Meeting Location: TBD
This is an approved Science General Education distributive course.
This course introduces students from all disciplines to the fundamentals of artificial intelligence (AI) by examining how ideas from natural intelligent systems such as the human brain and biological perception inspire the design of AI systems. We will explore core AI concepts including pattern recognition, image processing, language models, and decision-making, with an emphasis on practical understanding rather than technical depth.
The students will engage in interactive, no-code labs using modern AI tools, including large language models and prompt engineering, to learn how these systems work and how to interact with them effectively. As a Science Distributive course, it emphasizes observation, data collection, analysis, and the role of theory and falsifiability in understanding AI and its potential integration into other scientific disciplines. The course also examines the ethical implications of AI, including fairness, transparency, and societal impact. There is no prerequisite for this course.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
There is no prerequisite for this course
| Week | Topic and Readings | Lab/Activity | Assessments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What Counts as Intelligence? - Mollick, Introduction: Three Sleepless Nights | In-class falsifiability exercise | Quiz 1 |
| 2 | Brains, Neurons, and Signals - Mollick, Ch. 1: Creating Alien Minds - The Perceptron: A Probabilistic Model for Information Storage and Organization in the Brain - Professor’s perceptron paved the way for AI - 60 years too soon | Neuron Simulation | Quiz 2 |
| 3 | Machines that Learn from Patterns - Hendrycks, Ch. 2: Artificial Intelligence Fundamentals | TensorFlow Playground | Quiz 3 |
| 4 | Seeing Like a Machine - Olah, C., Mordvintsev, A., & Schubert, L. (2017). Feature Visualization. Distill. - Zeiler, M. D., & Fergus, R. (2014). Visualizing and Understanding Convolutional Networks. ECCV 2014. | CNN Explainer | Quiz 4 |
| 5 | Collecting and Questioning Data - Mollick, Ch. 5: AI as A Creative - Hendrycks, Ch. 6: Bias and Fairness - Google Inclusive Images Challenge | Teachable Machine | Quiz 5 Essay 1 Assigned |
| 6 | Living with Uncertainty - Mollick, Ch. 5: AI as A Creative (cont.) | Threshold adjustment on Teachable Machine outputs (analyze true positive, false positive, false negative, true negative in Excel) | Quiz 6 |
| 7 | Talking with Machines - Mollick, Ch. 6: AI as Co-worker - (Brief) Mollick, Ch. 3: Four Rules for Co-Intelligence - (Revisit) Mollick, Ch. 1: Creating Alien Minds | Google ngrams | Quiz 7 Essay 1 Due |
| 8 | From Chatbots to Storytellers - Mollick, Ch. 5: AI as A Creative (cont.) - Google: Attention is All You Need | Transformer Explainer | Quiz 8 |
| 9 | Prompt Crafting 101 - Mollick, Ch. 3: Four Rules of Co-Intelligence - Hendrycks, Ch. 6: Bias/Fairness | OpenAI Playground | Quiz 9 Essay 2 Assigned |
| 10 | Teaching AI to Follow Your Lead - Mollick, Ch. 6,7,8: AI as A … | Claude AI | Quiz 10 |
| 11 | When Humans and AI Work Together - Towards an AI co-scientist - Advancising AI-Scientist Understanding: Making LLM Think Like a Physicist with Interpretable Reasoning | Human versus AI labeling in Google Sheets (inter-rater reliability) | Quiz 11 Essay 2 Due |
| 12 | AI in Our Lives - Mollick, Ch. 8: AI as Our Future - (Revisit) Mollick, Ch. 5, 6, 7. | Small-group case study debate prep | Quiz 12 |
| 13 | Can AI Fail Safely - Hendrycks, Ch. 3: Single-Agent Safety - Hendrycks, Ch. 4: Safety Engineering | Inducting an AI Hallucination | Quiz 13 |
| 14 | What’s Next for AI? - Mollick, Ch. 8: AI As Our Future - Hendrycks, Ch. 7: Collective Action Problems | Demo of small LLM on personal computers | Quiz 14 |
| 15 | Debate and Reflection - Mollick, Epilogue - Hendrycks, Ch. 8: Governance | In-class group debate/presentation (continue into Final Exam time) | Quiz 15 Group Position Paper Due |
Quizzes are typically disseminated once a week.
| Assessment | % of Final Grade |
|---|---|
| Essays | 20% |
| Lab | 40% |
| Quizzes | 20% |
| Group Debates and Position Paper | 20% |
| Grade | Quality Points | Numeric | Interpretation |
|---|
Refer to the Grading Information section section of the Undergraduate Catalog for description of NG (No Grade), W, Z, and other grades.
