Category Archives: 2. Featured Articles

Grading Update: Can Standards Replace Points?

For years evaluating students relied on the point system. The higher the number of points, the higher the grade. Easy-peasy.

Except, perhaps not. In the AI age, the time-honored assessment method is looking ragged around the edges and spawns many questions besides. How much should we weigh homework, participation, attendance, quizzes, or specific writing assignments? Do we even bother evaluating homework because so many students complete it using AI? How do we explain why a student received a B+ and not an A-? Do students leave our classes really having learned what we want them to have learned?

Given these issues, many instructors are looking for a better way to evaluate student work. In this post we’ll provide an overview of several methods instructors have tried to make grades more meaningful.

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AI: A New Teaching Tool

Dr. Farrah Arif had had it. The senior lecturer at the School of Business Management, Queen Mary University of London, decided it was time to do more than use AI as a topic of discussion. Instead, she integrated AI use into the learning process of her first-year students. Her goal was to teach them to evaluate, question, and reflect on AI outcomes, not simply present outputs.

The methodology to attain this objective hinged upon designing activities that would elevate AI from a shortcut or crutch to a tool for critical thinking. Arif used five elements to attain this outcome:

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The New Burdens of Teaching in the Age of AI

Anyone teaching on a college campus today knows that AI has touched every aspect of our profession, from course design to student-professor relationships to homework and more. It is not a leap to say that today’s colleges are vastly different than they were just four years ago, when generative AI entered the equation.

To determine how instructors are coping, The Chronicle for Higher Education asked readers to submit their experiences with AI in their classrooms over the AY 2025-2026. What followed was a major article by senior writer Beth McMurtrie that took the pulse of how AI is affecting teaching and teachers.

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