What AI Can’t Do For Students—And What Colleges Must Do
What AI Can’t Do For Students—And What Colleges Must Do
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ai-t-students-colleges-must-165800512.html
Publish Date: 2026-04-28 12:58:00
Source Domain: uk.news.yahoo.com
Most students are using artificial intelligence (AI) every day. At the same time, many faculty are working to keep up, and colleges are still sorting through what counts as learning in this new environment. At the foundation of all the talk about AI is a fundamental question: If AI can do so much of the work we assign as faculty, what are we actually asking students to learn?
This question led me to reach out to Alex Chan, a business analytics professor at Molloy University and an expert in AI use in classrooms and beyond. For Chan, the central role of higher education is “empowerment.” But he is also clear that empowerment is not something that simply happens because students complete coursework. As he explained to me, using a metaphor, if you are training a boxer, “Getting them to run and hit a punching bag on a daily basis is an important component of the empowerment process. After a certain period, we can check how long it would take for them to run – say 5k – and how powerful their punches are – maybe measured in Newtons. That would be equivalent to measuring the effectiveness of the empowerment process through coursework. Of course, that would not be quite enough.” He added, “If we want to make them a good boxer, building up their confidence in fighting potential real-life opponents is also a critical factor. We should organize matches for them to fight in. How do we do that in the classroom?”
Alexander Chan, professor, Molloy University
Molloy University
Chan’s question is what many of us in faculty roles are thinking about today. AI can handle a lot of “training work,” such as drafting, summarizing, and even generating ideas. If the goal is merely to complete assignments, students will lean into AI. However, if the goal is empowerment, then our expectations have to shift in new directions.
Chan is already making changes in his courses. He is teaching his students to build with AI. As he relayed to me, “The empowerment comes from the hands-on…
