Ruth Benander
Professor,
University of Cincinnati
From Recycled Exams to Authentic Assessment: The Transformative Push of AI in Higher Education
Tuesday, October 28, 2025 | 4:30PM–5:15PM CT | EDUCAUSE Commons, Teaching & Learning Central, Poster Area
Session Type:
Poster Session
Delivery Format:
Poster
The rapid rise of AI has prompted an increased focus on cheating. Instructors frequently ban the use of AI tools while ironically using other AI tools to track student use. Innovators and early adopters of AI have already begun leveraging its strengths to create authentic assessments. Still, there is a significant gap between these technophiles and the majority. With the pace of AI growth, instructors must be supported in creating authentic assessments that account for the strengths of AI. This means applying real-world relevance and using multiple forms of evidence and personal experience for active student engagement in analysis, evaluation, and creation. However, these assessments require both an analysis of the course material and a change in student engagement. This is intellectual and emotional labor. Instructors also need support for the labor of folding AI into the learning process. Communities of practice speak to the need for support and the elevation of learning in a social context. In these settings, instructors can address their fears of cheating and changing deeply rooted academic tradition. Experienced instructors can create value through shared experiences and discipline-specific case studies, addressing the intellectual load while providing emotional ballast. These settings ultimately allow instructors to have agency, both as learners and educators, in driving and shaping the transformation of assessment in a rapidly evolving educational landscape.
