Not too long ago, the biggest debate in education was about using smartphones in classrooms. We resolved that problem smartly by deploying these devices in meaningful ways to enhance learning. Today, the challenge is artificial intelligence (AI). Do academic leaders have the will to take another leap and employ emerging technology to further enhance student learning? When Apple launched its inaugural smartphone in 2007, it sparked a cultural shift that would soon collide with academic institutions at all levels. Educational leaders at private and public institutions alike drafted policies banning such devices from classrooms. Educators walked the aisles of classrooms collecting students’ devices before returning them once class ended. That resistance held firm for the better part of a decade.
Gradually, academic leaders and educators began to recognize that the very device they had been fighting against could transform a passive classroom session into a dynamic, interactive experience for students. Teachers and professors began encouraging students to use their phones in class to access QR codes, apps, websites, YouTube and social media to help them stay actively engaged. Such technology became particularly valuable in large lecture halls, where participation opportunities had previously been limited. Published research by Jen Chun Wang, Chia-Yen Hsieh and Shih-Hao Kung further supports this shift in perspective, finding that “fewer smartphone access opportunities may adversely affect learning effectiveness and academic performance.”
Taken together, these developments marked a dramatic departure from the resistance that defined the early days of the smartphone era. Still, some educators resist this trend, even at the risk of being labeled a dinosaur. To remain relevant as academic institutions, it would be wise for academic leaders to understand and actively embrace AI because the technology is moving far faster than smartphone technology ever did.
The Conversation We’re Having and the One We Should Be Having
Walk into any educators’ meeting today and AI enters the conversation: How do we stop students from using it to cheat? Yes, AI-generated assignments are increasingly difficult to detect, but in the urgency to protect academic integrity, we are missing a far more important conversation. The more important question we should be asking is: How do we use AI to improve learning?
While we debate detection tools and honor code revisions, our students are already using AI, and the companies we’d like to hire our graduates will expect them to know how. Students who demonstrate value-added AI skills will outcompete those who don’t.
Emerging uses of AI in practice:
- Financial analysts use it to model risk scenarios in minutes that once took days.
- Software engineers use it to write, debug and document code at unimaginable speeds.
- Data scientists deploy it to analyze complex datasets, predict trends and optimize operations.
- Legal experts use it to review contracts and generate client communication.
- Editors use it to review manuscripts.
- Healthcare professionals use it to advance drug discovery and accelerate the development of new treatments.
- Logistics managers use it to predict demand, optimize inventory levels and reduce warehousing costs.
In virtually every industry, AI literacy is rapidly becoming a baseline professional expectation, no different from knowing how to use a basic computer. The business graduate who enters the workforce without AI fluency does not arrive neutral; they arrive behind. Their peers who develop these skills will move faster, produce more and become less anxious about the next round of organizational restructuring.
What AI-Engaged Learning Actually Looks Like
Deploying AI in the classroom is not an abandonment of academic integrity—just the opposite. It means redefining what rigor looks like in a world where information is abundant and synthesis and critical thinking skills matter most. Here are just a few of the ways forward-thinking faculty are already doing this:
- Challenging students to write strategic AI prompts and apply critical thinking when reviewing outputs to develop one of the most valuable professional skills of our time: the ability to evaluate AI output critically rather than immediately accepting it as fact
- Deploying AI to generate varying business scenarios, patient cases or legal dilemmas on demand to challenge student learning in a dynamic environment similar to what they will experience on the job
- Employing AI tutoring tools to provide students with immediate, individualized feedback on writing, quantitative reasoning and conceptual understanding, at 2 a.m., between work shifts or on a lunch break, offering the kind of on-demand support that can be the difference between persistence and dropout, especially for the adult learners that institutions like WGU serve
- Using AI to role-play as a difficult client, a skeptical investor or a demanding supervisor, giving students low-stakes opportunities to practice negotiation, presentation and conflict resolution before the real thing
Rethinking Assessment, Not Abandoning Standards
One of the most productive shifts educators can make is to treat AI’s arrival as an opportunity to improve their course assessments. If AI can entirely and convincingly complete an assignment with no meaningful human input, it’s worth examining the efficacy of the assignment because the assignment may not have been measuring what we intended it to measure in the first place.
The best assessments have always required synthesis, application and original thinking. AI simply raises the bar for what that looks like. Oral defenses, reflective journals, portfolio-based assessments and project-based learning are all approaches that naturally require authentic human engagement, and they also happen to mirror how performance is evaluated in most professional environments.
Students Have Fully Embraced It—Is Education Ready to Engage Them?
Educators and academic leaders have an opportunity right now to shape how an entire generation understands, uses and thinks critically about artificial intelligence. This is the defining educational challenge of this generation. Students are not waiting for us to decide our next step. They are already using AI tools, in their jobs, in their lives and, yes, in our classrooms. The question for educators is not whether we should stop students from embracing AI. They understand its applicability and importance. What remains is whether we will meet our students there, with wisdom, intention and the courage to lead.