Joe Veverka (Instructor, Department of Marketing) presented “AI-Powered Course Design: From Concept to Classroom in Record Time” at the AI in Teaching Symposium, April 25, 2025.
From Concept to Classroom: How AI is Revolutionizing Course Design in Record Time
What if the brilliant course improvement idea you’ve been mulling over for months could be implemented not in weeks or days, but in hours or even minutes? For Joe Veverka, Instructor in DePaul University’s Department of Marketing, this isn’t a hypothetical scenario—it’s his daily reality thanks to artificial intelligence.
Bridging Two Worlds: Academic Excellence and Industry Innovation
Veverka brings a unique perspective to the conversation about AI in education. As both a dedicated educator teaching digital marketing at DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business and an AI product leader at Microsoft, he understands the practical challenges faculty face while staying at the forefront of technological advancement. His work at Microsoft involves bringing transformational AI capabilities to employees through tools like M365 Copilot, giving him firsthand insight into how AI can enhance human productivity and creativity.
This dual expertise allows Veverka to approach AI-powered course design not as a futuristic concept, but as a practical solution to real educational challenges. His framework moves beyond the hyperbole often surrounding AI to provide concrete, actionable strategies that educators can implement immediately.
The Three-Step Framework: Design, Refresh, and Reimagine
Veverka’s methodology centers on three distinct approaches to course development, each addressing different scenarios educators commonly face.
Design from Zero represents the most comprehensive application, used when creating entirely new courses from a blank slate. When Veverka was asked by his department chair to design a new CRM course (a subject where he had foundational knowledge but wasn’t entirely fluent) he turned to AI as his teaching assistant. The process began with competitive reconnaissance, analyzing similar offerings at other institutions to understand the academic landscape. From there, he researched industry thought leaders at companies like Microsoft and Salesforce to ensure the course would remain relevant as technology evolved rapidly.
The AI helped him outline weekly topics, objectives, and activities, then assisted in designing projects, modules, and student-facing materials. Most remarkably, the entire syllabus creation process (typically a weeks-long endeavor) was completed in hours. The AI could even mimic his personal teaching voice when provided with examples of previous syllabi, ensuring consistency with his established pedagogical approach.
Refresh addresses the common scenario where educators have established curricula they want to enhance without fundamental changes. Using a communications course as his example, Veverka demonstrated how AI can help instructors add their authentic voice to standardized curricula while maintaining the research-backed core that makes these courses effective.
By feeding his course materials into an AI chat service, he created what he calls an “AI teaching assistant” with just enough information about the course to be helpful without compromising intellectual property. This digital assistant could generate weekly agendas, streamline attendance tracking, create step-by-step guides for assignments, and develop comprehensive rubrics—all while maintaining the instructor’s unique teaching style.
Reimagine takes existing courses and rebuilds them from the ground up to improve clarity, flexibility, and relevance. Though this approach requires the most initial investment of time, Veverka found that completely rebuilding a syllabus he had taught for years unlocked unprecedented capabilities for ongoing course management and student support.
Practical Applications That Transform Daily Teaching
The real power of Veverka’s approach lies in its practical applications. Consider the weekly agenda – a seemingly simple task that many instructors skip due to time constraints. With his AI teaching assistant, Veverka now consistently provides students with clear weekly agendas, boosting their confidence and creating a more structured learning environment. He has even set up automated agents that deliver draft agendas to his inbox on teaching days, ready for review and posting.
Attendance tracking, traditionally a time-consuming administrative burden, becomes a matter of seconds when AI processes sign-in sheets and identifies students who may be at risk. For courses with both online and in-person components, the AI can cross-reference multiple data sources quickly and accurately.
Perhaps most impressively, Veverka has experimented with AI-assisted grading that serves as a “fail-safe” for instructor bias. By having AI grade assignments alongside his own assessments, he gains insights into his grading patterns and can identify areas where course materials might lack clarity. When the AI consistently marked down students in specific areas, it revealed gaps in his instructional materials that he could then address.
Preparing Students for an AI-Integrated Future
Veverka’s approach extends beyond mere efficiency gains. He recognizes that today’s students will enter a workforce where AI literacy isn’t optional – it’s essential. As he notes, the expectation from future employers is that graduates will be “managers of agents,” comfortable directing multiple AI tools to solve complex problems in unfamiliar domains.
This reality informs his approach to academic integrity around AI use. Rather than prohibiting AI tools, he provides students with detailed guides on how to use them ethically and effectively for each assignment. By giving students structured prompts and clear guidelines, he helps them develop responsible AI usage habits while maintaining academic rigor.
The Imperative to Start Now
Perhaps the most compelling aspect of Veverka’s presentation was his emphasis on immediate action. “Start now,” he urged faculty members, explaining that the only way to save time later and innovate meaningfully is through consistent experimentation with AI tools today.
His daily practice includes testing new AI applications, refining his prompting techniques, and discovering what works, and what doesn’t. This iterative approach has led to breakthroughs like his reverse curriculum design process, where AI analysis of student work reveals instructional gaps that can be addressed in real-time.
The stakes, Veverka suggests, extend beyond individual convenience. Faculty who master AI integration now will be better positioned to guide students toward responsible and effective AI use, while also freeing up time for what matters most: mentoring, research, and meaningful student interaction.
A Vision for Educational Excellence
What emerges from Veverka’s framework isn’t a vision of AI replacing human educators, but rather one of AI amplifying human capability. His approach allows instructors to become the best versions of themselves: more organized, more responsive to student needs, and more able to focus on the uniquely human aspects of teaching that truly matter.
The technology enables what Veverka calls a “win-win” scenario: faculty save time on administrative tasks while delivering higher-quality educational experiences. Students receive clearer guidance, more consistent feedback, and instruction from educators who have more bandwidth for personalized support.
As AI continues to evolve (Veverka noted that ChatGPT-5 was released during his presentation period, bringing enhanced accuracy and transparency) the possibilities for educational innovation will only expand. The question isn’t whether AI will transform education, but whether individual educators will position themselves to lead that transformation thoughtfully and effectively.
For faculty ready to explore these possibilities, Veverka has made his complete framework available through downloadable resources, providing the prompts and approaches needed to begin implementing AI-powered course design immediately. As he demonstrated through his own journey from AI novice to expert practitioner, the path to transformation begins with a single step: deciding to start experimenting today.
The future of education isn’t about choosing between human wisdom and artificial intelligence – it’s about combining them in ways that serve students better than either could alone. Joe Veverka’s framework provides a roadmap for that integration, one that honors both the timeless values of great teaching and the transformative potential of our technological moment.