AI TutoR

Author

Professor Emily Nordmann

Overview

This book aims to teach students how to use AI to support their learning journey. The philosophy of this book is firmly rooted in the cognitive science of learning and as such, retrieval practice, distributed practice, and elaboration will all play a key role.

Parts of this book are applicable to any student and any subject. Parts of this book are specific to those who are learning to code, particularly in R. Take what you need and skip what doesn’t apply.

Throughout the book, short prompts I typed and the replies Copilot gave are shown “in italics and quotation marks” so that you can tell them apart from the surrounding text. Longer prompts that you are meant to copy and paste are set out as block quotes.

It is also perhaps easier to start by explaining what this book is not:

  • This book is not a stand-alone resource. It is intended to be used alongside other course materials. To make the most out of this book, you will need things like Intended Learning Outcomes or key terms.
  • This book will not encourage learners to take short-cuts. That students should be able to understanding the principles of what they are learning and to critically evaluate writing on the topic, regardless of who or what wrote it, is non-negotiable.
  • This book is not an endorsement of AI nor is it uncritical of its impact, either on learning or the environment. It is written because we have thousands of student using AI in a way that damages their learning and I do not believe that preaching abstinence is an effective solution. Others can, and do, disagree.
  • For the coding aspects of this book, we will not not teach you how to use platforms like Claude Code and it is not aimed at proficient or advanced programmers.

Instead, this book will aim to help learners use AI platforms critically. By the end of this book, learners should be able to:

  • Explain the potential impact of relying on AI on cognition, autonomy, and self-efficacy.
  • Use AI to explain concepts and functions in a level of detail and technicality appropriate to the knowledge and skill of the learner
  • Use AI to generate practice questions to test understanding
  • Use AI to debug errors in code
  • Use AI to review, comments, and refactor code
  • Use AI to responsibly assist with writing code
  • Critically evaluate and appraise the output of AI
Caution

This book was first written in Spring 2024, updated in September 2025, and the Copilot instructions were last checked in September 2026. It should be considered a living document. The functionality and capability of AI is changing rapidly and the most recent advances may not reflect what is described in this book. If a menu or button isn’t where the book says it is, it has probably moved rather than disappeared.