Assignments that are late are assessed a 10% per day late penalty. Saturday and Sunday are each days.
It is the responsibility of each student to adhere to the university’s standards for academic integrity. Violations of academic integrity include any act that violates the rights of another student in academic work, that involves misrepresentation of your own work, or that disrupts the instruction of the course. Other violations include (but are not limited to): cheating on assignments or examinations; plagiarizing, which means copying any part of another’s work and/or using ideas of another and presenting them as one’s own without giving proper credit to the source; selling, purchasing, or exchanging of term papers; falsifying of information; and using your own work from one class to fulfill the assignment for another class without significant modification. Proof of academic misconduct can result in the automatic failure and removal from this course. For questions regarding Academic Integrity, the No-Grade Policy, Sexual Harassment, or the Student Code of Conduct, students are encouraged to refer to the Department Undergraduate Handbook, the Undergraduate Course Catalog, the Ram’s Eye View, or the University Website.
West Chester University is committed to providing equitable access to the full WCU experience for Golden Rams of all abilities. Students should contact the Office of Educational Accessibility (OEA) to establish accommodations if they have had accommodations in the past or if they believe they may be eligible for accommodations due to a disability, whether or not it may be readily apparent. There is no deadline for disclosing to OEA or for requesting to use approved accommodations in a given course. However, accommodations can only be applied to future assignments or exams; that is, they can’t be applied retroactively. Please share your letter from OEA as soon as possible so that we can discuss accommodations. If you have concerns related to disability discrimination, please contact the university’s ADA Coordinator in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion or 610-436-2433
The University’s Americans with Disabilities policy is available on the website. If you encounter an area of this course that is not accessible to you, please contact me.
Students are advised to carefully read and comply with the University-Excused Absences Policy, including absences for university-sanctioned events, contained in the WCU Undergraduate Catalog. In particular, please note that the responsibility for meeting academic requirements rests with the student, that this policy does not excuse students from completing required academic work, and that professors can require a fair alternative to attendance on those days that students must be absent from class in order to participate in a University-Sanctioned Event.
West Chester University and its faculty are committed to assuring a safe and productive educational environment for all students. In order to comply with the requirements of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the University’s commitment to offering supportive measures in accordance with the new regulations issued under Title IX, the University requires faculty members to report incidents of sexual violence shared by students to the University’s Title IX Coordinator. The only exceptions to the faculty member’s reporting obligation are when incidents of sexual violence are communicated by a student during a classroom discussion, in a writing assignment for a class, or as part of a University-approved research project. Faculty members are obligated to report sexual violence or any other abuse of a student who was, or is, a child (a person under 18 years of age) when the abuse allegedly occurred to the person designated in the University Protection of Minors Policy. Information regarding the reporting of sexual violence and the resources that are available to victims of sexual violence is set forth at the WCUPA Sexual Misconduct website.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are central to West Chester University’s mission as reflected in our Mission Statement, Values Statement, Vision Statement and Strategic Plan: Pathways to Student Success. We disavow racism and all actions that silence, threaten, or degrade historically marginalized groups in the U.S. We acknowledge that all members of this learning community may experience harm stemming from forms of oppression including but not limited to classism, ableism, heterosexism, sexism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia, and recognize that these forms of oppression are compounded by racism.
Our core commitment as an institution of higher education shapes our expectation for behavior within this learning community, which represents diverse individual beliefs, backgrounds, and experiences. Courteous and respectful behavior, interactions, and responses are expected from all members of the University. We must work together to make this a safe and productive learning environment for everyone. Part of this work is recognizing how race and other aspects of who we are shape our beliefs and our experiences as individuals. It is not enough to condemn acts of racism. For real, sustainable change, we must stand together as a diverse coalition against racism and oppression of any form, anywhere, at any time.
Resources for education and action are available through WCU’s Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI), DEI committees within departments or colleges, the student ombudsperson, and centers on campus committed to doing this work (e.g., Dowdy Multicultural Center, Center for Women and Gender Equity, and the Center for Trans and Queer Advocacy).
Guidance on how to report incidents of discrimination and harassment is available at the University’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
All students are encouraged to sign up for the University’s free WCU ALERT service, which delivers official WCU emergency text messages directly to your cell phone. For more information, visit https://www.wcupa.edu/wcualert. To report an emergency, call the Department of Public Safety at 610-436-3311.
It is expected that faculty, staff, and students activate and maintain regular access to University provided e-mail accounts. Official university communications, including those from your instructor, will be sent through your university e-mail account. You are responsible for accessing that mail to be sure to obtain official University communications. Failure to access will not exempt individuals from the responsibilities associated with this course.