Faculty Focus

Whatever your institution’s policy on student AI use, whether strict prohibition, permitted use with disclosure, or something still being worked out, you face the same underlying challenge: when a submission raises questions about whether a student did their own thinking, you need a legitimate way to find out. AI detectors won’t give you one; research has shown they produce unacceptable false positive rates and carry particular bias against non-native English speakers (Liang

The first day of college teaching could be the most stressful moment ever in the teaching history of novice faculty members. Generally, the first day of teaching is intimidating for both faculty and students. According to Aydin (2021), it is common to experience anxiety on the first day of teaching, especially among newly experienced faculty members. Anxiety emotions are mixtures of conceptualizations such as cognitive, physiological, motivational, and expressive components. In addition to t

The first day of college teaching could be the most stressful moment ever in the teaching history of novice faculty members. Generally, the first day of teaching is intimidating for both faculty and students. According to Aydin (2021), it is common to experience anxiety on the first day of teaching, especially among newly experienced faculty members. Anxiety emotions are mixtures of conceptualizations such as cognitive, physiological, motivational, and expressive components. In addition to t

I teach a 300-level multimedia-design course, but last semester my most powerful teaching hack came from a 6-year-old. My daughter had scrawled two crayon figures—one with spiky blue hair, one with a superhero cape—and left them on the dining-room table. Instead of pinning them to the fridge, I uploaded the sketches to an “AI Image Combine” engine and typed:  “Place these two characters on opposite sides of a college lecture hall, manga style; the blue-haired student is sketching UI wire

I teach a 300-level multimedia-design course, but last semester my most powerful teaching hack came from a 6-year-old. My daughter had scrawled two crayon figures—one with spiky blue hair, one with a superhero cape—and left them on the dining-room table. Instead of pinning them to the fridge, I uploaded the sketches to an “AI Image Combine” engine and typed:  “Place these two characters on opposite sides of a college lecture hall, manga style; the blue-haired student is sketching UI wire

As online learning becomes more prevalent in higher education and professional development, User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) design have become essential to the effectiveness of digital learning environments (Tawfik, 2020; Quintana, 2020). UX includes users’ perceptions and responses to a system and is shaped by factors such as usability, functionality, and context of interaction (Zaharias, 2012). UI refers to the visual presentation and interactive features that support access to an

Many college teachers want to respond to students’ identities and cultures with respect, accurate perceptions, and sensitivity. We may face challenges within ourselves that arise from being shaped by societal forces. A self-reflective, repeating process of “…awareness, analysis, action, and accountability” (The Adaway Group; Love 2010) helped me. I hope that sharing my experiences w

Many college teachers want to respond to students’ identities and cultures with respect, accurate perceptions, and sensitivity. We may face challenges within ourselves that arise from being shaped by societal forces. A self-reflective, repeating process of “…awareness, analysis, action, and accountability” (The Adaway Group; Love 2010) helped me. I hope that sharing my experiences w

As an educational leadership professor, I hear inspiring messages from colleagues all the time, and I understand the impulse to lead with the highlight reel. Wins matter, from measurable improvement and real growth to culture building, trust restored, and students graduating. Aspiring leaders need those stories because this work is hard, and hope is fuel.  But there is another curriculum I teach too, one that rarely makes it into the syllabus. The scar tissue. The heartaches, compro

I never expected to begin teaching college biology when I did.  At the time, I was teaching secondary science and trying to build a marine science course for my high school students. I reached out to a local community college simply asking whether they had any preserved marine specimens I might be able to borrow for instructional purposes. I had no formal marine science background, so I spent much of that summer teaching myself content, lesson planning, and trying to gather as many resou

Across higher education, artificial intelligence has rapidly changed how students complete academic work. Essays, summaries, explanations, and structured problem-solving can now be generated instantly. The first concern has understandably been academic integrity. A deeper issue, however, is emerging.  We are beginning to mistake performance for understanding.  Students can now produce correct answers without necessarily developing the ability to interpret situations, make de

Once upon a time, there was this brave professor, who opened a word processor app to develop one of their most important tools in life; the syllabus.   When we design courses, we are focused on sharing knowledge that will be both informational and contextual. For this we integrate objectives, activities, and for the more technical part, assessments, rubrics, and references that make up the traditional sense of learning. Time after time we have understood that thi

True Confessions from the Grading Trenches It happened on a Wednesday—the kind of Wednesday that arrives in the middle of a grading cycle and quietly steals your personality. I had been working through a stack of papers that all needed thoughtful, individualized feedback, yet somehow required me to repeat the same five clarifications about APA formatting, thesis coherence, and the difference between analysis and summary. After the seventh iteration of “This section would benefit from cle

After attending a summer workshop on learning strategies led by Professor Andrew Cohen, I returned to my Spanish classrooms at Northwestern University with a simple question: What would happen if my students became aware of how they learned?  To explore this, I introduced an anonymous learning strategies survey that I had adapted from one I had learned during the workshop (https://tinyurl.com/2j39ka6m). I explained that their honest responses would help me support their learning and

In the late 1970s, America had a collective awakening. For decades, the food industry had flourished, offering convenience and endless variety, largely in the absence of robust public health oversight. It took the official declaration of the 1977 McGovern Report to crystallize and politically amplify the long-term cost of a diet built on processed foods.  The food industry’s response prioritized marketability. When the public was told ‘fat is bad,’ compani

My first semester as a faculty member taught me something I wish I had understood on day one: most of the stress did not come from teaching itself. It came from the absence of systems. I was making constant small decisions—how to answer student emails, when to grant an extension, what to do when a student disappeared, how to keep course materials organized, and how to protect research time when the week kept getting fragmented. None of those decisions seemed large in isolation, but together they

Picture this: A colleague spends Sunday night feeding her lesson outline into an AI tool, gets back a polished set of discussion questions, and walks into class feeling prepared. When a student pushes back—“I’m not sure this question even fits the reading”—she has to respond in real time, drawing on fifteen years of watching students struggle with exactly that concept. No AI gave her that. That’s the point.  Over the last few years, tools like ChatGPT a

In a world of instant content, the value of learning lives in how students think, apply, and transform understanding over time.   The recent attention around tools like the now-offline Einstein, an AI agent capable of completing coursework on a student’s behalf, has put academic integrity at the forefront of faculty conversations. But what matters less than the tool itself and more what it represents: a new category of AI that takes&

Historically, higher education has been at the forefront of social change, not only in the United States but also in classrooms and cultures around the world. Considering the many challenges facing American universities and colleges as we navigate higher education’s relevancy and role in society and learning, how can institutions continue to promote innovation where it matters: in the trenches, with our instructors and students? The answer may rest in recognizing part-time faculty

Faculty are not resistant to technology — they’re overwhelmed by how quickly it arrives. Faculty today are navigating more digital transitions than ever before, including new learning platforms, AI policies, assessment tools, cloud systems, security requirements, and various communication channels. From where I sit on the IT side of campus, the changes never seem to stop coming.  But here’s what I’ve realized after years of helping c