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Learnai: Just-In-Time AI Co-Creation Across Disciplines At A University

Authors
Weihao Qu,
Ling Zheng,
Chris Buzaid,
Daniel Crawford
Date
Publisher
arXiv
As generative AI reshapes professional and educational practice, institutions face a challenge: how to support diverse learners, from non-coders to advanced students, in building confidence and practice with AI-supported problem solving. Most institutional responses bifurcate into conceptual workshops for general audiences or technical courses for computer science majors, leaving few spaces where mixed-ability learners can engage common AI tasks at levels matched to their prior experience. This experience report presents the LearnAI Framework, a two-layer model for just-in-time AI co-creation piloted at a comprehensive teaching university. The Wide-Exposure Layer embeds short presentations in existing courses to build AI awareness at scale, reaching students and faculty across 18 courses in five disciplines. The Customized Co-Creation Layer provides opt-in, one-on-one sessions where clients work with trained undergraduate tutors through a 5-Stage Pedagogical Script: Problem Framing, Tool-Task Mapping, Iterative Co-Prompting, Deployment and Verification, and Ethical Reflection. Over two semesters, 35 clients co-created 36 portfolio websites and over 20 deployed web applications. Interviews with five clients and two tutors suggest a recurring change in how clients described AI use, shifting from treating AI as a passive answer machine to engaging it as a collaborative tool under human direction. A small paired pre/post AI readiness dataset (N = 7) provides preliminary descriptive context, and tutor accounts document how the pedagogical script was enacted and adapted across client types. We report on boundary cases including clients who felt overwhelmed and respondents who deliberately rejected AI use. This paper contributes a practical, adoptable framework with initial evidence from a single institution.
Study at a glance
  • Question: How can universities help diverse learners across different subjects build confidence and practical skills using generative AI?
  • Setting and data: A comprehensive teaching university over two semesters, covering 18 courses in five disciplines, 35 tutoring clients, seven survey respondents, and seven interviewees.
  • Method: Program experience report using implementation records, interviews with clients and tutors, and a paired pre- and post-survey.
Why it matters

Institutions struggle to support diverse learners in building confidence and practice with AI-supported problem solving. Most responses split into conceptual workshops or technical computer science courses, leaving few spaces for mixed-ability learners to engage tasks matched to their prior experience.

Key findings
  • At a teaching university across five disciplines, 35 clients co-created 36 portfolio websites and over 20 deployed web applications.
  • Interviews suggested clients shifted from treating AI as a passive answer machine to engaging it as a collaborative tool under human direction.
  • Some clients felt overwhelmed, while other respondents deliberately rejected AI use.

Summary drafted with AI from the paper’s abstract and may contain errors. See the full paper for details.

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