Generative AI is prompting us to reconsider important questions about what we teach and how we teach it. If AI can generate increasingly sophisticated language in seconds, why are students learning languages and cultures, and how does this change the way we teach them?
The question is not how to adapt our curricula to generative AI, but how to ensure that we provide our students with the critical abilities to shape the technological change required by our times. How do we translate this ambition into curriculum design that integrates AI literacy while preserving the productive struggle that learning requires? At what point in the learning process can AI support students' growth, and when might it interfere with it?
This five-day institute takes a value-first approach to these questions.
We will not begin with AI tools, and we will not assume that AI integration is inherently desirable. We will begin, instead, with our educational commitments and values, and the principles that guide our work.
Through self-study tools, critical experimentation, collaborative curriculum inquiry, and hands-on design activities, participants will explore how AI can challenge and expand possibilities for language and culture education.
The institute combines reflection on AI with practical work, allowing participants to investigate their curricula, experiment with pedagogical alternatives, and develop innovative approaches grounded in their own educational goals.
The institute welcomes participants with different levels of experience and perspectives on AI, including those who are skeptical about its educational uses.
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Pre–Institute activities
- Preparatory readings
- Draft a brief Statement of Intention including a question, goal, or aspect of your teaching you would like to explore during the institute.
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Day 1. EXPLORE
Understanding AI and Our Relationships with It
Where are we starting from, and what do we want to investigate?
We will begin by exploring our experiences, assumptions, expectations, and concerns about generative AI. Through discussion and hands-on experimentation, we will develop a shared understanding of AI's capabilities, limitations, and implications for language and culture education.
We will discuss AI literacy and its crucial role in language and culture education, identify individual questions to guide our inquiry throughout the institute, and share, discuss, and refine our statements of intention.
Day 2. REFLECT
A Value-First Examination of Our Curricula
What do we value in learning, and how do our curricula reflect those values?
We will engage in a guided self-study of our curricula, examining the relationship between educational commitments, learning objectives, teaching practices, and assessment.
Our inquiry will consider different components of the curriculum through the lenses of learner agency, productive struggle, human interaction, intercultural understanding, and the relationship between learning processes and outcomes. We will also examine the role of independent competence and the conditions under which assistance, including AI assistance, supports learning or allows students to bypass essential learning processes.
The self-study will help participants identify strengths, tensions, and questions to investigate more closely.
Day 3. TEST
Putting Our Curricula to the AI Test
What happens to the intellectual work of learning when AI enters the picture?
Building on the curriculum self-study, we will experiment with generative AI to examine selected assignments, activities, and assessments.
Through an AI stress test, we will investigate what AI can accomplish, which aspects of learning students might bypass, and how different forms of AI assistance may affect independent learning, critical judgment, and learner agency.
This process will help us identify the strengths and limitations of our pedagogical choices and consider what we want to preserve or transform.
Day 4. REDESIGN
From Educational Values to Pedagogical Choices
How can we design learning experiences that preserve intellectual agency while making intentional use of AI?
We will explore approaches to curriculum and assessment design that support independent learning in an AI-rich environment.
We will devote particular attention to the sequencing of learning. When should AI enter the learning sequence, and what role should it play in supporting students' critical engagement with AI?
Through collaborative design work, we will develop or revise a curricular component, considering when AI might be productively integrated, limited, or intentionally excluded.
Day 5. REIMAGINE
Testing Our Ideas and Looking Ahead
What have we learned, and how might it shape our future teaching?
The final day will provide opportunities to share, test, and refine emerging curricular designs through collaborative feedback and reflection.
We will revisit our initial statements of intention and self-study findings, consider how our pedagogical choices reflect our educational commitments, and explore ways to evaluate their effectiveness.
We will also look beyond individual assignments and activities to consider how a value-first approach might help us reimagine language and culture education in a changing technological landscape.
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Format
The institute consists of five days, with five instructional hours per day, divided into morning and afternoon sessions.
The institute is open to faculty teaching modern and classical languages, as well as colleagues in comparative literature and related disciplines whose teaching engages with language,literature, and culture.
No particular position toward AI is expected. The institute welcomes participants with different levels of experience, including those who are skeptical about its educational uses.
By the end of the institute, participants will have developed their critical AI literacy, completed a guided curriculum self-study and explored concrete pedagogical approaches they can implement and evaluate in their own teaching.
Participants will be invited to submit a brief statement of experience, interest, and Intention before the Institute and bring one or more assignments, assessments, or curricular components they would like to examine.
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Dates: June 21–25, in person
Course fee: €1,250
Discounts: 15% discount for AUR alumni and partners // 10% Early Bird discount for registrations by January 31
Housing: €500
Lunches: Included in the course fee.
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