Cool Course: Experiential Design and Artificial Intelligence

Using programs such as Python and JavaScript, students design AI tools for educational purposes.

Young woman looks at a laptop screen showing a simple rectangle house with a triangle roof on top of a hill drawn with two downward sloping lines — Photo by Jenn Choi

One doesn’t need to scroll long to find an AI video in their Instagram feed. Random conversations often include a mention of ChatGPT.

As AI becomes ubiquitous, it also becomes more controversial. So as new questions continue to arise around its use and implications, graduate students are now digging into the code and finding answers firsthand in “Experiential Design and Artificial Intelligence.”

The course, taught by Steinhardt Professor Safinah Ali, offers students insight into AI systems and the social, cultural, and ethical impact of technology—all while they design an AI tool of their own that supports students in different learning environments.

While coding experience is helpful, students without it are brought up to speed and develop foundational programming skills in Python and JavaScript. According to Ali, most of the students have backgrounds in education, communication, or technology, and are interested in how technology can be used to promote learning.

Ali teaches AI applications, along with its limitations and capabilities, but says her goal is to refrain from imposing a particular viewpoint.

“I think AI literacy should be independent of being pro or against,” says Ali. “In class, students use a lot of AI and they learn how to use it responsibly. And then there are modules that are fully dedicated to ethical implications and how AI impacts society, how it impacts classrooms, in particular, and learners and teachers.”

A student looks at his computer screen which shows an AI conversation with blue chat boxes — Photo by David Song

With a focus on creating and using AI for learning environments, the sessions include lessons on coding to design a learning chatbot (for example, one that can guess a historical figure or event), how to train algorithms, and AI prototyping techniques.

The final projects are created in teams. For their project, one group is developing an educational math tool that provides context to better understand math concepts and processes. As a former math teacher, graduate student Bair [Steinhardt] says that they and their partner embarked on the project out of frustration with modern math education for favoring rigid rules and discouraging curiosity.

“We hope that engaging students in a true, student-driven, inquiry-based approach will lead to a genuine appreciation of mathematics and a critical eye in interpreting mathematical information,” says Bair. “This app is not for learning how to factor a quadratic. Rather, for example, it’s for learning about the historical perspectives on Pi and how one may go about estimating it.”

Current AI tools are limited, says Ali, in that they don't support students’ critical thinking. “Oftentimes, it's just about content generation, especially with new age and generative AI tools. I love the students who come into this course because they've thought very deeply about what good learning means, and they have all these interesting critiques about AI tools that we see in the field right now.”

Students sit around a conference table on their laptops or phones while they listen to Professor Safinah Ali — Photo by David Song

“My biggest takeaway has been reframing my understanding of AI as a creative and reflective partner. Instead of treating AI as a tool that gives definitive outputs, I’ve learned to see it as an agent that can prompt deeper awareness, support ambiguity, and respond to human intention in nuanced ways,” says graduate student Jenn Choi [Tisch]. “This shift has been foundational to how I now think about designing emotionally resonant interactive systems.”

For her team’s project, Jenn co-developed an app that translates art into emotions for people who cannot easily verbalize them.

“I want students to realize that AI is a tool, it's a technology, like many other different technologies, and how you choose to use it is upon yourself, says Ali. “This field is very young right now, so it's getting defined, and there are critical players defining it. I want them to leave thinking about responsible ways of designing. Sometimes we get so swept away by making a thing work, but it's important to pause and reflect.”

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