News of the Week (February 20, 2026)
Teaching and Learning
Belonging by Design: An Asset-Based Approach to Inclusive Learning (Andrea Crenshaw and Natasha Ramsay-Jordan, Faculty Focus, Feb. 16, 2026). To improve the sense of classroom belonging, Crenshaw and Ramsay-Jordan recommend viewing students’ cultural backgrounds as assets and offer strategies for learning about them and connecting them to a course.
29 High-Impact Formative Assessment Strategies (Paige Tutt, Edutopia, Jan. 30, 2026). Tutt describes a wide variety of formative assessments and provides links to resources and testimonials from the teachers who use them.
How to Turn Vulnerability into a Teaching Superpower (Marissa Edwards and Eliza Compton, Times Higher Education, Jan. 15, 2026). Edwards and Compton discuss how educators can be open and authentic while protecting their own boundaries and work-life balance.
Tech-ish
Can an AI Tool Help Students Disagree Better? (Aisha Baiocchi, Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan. 30, 2026). Biocchi presents a case study of a sociology professor using a chat platform called Sway to structure anonymous conversations between students about hot button issues.
SIFT + AI for Fact-Checking: What I Learned Testing a Claim About Nursing Pay (Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed, Feb. 8, 2026). Stachowiak uses a specific claim as a test case for comparing Caufield’s SIFT framework for fact checking with a new AI assisted approach.
AI Belongs in Every Classroom: Why We Need Cross-Disciplinary AI Literacy (Karamatu Abdul Malik, Faculty Focus, Feb. 11, 2026). Malik lays out 6 approaches for integrating AI into the classroom, varying by amount of preparation and level of impact.
Tid-bits
The Research on Protecting Teacher Well-Being (Laurie Santos and Paige Tutt, Edutopia, Jan. 30, 2026). Santos and Tutt discuss several practices drawn from positive psychology research to help teachers regain a sense of balance in their lives and share healthy attitudes with their students.
Assessment Is Ruining Teaching (Andrew Davinack, Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 13, 2026). Davinack advocates a turn from assessments based on standardized benchmarks to more responsive evaluations that take into account the nonlinear nature of learning and the value of professors’ disciplinary experience.
To Solve the Student-Attention Problem, Professors Turn to Pencils and Paper (Sophia Bailly, Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 10, 2026). Bailly details the efforts of several professors to combat declines in student attention with no-tech and low-tech approaches to reading, note-taking, and assessment.
You’re Invited: GLCA CTL Event: Guiding Growth with AI: Building Independent, Persistent Learners
Join us March 3, 2026 for Guiding Growth with AI: Building Independent, Persistent Learners with Todd Zakrajsek (UNC at Chapel Hill) and Lew Ludwig (Denison University).
Generative AI is grabbing headlines, committee time, and a lot of faculty brain space. To be fair, it is pretty shiny. But if we chase features before foundations, we’ll end up with more AI and less learning. This webinar is about putting learning science back in the driver’s seat, using AI to support the learning journey, not run over it.
Drawing from Chapter 8 (Guiding the Journey from Novice to Expert) and Chapter 10 (Developing Persistent Learners) of their upcoming book, The Science of Learning Meets AI (Routledge), Zakrajsek and Ludwig will focus on how AI can assist with two problems faculty have long faced:
(1) how to give students just enough support to move forward without making them dependent, and
(2) how to help them persist when learning gets difficult.
You will leave with classroom-ready language, prompts, and design moves (no course overhaul required). AI is undoubtedly a powerful tool, but it will facilitate learning only to the extent that teaching structures students to become more independent and more persistent learners.
Register HERE for this virtual event on Tuesday, March 3 at Noon EST. A link and calendar invite will be sent the day before the event. Can’t join Tuesday? Register anyway – the recorded session will be emailed to registrants.