At a time when artificial intelligence is changing the structure of education at the University and beyond, the Center for Teaching Excellence is a forerunner in helping University educators adapt to its advent. Through using a program like the Faculty AI Guides and promoting alternative grading methods in the classroom, CTE makes an attempt to further understand AI head-on.
Founded in 1990, CTE facilitates workshops, programs and educational materials that cater to the evolving landscape of academia. The mission of CTE rests on advancing the University’s teaching skills by “expanding equity-informed and inclusive teaching praxis; improving students' learning, engagement and sense of belonging; and increasing instructors' joy of teaching,” according to its website.
Among the several programs that CTE runs is Faculty AI Guides, a 2-year-old joint program created by CTE and the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost. The mission of this program is not only to educate faculty members about AI but also to empower them to decide what role AI should play in their classrooms and curricula. The 2025-26 cohort of the Faculty AI Guides comprised 27 professors from every school at the University, across a wide range of majors.
CTE Director and Prof. Michael Palmer said he believes that the Faculty AI Guides program expands upon the mission of CTE, as the comprehensive cohort of representatives ensures that the program can meet the needs of each discipline.
Educators who join the Faculty AI Guides undergo a year-long, monthly training program with other educators in their school organized by CTE. The training kicks off with a two-day retreat at the University, where participants learn about various strategies and tools that they can use in the classroom.
After completing their program training, new guides are expected to host two to four events — such as luncheons, book groups or one-on-one consultations — to engage with the colleagues in their departments in ways the CTE may not be able to facilitate outside of the Guides program.
“[Faculty AI Guides] are just more embedded and closer to the instructors who need help, but are maybe reluctant to reach out for whatever reason,” Palmer said.
For David Singerman, assistant professor of history and American Studies and faculty AI guide, the program was a key resource as he struggled to navigate AI’s emergence. To Singerman and many of his colleagues, updating their curricula, teaching styles and other educational tools to accommodate students' and the University's use of AI in the classroom seemed overwhelming.
“I would say most of the conversations that I had with my peers and colleagues here and elsewhere were basically ... about how we were going to deal with AI,” Singerman said.
Singerman had been participating in CTE programs for many years, and in the summer of 2024, Singerman applied to the Guides program to understand AI and find ways to connect it to his teaching.
Similarly, for Tessa Farmer, associate professor of anthropology and Global Studies, she said the teaching she has received through Faculty AI Guides has enabled her to engage in open conversations with her peers about how to incorporate or remove AI from their classrooms.
“There's a lot of confusion about what AI even is, and so I think that some kind of project to just cultivate a very basic collective understanding of what AI is and where to go for step one of information about it is … where I see [Administration] heading at U.Va.,” Farmer said. “And I think the Faculty Guides [are] a part of it.”
Farmer and Singerman are both part of the 2025-2026 group of Faculty AI Guides. For both, adapting to AI means determining which aspects of coursework involve their students interacting with AI. This could mean figuring out how to have students interact with AI effectively or removing classroom stresses that would cause students to use AI, according to Singerman.
“The AI Guides program has been good at helping me think about other ways to consider AI use in the classroom,” Singerman said. “Even if I don't use it, just to sort of think about it [and] integrate it into the kind of teaching I'm trying to do.”
According to Farmer, allowing the use of AI in her 1000-level and 2000-level classes is most beneficial when she allows her students to use AI to create their own exam cheat sheets, but prohibits use on assessments or assignments. Farmer said that her peers' assignments that do incorporate AI require multiple rounds of grading, requiring students to turn in drafts of physical papers and then giving feedback between each round of submissions. Farmer said she does not believe that this strategy would work in large classes.
According to Palmer, one of the main functions of CTE is helping instructors design courses. Through this function, they promote specifications grading. Differing from traditional grading in which students receive letter grades based on a specific score, specifications grading awards letter grades based on meeting “specifications” — a set of clearly defined criteria that pushes for a process-over-product system.
Alternative grading attempts to remove the stress that may come with traditional grading. Students are allowed the privilege of messing up without fearing major grade repercussions, discouraging them from using AI in pursuit of a certain grade.
Assoc. French Prof. Amy Ogden has attended numerous CTE-led workshops to enhance her teaching and guide her adjustment to the digital era. According to Ogden, grade-centric anxiety limits a student’s ability to fully absorb class material and get the most out of her classes. For Ogden, limiting technology use in the classroom, which often includes AI tools, and focusing on paper assignments, can help students focus on learning rather than grades.
“It's worth saying that making mistakes is how you learn,” Ogden said. “If students are policing themselves so that they don't make mistakes, there's a real problem.”
Palmer echoed Ogden’s concerns, and said that more universities should push for alternative grading methods as a means of discouraging students’ AI use on assignments or exams. In Palmer’s experience, students would often like to complete assignments without the aid of AI, but when seemingly insignificant tasks pile up, they may feel there is no other feasible option.
“If we can actually create a really effective learning environment that minimizes the impact of the grade, lowers the stakes of the grade, lowers the stress around the grade, lowers all the negative impacts of the grade, then students will focus on the learning and not be so worried about using AI because the grading system helps,” Palmer said.
To help students understand and appreciate a process-over-product learning journey, Ogden has also begun incorporating more paper assignments into her coursework, emphasizing the benefits of editing and revising one’s work to her students.
“Having students show their work along the way is a way of … encouraging mistakes and risk-taking so that students can push their ideas further and hopefully enjoy playing with them,” Ogden said.
Drawing on her own educational background in which she often wrote her drafts for class by hand and typed them up later, Ogden encouraged her French students to do the same. By having her students handwrite their essay drafts and then type them out in the final phase, she said she hopes they fully experience the learning process and avoid using AI to take shortcuts to a finished product.
“It's in that process of trying something, seeing what works and what doesn't, developing what works, cutting out what doesn't. [That’s how] we actually change the way we understand things, which is what learning is,” Ogden said.
For Palmer, this approach can help students come out stronger, smarter and more diligent in their studies. He said he believes it can also help educators ensure their students are understanding the contents of the class — whether AI has a role in that or not. By appreciating risk-taking and innovative thinking, students will be encouraged to apply their knowledge in creative ways beyond the classroom, according to Palmer.
“The whole [alternative grading] system is set to really foster growth, curiosity, risk, get lots of feedback and continue to get better,” Palmer said.
CTE and many educators across various fields are making efforts to advocate for alternative grading methods and greater education about the role of AI in the classroom. However, they believe that there is a ways to go before more educators move towards alternative grading. Nonetheless, CTE and the educators who engage with it aspire to a time when students will not feel defined by their grades, but by the work they put into their education.
“I have this dream that a brave university will completely get rid of grades,” Palmer said. “In fact, not just one university, but like all the top-tier universities, will just finally say ‘we're not doing grades.’”
Read More
To love in spite of fear
By Chase Coyte | 2 days agoBut what I realized — what my experience with her helped me realize — is that most decisions are made out of fear. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
The Alley Light leaves the light on
By Abby Snowdon | 6 days agoBy design, The Alley Light isn’t just something you stumble upon — finding it is as deeply intentional as every single detail inside of the restaurant itself.
McIntire students navigate finance recruiting between new and old programs
By Malaika Rehman | July 7, 2026In a process dominated by high-stakes competition, constant networking and intense technical preparation, students across both McIntire programs emphasized a common theme — while access to resources matters, initiative matters more.
