: Instructional Design Challenges in Long Term Remote Collaboration
In 2024 Professor Sapolsky asked if I could reboot a 15 year old videos of his course on Human Behavioral Biology, which I had videorecorded during his lectures in front of students. It was the most viewed course on Stanford YouTube and for that reason, Sapolsky wanted to update it now with the latest scientific content, but also with better visuals than just the white board he used to teach. The catch was that he was sheltering in place and he was to begin teaching in less than a week. This idealab shares our solutions to the logistical hurdles of teaching the professor to set up my equipment in his house and how I created the illustrations and slide deck after-the-fact for publication on Youtube a year later. It is now live @humbiovideos https://tinyurl.com/HBBiology
Carlos Seligo
Stanford University
#6: Productivity Hacks for Instructional Design using AI
Our project incorporated AI in the course production process, assisting a team of instructional designers with limited resources. From Fall 2024-Fall 2025, Santa Clara University’s instructional technology group migrated online Marketing courses from an online program manager (OPM) to our in-house instance of Canvas, recreating the courses using CidiLabs’ DesignPlus tool. The group developed several effective workflows for making the instructional design and content management practice more efficient and the quality of courses more consistent without sacrificing context or nuance, and developing courses in a short timeline.
Eric Haynie, Colin Justin
Santa Clara University
#7: Text to educational videos for teachers
We developed a text-to-educational-video tool that enables instructors, staff, and students to instantly generate customisable, Khan Academy–style videos from a written prompt. The tool is designed for both classroom and online use, making it easier for faculty to prepare materials and for students to learn complex topics interactively. Currently piloted with high school and university learners, the project is ongoing and integrates into teaching workflows as a rapid content creation and delivery platform.
Arnav Mehta, Rhythm Seth
University of California, Berkeley
#8: Using AI to Extend the Reach and Impact of Virtual Field Trips
Virtual field trips are excellent tools for teaching geology and nudging students to explore the outdoors on their own. I use virtual field trips as a tool for equity in my geology classes. Virtual field trips allow students who may not have had the opportunity to travel or experience much of the natural world outdoors, a way to virtually visit places and experience the geology in context. This enhances every student’s ability to learn geology.
LeAnne Teruya
San Jose State University
#9: Using AI Tools to Elevate Case-method Teaching and Learning for the Business Curriculum
This project engages faculty in the Business School who teach case-based courses, such as Marketing, Operations Management and Accounting, Intermediate Financial Management etc. In collaboration with the instructional design team at the Center for Faculty Excellence and Teaching Innovation (CFETI) at San Jose State University, faculty experimented with AI tools to elevate case-method teaching and learning. Together, they created a prompt library tailored to faculty needs, providing structured ways to process the use of AI in the following areas: Generate and refine discussion questions aligned with teaching goals, Connect questions to relevant concepts, theories, and frameworks, Identify examples that extend learning beyond the case, and Anticipate possible student responses to strengthen facilitation strategies. The project is ongoing and designed to scale as the prompt library will be shared across departments to support broader adoption of case-based teaching. Implementation occurs primarily in the classroom, but prompts are designed for use in both in-person and online teaching contexts. By integrating generative AI into long-established case teaching practices, this project exemplifies the ATXpo theme of “AI to Z in Ed Tech: Impact, Innovation, and Literacy”—demonstrating both innovative teaching practices and opportunities for faculty AI literacy.
Shichen Guo, Jennifer Redd
San Jose State University
This group highlights the use of AI-driven tools, such as chatbots and GPTs, to support career exploration, skill development, and academic or professional assistance.
#1: Development and Implementation of an AI Chatbot to Scaffold Problem-Solving in Introductory Chemistry
A chemistry teaching team and education researchers piloted STEPS, a prompt-engineered AI chatbot, in an introductory chemistry course (Chem 11). Initially introduced in class under instructor supervision, the tool was then integrated into weekly online assignments across several weeks. Undergraduate students used STEPS to plan solutions for problems on content covered in the previous week. The team analyzed chat features, solution quality, and student self-reported helpfulness to refine the tool.
Karen Wang, Joshua Arens, Jordyn Smith, Hannah Bartels, Alessandra Napoli, Jennifer Schwartz Poehlmann, Shima Salehi
Stanford University
#2: Faculty and Student GenAI Survey Feedback and Findings
This IdeaLab will share the findings of a GenAI Use and Needs survey collected from University of San Francisco faculty and students during the 2025 Academic year. Recommendations will be a part of this IdeaLab and shared findings.
