Skip to main content
Queen Mary Academy
  1. Queen Mary Academy
  2. Educators
  3. Innovation and Scholarship
  4. Innovative Pedagogies
  5. Centre for Excellence in AI in Education
  6. Blog
  7. Items

Integrating AI in Curriculum: Simplifying Complexity for Broader Adoption

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming industries, making AI literacy essential in higher education. However, educators face challenges in integrating AI effectively. A structured framework is needed to bridge the gap and support AI-driven curricula.

Published:

Model to Enhance Students’ AI Literacy (Zhou and Schofield, 2024)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping industries, economies, and everyday life, making AI literacy an essential skill for future professionals. Higher education institutions have a critical role in preparing students for an AI-driven world by integrating AI into curricula. However, while the importance of AI literacy is widely acknowledged, a significant gap remains in pedagogical and technological knowledge among educators. Many lack the practical guidance needed to effectively embed AI into their teaching while ensuring students develop essential AI competencies.

The Need for AI Integration in Higher Education

Governments, industries, and institutions worldwide emphasise the necessity of AI skills. Research from Microsoft suggests that AI proficiency is becoming a prerequisite for employability, with many organisations prioritising AI-literate employees. Similarly, the World Economic Forum predicts that 50% of workers will require reskilling in AI-related competencies by 2025. Despite this, educators face challenges in implementing AI-enhanced learning due to concerns over plagiarism, ethics, and limited technical-pedagogical knowledge.

To bridge this gap, AI literacy must go beyond tool proficiency. It should include ethical considerations, critical evaluation, and the ability to apply AI in meaningful ways. Various frameworks have emerged to define AI competencies, such as the UNESCO AI Competency Framework and Ng’s AI Literacy Cognitive Domain Model, both of which categorise AI literacy into multiple dimensions. However, while these models clearly define learning outcomes, they fall short of offering practical guidance on how educators can integrate AI into their teaching.

Developing a Practical AI Integration Framework

Recognising these limitations, we have developed a new AI in Teaching and Learning Framework, designed to support educators in embedding AI into their curricula. Our framework is structured around four key dimensions of AI literacy:

  1. Know and Understand AI – Developing foundational knowledge of AI concepts, its scope, and functionality
  2. Use and Apply AI – Encouraging students to integrate AI into problem-solving, research, and analysis
  3. Evaluate and Create with AI – Fostering higher-order thinking by assessing AI-generated content and designing AI-enhanced solutions
  4. AI Ethics – Ensuring responsible AI use by addressing bias, transparency, and ethical concerns.

Our framework provides a list of specific activities that educators can use to integrate AI within their teaching. These activities range from AI-assisted brainstorming and summarisation to AI-driven data analysis, ethical debates, and hands-on AI tool exploration.

Practical Implementation in the Classroom

To illustrate how this framework can be applied, let’s consider an undergraduate business course where AI literacy is embedded into a data analysis module. Instead of relying solely on traditional statistical tools like Excel, students are encouraged to use Generative AI (GenAI) for data interpretation. They not only learn how to generate insights using AI but also compare AI-generated outputs with traditional methods. This process enhances their analytical skills and helps them critically evaluate AI’s role in decision-making. Additionally, staff can implement collaborative AI projects where students use AI tools to co-create reports, presentations, and case studies, fostering both AI proficiency and teamwork.

The Future of AI in Higher Education

AI is not just a tool—it’s a transformative force in education. However, without clear implementation strategies, staff risk underutilising AI or failing to prepare students adequately. Our framework serves as a practical guide, helping staff navigate AI integration while fostering AI literacy in students. By embedding AI within curricula through structured, activity-based approaches, institutions can ensure that students graduate with the necessary skills to thrive in an AI-powered world.

For AI to become a truly meaningful part of higher education, institutions must prioritise staff training, interdisciplinary collaboration, and continuous evaluation of AI’s role in teaching and learning. With the right strategies in place, AI can become an empowering force, enhancing both teaching effectiveness and student success.

The full paper is available here:

https://journal.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.php/jldhe/article/view/1354/895

Dr Xue Zhou

Academic Head of Centre for Excellence in AI in Education; Reader in Entrepreneurship and Innovation; Deputy Director of Education, School of Business & Management

 

 

 

Back to top