CTMAI

Students in a studio space. Image generated by Midjourney.

Critical Thinking + Making with AI


Update: CTMAI SUMMER 2025 applications now open

'Weaving Wires' by Hanna Barakat

CTMAI 2025: Faculty Summer Institute. August, 20, 21, 22.
Open to all RISD Faculty.

Application Deadline: 5:00 pm EDT on Friday August 15, 2025.

Image Credit: 'Weaving Wires', Hanna Barakat / Better Images of AI
ApplY
 

About the CTMAI Faculty Institute

Participants in the "Critical Thinking and Making with AI" faculty instituteImage from the Faculty Summer Institute on "Critical Thinking and Making with AI". Photo credit: Kristina Lamour Sansone
Participants in the Faculty Summer Institute: "Critical Thinking and Making with AI."Participants in the Faculty Summer Institute: "Critical Thinking and Making with AI."

Photos: Kristina Lamour Sansone
 

"Critical Thinking & Making with AI" is a three-day Faculty Institute offered by the Teaching & Learning Lab in collaboration with the Provost's Office that introduces participants to emerging generative AI technologies and showcases pedagogy-driven strategies of engaging with AI in ways that serve the needs of art and design students in their scholarship as well as their creative practice. The Institute combines hands-on exploration of AI tools with small group collaboration and reflection sessions, and covers a range of topics from introductory, "crash course" sessions to designing classroom/studio activities, centered around questions of critical thinking and making. After completing the Institute participants:

  • have a better understanding of how text-based and multimodal generative AI tools work
     
  • are able to use basic parametric prompting to control and fine-tune generated text, visual, and media outputs
     
  • have access to replicable materials showcasing strategies of using AI in teaching and in the creative disciplines
     
  • are able to calibrate their perspective on integrating (or not) generative AI in their pedagogy, scholarship, and creative/professional practice
     
  • are able to develop nuanced teaching statements, guidelines, or course policies that reflect their teaching philosophy, are aligned with their scholarship and practice, and are informed by current risks and possibilities of AI


CTMAI Facilitators

Headshot image of Dimitris Papadopoulos, Senior Instructional Designer, RISD

Dimitris C. Papadopoulos Ph.D.
Senior Instructional Designer, Academic Affairs | Teaching & Learning Lab

Dimitris leads initiatives and develops resources for inclusive and innovative teaching across all RISD departments including workshops on strategies for feedback and critique, place-based and immersive learning, and the Faculty Institute on “Critical Thinking and Making with AI.” He has over fifteen years of experience in higher education teaching and research, and has worked on interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of culture, education, and technology.

Headshot image of Griffin Smith, Critic and Lecturer, RISD

Griffin Smith
Critic-CTC, Lecturer, HPSS

Griffin is a teacher, writer, and digital artist. He designed and taught the first AI studio courses at both Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. His current classes include Art and Artificial Intelligence, Digital Culture: How Computers Took Over the World, and Text Transformed: Writing in the Age of AI. In his creative practice he experiments with chatbots, Large Language Models, and AI image models.