In This Issue:

1. Getting off to a good start as an academic leader

2. Will the siren song of ChatGPT destroy students’ college education?

3. An undergraduate ponders the challenges of GenAI

4. How to promote academic integrity in the age of chatbots

5. Books about the immigrant experience

 

Quotes of the Week

“The utility of written assignments relies on two assumptions: the first is that to write about something, the student has to understand the subject and organize their thoughts. The second is that grading student writing amounts to assessing the effort and thought that went into it. At the end of 2022, the logic of this proposition – never ironclad – began to fall apart completely.”

            Clay Shirky (see item #2)

 

“When it comes to testing students’ abilities to develop interesting, original reasoning, the essay is king. It is also under siege.”

            Serena Jampel (see item #3)

 

“To write something excellent, one must be willing to delete almost all of it. This isn’t something many people are taught in high school – I know I wasn’t.”

Serena Jampel (ibid.)

 

“Inquiry about cheating begins with the question, ‘Did the student actually do the work?’ Inquiry about integrity begins with the question, ‘Does this work accurately represent the student’s skills and understanding?’”

            Tony Frontier (see item #4)

 

“Learning results from what the student does and thinks, and only as a result of what the student does and thinks.”

            Herbert Simon (quoted in ibid.)

 

“I went from working close to 80, maybe even 90 hours some weeks, to closer to 55.”

            Wil Page on the benefits of using AI for his Los Angeles middle-school teaching, 

from Bloomberg Businessweek in “Collected by Humans” by Lora Kelley in The New 

York Times, May 25, 2025

 

“Teens are hungry to think transcendentaly – to sink their teeth into complex, interesting content that invites them to explore big, emotionally powerful ideas… The hallmark of such thinking is the ability to understand situations and information not simply in terms of their direct relevance to the current situation or topic, but to also integrate ideas across situations and topics. By making these connections, they come up with broader, generalizable principles or hidden personal lessons, and come to ask those difficult, curious questions about ‘why’ and ‘how’ and ‘how come?’ and ‘who says?’”

            Mary Helen Immordino-Yang in “The Power of the Adolescent Mind” in Kappan, 

summer 2025 (Vol. 106, #7-8, pp. 48-54)

 

“Economic research reveals two things about college degrees: getting a four-year college degree is the most reliable way to become wealthy, and being wealthy is the most reliable way to get a four-year college degree. When you put those two findings together, you get a feedback loop that is exacerbating socioeconomic injustice.” 

            Steven Levitt, Jeffrey Severts, and Michael Smith in “The Overhaul Higher Education 

Actually Needs” in The Boston Globe, May 22, 2025 (pp. K1-4)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Getting Off to a Good Start as an Academic Leader

            In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, former university president Bob Davies (now a consultant with WittKieffer) offers advice on entering a leadership role. “A successful transition builds confidence,” he says, “while a rocky one creates roadblocks that may be difficult to overcome.” He suggests priorities in three phases:

            • Pre-entry: preparation and positioning – In a public statement, describe your past experience, express confidence and clarity about your new role, and avoid ambitious promises and prepackaged solutions until you know more about the institution. To that end:

-   Read key institutional reports, including the strategic plan, financial and enrollment data, and SWOT information: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 

-   Visit the campus and meet with educators, students, and community leaders.

-   Get a firm grasp on the institution’s unique culture, traditions, and expectations. 

-   Talk with the outgoing leader.

-   Lay the foundation for your relationship with the leadership team and direct reports.

-   Think about a communications strategy that ensures clarity and transparency across all constituencies.

-   Assess early reputational challenges and potential crises.

That’s a lot, and you don’t have to do it all yourself, says Davies. “In fact, involving others in this process offers immediate and lasting benefits.” He recommends having a transition advisory group and recruiting an informal mentor – someone who serves in a similar role in another institution. Another important step: take a two-week vacation before starting the new job: “A well-rested leader is better equipped for the nonstop demands ahead.”

