Teacher Story: “Implementing AI into education starts with defining together what students need to learn”

A key success factor, according to Van Loon, was that the programme team was able to define a direction for education together. “Before you can implement AI into education, you first need to agree on what you consider important. What skills should students develop? What belongs in the curriculum and what does not? Those conversations are crucial.”

During the AI track, discussions also emerged about the place of AI within the programme.
“Should students start working with AI in their first year, or is it better to first build a solid foundation of academic skills? There were different views on this. Precisely by having these discussions, it became clearer what we value as a programme.”

Within Future Planet Studies, AI is not only seen as a tool but also as a topic that is substantively relevant to the field. Questions around energy consumption, the societal and environmental impact of AI and the potential sustainability gains it may bring, closely align with themes that are central to the programme.

The AI track did not remain limited to discussions. The programme team also made concrete choices for the curriculum. AI skills are now embedded in three courses across the first, second and third year of the Bachelor’s programme. The focus is on courses in which students develop technical and analytical skills, such as programming, geographic information systems, remote sensing and design thinking.

Van Loon explains: “We did not want to change everything at once. That is why we deliberately chose a number of promising courses distributed across the curriculum.”

In addition, questions around assessment remain highly relevant. Particularly in relation to the Bachelor’s thesis, the programme is exploring how students’ learning processes can be made more visible when AI is used. Van Loon adds: “To create space for further development, one of our teachers has started a University Teaching Qualification (BKO) trajectory to investigate how AI skills can be sustainably embedded in the curriculum and assessed responsibly.”

According to Van Loon, the AI track has also contributed to the AI literacy of part of the teacher team. For some colleagues, it opened up new perspectives on what AI can mean for educational development, teaching materials and their own work processes. “A number of teachers discovered that AI is not only something students work with, but can also be a useful tool for themselves, for example, in generating practice materials or developing new ideas.”

At the same time, he notes that not all teachers have the same level of interest in AI. Within the team, motivation and enthusiasm for experimenting with new technologies vary. “That is not necessarily a problem. People have different interests. What matters most is that there is sufficient space within the team to learn from one another.”

An important insight from the AI track is that AI not only affects teaching and assessment, but also the professional field for which students are being prepared. Discussions with industry representatives and experts in the field showed that organisations increasingly expect graduates to be able to use AI tools effectively. This goes beyond chatbots and includes processing large volumes of information, analysing documents and supporting research processes.

Van Loon compares AI skills to basic digital literacy such as working with spreadsheets: some students acquire these skills independently, but many do not. He therefore sees an important role for the curriculum in ensuring a shared basic level of AI literacy: “Just as we do not expect every student to automatically learn to work with complex software, we cannot leave AI skills to chance. Students benefit from a shared foundation on which they can build further.”

According to Van Loon, the greatest value of the AI track lies not only in concrete adjustments to the Future Planet Studies programme, but especially in the joint conversation about the future of education: “AI is developing rapidly. That is precisely why it is important to regularly pause as a programme and ask: what should our students know and be able to do in the future? The AI track helped us structure that conversation.”

Looking ahead, he sees clear opportunities. The necessary expertise is available within the faculty, colleagues are approachable and technical facilities are in place. “The most important step is that we keep making time for it and keep the conversation going.”

For other degree programmes considering participation in the AI track, Van Loon has a clear message: “Take this opportunity with both hands. You gain expertise, structure and guidance that are difficult to organise as on your own a programme. The time investment is relatively small, while the benefits are substantial.”