General Process

I would suggest using a short time near the beginning of the course where you can talk about these issues, and then returning to the topic two or three times during the term, particularly close to an examination point. You are not expected to be an expert on GenAI, so it's ok to ask the students for some views and then go away and think about it, or ask for more support, and then pick up the topic again in another session.

Possible activities

In-class discussions: use the think, pair, share technique to involve everyone. You can take notes, or ask students to hand in a short answer from each pair/group, or to use a Padletto summarise their discussions. Allocate 10-20 minutes for a discussion. You can ask all groups to discuss the same topic/question, or you can give each group a different one. You could consider topics such as:

- What are your likes or dislikes about GenAI tools?
- What concerns do you have about GenAI tools?
- How could GenAI tools be used in our class? Is this a good idea?
- What rules should govern GenAI tool usage in this class?

Draft guidelines for the class (see the editable template here) and ask for comments, or ask the students to make suggestions about editing themselves. Then you could ask students to vote on the final wording – you can use Mentimeter for anonymous voting or just simple hands-up if anonymising doesn’t matter.
Find out what's interesting / worrying the students. Use the one-minute paper technique to obtain anonymous answers to simple questions. You can use a Padlet or just pieces of paper, and then answer their questions or share their good ideas at the beginning of the next session. Just use one question at a time, and you could choose topics such as:

- Have you used GenAI tools during your studies? If so, how?
- What would you like to know about GenAI tools in this subject area?
- Do you have a question about GenAI use in this course?
- What’s the most useful thing you have done using GenAI as part of your studies?
- What do you think I should know about GenAI?
- What tip would you give another student about using GenAI in their studies?

With all of these activities, it is important not to spend too long on them, so that you aren't taking too much time away from the subject, but to include them in regular discussions so that you are normalising the idea that we need to talk about the issues together and develop our critical thinking. Learning to work with new situations is an important part of any higher education course and you can talk about the fact that decisions will be different in different subject areas.