AI in the Classroom: How Faculty Are Adapting to AI in Higher Education

In our recent survey, we asked faculty: 

What are your main concerns about using generative AI or having your students use generative AI in your course?

In their responses, they shared their ideas about not just the potential risks of AI, but the possibilities. 

In fact, many of the faculty that responded to our survey were in support of using AI in teaching and learning. While some public conversations focus on AI bans and enforcement, the bigger picture is one of adapting to current technological shifts, while maintaining academic integrity and teaching students how to work with these tools, instead of bypassing them. 

Some important questions that faculty are considering include: 

• How do I design assignments that work with AI, not just around it?
• How can I help students use these tools responsibly?
• What new skills should we be teaching now?
• How could AI improve teaching, scholarship, and student learning outcomes? 

Let’s look at how some of these questions are already shaping faculty thinking.

At a Glance 

Faculty are not just reacting to the presence of AI in the classroom: they're actively working through how to adapt to it.

While concerns about critical thinking, academic integrity, and skill development are real and widespread, many instructors are moving beyond fear or enforcement. Instead, they’re rethinking assignments, learning goals, and their own roles: exploring how to integrate AI in ways that support student learning, uphold academic values, and prepare students for a future where these tools will be unavoidable.

This post isn’t just about what faculty fear—it’s about how they’re thinking through what comes next.

A Common Concern: A Potential Decline in Critical Thinking

Not surprisingly, many faculty expressed the common worry that students may stop thinking for themselves. As educators - and people who very clearly remember going through our studies without the use of AI - this is a widespread concern, even among those of us who are excited by its potential.

Among the most frequently voiced concerns? A growing worry that students are using AI to bypass the thinking process altogether.

“Outsourcing your thinking to an AI is no way to learn, either the specific material or the thought processes that go into solving problems.”

“Students are demonstrating a lack of critical thinking. They use AI for written assignments and tests and blindly copy and paste whatever they get from ChatGPT.”

“When students use AI, they are not practicing critical thinking, synthesizing information, or truly learning—they are just on a scavenger hunt for the right information that will get them their points.”

Some also felt this lack of critical thinking goes beyond individual courses, creating concerns about the future of student learning itself.

“We cannot expect students to improve their writing skills if they are using AI to generate text for essays, reports and papers. The more we allow the outsourcing of thought, the less our students will learn.”

“Loss of critical thinking and skill development among our students [is a concern]; loss of love for the human mind and what we can do.”

These concerns are valid—but not inevitable. With the right opportunities, students can still develop strong critical thinking skills, especially when learning is grounded in their lived experiences. This is why we, as educators and course designers, need to learn how to think alongside AI, critically evaluate its use and output, and be intentional with the technology - and teach our students to do the same. 

But thinking skills aren’t the only focus. Faculty are also rethinking how we evaluate student learning itself.

Integrity, Assessment & the Shape of Future Assignments

With the widespread introduction of AI, many instructors have found that they need to rethink their assignments, to make them harder to copy into an AI tool and submit the output without deeper engagement. 

They’re also reconsidering how they assess learning in the age of AI.
 

“I will need to think of more complex and layered forms of assessment that AI cannot mimic, and there is a significant burden for re-creating assessments, more intensive grading, etc.”

“For literature reviews of refereed papers I had a case where a student fed some information into ChatGPT and got the wrong summary. The student submitted it without checking or reading the paper so the student failed the assignment and the learning objective was totally missed.”

“I design my homework and test questions specifically so that generative AI models will do POORLY on them…[so] students can see where it is easily fooled. This, at least, seems to remove some of the confidence that students have in using generative AI tools without a strong-enough understanding of what the answer SHOULD be.”

The rise of AI use does mean that many faculty will need to reexamine the purpose and structure of their assignments - and clarify which knowledge and skills they’re fostering. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

Best practices in learning include designing assignments, assessments, and activities in ways that resonate with students: their experiences, their interests, and the connections they make with real world situations and scenarios. Regularly reviewing the learning activities in your course - whether they are graded or ungraded - helps keep them aligned with the learning goals and ensures that students are engaging in meaningful activities that will help them meet these outcomes. 

This is also true in the case of learning to use AI, as we mentioned earlier in this blog. Helping students learn to think with AI and use it in ways that support - not hinder - their learning is an incredibly important skill that students will need, as they move beyond college into their professional careers. 

AI as a Learning Tool - Not a Shortcut

Despite concerns, many faculty also discussed opportunities: especially if we model responsible use. This shift requires a mindset change: from restriction to education. Even with those concerns in mind, many instructors also see potential—especially when AI is used intentionally.

Here’s what some faculty had to say about the role of AI when used intentionally.

“Generative AI is a very useful tool that students need to learn how to use. It's up to us as faculty to model ethical and appropriate use.”

“It’s a tool. How the student uses it makes all the difference. Using AI to generate ideas / brainstorm or even help with wording/explanation is great—but to model how to use AI would also include how to VERIFY the content.”

“Students should be trained to use AI, just like I was trained to use a calculator.”

“I think AI is a great STARTING POINT for creating an outline for a given topic, generating questions, and thereby time management.”

“My concerns are that instructors are not preparing students to use AI... It is here and we need to help guide students in how to use it.”

These statements point to the ways in which we (and our students) can leverage AI to save time, expand our understanding, think critically, and engage in the process of learning. AI is rapidly changing—and so is teaching. As educators, we need to grow alongside it.

The great news is, there are so many ways that AI can be incorporated thoughtfully into a course: the challenge isn’t whether it can be done—it’s how to do it effectively, in a way that works for both you and your students. Embracing this technology doesn’t mean that it has to be adopted without boundaries; but it does mean that we all need to spend the time getting to know the technology and learn how we can leverage it. The opportunity is there: but it’s up to us to make the most of it.

Final Thoughts: What Comes Next? Teaching in an AI World

Whether you see generative AI as a challenge or a catalyst, one thing is clear: we’re in a period of transition. And that transition, like all good teaching, requires thought, creativity, and community.

This isn’t just about AI. It’s about how we teach, how we build assignments, and how we support student learning in a changing world.

When faculty approach this moment as an opportunity—not an emergency—they’re not just adapting to technology. They’re optimizing learning in our current technology-driven world.