Upper Peninsula Teaching & Learning Conference - 2026

Generative AI tools have had an astonishingly quick impact on the ways we learn, work, think, and create.  While higher education’s initial response was to develop strategies to diminish AI’s influence in the classroom, it is now clear that AI competencies and literacies must be embraced as essential learning for most colleges and universities.  These responses and realities create challenging tensions that higher education must work to resolve.  Drawing from his new book, Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024), Dr. C. Edward Watson will detail the challenges and opportunities that have emerged for higher education, especially in terms of pedagogical practice and student learning.  Additionally, key opportunities provided by AI include ways for faculty to improve instruction and save time, but these benefits also have the potential to have an impact on the profession of teaching itself.  The future of the professoriate will also be discussed and suggestions will be provided regarding how faculty can participate as their profession evolves.