Case study
Enhancing AI Proficiency: An Interactive Course for Learners with Basic Digital Literacy
Business problem
Many working adults can use a laptop and a phone but have never used AI at work. They know it matters. They don't know how to prompt it, when to trust it, or where it fits in their job. I built a one-hour course to close that gap and studied whether it worked.
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Audience
Working professionals, educators, and students, roughly 20 to 50. Comfortable with Microsoft Office, minimal AI experience, and motivated by the job market. They want practical use, not theory.
Constraints
- One hour of seat time, self-paced, delivered in Canvas.
- Learners range from "never opened ChatGPT" to "solid foundation," so the course had to work for both.
- 15 participants, adults 18 to 40, recruited through the WGU_Education subreddit. Data was collected anonymously.
My role
Sole author. I wrote the problem analysis and literature review, designed and built the course, ran the study, and analyzed the results.
Approach
I compared three solutions: a full online course, a short bootcamp, and self-paced microlearning. I chose an interactive online course because it could cover AI basics, tool practice, and decision-making in one place, which microlearning could not do.
The course has three goals, each with its own assessment. Learners explain core AI concepts (5-question quiz), use AI tools on a real task (a hands-on project where they write a prompt and submit the result), and judge when and how to use AI in their own work (scenario questions and a summative quiz).
Mixed learner levels shaped the design. The course opens with AI fundamentals so everyone starts from the same place. Each tool is introduced with a screen recording and a step-by-step guide. Learners who already know the tools can use linked resources to take on harder tasks.
To measure it, I used Canvas pre and post assessments, a 20-item Likert survey, and 10 open-ended questions, all collected through Canvas and Google Forms. Two research questions drove the study: how learners rated usability and engagement, and how much their practical AI skills improved.
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Deliverables
- One-hour Canvas course, "AI in Digital Literacy," with videos, quizzes, a hands-on project, and a final assessment
- Problem analysis, solution comparison, and literature review
- Research design: two research questions, a pre and post assessment, a 20-item Likert survey, and 10 open-ended questions
- Results analysis with charts and thematic coding of learner comments
- Proposed second iteration of the course, based on the findings
Evidence of impact
This was a small study of 15 learners, so these numbers describe this group and nothing wider.
- Average score on the course assessments was 78.57%. 40% of learners scored 100%, and 13.33% scored below 70%.
- Platform usability and course improvement both averaged 4.06 out of 5. Survey categories ranged from 3.56 to 4.06.
- Engagement (3.63) and interaction (3.56) scored lowest. Open-ended comments said the same: learners wanted more hands-on practice and real-world cases.
- Typical comments: "I did not expect to understand this content, but I did," and "I wasn't expecting to learn a lot but learned I can use it a lot, even as a stay at home mom."
What I learned
Learners found the course clear and easy to use, and the survey told me where it fell short: not enough interaction. That drove the redesign I proposed. It adds instant feedback and auto-grading on practical work, clearer quiz directions such as "Select all that apply," a longer course with slower pacing, and Canvas discussion boards so learners can share their prompts and results with each other.
