"Teaching Critical AI Literacies: A Cross-Disciplinary Conversation"
Michael Neal
Department of English,
Florida State University (FSU)
Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025
- Nespresso & Teatime - 417 DSL Commons
- 03:00 to 03:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
- Colloquium - 499 DSL Seminar Room
- 03:30 to 04:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Click Here to Join via Zoom
Meeting # 942 7359 5552
Zoom Meeting # 942 7359 5552
Abstract:
As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into all facets of education, faculty across the disciplines are grappling with questions about how AI tools impact student learning and development. This presentation, from the perspective of a faculty member in the humanities, addresses anxieties that have driven initial resistance to AI adoption on my side of campus, but I want to emphasize the pedagogical opportunities and collaborations that I see emerging when we focus on critical AI literacies within our pedagogies.
Concerns about AI from the humanities tend to reflect fears about AI undermining learning and cognitive development, de-humanizing creative practices, and weakening intellectual agency. Recent studies suggest that students may experience reduced cognitive engagement when composing with AI assistance, raising questions about how to scaffold engaged learning experiences into our work with AI. As such, I argue that regardless of discipline, we should all be working together toward helping students develop critical AI literacies so that they can engage productively and reflectively with these new technologies.
Moving beyond simplistic frameworks that equate AI use with academic dishonesty, I’ll present an approach that distinguishes between AI uses that enhance and those that undermine teaching and learning. The focus of this presentation will be designing intellectually rich, pedagogically sound AI strategies that support rather than replace critical thinking, human experience, ethical decision-making, and creative expression. Such an approach demands moving from blanket institutional policies toward discipline-, course-, and assignment-specific guidelines that explicitly connect AI use to learning outcomes.
This talk aims to foster dialogue between the humanities and computing with the belief that effective AI integration into educational settings requires both technical expertise and humanistic insights into embodied human learning.