            • The first 90 days: immersion and connection – This phase is about learning the culture and building relationships – being visible, attending events, meeting with educators and students, and becoming familiar with traditions and campus dynamics. A few pointers:

-   Avoid talking about your previous institution.

-   Listen and ask questions, hearing from all corners of the institution. 

-   Assess internal power dynamics and identify key influencers.

-   Work closely with higher-ups, board members, and senior leadership to clarify expectations and how decisions will be made. 

-   Nurture relationships with external partners.

-   Identify and execute a few quick wins, says Davies – “high-impact, easily implemented changes to demonstrate momentum and responsiveness.” 

“One of the biggest pitfalls of this phase,” he says, “is prematurely proposing solutions to longstanding challenges.” There will be pressure to act quickly, but it’s best to quietly and deliberately plan a structured approach to change, who will be involved, and how it will be evaluated. 

            • Shifting from learning to leading – In this phase, the leader must pivot “from observation to action – articulating a clear direction, making key leadership decisions, and starting to shape policy,” says Davies. “It’s crucial here to balance urgency with thoughtful deliberation.” Some top priorities:

-   Decide who will be in your leadership team. Getting the right people in place is absolutely crucial. Trust your instincts and heed the old mantra: Fire fast, hire slow.

-   Focus on major institutional challenges and long-term projects that will define your time as a leader.

-   Build a good relationship with faculty leaders. “It is amazing what you can learn and gain by walking around the campus and chatting with faculty members in their offices and in hallways,” says Davies. “Lead by asking questions and seeking suggestions, and resist the temptation to offer predetermined solutions.” 

-   Strengthen campus culture, attending key events, seeking out stories and symbols, and identifying respected leaders, past and present. 

-   Leverage media and PR to promote positive stories, not about you but about the institution’s promise and future. 

-   “Continue to communicate and refine (based on informal feedback) a strategic vision that aligns with campus priorities and expectations,” says Davies. “With each conversation you have – by focusing on what you are learning, hearing, and seeing – you will be able to craft an inspiring message for people to rally around.” 

He closes with some final pieces of advice, among them: take the job seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously, and: One day, something will go terribly wrong, and when it does, remember: you wanted this job.

 

“A Start-Up Guide for New Leaders” by Bob Davies in The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 9, 2025 (Vol. 71, #18, pp. 43-44)

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2. Will the Siren Song of ChatGPT Destroy Students’ College Education?

            In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, Clay Shirky (an administrator at New York University) says that since ChatGPT launched in late 2022, students have been among its most avid adopters. Many are using AI to write papers and do research, and educators are concerned. Shirky quotes education theorist Herbert Simon: “Learning results from what the student does and thinks, and only as a result of what the student does and thinks.” If students use AI, will they skimp on the effort and thought that are at the heart of learning? 

            “The utility of written assignments relies on two assumptions,” says Shirky: “the first is that to write about something, the student has to understand the subject and organize their thoughts. The second is that grading student writing amounts to assessing the effort and thought that went into it. At the end of 2022, the logic of this proposition – never ironclad – began to fall apart completely.” When teachers grade AI-produced papers, can they tell how much intellectual work students have done, what they understand, and what they’ve learned? 

            True, ChatGPT and other chatbots can be helpful tools; they can explain difficult concepts, create practice quizzes and study guides, and give students feedback on their writing’s clarity, diction, and spelling. “Faced with generative AI in our classrooms,” says Shirky, “the obvious response for us is to influence students to adopt the helpful uses of AI while persuading them to avoid the harmful ones. Our problem is that we don’t know how to do that.” 

            He recounts conversations with instructors who are discouraged and profoundly sad about the current state of affairs. They’ve tried to AI-proof their assignments, only to get pushback from students complaining that the assignments are too hard, claiming that the work interferes with their “learning styles,” defending their shortcuts by arguing that AI use is the most efficient way to get from point A to point B, and saying, “Everyone is doing it.” 

            But while many NYU students rationalize the use of AI tools, some are expressing ambivalence. A few quotes:

-   I’ve become lazier. AI makes reading easier, but it slowly causes my brain to lose the ability to think critically or understand every word.

