The Office of Academic Affairs, along with the Center for Faculty Development and the Division of Digital Transformation and Technology, will kick off another installment of its campus-wide book reading series known as “Monday Meet Ups” on February 24, 2025, at noon. This year’s “Monday Meet Up” book explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing teaching as well as creating challenges in our classrooms. The book is: José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson, Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning, published in 2024 to great acclaim. Monday Meet Ups are held in person on Mondays from 12:00-1:00 p.m. in the SGA Senate Chambers in the Webb Student Center and on Zoom.
More information about the Monday Meet Up series will be forthcoming. In the meantime, please find a review of the book below. Anyone interested in securing a copy of Teaching with AI should contact the Center for Faculty Development at cfd@odu.edu.
In their book, Bowen and Watson explore AI’s role in reshaping education. Combining actionable guidance with thoughtful inquiry, this book equips educators with a comprehensive roadmap for navigating the uncharted territories of the fast-moving AI landscape. What distinguishes their argument is how persuasively they position AI not merely as another tool but as a disruptive force that demands a fundamental rethinking of how we teach, learn, create, think, and solve problems. Unlike previous technologies, such as calculators and the Internet, which automated tasks, AI challenges the foundation of education, reshaping its purpose, methods, and outcomes.
Organized into three sections—Thinking with AI, Teaching with AI, and Learning with AI—the book creates a natural progression from basic concepts to implementable strategies. Using carefully crafted examples, the authors present numerous ways and ideas for integrating AI into teaching and learning. Throughout the book, their core position is clear: AI is best used not as a replacement but as a partner in the learning journey. They emphasize process-oriented prompts and innovative rubrics that assess the interplay between human insight and machine-generated content.
However, in their well-founded enthusiasm for AI, the authors may have left unexplored several ethical and equity issues, including the potential risk of over-reliance on AI and the monolithic perspective of AI-generated content. If students rely on AI to handle challenging tasks or cognitive processes, they risk missing valuable opportunities to develop their own problem-solving skills and deeper understanding. Similarly, the inherent biases and cultural and linguistic patterns embedded in AI training data could perpetuate narrow worldviews, undermining the very democratization of creativity and ideation that the authors advocate.
The second section provides educators with practical strategies for using AI in routine tasks and as a sophisticated collaborator. The authors recommend actionable tips for tasks such as writing, data analysis, student interaction and engagement, and tailoring assessments and assignments. After exploring the challenge of balancing the use of AI with its detection, Bowen and Watson caution instructors about the limitations of AI detectors and the tactics students may use to circumvent them. Their proposed solutions to addressing low-effort cheating include fostering discussions about academic integrity, improving transparency, relevance, affiliation, and student motivation. Following this discussion, the authors emphasize the importance of developing comprehensive institutional policies to guide the integration of AI, advocating for flexible yet robust policy frameworks that can evolve with technology while protecting academic integrity and promoting equitable access to AI tools.
At the core of the book’s strength lies a foundation of carefully designed prompts that enhance pedagogical strategies. While these prompts show intentional flexibility for adaptation across diverse educational contexts, the rapid evolution of AI models suggests a need for periodic updates. The authors anticipate this challenge by encouraging faculty to stay informed and adopt forward-looking strategies. However, achieving such adaptability requires robust faculty development—an area that could warrant deeper exploration. A comprehensive framework for building AI fluency across disciplines would strengthen their approach as these technologies continue to reshape pedagogical possibilities.
The last section crowns their vision of AI as a transformative co-educator. The authors demonstrate how AI’s distinctive ability to provide personalized, real-time feedback can be leveraged to engage students throughout their academic journey. Their framework promotes both transparency and continuous improvement, emphasizing documentation of AI-student interactions while prioritizing the process over outcomes. They show how AI as a learning partner combines the patience of a dedicated tutor with the precision of a subject matter expert. According to Bowen and Watson, this dual capacity is particularly beneficial for students who need additional support, as the technology adapts feedback, tutoring, and instruction to their individual learning needs and pace.
While acknowledging ethical challenges in AI academia throughout the book, the analysis could be enriched by considering broader systemic implications. For instance, the discussion of the substantial energy requirements of large language models would complement the ethical framework and highlight the environmental dimensions of AI adoption in education. Equally important are the human costs of AI development, particularly the working conditions and psychological toll on workers in developing countries tasked with sanitizing AI training data by filtering harmful and disturbing multimedia content. Addressing these challenges would deepen our understanding of the complex ethical landscape these technologies inhabit.
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape academia, Teaching with AI captures a pivotal moment in education. Bowen and Watson state, “Rapid change is again unfolding, and we can use what AI can already do to plan for a future in which our relationship with thinking will be fundamentally altered” (p. 2). They deliver a thoughtful and strategic roadmap for engaging with AI while preserving core educational values such as creativity, and meaningful human connection. Their contribution inspires educators to adapt with care and intentionality, making this book an indispensable resource for navigating the transformative potential—and pitfalls—of AI in teaching and learning.
Bowen, J. A., & Watson, C. E. (2024). Teaching with AI: A practical guide to a new era of human learning. Johns Hopkins University Press.