Teaching in Higher Ed Skepticism and Curiosity in the Age of AI with Marc Watkins
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Mar 12, 2026 Marc Watkins, director of the AI Institute for Teachers and lecturer in writing and rhetoric, discusses balancing skepticism and curiosity about AI in teaching. He covers faculty anxiety and inconsistent AI policies, the need for clear institutional guidance, risks to online learning from agentic AIs, and assessment redesigns like embodied tasks and layered strategies to preserve human-centered education.
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Balance Skepticism And Curiosity About AI
- Balance skepticism and curiosity when evaluating AI instead of labeling it simply good or bad.
- Marc Watkins urges a 'warts and all' approach, acknowledging both affordances and costs of AI, cloud computing, and phones.
Inconsistent AI Policies Confuse Students
- Mixed institutional and faculty AI policies create confusion when students face wildly different rules across classes.
- Watkins warns incoming freshmen may encounter 4–5 divergent AI expectations, risking unfair academic misconduct outcomes.
Student Handwrites To Prove Her Work Is Legitimate
- A student handwriting notes in class avoided laptops because she had been accused in high school of using AI and couldn't prove otherwise.
- Watkins used this story to show fear-driven behaviors can change student learning practices and expose harms of inconsistent policies.
