Signal LearnAI: Just-in-Time AI Co-Creation Across Disciplines at a University

Summary

This experience report presents the LearnAI Framework, a two-layer model for just-in-time AI co-creation piloted at a comprehensive teaching university to support mixed-ability learners, from non-coders to advanced students, in building confidence with AI-supported problem solving. The Wide-Exposure Layer embeds short presentations in existing courses to build AI awareness at scale, reaching students and faculty across 18 courses in five disciplines. The Customized Co-Creation Layer offers opt-in, one-on-one sessions where clients work with trained undergraduate tutors through a five-stage pedagogical script covering problem framing, tool-task mapping, iterative co-prompting, deployment and verification, and ethical reflection. Over two semesters, 35 clients co-created 36 portfolio websites and more than 20 deployed web applications. Interviews with five clients and two tutors suggested a recurring shift in how clients described AI use, moving from treating it as a passive answer machine to engaging it as a collaborative tool under human direction, and the report documents boundary cases including overwhelmed clients and those who deliberately rejected AI use.