AI Fundamentals
for Educators
Empowering Educators to Leverage AI
both in the Teaching and Learning Process
Course Overview
Everything you need to bring AI confidently into your classroom.
AI Fundamentals for Educators is an intensive two-day professional development workshop designed for educators at every level who want to confidently integrate artificial intelligence into their classrooms. Hosted at Moraine Valley Community College, this workshop bridges theory and practice — moving from foundational AI concepts to hands-on creation of AI-powered course materials, assessments, and classroom tools. Participants will explore leading AI platforms, master prompt engineering techniques, and develop an AI Acceptable Use Policy tailored to their own discipline. No prior AI experience is required. Participants leave with real deliverables ready to implement on day one back in the classroom.
What You'll Build
Generate complete, outcome-aligned lesson plans with objectives, activities, and assessments — tailored to your discipline.
Create comprehensive study guides from any content — organized summaries, key terms, and review questions ready for students.
Build digital flashcard sets from your course content — term/definition pairs, concept checks, and interactive review games.
Generate Bloom's-aligned assessments in minutes — multiple choice, scenario-based questions, and analytic rubrics.
Turn dense content into animated visual explainers — AI-generated video scripts and multimedia learning objects.
Produce podcast-style scripts from your course materials — ready for recording or AI voice generation via NotebookLM.
Deploy a customized AI chatbot trained on your syllabus and FAQs — answers student questions around the clock.
Map out complex topics visually — generate hierarchical mind maps from any text, article, or lecture with Mapify.
Design interactive lab activities and simulations for your discipline — from chemistry to economics to literature.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
Design effective AI prompts using the CO-STAR framework to generate accurate, discipline-specific educational content.
Develop a classroom AI Acceptable Use Policy grounded in ethical principles, bias awareness, academic integrity standards, and data privacy requirements.
Workshop Modules
Click or tap any card to flip — front shows the overview, back reveals topics and the module link.
Build a solid foundation in AI fundamentals — what AI is, how it differs from machine learning and deep learning, and why every educator needs this knowledge today.
Go deep into how large language models work — transformer architecture, context windows, hallucinations, and how to select the right model for your teaching goals.
Master the craft of prompt design. Learn the CO-STAR and CRAFT frameworks, understand how tokens work, and practice creating prompts that produce high-quality, discipline-specific AI outputs.
Discover a curated set of specialized AI tools that expand what's possible in the classroom — from visual note-taking and podcast generation to smart presentations and mind mapping.
Learn to publish and share your AI-enhanced instructional tools using GitHub Pages — no server required. Create public repositories that students and colleagues can access anywhere.
Put AI to work in your course. Design lesson plans, assessments, multimedia, mind maps, and an AI-powered course chatbot — all tailored to your discipline.
Use AI to rapidly generate assessments aligned to Bloom's Taxonomy — multiple choice, scenario-based questions, and analytic rubrics ready to deploy in any LMS.
Build AI-powered instructional media for the classroom — multimedia and video resources, illustrated handouts and instructional graphics, and a curated gallery of 23 AI-generated discipline graphics.
Build custom AI-powered tools using meta-prompts — a Video Resource Builder, AI Policy Builder, Workforce Prompt Builder, Case Study Wizards, and a discipline-specific Chatbot Builder.
Examine the ethical landscape of AI in education — bias, fairness, academic integrity, and data privacy. Draft an AI Acceptable Use Policy ready to deploy in your own classroom.
AI Resource Libraries
Explore curated AI tool collections built by workshop instructors for classroom use.
Submit Your Artifacts
You've built it — now share it. Upload your completed workshop deliverables to the shared Google Drive folder below. Your artifacts become part of a growing collection of AI-enhanced instructional materials created by educators across the grant Community College cohort.
Open Submission FolderOpens Google Drive in a new tab · Sign in with your institutional Google account
- Lesson Plan (any discipline)
- Study Guide or Flashcard Set
- Quiz or Assessment
- Course Chatbot (link or screenshot)
- Mind Map or Instructional Graphic
- Multimedia or Podcast Script
- AI Acceptable Use Policy Draft
- Lab Activity or Case Study
All done? We'd love your feedback on the workshop.
Complete the Evaluation