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AI Literacy Activities

Attribution

Original work: "Educators' guide to multimodal learning and Generative AI" — Tünde Varga-Atkins, Samuel Saunders, et al. (2024/25) — CC BY-NC 4.0
Adapted for UK Nursing Education by: Lincoln Gombedza, RN (LD)
Last Updated: December 2025

Developing AI literacy requires practice. Below are three ready-to-use activities mapped to the literacy levels defined in the AI Literacy section.

Activity 1: "Critique the Output" (Intermediate)​

Goal: Develop critical evaluation skills and domain knowledge verification.

  • Setup: The educator generates a care plan using a standard LLM (e.g., ChatGPT) for a complex patient (e.g., "75yo with Dementia and Type 1 Diabetes"). Intentionally do not fact-check it.
  • Task: Students work in small groups to "grade" the AI's care plan.
  • Checklist for Students:
    • Is the clinical information accurate?
    • Is the tone person-centred?
    • Does it align with UK guidelines (NICE)?
    • Crucially: Identify one dangerous or vague suggestion.
  • Feedback: Discuss as a class. Highlight that subject matter expertise determines the quality of AI use.

Activity 2: "Prompt Refinement Relay" (Advanced)​

Goal: Teach prompt engineering and iterative improvement.

  • Setup: Students have a complex task: "Create a plain-English explanation of the Mental Capacity Act for a teenager."
  • Round 1: Student A writes a simple prompt. Records the output.
  • Round 2: Student B critiques the output and writes an improved prompt (adding context, persona, constraints). Records output.
  • Round 3: Student C refines it further targeting a specific tone.
  • Review: Compare the generic output (Round 1) with the refined output (Round 3). Discuss what specific instructions changed the result.

Activity 3: "The Ethics Audit" (Basic/Intermediate)​

Goal: Understand data privacy and ethical bias.

  • Scenario: "You need to write a handover summary for a patient, 'Sarah Jones', DOB 12/05/1980, NHS Number 123 456 789."
  • Task: Ask students to draft a prompt to get AI to help with this.
  • The Trap: See if any students include the PII (Name, NHS number) in the chat interface.
  • Teachable Moment: Stop the class. Discuss why we never input real patient data. Show how to anonymize: "Patient X, 45yo female..."
  • Extension: Discuss bias. Ask AI to generate an image of "A nurse leader". Audit the results for gender/ethnicity representation.

Nursing Competency Alignment​

ActivityNMC Strand
Critique"Evidence-based practice" / "Patient safety"
Refinement"Communication and relationship management"
Ethics"Professional values" / "Data protection"