-   I feel like I rely too much on AI, and it has taken creativity away from me.

-   Sometimes I don’t even understand what the text is trying to tell me. Sometimes it’s too much text in a short period of time, and sometimes I’m just not interested in the text.

-   Yeah, it’s helpful, but I’m scared that someday we’ll prefer to read only AI summaries rather than our own, and we’ll become very dependent on AI.

If students are so troubled, why do they continue to use AI? A big factor is anxiety and stress about grades and their other commitments, says Shirky. Here’s a tool that can do your papers, save 10 hours, and produce decent grades – but for the assignment to be meaningful, don’t use it that way. We’re asking students to use self-restraint, but that’s really challenging. One student wrote this anonymous Reddit post:

I literally can’t even go 10 seconds without using Chat when I am doing my assignments. I hate what I have become because I know I am learning NOTHING, but I am too far behind now to get by without using it. I need help, my motivation is gone. I am a senior and I am going to graduate with no retained knowledge from my major.

Shirky has concluded that the strategy he’s been recommending for the last two years –persuading students to use the helpful applications of AI and avoid the lazy ones – isn’t working. AI use isn’t on a spectrum from good to bad, he sees; rather, students “can take an engaged approach to one assignment, a lazy approach on another, and a mix of engaged and lazy on a third. Good uses of AI do not automatically dissuade students from also adopting bad ones; an instructor can introduce AI for essay feedback or test prep without stopping their students from also using it to write most of their assignments.” It’s hard to get students to abstain from the harmful uses. 

Students are well aware of the academic downside of inappropriate AI use, says Shirky. They know that it’s akin to doing a strength workout while having your personal trainer lift the weights for you. “Yet forgoing easy shortcuts has proven to be as difficult as following a workout routine,” he says, “and for the same reasons. The human mind is incredibly adept at rationalizing pleasurable but unhelpful behavior. Using these tools can certainly make it feel like you are learning.” 

This brings up the concept of desirable difficulty – working at the edge of our current ability – which research has found to be the sweet spot for learning. The problem is that effortful participation is, well, difficult, and we tend to interpret struggle as a sign that we’re not learning. We prefer the feeling of fluency over desirable difficulty, for the same reason that we prefer listening to a well-delivered lecture to engaging in active learning.

That’s a central challenge faced by today’s university and secondary school educators, and Shirky and his NYU colleagues have not yet found a solution. 

 

“Is AI Enhancing Education or Replacing It?” by Clay Shirky in The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 9, 2025 (Vol. 71, #18, pp. 31-35); Shirky id at [email protected]. 

 

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3. An Undergraduate Ponders the Challenges of GenAI

            “Can writing at Harvard coexist with new technologies?” asks senior-year student and writing tutor Serena Jampel in this article in Harvard Magazine. The university, she says, “is in the middle of a techno-panic, with AI at its center.” Strict policies have been implemented prohibiting students from using generative AI for academic work, driven by fears of cheating and the belief that the new chatbots are a shortcut that undermines learning. A 2023 experiment found that using ChatGPT, a student could earn a 3.57 GPA and “potentially sail through Harvard on a wave of instantly generated text, earn a degree, and launch into the world with no intellectual lifting necessary.” 

            Some instructors are trying to prevent such a grim outcome by conducting oral exams and giving handwritten blue book finals. “After my sweaty-palmed, sore-wristed experience with these forms of examination,” says Jampel, “I can’t endorse them wholeheartedly as the anti-cheating solution, but professors are right to begin thinking about ways to test individuals’ knowledge in an age when the universe is only a click away.” 

            Preparing for an oral exam on Anna Karenina was “extraordinarily difficult, but rewarding,” says Jampel. But this approach to assessment is “transient and improvisational,” she believes. “It is most successful in assessing knowledge and overall analysis. When it comes to testing students’ abilities to develop interesting, original reasoning, the essay is king. It is also under siege.”

