Field Guide Entry — How to find out what your students actually think about AI

Talking to Students About It

How to find out what your students actually think about AI

A facilitated discussion protocol for getting student frustrations, assumptions, and questions about AI use into the open — before they calcify into something harder to address.

The concept

The most friction when it comes to AI in classrooms stems from competing attitudes about what learning is for, what is fair, what faculty expect from students, and what faculty think students are actually doing with AI. While AI policies can be made clear in syllabi, ignoring this friction can lead to a slow resentment over AI use.

This entry will help you build a structured discussion to ask students the specifics of what they think of AI. It will invite students to voice their actual concerns and engage honestly with each other and AI-use in the course.

AI prompt — prepare the discussion

Step 1 — surface likely student positions

I teach [course name and level]. I’m planning a structured class discussion about AI use in the course. Before I run it, help me anticipate the range of positions students might hold. List 8–10 distinct student perspectives on AI use in a course like mine — including positions sympathetic to AI use, positions skeptical of it, and positions that reflect genuine confusion. For each, give me one sentence capturing the core belief and one sentence identifying the assumption underneath it that’s worth examining.

Step 2 — generate disciplinary anchor questions

Now generate 4–5 discussion anchor questions for this specific course. Each question should: (1) be answerable from the student’s own perspective without needing to know my policy, (2) implicitly connect to what [your discipline] actually values and requires, and (3) create productive disagreement — no single right answer, but some answers are more defensible than others. The goal is to move students from “what do I think about AI?” to “what does doing this discipline well actually require?”

How to run it

Make your guiding questions before class

The discussions usually depend an the strength of the quesions. Try to develop questions about a genuine tension without telegraphing the right answer. Use the prompt above to generate as many questions as you feel necessary and then choose the best 2 or 3 (and make any necessary modifications).

Guiding questions that work well: “When is it okay to use AI for X in this course and how would you know?” / “What’s the difference between using AI to help you think and using it to avoid thinking?” / “If a classmate used AI the way you use it, how would you feel about that?”

Frame the discussion as a real discussion, not policy

Let students know that there is no right answer that you are looking for. This will help minimize any students that answer performatively.

Report positions without evaluation

Lead the conversation by pointing out the different ideas in the room, but don’t signal approval or disapproval.

Link the discussion to AI use outside of class

After discussing positions, introduce the disciplinary lens: “Now let’s think about what doing this field well actually requires. Does that change anything you said?”

Useful moves in the debrief: “Someone said X. What would a practitioner in this field say about that?” / “You said AI saves time. What’s the time saved from — and is that where the skill development happens?” / “What does your answer assume about what learning is for?”

Anticipated student positions — and how to work with them

The pragmatist

“AI is a tool like any other — knowing how to use it is a skill itself.”

Don’t dismiss itAsk: “What skill are you developing when you use it? Is that the skill this assignment is building?” The question surfaces whether they’re using AI purposefully or just efficiently.

The rule-follower

“I just want to know what’s allowed. Tell me the rules and I’ll follow them.”

Reframe, don’t shut downAsk: “What if there’s no rule? How would you decide?” Moving from permission to judgment is the goal of this conversation.

The skeptic

“Professors who ban AI are out of touch — it’s everywhere in the real world.”

Take it seriouslyAsk: “What does ‘using AI well’ actually require? Does this course develop that?” Validates the concern while redirecting toward what skill development takes.

The confused

“I don’t even know what counts as using AI anymore — everything uses it.”

Make it concreteAsk: “Give me an example of using AI on this assignment that would feel like cheating — and one that wouldn’t. What’s the difference?” Specificity surfaces the underlying principle.

Caveats

This discussion works best early in the semester
The goal is not consensus nor is it getting students to agree with you. Listen to your students’ concerns.
Silence during share-out is information. If students won’t speak, consider what that tells you about the climate you’ve already created around this topic.

Reflection questions

What did students say that surprised you? What position hadn’t you anticipated going in?
Where in the discussion did students move from personal opinion toward disciplinary reasoning — and what prompted that shift?
What would you do differently in the pair or share-out phase to surface more genuine disagreement?
What did this discussion reveal about what students actually believe learning is for?

5.1-How to find out what your students actually think about AI