Connecticut College AI and the Liberal Arts Symposium: Full Schedule

arrow_back View All Dates

1:00pm EDT

The Design Problem of AI Literacy: Teaching Thinking When Answers Are Instant

Friday October 16, 2026 1:00pm - 1:30pm EDT

In AI-rich classrooms, answers often arrive before questions. This creates a central paradox for liberal arts education: tools that promise intellectual support can also short-circuit the uncertainty and iteration through which thinking develops. This session reframes AI literacy as the ability to structure and sustain inquiry when answers are instantly available. Participants will examine how common assignment designs invite premature closure and will practice redesigning them using three strategies: staging tasks to delay answer-generation, requiring student reasoning before feedback, and separating composing from evaluation. Attendees will leave with adaptable frameworks for designing assignments that preserve critical thinking across disciplines, even when AI systems can generate polished responses on demand.

Speakers

Benjamin Breyer

Senior Lecturer, Barnard College

Benjamin Breyer is Senior Lecturer in English at Barnard College, where he teaches First-Year Writing and directs research on AI-mediated learning and rhetorical scaffolds in the liberal arts. His work focuses on designing writing instruction that reinforces critical reading, interpretive... Read More →

Friday October 16, 2026 1:00pm - 1:30pm EDT
Blaustein 210

Teach the Room, Pedagogical Practice & The Human Element

Company Barnard College

1:30pm EDT

Is this AI?: Fostering Critical AI Media Literacy

Friday October 16, 2026 1:30pm - 2:00pm EDT

Blaustein 210

"Is this AI?" is a question vexing even the most media-savvy users today, as synthetic images and videos grow exponentially more convincing, with widespread circulation. But are there reliable "tells" and transferable frameworks for critical AI media literacy, even in this rapidly shifting landscape? This interactive presentation invites participants to examine a curated selection of images and videos and discuss: Is this AI? How do you know? Rather than offering easy answers, this session will use guided exercises and discussion to consider critical media AI literacy, inviting participants to think about visual artifacts & physics (is the hair texture right?); anatomy & proportions (are the joints strangely elongated?); and context & coherence (what is the file provenance or source?). Along the way, participants will consider deeper questions of authenticity, consent, and responsibility in an era of increasingly convincing synthetic media, and how critical AI media literacy has relevance in a liberal arts curriculum.

Speakers

Melanie Hibbert

Friday October 16, 2026 1:30pm - 2:00pm EDT
Blaustein 210

Teach the Room, Pedagogical Practice & The Human Element

Company Barnard College, Columbia University

3:25pm EDT

From Shortcut to Thought Partner: Training Liberal Arts Students to Collaborate With AI

Friday October 16, 2026 3:25pm - 3:55pm EDT

Blaustein 210

This session introduces Colgate University’s Innovation Fellows and their use of AI, and its evolution into a new undergraduate consulting program that pairs human-centered design (Design Thinking) with intentional, responsible AI use to solve real campus problems. Rather than viewing AI as a shortcut, this program trains liberal arts students to leverage it as an active collaborative thought partner for synthesizing research, stress-testing prototypes, and generating ideas.The session highlights their inaugural pilot success: a partnership with Colgate’s ITS Service Desk to rethink and revise intern training. Using empathy-gathering interviews, observations, and surveys, as well as a design sprint, the student team produced a training program that includes AI-generated instructional content, a role-playing simulation game, and a skills progression rubric. The proposal was accepted by ITS for implementation beginning summer 2026. Presenters will detail the program's design, AI learning outcomes, and pilot results, while examining why liberal arts institutions are uniquely positioned to model this work.

Speakers

Karen Harpp

Professor, Colgate University

Ahmad Khazaee

Director of creative technologies, engagement and support, Colgate University

Ahmad is currently the director of creative Technologies, Engagement and Support. With previous roles in student support, instructional support, and desktop administration he is able to leverage a variety of perspectives when approaching new problems.

Friday October 16, 2026 3:25pm - 3:55pm EDT
Blaustein 210

Teach the Room, AI, the Liberal Arts, and the Future of Work

Company Colgate University

3:55pm EDT

Cultivating Judgment Through Guided Experience: A Human-Centered Approach to AI Literacy

Friday October 16, 2026 3:55pm - 4:25pm EDT

Blaustein 210

This session proposes how to define and teach “AI literacy” in liberal arts classrooms for the increasingly AI-integrated world. Unguided AI use does not automatically produce literacy; instructions focused solely on a technical capacity will become outdated at every major model change. Instead, AI literacy must be captured as a disposition, or a durable habit of the mind, that emphasizes the value of human judgment in ever-changing technological landscape. The pedagogical task is to cultivate this disposition through intentional hands-on engagement that turns AI use into an object of guided critical inquiry: observing, iterating, and evaluating human-AI interaction and developing sound judgment for responsible human-AI collaboration. Participants will experience a short AI literacy activity that reveals a commonly held misconception about AI and debrief how guided encounters can help students examine AI behavior, their own assumptions, and the ethical choices involved in learning with AI.

Speakers

Sawa Kurotani

Professor, University of Redlands

Friday October 16, 2026 3:55pm - 4:25pm EDT
Blaustein 210

Teach the Room, Pedagogical Practice & The Human Element

Company University of Redlands

Connecticut College AI and the Liberal Arts Symposium

1:00pm EDT

Benjamin Breyer

1:30pm EDT

Melanie Hibbert

3:25pm EDT

Karen Harpp

Ahmad Khazaee

3:55pm EDT

Sawa Kurotani

Get help with the event