John Bansavich
University of San Francisco
#3: Healing Through Technology: Virtual Reality Meditative Spaces for Student Mental Health
We are piloting a Virtual Reality Meditative Space at San Jose State University’s library, led by Klevr Lab and Digital and Data Literacy Librarian in collaboration with Counseling and Psychological Services. The project provides students access to VR-based mindfulness and calming environments as an ongoing, supplemental wellness resource. Using loaner headsets and guided applications, students can “step outside” the stress of daily life into immersive spaces designed for grounding and reflection. This initiative began in 2025 and is structured as a continuing service, with plans to expand based on student feedback and cross-campus collaboration.
Dykee Gorrell, Lacey Nein
San Jose State University
#4: Human Centered Design in a Digital World: Practical Solutions in Education
OTD Capstone Exploration, Courtney Boitano, Occupational Therapy, faculty and student audience, utilizing human-centered design thinking in a 3 step process of Noticing, Experimenting, Sensemaking with genAI tools to facilitate reflection.
Courtney Boitano
#5: I’m Not a Bot: Creating Training Objects for Humans (as a Human)
Technology-related trainings can be dry and impersonal and, when conducted in large groups with little to no hands-on training, confusing. While many are exploring the use of AI chatbots as a solution to training, I have taken a different approach. As an instructor and trainer, I know that connection is the central component of teaching, so I am leaning on a suite of creative technologies to bring my own voice and authentic self to my department staff. The training objects showcased in this session address that connection piece as well as the common pitfalls of training design by making them more personal, interactive, and fun.
Kristin Arguedas, Ala Mohseni, Kenji Ikemoto
Stanford University
#6: Maximizing Everyday Technologies for Teaching Statement Consultations (and more)
At Stanford’s Center for Teaching and Learning, graduate students and postdocs preparing faculty job applications receive one-on-one support through our Teaching Statement Consultation program. Consultations are scheduled via OnceHub, held on Zoom, and designed to maximize efficiency and accessibility. Consultants use screen-sharing to review a “clean” draft in real time, modeling revision strategies, while feedback is returned after the consultation in a shared Google document. Follow-up resources are distributed digitally, and feedback is collected through Qualtrics and Google Forms. By intentionally optimizing everyday technologies, this program provides a replicable model for technology-enhanced peer support in graduate and postdoctoral professional development.
Amanda Modell, Christina Kim
Stanford University
#7: Redesigning Assessments in the AI Era
How do we design assessments that value learning? This exhibit will offer a flexible framework for evaluating and redesigning assessments that aim to clarify expectations to students, align with course goals, and account for the risks and opportunities of AI use. We’ll share assessment redesign examples that applied the framework from a pilot conducted at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. We’ll also share key strategies for redesign that can be adapted in different contexts.
Exequiel Ganding III
Stanford University
#8: Short-Form Educational Videos by and for Gen Z: Innovating with Teach-to-Others Pedagogy and Micro-Learning Principles
As a management and entrepreneurship faculty, I have utilized short-form videos in which my students are tasked with creating content knowledge. Students are then required to deliver the content knowledge through the pedagogy of teaching-to-others. For example, in my microfinance for entrepreneurial development, an experiential learning course in social justice, students learn about financial literacy. As they learn, they are also tasked with teaching financial literacy at marginalized k-12 schools via short-form YouTube or TikTok videos. I have used the above teaching toolsets in all my classes. For example, in my international business course, students are assigned with explaining products such as Nvidia’s CUDA system via YouTube or TikTok videos, instead of an essay. Such videos could then be shared to high school and college students.
Long Le
Santa Clara University
#9: SJSU Career Coach GPT – Your Curriculum Assistant for Career-Integrated Teaching
The SJSU Career Center is piloting a customized GPT designed to support faculty in creating a career-integrated curriculum. Grounded in the theories of career development, design thinking, and motivational interviewing, this conversational tool offers real-time guidance to help instructors weave career readiness, transferable skills, and professional development into their course designs. By engaging faculty, career counselors, and student assistants, in its early use, the initiative models how AI can serve as a partner in faculty development and curricular innovation. The upcoming pilot in Fall 2025 will explore new ways of aligning academic learning with professional pathways, demonstrating how technology can foster deep connections between teaching, learning, and career preparation across disciplines.
Thuy Nguyen
San Jose State University
#10: Stanford Online AI Chatbot
The Stanford Online AI Chatbot is a sophisticated, high-performance application designed to power a conversational AI assistant for Stanford Online learners. Developed in Go, it utilizes a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline to provide accurate, context-aware answers. The system supports multiple Large Language Models (LLMs) and is engineered for scalability and resilience, aiming to deliver a seamless, ongoing online support experience. Its primary function is to help prospective and current students navigate program catalogs, course details, and the application process by providing instant, relevant information.
