2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

As generative AI becomes ubiquitous, writers must decide if, when, and how to incorporate generative AI into their writing process. Educators must sort through their role in preparing students to make these decisions in a quickly evolving technological landscape.

We created a writing tool that provides scaffolded use of a large language model as part of a research study on integrating generative AI into an upper division engineering writing and communication course. Drawing on decades of research on integrating digital tools into instruction and writing research, we discuss the framework that drove our initial design considerations.

We then describe data from the iterative design and piloting of our tool and related resources during our first year of implementation. Based on our work with instructors over the past year, we have identified some indications of what is emerging as best practices for both using generative AI productively in academic writing and for integrating generative AI into writing intensive-courses. With respect to writing with AI, a process in which students think first, use "good enough" prompting to initiate their AI interaction, then follow up asserting their own agency by iteratively directing the AI to provide modified output, carefully corroborate and interrogate the AI output for accuracy and bias, and finally reflect on the interaction and future uses of the AI. To create an AI-infused curriculum, we are learning that instructors focus on (and center) student learning objectives before analyzing their course to determine where the AI can appropriately play a role without offloading essential learning activities. Instructors then revise the activities and after enacting the revised curriculum, reflect on student learning to ensure all objectives are met. In some instances, instructors have after reflection decided that they need to reintroduce learning through revised activities. We end with suggestions for those implementing generative AI into other writing-intensive courses and an indication of our future direction.