🍁 Fall Into Learning with AI: Spotlight 9 Featuring Dr. Sara Parry’s Critical Thinking Approach in Emergency Management
For Spotlight 9, we are highlighting a powerful strategy Dr. Sara Parry uses across her courses EMM-600, EMM-605, and EMM-685 to strengthen students’ analytical skills and readiness for real-world emergency management.
In each discussion forum, Dr. Parry uses Microsoft Copilot to generate a response to the prompt. But instead of presenting AI as a model answer, she transforms it into an active learning exercise:
🍂 The Challenge: Analyze the AI Response
Students evaluate four key areas:
This turns each discussion into a structured critical-thinking activity, reminding students that AI can be helpful, but it is not authoritative.
🍁 Why This Matters in Emergency Management
Emergency managers must be able to:
AI can support these processes, but the human element remains essential for ethical, timely, and context-driven decision-making during crises.
Bringing It All Together
Dr. Parry’s approach demonstrates the balance at the heart of our Fall Into Learning with AI series:
Intentional technology use, thoughtful evaluation, and the development of professional judgment that no algorithm can replace.
Thank you, Dr. Parry, for equipping students with the skills that truly matter and modeling what it means to engage with AI critically and responsibly.
