Summer of AI Pragmatism
Summertime
Summer is a special time for many academics. Although some teach over the summer, other fortunate faculty take the summer to recharge, refresh, and plan for the coming year (along with trying to do research). Whether you teach, research, or just relax over the summer, for most faculty, summer is a special season.
I’m declaring this summer to be the summer of AI pragmatism. (OK, the fact that I’m declaring it so is meaningless, but it makes me feel important.) AI is developing at a dizzying pace. Since the beginning of 2025, we’ve seen the release of significant new models (OpenAI’s o3, Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro, DeepSeek-V3-0324, Meta’s LLaMA 4, Claude 4 Opus and Sonnet from Anthropic, among others), the emergence of deep research and countless small, but useful enhancements. Specialized AI tools continue to emerge seemingly daily. It’s a lot. (If you need more convincing, check out this timeline.) Keeping up is a never-ending battle. So, maybe it’s time to pause, take a breath and slow down a little.
The Evolution of AI in Higher Ed: 2023-2025
Here’s how I see the last few years.
2023 was the year of “What is this new sorcery?” OpenAI unleashed a new technology with seemingly magical capabilities. Many in higher education (including me) were quickly enamored with generative AI, playing constantly with new tools like my pup Dolly when we get new balls for her to play with. It was fun and exciting.
2024 was the year of “OMG, what does this mean for higher ed?” Reality started to settle in. Generative AI wasn’t going away. Students started using AI in significant numbers, often inappropriately. Many of us started to look beyond the coolness of the new tech to wonder about how higher ed needed to adapt. Some educators started to have existential worries that were not entirely unjustified.
2025 is the year of AI reality. Actually useful AI agents, huge context windows, amazingly capable reasoning models and deep research, true multimodal AI … all of these, coupled with AI use becoming normalized mean that AI is really here to stay. Educators need to deal with this reality. The AI genie is out of the Pandorian bottle (to mix metaphors).
Now that AI has become a permanent fixture in education, we need a summer of pragmatic adaptation. Not wide-eyed excitement over new toys, not wishful thinking that it will disappear, but clear-headed strategies to preserve and strengthen what matters most in education while thoughtfully integrating these powerful new tools.
Two Key Questions for Summer Planning
Summer is the perfect time to ask yourself two fundamental questions:
What do I need to change to disincentivize inappropriate AI use? This involves at least two elements, changing the nature of learning assessments, and shifting overall assessment strategies. The “many low-stakes assessments” approach makes some sense, but I wonder if its time has passed. At the moment, there is no consistently reliable, efficient way to detect AI use; plus, none of us want to be the AI police. The low-stakes assessment trend really mixes two things, formative assessment to diagnose learning and low-stakes grading. Maybe we need to separate the two and put the emphasis on diagnostics rather than grading. We also need to redesign the assessment activities that remain to make them more AI-resistant. Contextualizing, personalizing, requiring more explanation and justification of answers … these and other approaches can make it less profitable for students to use AI inappropriately.
How can I leverage AI to help students learn more effectively? Human-AI co-production has long been a mantra of mine and I think educators should lean into that idea. AI has considerable potential to enhance student learning, but it needs to be used in the right ways. Having AI spit out answers is clearly not the right way, but my guess is that few students (and educators) really know how to use AI in ways that enhance learning. Carefully designed learning activities can guide students down a path of self-guided, AI-assisted learning that can serve them the rest of their lives. That’s a bold statement, I know, but it’s one I firmly stand behind.
Over the course of the summer, I’ll provide thoughts on both of these fundamental questions with the goal of providing pragmatic insights and concrete advice on how you can adapt your courses to make AI an effective learning partner for your students while simultaneously reducing AI misuse. Those are lofty goals, but I’m confident that together, we can make the AI future a bright one for higher education and for our students.
Want to continue this conversation? I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you're using AI to develop critical thinking skills in your courses. Drop me a line at Craig@AIGoesToCollege.com. Be sure to check out the AI Goes to College podcast, which I co-host with Dr. Robert E. Crossler. It's available at https://www.aigoestocollege.com/follow.
Looking for practical guidance on AI in higher education? I offer engaging workshops and talks—both remotely and in person—on using AI to enhance learning while preserving academic integrity. Email me to discuss bringing these insights to your institution, or feel free to share my contact information with your professional development team.