Ethical and Inclusive AI in Online Course Design

This course was developed as part of master's-level instructional design coursework at the University of Memphis. It addresses ethical decision-making, inclusive design, Community of Inquiry concepts, the development of AI-supported learning activities, and evaluation planning.

The course is organized into seven parts: Start Here (Orientation & Navigation), Foundations of Ethical AI Use, AI Supporting the Community of Inquiry, Building an Inclusive AI-Supported Activity, Evaluation Plan, Knowledge Check, and Summary.

Instructors and instructional designers working in online and blended course design who are deciding how, when, and whether to use AI in their own teaching practice.

AI guidance for educators is frequently either abstract policy language or tool tutorials. Neither helps someone decide what an ethical, inclusive AI-supported activity should actually look like in their own course.

The course therefore had to move learners from principles, through a framework, into building and evaluating something of their own.

This project demonstrates a different level of instructional complexity because the audience, content, and learning goals required it. The course addresses ethical decision-making, inclusive design, Community of Inquiry concepts, development of AI-supported learning activities, and evaluation planning. Its structure therefore includes more extensive orientation, conceptual scaffolding, application, and assessment than the shorter community-learning courses.

Orientation is a design decision rather than a feature every course automatically needs. Because this course is longer, includes multiple conceptual components, and asks learners to move through several types of activities, I included explicit orientation and navigation guidance to establish expectations and reduce uncertainty before learners reached the more demanding content.

The shorter Friends For All learning experiences use simpler and more predictable navigation, so extensive front-loaded orientation was unnecessary. The amount of learner guidance was intentionally matched to the complexity of each experience.

Standard Rise interactions were appropriate for much of the course, but this portion of the experience required more complex decision practice. I developed a branching scenario in Articulate Storyline 360 and integrated it into the Rise course, allowing learners to work through decisions and consequences in a more customized interaction while maintaining Rise as the overall responsive learning environment.