Connecticut College AI and the Liberal Arts Symposium: Full Schedule

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10:20am EDT

Beyond Summaries: Reclaiming Reading in an AI-mediated world

Saturday October 17, 2026 10:20am - 10:50am EDT

Global decline in reading motivation has coincided with educators assigning fewer whole books. Moreover, teaching reading has become challenging as AI offers automated-summaries, allowing students to skip deep reading. Drawing on research from the neuroscience of reading, this interactive session will address questions from both the instructors’ and students’ perspectives:What is the purpose of reading? If AI can summarize a text, what are the pedagogical implications for reading instruction?How is reading interconnected with writing and other multimodal ways of learning? What cognitive capacities are lost when reading becomes optional?What teaching practices in Liberal Arts colleges can be advantageous to make reading meaningful? Using concrete pedagogical approaches from Amherst, we will investigate how AI is reshaping students’ relationship with reading. These examples will help us together probe the ways that reading functions not an isolated skill but rather as a multimodal, social, and intellectually resilient experience.

Speakers

Jaya Kannan

Director of Technology for Curriculum and Research, Amherst College

Jaya Kannan is Director of Technology for Curriculum and Research at Amherst College, where she leads the Academic Technology Services unit. She holds a PhD in Computer Assisted Language Learning and her higher education background spans international teaching, faculty development... Read More →

Kristina Reardon

Amherst College

Saturday October 17, 2026 10:20am - 10:50am EDT
Shain Library Chu Room (First floor)

Teach the Room, Pedagogical Practice & The Human Element

Company Amherst College

Connecticut College AI and the Liberal Arts Symposium

10:20am EDT

Jaya Kannan

Kristina Reardon

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