Five UNCF-Member HBCUs Experiment with AI Tool for Educators  

Innovation and HBCUs are synonymous. Serving as dynamic hubs of creativity and progress, HBCUs have been instrumental in producing a remarkable array of influential figures—leaders, inventors and trailblazers—across a wide spectrum of disciplines including science, technology, engineering, the arts and business. So, it is no happenstance that HBCUs are playing a pivotal role in the development of artificial intelligence (AI). AI is already transforming jobs and the way business is done, especially in the world of higher education. 

 To keep up with a rapidly changing workforce and emerging technology, higher education institutions must familiarize themselves with and utilize AI. Or they risk falling behind.  

 “AI can be a kind of mirror to ourselves,” said Michael Feldstein, who created the AI Learning Design Assistant (ALDA). “It’s swallowed most of human written language that is available on the public internet, and in the process, it’s distilled some aspect of humanity that it can reflect back to us if we ask it the right questions. And that strikes me as being fundamentally useful and teacherly.”  

 And whether we like it or not, AI is here, Feldstein said.  

 AI for Educators  

 The recently concluded ALDA project aimed to address the needs of educators from all kinds of institutions, including HBCUs, by leveraging equity-centered AI tools to transform online course creation. Sponsors included D2L, VitalSource and Engageli.  

“We started with a tool that was very specifically designed not to teach,” Feldstein explained. “It was not designed to do their job.”  

 The AI tool was created by Feldstein, then the chief accountability officer at e-Literate, a publication dedicated to explaining edtech. Feldstein is now the chief strategy officer at 1EdTech, the leading member nonprofit edtech partnership working to accelerate the digital transformation of learning. He created ALDA six months ahead of the workshops and continued to enhance the tool throughout the project.  

  

ALDA is a learning design assistant, or chatbot, that can generate initial drafts of courses, syllabi and lesson plans, which can then be refined by faculty and instructional designers. The prompts are like interview personalities with a series of questions.  

 “ALDA asks you questions about what you want to accomplish and then helps you meet your own goals,” Feldstein shared. “It’s a very different experience than opening a browser window and being faced with an empty box that you need to fill. ALDA starts asking them if they would like help designing a lesson.”  

 The tool helped faculty with the preparation required as part of their jobs, which is often time intensive. Using ALDA streamlined content creation and addressed learning design bottlenecks, achieving an approximate 20% gain in efficiency by automating repetitive tasks like syllabus creation and lesson planning, according to findings from UNCF’s Teaching and Learning Center (TLC).  

 It can take faculty hours to plan one assignment or even a learning objective, explained Jessica Bynum, adjunct faculty at Miles College and instructor at Jefferson State Community College, who participated in the project. Even creating a learning objective can be a lengthy process, especially if an educator is creating a brand-new assignment. Using ALDA helped Bynum cut her planning time down to one hour or even 30 minutes, at times.  

 “It does allow you to cut down that planning and development time, it did streamline that,” Bynum said. “It will cut your time down tremendously because of the interaction and guided questions. It’s almost like a teacher’s assistant.”  

 UNCF’s Member Institutions Tested ALDA  

 “There were many individuals—from instructional designers, to faculty, even administrators, directors of technology at their institutions—so many areas and levels of people who were a part of the groups that were testing ALDA,” Bynum said. “It was a great mix of people participating.”  

 Feldstein wanted to test ALDA with faculty and instructional designers, since both can benefit from it. The ALDA Design/Build Workshop series, spearheaded by key partner e-Literate, focused on ethical AI use, workflow optimization and prompt engineering. These hands-on workshops enabled faculty to experiment with AI scenarios.  

 UNCF’s TLC engaged faculty from several HBCUs for the ALDA workshops, including Bethune-Cookman University, Florida Memorial University, Johnson C. Smith University, Miles College and Shaw University, all UNCF-member institutions. TLC and UNCF’s member institutions were able to participate in the project because of Supporting HBCUs to Drive Innovation in AI Learning Design Assistants, a grant from the Gates Foundation.  

