April 2025 Faculty AI Innovator Image adapted from macrovector on Freepik April 2025 YC Faculty AI Innovator Spotlight This month, we begin regularly spotlighting Yavapai College faculty members who are leadi…

Image adapted from macrovector on Freepik

April 2025 YC Faculty AI Innovator Spotlight

This month, we begin regularly spotlighting Yavapai College faculty members who are leading the way with their use of generative AI (artificial intelligence). If you know or are someone who is making strides using AI, please contact Robyn Bryce to share for a future spotlight.

Our Faculty AI Innovator for April 2025 is Dr. Megan E. Hanna, who shared via email these ways she is using AI in her courses:

One of the ways I’m integrating AI into my courses is by developing an AI tutor chatbot. Before allowing students to use it independently, I provided instruction on AI tools and ethical considerations to ensure responsible engagement. Dr. Fahim, Dr. Remi, and I are also in the early stages of developing AI tutors for ACC 131 and ACC 132. Separately, I have plans to develop an AI tutor for ECN 232.

In addition, I collaborated with students to create an AI-assisted "escape room" activity in one of my in-person classes, which we later published as an open educational resource (OER). I now incorporate this activity into the Module 6 Discussion Forum for my online ECN 232 students. Just last week, a student commented on how exciting it was to see this AI-driven collaboration in action.

This week, I used AI to brainstorm and edit a story I wrote for one of my courses. I also leveraged DALL-E to generate images for an in-class presentation related to the story. Moving forward, I plan to transform the story into an interactive activity for online courses, collaborating with TeLS to bring this idea to life.

These are just a few examples of how I’m using AI, and I’m continuously exploring new ways to integrate it effectively. My guiding philosophy is that we must learn to use AI ethically—and teach our students to do the same. I’d love to hear how others are incorporating AI into their courses!