That’s because with the right prompt, ChatGPT can generate a logical, well-thought-out, top-to-bottom essay in seconds. The temptation for stressed-out students with multiple academic deadlines, extracurricular activities, and perhaps a job to ask the chatbot to write their essays is huge. And this is a huge problem, says Jampel. “It generally takes years of producing mediocre writing to become a good writer… Effective writing requires a lot of time and toil, hard work and a few tears… Writing and thinking are stressful and (speaking from experience) the stress doesn’t necessarily abate with practice.” 

The hardest part is formulating logical arguments that clearly convey complex ideas, thinking through the ideas and overall structure of an essay. In her tutoring sessions with fellow undergraduates, most of the time is devoted to helping them figure out what they want to say, “that spark of intention or the glimmer of a burgeoning idea – and guide them toward realizing it.”

In her freshman year, before ChatGPT was widely available, Jampel spent hours struggling to get words onto a page because she thought her essays had to be perfect. “Now I know that the crucible of all writing is revision,” she says. “To write something excellent, one must be willing to delete almost all of it. This isn’t something many people are taught in high school – I know I wasn’t… I was only able to learn how to improve my writing through arduous trial and error, a process that drove my intellectual and creative development.”

The inappropriate use of AI to write essays “gets at the fundamental question of what a Harvard education is,” says Jampel. “Most would agree that when we graduate, we should be able to think critically. The ability to churn out essays is not as strong a priority. If Harvard’s goal were to produce skilled writers, then training students to generate writing alongside AI from the start, equipping them to manipulate AI in the workforce, would suffice. But learning how to think takes serious study, practice, and effort. AI may someday craft a flawless essay, but as long as we still value independent reasoning, that will need to be taught. Analog writing has long proven effective.”

For that reason, Jampel doesn’t use AI for her academic papers – but she has found it helpful for simple, formulaic writing such as e-mails, brainstorming ideas, escaping from compulsive wordsmithing, and overcoming writer’s block. She also believes that “when used under certain conditions, AI has the potential to make good writers even better.” She fed a paper she’d written years ago into ChatGPT and within ten seconds got detailed and helpful suggestions on how the thesis could be more argumentative, some passages could be more concise, and phrases she’d inadvertently repeated could be deleted. “I was mesmerized,” she says. “The best part about my AI tutor was that it never tired, and I could correct it all I wanted.” She entered a second prompt, “That’s bad advice,” and it immediately revised its suggestions.

“AI may be intelligent,” Jampel concludes, “but it is not omniscient. It’s not even perceptive. The truth is, it might partially take my job. It can accurately identify many of the most common revisions we instruct students to look for: arguable thesis, repetition, logical analysis. If you’re asking AI the right question, it can be enormously helpful. It never tires, it’s available in the wee hours of the night, and it never has another appointment waiting. But what AI can’tdo is answer the question you never even thought to pose.” 

 

“AI Anxiety” by Serena Jampel in Harvard Magazine, March-April 2025 (Vol. 127, #4, pp. 53-55)

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4. How to Promote Academic Integrity in the Age of Chatbots

            “Today’s students can easily access AI tools to take shortcuts through any academic course,” says researcher/author/consultant Tony Frontier in this Cult of Pedagogy article. To hold students accountable for evidence of learning, teachers have a choice of focusing on cheating or integrity. Frontier’s definitions:

-   Cheating – Students use a tool or resource to misrepresent their knowledge and skills and receive undeserved credit for a task. An accuser needs to have evidence.

-   Integrity – A student’s work on a task accurately represents the knowledge and skills they actually possess. They can demonstrate this by being able to document the learning process and explain or expand on the results. 

Right now, a lot of teachers’ energy is going into catching students cheating, and many students are busy outsmarting their teachers. Frontier believes there’s a way out of this dynamic. In fact, he believes his ideas would have applied to the pre-AI era, when studies show there was an almost identical level of student cheating. Here’s what he suggests:

            • Acknowledge the limits of detecting and accusing students of cheating – Here are the stubborn realities:

-   Students care about getting good grades, feel pressure to do well, are short of time, and are tempted to enlist AI.

-   Tools to detect cheating are far from perfect.