 A community of practice was created through the project with faculty and faculty developers from UNCF’s member institutions who are committed to supporting their colleagues and peers with knowledge, insights and solutions for leveraging AI in higher education. The community continues to meet and share amongst the network.  

“It was a particular joy for me working with the UNCF faculty and staff,” Feldstein said. “They brought a sense of mission, and of joy and of open-mindedness to the work that I deeply appreciate. They were great colleagues. I needed partners to create ALDA, and they are good partners.”  

 Using ALDA to Build Creative Lessons  

 The tool can assist instructional designers with designing a course and faculty with designing specific assignments. Instructors used ALDA to create interview and prompt templates for a variety of topics, including interactive learning, backward design, hands-on constructivist learning, AI-resistant assessment, a syllabus draft creator, activities for the middle of a term and more.  

 “Michael [Feldstein] wanted us to use it, to break it, to get it to do what we needed it to do,” said Bynum, who has been working with AI since 2022. “The more you use any type of AI tool, the more you build the memory of it, so it begins to understand more what you’re looking for and give recommendations.”  

 Even instructors without experience with AI can use a tool like ALDA, Feldstein encouraged. “Small software enhancements that are mainly focused on usability and inviting creativity from faculty make big differences in how they engage with AI,” he said. “ALDA demonstrates that AI is designed to act as an interviewer and assistant, while coaching the educator on how they want to be interviewed. It encourages educators to use AI to create interesting and creative lessons.”  

 ALDA is a literacy tool that gave just enough structure and scaffolding to encourage experimentation. The tool also enabled faculty to share their prompts and try others from colleagues.  

 The content workshop participants generated with ALDA used pedagogically advanced teaching methods, Feldstein explained. “What I took away from that is that they were using ALDA to coach them on methods they were interested in but maybe would appreciate the help of an expert,” he said.  

 The collaborative project leveraged AI to enhance equity-centered curriculum and increase faculty efficiency. A commitment to equitable education informed every stage of ALDA’s development, from creating AI models attuned to diverse learner needs to reducing barriers faced by underrepresented students.  

  

AI Can Bridge the Digital Divide  

 “What we saw is that participants from smaller schools were among the most active and creative users of ALDA,” Feldstein explained. “Institutions that had large, centralized learning design learned from ALDA, but they didn’t necessarily feel like they needed it.”  

 This is a major way ALDA, and AI tools like it, can combat the digital divide facing higher education. When implementing new technology, it’s important to consider the resources institutions have or lack, Bynum said. Predominantly White Institutions (PWI) may have more capacity and finances to bring on new technology like ALDA, while smaller institutions such as HBCUs may lack the necessary resources. 

“Across universities, colleges and community colleges, your teaching and learning responsibilities may be broad or may be minimum,” Bynum said. “When implementing a tool at an institution, it’s going to depend on what that looks like on your campus—do you have anybody who’s responsible for implementing new software, training on new software, or do you have anybody to do that at all?”  

 What’s Next for ALDA  

“While the Gates Foundation grant that supported this phase of the ALDA project has concluded, the work is far from over. UNCF’s Teaching and Learning Center remains committed to equipping our institutions—and our faculty—with the tools and training necessary to thrive in an AI-integrated future,” said Geneva Dampare, director of strategy and operations, Teaching and Learning Center, UNCF.  

 “TLC will continue collaborating with Michael Feldstein and our member institutions to disseminate insights from this pilot and onboard more faculty into ALDA and similar tools. This work represents the kind of innovation that can only happen when institutions, thought leaders, and funders come together with a shared sense of purpose.  

 “To sustain and scale this progress, we must prioritize our institutions—not just as sites of learning, but as centers of experimentation, equity, and leadership in the digital age. That means continuing to forge strategic partnerships that invest in faculty, technology, and the students they serve,” said Dampare. 

 The future of teaching and learning is being shaped now. TLC is ready to lead—and with continued support, we’ll ensure our institutions aren’t just adapting to change but driving it.