Education in the age of generative Artifical Intelligence includes teaching genAI (“AI education”) as well as using AI to teach (“AI usage in education”). Both come with evolving practices that are backed up by research. While the AI education component is coordinated by the AI Center, this page summarises AI usage in education at EPFL and should help EPFL teachers to leverage the opportunities of genAI for their teaching and the learning of their students. To this end, EPFL teachers find on this page:
- guidelines on the use of genAI,
- implementation support (teaching guide, workshops, tools),
- inspiration from the EPFL teaching community as well as research on genAI in education, and
- opportunities to get further involved in developments of genAI in teaching.
Contact us if you want to know more about how to integrate generative AI in your teaching (CAPE), get an update about current developments and tools (CEDE) or if you would like to run a study to evaluate a specific innovation (LEARN).
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Usage guidelines
EPFL recognizes the potential of generative AI tools to benefit teaching and learning. Like any tool, they have their advantages, but we also need to be aware of their limitations and the major risks they present. We encourage the use of generative AI in education in an informed, responsible and transparent manner. Teachers find our recommendations in the Guidelines for the Use of AI in Education at EPFL.
Workshop: Hands-on generative AI for Education
In this workshop you will discover two use-cases for generative AI in education: providing feedback and enriching pedagogical content. Each use case is approached through hands-on activities with existing tools (Microsoft Copilot and tools developed by CEDE). We then follow-up with a reflection on the legal, ethical and technical aspects linked to the use of generative AI in education.
Next session planned for June 5 and June 19 2025.
Teaching guide
- generative AI Tools and Student Assessment.
- Providing feedback with generative AI (under development)
- Making content accessible with generative AI (under development)
Tools
The Center for Digital Education (CEDE) develops tools to facilitate the process of EPFL teachers adopting genAI for their teaching.
EPFL Chatbot
AI powered chatbot and semantic search of EPFL’s academic content. Ask it to help you solve and exercise and it will suggest relevant video lectures and relatred excercises.
aiaiapps
aiaiapps are cristallized prompts for teachers that facilitate the generation of quizzes, exercises and image descriptions.
Surveys on student and teacher use of genAI
In 2024, two surveys were conducted at EPFL to learn more about the use of genAI in education and studies. Among teachers, 61.5% of respondents use genAI, compared to 79% among students.
While genAI is appreciated, there is also a need to strengthen skills to use it more efficiently in an educational context. Teachers are willing to use genAI more, but need support in the formulation of instructions for students as well as information and examples on how to use genAI tools for supporting student learning and in a secure manner.
Read the related news article (public) and access the survey reports of the students survey and the teachers survey (EPFL members only).
How EPFL teachers use genAI
lunch&LEARN sessions portray projects from the teaching community and their experiences. Here we feature those sessions that addressed specifically genAI use in teaching and learning.
If you also have experience with genAI in your teaching that you’d like to share, get in touch with the lunch&LEARN team of the Center LEARN.
AI Unmasked: How Transparency Shapes Student Trust in AI Feedback
Presenter: Tatjana Nazaretsky
Exploring the Impact of ChatGPT in Robotics Courses: Does It Really Help Students to Learn?
Presenter: Jérome Brender
Research on AI & Education in EPFL
- Could ChatGPT get an engineering degree ? A paper in PNAS published by EPFL researchers from the School of Computer and Communication Sciences.
- Engineering ethics education and artificial intelligence. Chapter 7 of the The Routledge International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education.
- A visual tool for assessing ethical risks. Use this canvas to evaluate the risk/benefits of using generative AI tools in your teaching.
- EPFL students had reservations towards feedback from AI and therefore a human-in-the-loop approach to feedback is advised.
Get involved
- The DRIL fund (Digital Resourses for Instruction and Learning) can financially support you in developing pedagogical resources and innovative applications for your course. Projects could include: generating quizzes and hints for exercises, help in providing feedback in discussion forums, recommending relevant resources for a topic, etc.
- If you are interested to document and study the integration of genAI in your teaching, please be in touch with the Center LEARN who is coordinating research on genAI usage in education in collaboration with CAPE, CEDE and LEARN affiliated research labs.