-   To prove that cheating has occurred, there’s a high bar: teachers must catch students in the act, present irrefutable evidence, or elicit a confession.

-   Students often deny wrongdoing, defying logic, which makes it difficult for an accusation to stick.

-   Threatening more-serious consequences has the paradoxical effect of making the burden of proof even greater. 

Given all this, many teachers find themselves in a “state of paralysis,” says Frontier. “Absent foolproof detection tools, they feel powerless to do or say anything when they doubt a student’s results. But this paralysis is based on the false premise that only if AI detection tools are perfect can anything be done to prevent cheating or ensure integrity.” That’s why he believes we need to focus on other strategies, including…

            • Minimize conditions where cheating is most likely to occur. “Addressing cheating primarily as deviant behavior that can be fixed with policies and punishments,” says Frontier, “overlooks its root causes. When the pressure to achieve exceeds the fear of being caught, students easily rationalize why cheating is a logical, justifiable choice.” Here are some of those conditions:

-   Unrealistic expectations to achieve – High expectations are a good thing, but if they are too high, the fear of disappointing others can overcome the fear of being caught cheating.

-   Students believe teachers don’t know what they’re capable of academically so they’ll be fooled by AI-generated papers.

-   Students aren’t given enough time to produce quality work.

-   Teachers emphasize performance goals – grades, points, status vis-à-vis other students.

The flip side of each of these – realistic expectations, knowing students well, providing enough time to complete assignments, and learning goals – should cut down on AI cheating.

• Emphasize integrity by focusing on transparency, explainability, and relationships. “Inquiry about cheating begins with the question, ‘Did the student actually do the work?’,” says Frontier. “Inquiry about integrity begins with the question, ‘Does this work accurately represent the student’s skills and understanding?’” The way to pivot to integrity is looking at:

-   Transparency – Students can document the steps and resources they used to prepare for and engage in a task.

-   Explainability – Students can talk intelligently about, expand on, and reflect on what they’ve learned – and show evidence of their learning. 

Checking in with students on these quickly distinguishes between cheating and integrity.

            • Use strategies that support integrity, maximize learning, and minimize cheating. “If we want students to use AI tools with integrity,” says Frontier, “we must teach them how.” Teachers can do that by helping students prioritize engaging in the learning process, holding them accountable for important understandings, and minimizing the conditions where cheating is likely to occur, specifically:

Align expectations with opportunities to learn:

-   Share the map of the course in advance – standards, learning goals, concepts, and skills.

-   Communicate major assignments and assessments in advance so students can plan.

-   Align formative tasks with summative goals to ensure students’ opportunity to learn.

-   Use rubrics as a shared description of good work throughout the process. 

-   Focus on learning goals rather than errorless performance so students will ask for help.

Up front, show students you care about them and know their current abilities:

-   Get baseline evidence of students’ writing skills by using a simple, in-class prompt.

-   Provide feedback and appreciation on students’ baseline writing without grading it. 

-   Survey students to find out about their interests, aspirations, and learning preferences.

-   Use the results to chat with students and make connections to course content.

Set boundaries for what can and can’t be used for formative and summative work:

-   Clearly state criteria for unacceptable use – e.g., using another’s work without citation.

-   State boundaries for acceptable use – e.g., generating ideas, summarizing, feedback.

-   Teach appropriate AI use – e.g., making meaning of content, clarifying misconceptions.

-   Consistently and equitably require transparency, documenting and disclosing resources.

Acknowledge progress at checkpoints:

-   Break major projects into smaller segments, steps, revising/editing, deadlines.

-   Do brief checks for understanding – written in-class responses to a problem or prompt. 

-   Check in regularly – e.g., “The final phase is due in a week. What have you finished?”

Provide consistent expectations for acknowledging sources and outside help:

-   Teach students how to cite sources with examples of correct formatting.

-   Teach students when to acknowledge the work or ideas of others.

-   Expect acknowledgement of sources from the outset so students get in the habit.