Ali Karim, Ray Saray, Olesya Agafontseva
Stanford University
#11: The Orchestrated Classroom: Coordinating a Crossfunctional Service Management Model for Student Response Systems
As the service lead for live polling tools iClicker, Poll Everywhere, and Ed Discussion, I oversee the end-to-end success of these student response systems. “The Orchestrated Classroom” is a project that demonstrates a cross-functional, pre-emptive service management model that coordinates infrastructure, network services, faculty training, vendor support, student readiness, and customer service. By aligning these moving parts in advance, we ensure a smooth semester launch and consistent student engagement throughout the term. Participants will explore how proactive coordination across multiple teams enhances adoption, minimizes disruptions, and supports teaching and learning outcomes across a wide range of classrooms at Berkeley.
Lisha Bornilla
University of California, Berkeley
#12: Using NectirAI Chatbots in Negotiation Role Play Activities
Executive Education is launching an online, asynchronous, cohort-based program for early career professionals. One of the courses requires students to engage in specific negotiation scenarios. We used NectirAI’s chatbot feature to act as a counter party in various role-playing scenarios to ensure that students are able to complete the course asynchronously while also engaging in an effective negotiation simulation.
Devon Winsor, Alexa Tan
Stanford University
This group focuses on initiatives related to building AI literacy, fostering AI-ready communities, and developing foundational AI resources and infrastructure within educational institutions.
#1: AI CourseMap & AI CoursePack by COPAL.AI
Professors at San Jose State University (SJSU) and Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have come together to develop Copal.ai: an AI-powered platform that streamlines CourseMap and CoursePack creation for faculty across multiple universities. Professors from SJSU include: Gurmeet Naroola, MBA and Nitin Agarwal, Ph.D. from the Lucas College of Business and Laura Otero, Ph.D. from the College of Information, Data and Society. Our four-step generative AI wizard produces complete CourseMaps within one hour through the following process: 1) AI drafts the Course Summary and Course Learning Objectives (CLOs) 2) Faculty map modules to CLOs with AI support 3) AI drafts the Module Learning Objectives (MLOs) aligned with CLOs 4) AI drafts aligned learning activities and assessments for each module Faculty can start from scratch to develop a totally new curriculum or they can upload existing syllabi to make the process even easier. The AI-generated CourseMap can then be refined manually or through continued AI assistance. After CourseMap completion, faculty users upload videos, PowerPoints, and PDFs to create inclusive, multilingual CoursePacks featuring AI-generated module summaries, multilingual transcripts, interactive insights, an AI Guru tool for student Q&A, and integrated AI notetaking capabilities. Developing high-quality, constructively aligned digital learning content is easier than ever before!
Nitin Aggarwal, Laura Otero, Fritz Schmidt, Gurmeet Naroola
San Jose State University
#2: AI Generated Images for Nursing Assessment
AI generated images for helping students visually identify objective signs of health conditions, evaluate health status, determine questions to ask, and formulate nursing actions in the academic setting.
Cornelia Finkbeiner, Alice Butzlaff
San Jose State University
#3: Building Critical AI Literacy: A Professional Development Resource for Stanford Faculty
“The Critical AI Literacy for Instructors” is a self-paced, asynchronous Canvas-based professional development resource designed for Stanford University faculty and instructors. Developed by the Center for Teaching and Learning, with Kenji and Yiting as instructional designers, this comprehensive resource addresses the intersection of AI and education. The course covers eight essential modules including AI fundamentals, ethics, academic integrity, responsible AI use, assessment adaptation, prompting strategies, and output evaluation. Through collaborative content development with subject matter experts, the team synthesized complex pedagogical and technical concepts into accessible, engaging instructional materials featuring interactive activities, assessments, and hands-on exploration opportunities.
Kenji Ikemoto, Yiting Wu
Stanford University
#4: Data-driven Decision with Educational Data Lakehouse
As the Data Team for the Stanford Engineering Center for Global and Online Education (CGOE), we designed and implemented a cloud-based infrastructure on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to power data-driven decision-making. Engagement with this platform has significantly enhanced organizational data literacy, making it a core capability for mission-critical analysis. We created data products and operational excellence aspects to embed this infrastructure into workflows, ensuring end users understand data nuances. These roles design training, create intuitive dashboards, and establish standards that help teams interpret, trust, and apply data effectively in their daily decisions.
