Teachers Cautiously Integrate AI Into Classrooms

Professors are just beginning to figure out how—and how much—to integrate AI into their teaching. Laura Dumin, professor of English at the University of Central Oklahoma, is co–managing editor for The Journal of Transformative Learning. Writing in October in Ed Surge, she noted she and her students discuss “what AI can and can’t do.” They examine the output of large language models (LLMs) and probe the quality of the responses. Next semester she will have her students work with prompt writing (giving a topic to center or guide a project) and reflect on “when knowledge and learning matter versus when human-AI hybrid writing makes sense. For many faculty, that last question is causing the most friction around campuses.” Dumin says instructors across the disciplines ask whether students will rely too much on AI, or will they “still be motivated to spend time struggling with concepts and gaining deep understanding of topics?” Meanwhile, some teachers are bypassing AI with a centuries-old method: the oral exam. Says Beth Carlson, an English teacher at Kennebunk High School, in Maine, who sometimes conducts 15-minute oral assessments: ‘They’re exhausting. I can only really do four at a time, and then I need a brain break.”