Instruction by Proxy? Pedagogical Design, Faculty Agency, and the Uneven Work of Teaching with AI

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 11:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Examination of AI's Role in Education

Abstract

Across a Latin American public university and a U.S. private university, faculty and students are navigating both a shift in tools and a shift in what counts as teaching. Drawing on interviews, classroom observations, and course artifacts, we examine how generative AI has entered these settings not as a neutral support, but as a proxy for deeper pedagogical tensions: between automation and authorship, efficiency and equity, control and trust. While dominant narratives emphasize innovation, our findings suggest that integration depends less on access or fluency than on the moral and relational labor behind instructional design. This study contributes to ongoing debates about AI in education by foregrounding teacher agency, local conditions, and the uneven labor of technological adaptation.

Authors

• Jorge Martinez Cortes, Universidad Veracruzana

• Emmy Min, University of Southern California

• Jenifer Crawford, University of Southern California

• Isai Ali Guevara Bazan, Universidad Veracruzana

• Corinne Hyde, University of Southern California

• Ekaterina Moore, University of Southern California

• Robert A. Filback, University of Southern California