{"id":22,"date":"2026-05-21T15:11:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=22"},"modified":"2026-05-21T15:11:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:11:45","slug":"how-i-rehumanize-the-college-classroom-for-the-ai-augmented-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=22","title":{"rendered":"How I rehumanize the college classroom for the AI\u2011augmented\u00a0age"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s week one of the semester, the first day of class: 20 students, mostly freshmen, sit silently waiting for our English 101 Writing Composition class to begin. Most have one AirPod in listening to whatever their Spotify AI DJ thinks they want to listen to; some scroll past AI-selected ads for drop-shipped fast fashion. And then someone who has forgotten to silence their phone opens TikTok and the 6-7 second sound blares. They hurriedly close the app, no apology, not even a half-hearted laugh from their classmates. <\/p>\n

Read more The \u2018one chatbot per child\u2019 model for AI in classrooms conflicts with what research shows: Learning is a social\u00a0process<\/a><\/p>\n

Welcome to the contemporary college classroom. <\/p>\n

I am a college professor working at the intersection of humanities and artificial intelligence, and yes, I believe the latter not only threatens to devalue college, but it also risks stripping humanity from our lives altogether.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t have to be this way. AI automating away parts of work and life challenges the next generation of the workforce to re-instill the importance of interpersonal social skills, and I see the college classroom as the ideal place for this rehumanization to take place. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my framework for building a classroom centered around student socialization. The goal: Equip students with the vital human skills needed in the AI-augmented workforce.<\/p>\n

Target: Bring humanity to work<\/h2>\n

Young adults sit in college classes fully aware that an AI-infused workplace is just on the other side of graduation. But they \u2013 and everyone else \u2013 have little idea how best to prepare for it.<\/p>\n

How to make this work for today\u2019s college students? Known for the infamous Gen Z stare, having their faces glued to their screens, and their fidgeting, doomscrolling thumbs, Gen Z has been pegged as the generation that lacks the social skills needed to succeed in an AI-augmented workforce. <\/p>\n

To me, this represents a clear tension between the young adults they are and the adults they need to be. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy for my rhetoric to give off \u201ckids these days\u201d vibes. But I\u2019m a young millennial. Which is to say, I too don\u2019t know what to do with my hands at dinner parties and have to make a conscious effort to maintain eye contact. <\/p>\n

Simply put: I teach what I wish I would have been taught. <\/p>\n

Shifting the mentality of the classroom<\/h2>\n

In the college classroom, it\u2019s all too easy to talk at the students for 90 minutes \u2013 to just be a professor with a slide deck who tosses in a few canned jokes that you know work because you\u2019ve already said them a dozen times. Time passes, and you hear the next class waiting outside the door. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll right, y’all,\u201d you say. \u201cLet\u2019s get outta here.\u201d <\/p>\n

The students dash off to their dorm rooms or dining hall, and wait to do the homework until midnight. You wait a few weeks too long to grade it \u2013 also at midnight, right before midterm grades are due \u2013 like two digital ships passing each other in the moonlight. <\/p>\n

Instead, I offer a different mindset: The classroom is not some intermediary between two computers \u2013 the assignment creator and the assignment doer, which only serves to build an \u201cus versus them\u201d mentality between student and professor.<\/p>\n

Rather, it\u2019s us together in the battle against the midterm or final exam. <\/p>\n

\u201cOK, that sounds great, random guy on the internet,\u201d I hear you say from the other side of the screen. \u201cBut how?\u201d <\/p>\n

Small social interactions<\/h2>\n

We academics like to use fancy words phrases like \u201cstudent-centered classroom\u201d or \u201cstudent-driven approach.\u201d What this means for me is simple: I constantly interact with the students and make social interactions integral to the classroom experience.<\/p>\n

Read more When it comes to developing policies on AI in K\u201112, schools are largely on their\u00a0own<\/a><\/p>\n

I used to hear professors brag about knowing each of their students\u2019 names, so I made it a priority to do the same. But now I don\u2019t think that\u2019s enough. Instead, I\u2019m asking the frat bros-future-businessmen and the honors-society-students-soon-to-be-doctors to get to know each other as peers and future colleagues. <\/p>\n

As I shuffle into class and try to remember if I capitalized my first pet\u2019s name as I log into the computer, I simply ask students to tell each other: What was the most challenging question on the homework? What did you do this weekend? And more importantly, what did you wish you did?<\/p>\n

At the end of class, I give five minutes for students to plan out when they\u2019re going to complete the homework, and then I have them talk to the person next to them about it. <\/p>\n

These conversations often lead to friendships formed over common struggles: Alex would love to do his English paper tonight but has to study for his bio test, and Professor Smith\u2019s exams are the worst. As luck has it, James is also in the lecture. \u201cMan, you\u2019re in the class too? Where do you sit? Professor Smith talks way too fast!\u201d <\/p>\n

Centering the importance of public speaking<\/h2>\n

Sure, in my writing-intensive classes we turn in term papers, they get grades, and yes, some students use AI. That\u2019s all fine and well, but that\u2019s not the important part. Instead, I\u2019m interested in students knowing the material well enough to articulate it to the group \u2013 well enough to tell us why the subject matters to them, to us and to the world at large. <\/p>\n

So we spend a week where students give a short 5-10 minute presentation on their work. \u201cTell us why fast fashion is destroying the planet. Tell me why we need to care more about the future of pork and factory farming practices.\u201d <\/p>\n

And for those brief moments of positive peer pressure as the students stand at the front of the class, it doesn\u2019t matter that ChatGPT helped with the commas, did the googling or even wrote the entire conclusion because \u201cI was just getting too tired.\u201d What matters is the students\u2019 ability to look a group of 20 peers in the eye and bring the private work of thinking, writing and sometimes even chatbot-prompting into the public sphere.<\/p>\n

The point isn\u2019t whether students used AI to compose the words; it\u2019s whether the ideas feel like they originate from the person behind the words. Whether they\u2019ve wrestled with them long enough to know what they\u2019re trying to say. If ChatGPT helped them get there, fine. What matters is what they did after. Did they question it? Did they revise it? Did they decide it wasn\u2019t quite right and try again? <\/p>\n

That\u2019s the work I care about. To me, it\u2019s the difference between turning something in and actually turning something over \u2014 in your mind, in your hands, to the people around you. That\u2019s what makes it real. What makes it theirs. What makes it college.<\/p>\n

Back in the classroom \u2026<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s week 12. I just sent my students off into a small-group discussion on \u201cthe value of adapting AI-augmented practices into your daily life.\u201d Five minutes go by. \u201cAll right, y’all, let\u2019s bring it back in.\u201d But no one stops talking. <\/p>\n

And in that small moment as I pull my phone out to play the Snapchat notification sound, Rizzlord soundtrack or whatever the sound meme of the day is to get their attention, I know I\u2019ve done my small part as an educator: teaching students how to be human again.<\/p>\n

Read more Texas proposes Bible readings for K\u201112 students, reigniting century\u2011old legal battle over their place in public\u00a0schools<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A writer instructor recognizes the role of AI on campus, while elevating social connection and humanity into the college experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[67,58,75,24,74,73,72,71],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-ai-and-education-spencer","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-higher-ed","tag-higher-education","tag-humanities","tag-students","tag-teaching","tag-university-students"],"yoast_head":"\nHow I rehumanize the college classroom for the AI\u2011augmented\u00a0age - Pro Relocation Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=22\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How I rehumanize the college classroom for the AI\u2011augmented\u00a0age - 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