CSE 1010 (with AI Integration)

Role: Instructor.
Institute: University of Connecticut
Offered in: Fall 2025, Spring 2026

About:

To ensure that students used GenAI effectively rather than dependently, I transformed the course into a project-based learning (PBL) format and developed a custom, course-specific GPT agent named PyPal (Python Pal). Students were required to seek AI assistance exclusively through PyPal, which was deliberately designed to provide scaffolded guidance, reflective prompts, and conceptual support, rather than complete code solutions. This design discouraged direct solution retrieval from public GenAI tools and promoted authentic engagement with course material.

Project-based learning was selected to provide students with a purposeful and coherent learning experience, enabling them to immediately apply newly acquired concepts to a real-world problem. Each week, students completed a focused mini-project during class within a 15-minute time window, using guided assistance from GenAI tools. Importantly, these mini-project tasks were intentionally designed so they could not be easily translated into simple prompts for general-purpose GenAI platforms, thereby encouraging problem decomposition, critical thinking, and conceptual reasoning.

Details of PyPal can be seen here. The updated lecture slides and recorded video lectures can be accessed from the links given above.