Seek transparency, effort, strategy, and explainability throughout the course:

-   Ask questions about processes, resources, people, media, and AI prompts used.

-   Ask students about their favorite original quote, the three most important points, etc.

-   Gather evidence that integrity is the norm, not the exception – e.g., with quick-writes.

-   Ensure evidence of integrity before marks or grades, so doubts can be dispelled.

Frame integrity as a partnership for effective teaching and learning with a statement like:

It is important that you submit your own work so I can provide meaningful feedback to you to inform your next efforts to learn. If I don’t know what you do or don’t know, I can’t adjust my instruction to better support your learning. It’s okay not to know. It’s okay to ask questions. If you knew all of this already, there’d be no need for you to take this class.

Academic integrity means you own what you know, acknowledge what you don’t know, and are transparent about the ideas or words you use that were drawn from others’ work or through the use of AI tools. Sometimes, I’ll ask you to retrace your steps so I can affirm – or assist with – the process you’ve used to complete a task. I’ll always ask you to cite your sources. I’ll always expect you to give credit to others or to a technology tool when credit is due.

Academic dishonesty involves any attempt to take credit for knowledge or skills that you don’t actually possess as your own. If you cannot explain your work after it has been completed, it may or may not be evidence of academic dishonesty. However, it is evidence that you haven’t internalized that knowledge or those skills yet. If that is the case, I need to know so I can help you take the next steps necessary to learn. 

This is how, Frontier concludes, “we can work in partnership with our students to help them use tools and resources in ways that ensure we’ll have plenty of opportunities to catch them learning and celebrate their results.” 

 

“Catch Them Learning: A Pathway to Academic Integrity in the Age of AI” by Tony Frontier in Cult of Pedagogy, May 11, 2025; Frontier’s new book is AI with Intention: Principles and Action Steps for Teachers and School Leaders (ASCD, 2025); Frontier can be reached at [email protected].

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5. Books About the Immigrant Experience

            In School Library Journal, author Cynthia Levinson recommends books for educators and students on immigration:

Books for educators:

-   America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Erika Lee

-   Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education by Jessica Lander

-   Democratic Discord in Schools: Cases and Commentaries in Educational Ethics, edited by Meira Levinson and Jacob Fay

Books for middle and high school:

-   Becoming Naomi León by Pam Muñoz Ryan

-   Count Me In by Varsha Bajaj

-   Caramelo and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

-   Indivisible by Daniel Aleman

-   Made in Asian America: A History for Young People by Christina Soontornvat and Erika Lee

-   Mamie Takes a Stand: The True Story of Mamie Tape, a Chinese American Girl’s Fight for School Rights by Marie Chan, illustrated by Sian James

-   They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems by David Bowles

Picture books:

-   Free to Learn: How Alfredo Lopez Fought for the Right to Go to School by Cynthia Levinson, illustrated by Mirelle Ortega

-   I Am an American: The Wong Kim Ark Story by Martha Brockenbrough and Grace Lyn, illustrated by Julia Kuo

-   Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh

-   Without Separation: Prejudice, Segregation, and the Case of Roberto Alvarez by Larry Dane Brimmer, illustrated by Maya Gonzalez

-   Paper Son: The Inspiring Story of Tyrus Wong, Immigrant and Artist by Julie Leung, illustrated by Chris Sasaki

-   Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré by Anika Aldamuy Denise, illustrated by Paola Escobar

-   The Sole Man: Jan Matzeliger’s Lasting Invention by Shana Keller, illustrated by Stephen Costanza

-   Home in a Lunchbox by Cherry Mo

-   Watercress by Andrea Wang, illustrated by Jason Chin

In their own words:

-   Ánh’s New Word: A Story About Learning a New Language by Hanh Bui, illustrated by Bao Luu

-   Finding Home: Words from Kids Seeking Sanctuary by Gwen Agna and Shelly Rotner

-   The Home We Make by Maham Khwaja, illustrated by Daby Zainab Faidhi

 

“Immigration Stories” by Cynthia Levinson in School Library Journal, May 2025 (Vol. 71, #5, pp. 12-14)

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