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If you have noticed that artificial intelligence is built into this course, you may have questions.
Perhaps you have never used an AI chatbot and are unsure whether you are comfortable with the technology. Maybe you have heard concerns about AI in education and wonder whether an AI-assisted course is taking shortcuts. Or perhaps you simply want to understand what AI-assisted learning looks like before you enroll.
All of those reactions are reasonable. This page explains exactly how AI is used, what students are expected to do and what safeguards are built into the learning experience.
The course uses AI in three structured ways:
AI does not deliver the core curriculum, replace the course instructor or do your thinking for you. It functions as an interactive study aid that responds to the work and questions you bring to it.
The lessons provide the foundation. Your reasoning comes first. AI is then used to help you review, investigate and apply what you have learned.
AI chatbots work much like a text conversation. You type or paste a message, receive a response and continue the conversation with questions or revisions.
If you can write an email or send a text message, you already have the basic technical skills needed to complete the activities.
The course can be used with commonly available AI platforms such as:
You are not locked into one platform. Features, account requirements and free usage limits can change, so the introductory course guide explains the current options and provides alternatives when a particular tool or feature is unavailable.
No paid AI subscription is required to complete the course.
AI platforms differ in how they handle conversations. Within an open conversation, a chatbot generally uses earlier messages to understand the context of your current request.
Some platforms may also offer saved-memory, chat-history or personalization features that can carry information across conversations. Whether that happens depends on the platform, account and privacy settings you use.
You should not assume that an AI tool will remember an earlier assignment, and you should not rely on chatbot memory as a permanent record of your work. Save important responses separately when needed and review the privacy and memory settings of the platform you choose.
Case studies are scenario-based assignments involving fictional people facing realistic health and wellness challenges.
For example, you might read about:
The scenarios connect directly to subjects covered in the course, including cardiovascular health, diabetes risk, nutrition, exercise, weight management, stress and health-information literacy.
After reading the scenario, you answer a series of questions using the concepts introduced in the lessons.
The questions are designed to help you:
You write your answers before asking AI for feedback. This sequence matters: your thinking comes first, and the AI response comes second.
Once you have completed your answers, you paste the assignment, your responses and a set of built-in instructions into the chatbot.
Those instructions ask the AI to provide structured study feedback. It may:
The AI does not assign a formal grade, and its feedback should not be treated as an authoritative medical judgment. It creates an opportunity to examine your reasoning and continue engaging with the material.
Because the course is asynchronous and has no required class meeting time, this gives you access to interactive feedback while working on your own schedule.
AI explanations are not always accurate or easy to understand. If a response is unclear, you can return to the course lesson, copy the relevant educational passage and ask the AI to explain its feedback using the concepts provided in that passage.
You can also ask questions such as:
Learning to question an AI response is part of the activity. You are not expected to accept every answer automatically.
Investigation activities are guided research assignments that explore more complex questions in health and wellness.
Possible subjects include:
These subjects do not always have simple answers. That is precisely the point.
The goal is not to produce a single “correct” response. It is to practice asking good questions, examining evidence and recognizing uncertainty.
AI platforms differ in how they produce answers.
Some responses rely primarily on information learned during model training. Other modes can search the web, retrieve current sources and create reports based on material found during the session. Depending on the platform, these features may be called web search, browsing, research or deep research.
A standard chatbot may sometimes:
Web-enabled and deep-research features can reduce some of these problems because they retrieve live sources. However, they do not eliminate them.
Even when a source is real, an AI tool can still:
For that reason, the course does not teach students to treat a research report as automatically correct simply because it contains citations.
A clickable link can help you confirm that a source exists. It does not prove that the source is high quality or that the AI represented it accurately.
When reviewing a source, students are encouraged to ask:
A real source can still be weak, irrelevant or misrepresented. Source verification therefore requires more than checking whether the link opens.
You choose a research question from a provided list organized by difficulty level. You then use a structured prompt with a web-enabled research tool.
The tool searches for sources and produces a report. Your work is to:
The course provides prompt templates, examples and source-evaluation guidance so you do not have to design the process from scratch.
The purpose is not to outsource research to AI. It is to use AI to begin an investigation that you then evaluate.
Engineered prompts are prewritten, carefully structured instructions designed to help an AI tool produce a more useful response.
Instead of trying to determine what to write on your own, you receive a template with clearly labeled fields. You complete the relevant fields, paste the prompt into the chatbot and review the result.
The templates are designed to reduce vague, one-size-fits-all answers by giving the AI clear context, boundaries and instructions.
One example is the SMART goal activity.
SMART stands for:
The template asks you to think about factors such as:
After completing the template, you paste it into the chatbot. The AI organizes your information into a draft SMART goal.
You then evaluate and refine it by asking questions such as:
The first response is a draft, not a final prescription. The value comes from evaluating and improving it.
You should not enter sensitive or personally identifying health information into a public AI chatbot.
Avoid sharing information such as:
Most activities can be completed using general, non-identifying information. You can describe a goal or obstacle without providing a full medical history.
AI-generated suggestions are educational and should not be treated as a diagnosis, treatment plan or substitute for individualized professional guidance.
Anyone managing a chronic condition, injury, eating disorder, pregnancy, medication concern or other significant health issue should discuss meaningful changes with an appropriately qualified professional.
Because concerns about AI in education are often justified, it is important to be direct about what AI does not replace.
The course lessons, learning objectives, activities and foundational explanations are created and organized by the instructor.
AI responds to the material and questions you provide. It does not determine what the course teaches.
Case studies require you to answer first.
Investigation activities require you to select a question, inspect sources and evaluate the report.
Engineered prompts require you to think carefully about your goals, constraints and circumstances.
If you provide little thought or context, the response will usually be generic. Useful results depend on your active participation.
AI tools can make mistakes. They can misunderstand instructions, overlook context and express uncertain claims with more confidence than the evidence justifies.
The course teaches you to:
The course provides general health education. Neither the course nor its AI-assisted activities provide:
Do not use a chatbot as a substitute for professional care or emergency services.
The course does not require you to provide AI platforms with sensitive medical or identifying information.
Before using any platform, you should review its current:
These settings and policies can change over time.
When completing course activities:
No public AI platform should be assumed to provide the same privacy protections as a confidential relationship with a licensed healthcare professional.
A traditional self-paced course can provide well-organized lessons, examples and assessments. What it usually cannot provide is an immediate response to each learner’s individual explanation or question.
Used carefully, AI can add an interactive layer to asynchronous education by helping students:
The goal is not to make learning effortless. The goal is to make learning more active.
Students do not simply read an AI response and move on. They are asked to contribute their own thinking, question the output and decide whether the response is supported by the course material and credible evidence.
You do not need to be a technology expert to complete this course.
Every AI-assisted activity includes:
You will know when AI is being used, why it is being used and what you are expected to do with the response.
AI is not hidden behind the course or presented as an infallible authority. It is one educational tool within a larger instructor-developed curriculum.
If you choose to enroll, the introductory section will walk you through the process before you encounter the more detailed activities.
No paid AI subscription is required to complete the course. Platform features and free usage limits may change, so alternative tools or activity options are provided when needed.
Learn more about the curriculum, instructor, lifetime access and enrollment options.
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