At the recent AALS ADR Section WIP Conference, I led a focus group to explore how faculty are using – and thinking about using – AI in their courses.  The participants shared a range of thoughtful insights, revealing both enthusiasm and caution.  Their responses offered a snapshot of what experimentation with AI looks like now, especially in communication-heavy and skills-based courses.

Here’s the summary of the findings:  Teaching with AI: Insights from a Faculty Focus Group.  It describes how faculty are:

• Designing bots as conversation partners for simulations
• Requiring students to submit chat transcripts to make reasoning visible
• Exploring how AI affects students’ writing – both positively and problematically
• Beginning to use AI themselves, such as to draft realistic mediation simulations

The report doesn’t provide sweeping conclusions – just thoughtful observations from people figuring this out.  As one colleague put it, “How do we function in an AI world where it can do so much that we now do?” The report doesn’t answer that question fully, but it shows that many of us are asking it.

Coming Attraction:  Solving Professors’ Dilemmas About AI

The focus group conversation – and this survey – lay the groundwork for a deeper dive that I’ll post soon: “Solving Professors’ Dilemmas in Preventing or Promoting Student AI Use.”  That piece outlines the pedagogical tension many of us are feeling between preserving traditional assignments and preparing students for a world where AI will be a daily part of legal practice.

In that upcoming article, I describe two broad approaches:

• Restricting AI use to protect authentic learning and writing
• Promoting responsible AI use to improve students’ learning and develop modern professional skills

That article provides practical tools to support both approaches, including:

• Model AI policy and certification forms
• Rubrics for distinguishing thoughtful student work from AI-generated and superficial papers
• Suggestions for using bots as conversation partners and coaches
• Assignments that promote AI literacy

Whether you’re wary of AI or eager to integrate it into your teaching, these resources are designed to promote a balanced, thoughtful approach grounded in pedagogical values.

Stay tuned.