Ariel Pliskin, an instructor in the College of Natural Sciences, reflects on teaching during the rapid rise of generative AI, describing how student attitudes toward AI are increasingly polarized and how issues like “AI slop,” ethical concerns, and digital distraction complicate learning. Yet these challenges also create opportunities to strengthen connection, model reflective AI use, and design more engaging, creative, and democratic digital learning environments.
Ariel Pliskin - Adjunct Faculty, Psychological and Brain Sciences, College of Natural Sciences
I am passionate about writing, especially academic writing. Imagine my chagrin in Spring 2024 when I achieved a longtime dream of teaching a college course a little more than a year after the groundbreaking release of ChatGPT 3.5.
Navigating the implications of recent digital innovations can be enough to make a newbie college instructor throw their hands up in defeat. As a lecturer teaching in Developmental Disabilities and Human Services, the landscape of teaching has been transformed by shifting norms of attention and the rise of AI.
Student Responses to AI Integration
During my first semester teaching in Spring 2024, I accepted an invitation to join a Perusal reading group on AI in Higher Education. That experience started me using AI, contributing to the resurgence of my perennial enthusiasm for technology. I began experimenting with using and modeling AI in the teaching and learning environment. I noticed a broader cultural shift about AI in my classroom:
- My Fall 2024 overall course evaluation scores were slightly lower than the previous semester and students complained about my use of AI.
- When I surveyed students in Spring 2025, I learned that about half were relatively pessimistic about AI and not using it, while others were using it regularly. Among those who used it, there was a mix: some used it responsibly, while others used it to do as little work as possible.
Comments illustrated polarized attitudes:
- “AI is used a lot.”
- “I think you have a very progressive taking acknowledging [sic] that AI isn't going anywhere and is going to continue growing. As such we shouldn't treat it as some kind of boogeyman and rather should educate students how to properly use it to help generate ideas.”
- “Maybe I just spend my time in an echo chamber, but I have found that people my age that I interact with do not use or support the use of AI. This is different with younger people, and my opinions will likely become the minority as high schoolers used to Chat GPT enter college.”
Student Survey Data
My Pedagogical Iterations
From Spring to Fall 2025, concerns about AI and a renewed emphasis on retrieval practice led me to convert a take-home writing assignment into an in-class exam and to add assignments requiring students to use and critique AI. Predictably, the introduction of tests seemed to be associated with increased anxiety. By contrast, the highest evaluation ratings I’ve ever received were in my online class, where I used an un-grading approach. I chose that approach partly out of ideological alignment, and partly as a concession to my judgment that—especially in an online format—overreliance on external reinforcement for learning might create more problems than it solves.
Three Current Threats to Effective Teaching
Yet a narrative of despair oversimplifies the complex reality of this moment. Below, I outline three major threats to effective teaching today—and three corresponding opportunities.
Rethinking Threats as Opportunities for Innovation
Connection
I was invited to teach a class on autism because I am autistic, and social media played a critical role in prompting me to get diagnosed. My graduate school social work training was a necessary but insufficient ingredient in the autistic identity I developed. Learning from autistic people online led me to consider that I might be autistic myself. As I learned about the history of the autistic community, I discovered how the Internet gave autistic communities a venue to challenge ableist assumptions that long constrained academic and medical knowledge. For many autistic people, online communication has been what sign language was for the Deaf community—a mode of self-representation and liberation. Integrating the voices of online advocates with evidence-based practice gave me a more nuanced way to both understand myself and serve my neurodivergent clients.
My experience shows that online spaces can enrich critical inquiry.
AI-Enhanced Thinking
AI can be used reflectively to enhance learning and creativity. I use AI, aiming not to replace thinking, but to extend it. I’m leaving the emdashes because I’m not hiding my use of ChatGPT. It helps me test phrasing, tighten structure, and surface alternative framings, after which I review and revise for accuracy and nuance.
In teaching, I use AI to prototype prompts or draft rubrics, while retaining full responsibility for originality and quality. My hope is that when modeled transparently, such use can teach students discernment, iteration, and intellectual honesty.
Digital Democracy
Rather than viewing online education as a liability, I now see its unique promise. In the Essentials of Online Teaching course, I learned that Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy reframes classical learning goals through digital expression: students might apply knowledge by creating a spreadsheet visualization, evaluate arguments in moderated online forums, or synthesize ideas through podcasting. These higher-order creative tasks are both harder to fake using AI (though not increasingly less so) and more engaging.
Online learning can promote empathy, and civic engagement.
Lessons Learned
In summary, what initially seems like an insurmountable crisis for higher education—the spread of slop, students’ ethical considerations, and digital distraction—may instead be a catalyst for renewal. What if we resist the false dichotomies that pit the classroom against AI, the Internet, or other forms of digital culture? I am working on framing these challenges to students and inviting their dialogue.
Learn More About Me
I recently created the video below for my online students. It outlines my thoughts on:
- How the internet supports autistic individuals
- Where social media can introduce stress, misinformation, or overwhelming sensory input
- How intentional design in online learning can support neurodiverse learners