Building AI Literacy: Teaching Students to Critically Engage with Generative Technologies

Generative AI is rapidly transforming how students learn. But how do we help them become literate in these tools—able not just to use them, but to question, interpret, and guide them responsibly? This session presents a model for building AI literacy in a multidisciplinary general education digital literacy course where students explore how generative systems work, how to prompt them effectively, and how to evaluate their outputs with a critical eye. Through hands-on activities, students interact with a virtual AI teaching assistant built specifically for the course, learning prompt engineering by refining their questions and analyzing AI responses. They then use generative tools to co-write academic essays, reflecting on authorship, voice, and originality. The course also addresses ethical and social implications, including bias, representation, and algorithmic discrimination. Students examine the impact of AI on identity and knowledge production through readings, video lectures, and discussion. This session features real student insights, interactive audience polling, and live demo of the course's virtual TA. Attendees will leave with adaptable strategies and a practical lens through which to foster responsible, informed engagement with AI in higher education.