Ray Saray, Ali Karim, Silpa Das, Olesya Agafontseva, Robert Prakash, Anindya Roy
Stanford University
#5: Designing AI Technical Support Tools for Classrooms
The AV Help Bot is a prompt-driven AI tool providing Berkeley Law faculty and students with rapid classroom AV technical assistance when support staff are unavailable. Accessible via classroom iPads, it delivers detailed, individualized information about classroom-specific AV systems and integrates with networked infrastructure for real-time diagnostics and remote control capabilities. Developed in-house by Senior AV/IT Engineer Amina Kirby, this presentation explores the development process; covering security, prompt engineering, programming, and accessibility. It demonstrates how custom AI tools can transform technical support services and highlights collaborative approaches to developing, deploying, and maintaining specialized AI solutions for targeted user needs.
Amina Kirby
University of California, Berkeley
#6: Empowering Learning with AI for Visuals, Audio, and Personalization
This project investigates AI’s transformative role in creativity, education, and collaboration. It addresses the challenge of making advanced design and learning tools accessible to all learners. By democratizing visual communication, AI enables anyone to generate visuals, simulate environments, or prototype ideas directly from text prompts. The project also explores personalized learning pathways, including audio-based and conversational modes, which offer more interactive and adaptive experiences. These approaches create inclusive learning opportunities by breaking down traditional barriers and expanding participation in content creation. Participants will see how these tools can be integrated into their own teaching and learning practices, fostering more engaging, equitable, and creative classrooms.
Tina Korani
San Jose State University
#7: From Peripheral Participants to Co-Authors: Teaching Undergraduate Research through Communities of Practice
This project shares a participatory model for teaching research in a student-run Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) lab at Santa Clara University. Each year ~40 students (≈25 undergrads) join a community of practice that makes workflows visible (open Discord) and relationships durable (a 3-hour, whole-lab Friday mixer). Students begin with concrete technical contributions (e.g., prototyping) and, through observation, feedback, and collaboration, progress into literature review, study design, analysis, and writing. The lab itself is a teaching instrument: students co-govern admissions, onboarding, and culture—building identity and confidence as they move from peripheral contributors to co-authors and peer mentors.
Kai Lukoff
Santa Clara University
#8: Future-Ready Students: Integrating Self-Assessment with AI Career Exploration
This project introduces a 3-part AI-powered career education framework designed to integrate into any college classroom. The framework begins with the Career Discovery Interest Survey, a five-minute self-assessment that uses students’ interests to generate personalized career path guidance. Next, students receive personalized results highlighting their strengths, potential career trajectories, and job matches. Finally, students are equipped with a curated set of AI-driven prompts that enable them to research specific roles, organizations, and skills requirements in greater depth. By embedding this framework into the curriculum faculty can provide students with data-informed, technology-enhanced learning experience that connects academic exploration with real-world career opportunities. This approach not only supports student engagement and self-directed learning, but also demonstrates how emerging AI technologies can shape the future of academic technology by fostering meaningful, practical connections between education and career readiness.
Kristin Keller, Thuy Nguyen, Bobbi Makani
San Jose State University
#9: SFSU AI Literacy Education Program: Building an AI-Ready Campus Community
Launched in Spring 2025, the growing SFSU AI Literacy Education Program equips faculty, staff, and administrators with a shared baseline of competencies to engage effectively and responsibly with generative AI in their work. Developed collaboratively by Academic Technology, IT Services, and the Center for Equity and Excellence in Teaching and Learning, the program offers live online courses on strategic prompting, critically evaluating AI content, and specialized tools and workflows like Zoom AI Companion for meetings and Adobe Firefly for image creation. Participants actively explore the technology, collaborate with peers, and earn a digital achievement badge to showcase their AI literacy.
Brandon York, Jeremy Domasian, Dylan Mooney
San Francisco State University
#10: TailorEd
TailorEd is a data science research studying the impact of classroom design and teaching pedagogy on student learning (currently measured by grades) based on their demographics and across various disciplines. Between 2014 and 2016 and again 2022 and 2024 with funding from Santa Clara University’s Academic Technology and help from the university’s Media Services, the team took thousands of images of class sessions in both traditional classrooms and classrooms designed for active learning, then used machine learning to categorize the photos in order to automate the identification of classroom setup and class activities. The results were then cross referenced with the anonymized grade performance of students in the courses taught in those classrooms, based on their various demographics, in order to find learning outcome trends.
Navid Shaghaghi, Chris Carrik, Samantha Lee
Santa Clara University