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Georgann Cope Watson, Yorkville University, CanadaAbstract
This paper reports on a Self-Study of Teacher Educator Practices (S-STEP) examining how rapidly evolving institutional policies and guidelines for generative artificial intelligence (AI) have influenced my teaching and assessment practices in online, asynchronous, graduate level courses with standardized, pre-developed curricula across multiple institutions in three Canadian institutions. The central research question guiding this inquiry is: How has the development of policy around AI use in academic courses impacted my practice of teaching and assessment? Findings indicate that (1) policy ambiguity has operated as a productive catalyst for reflective pedagogical change; (2) policy discourse has reoriented assessment away from product-focused evaluation toward process-oriented design foregrounding transparency and student voice; (3) policy evolution has legitimated deliberate, ethical educator use of AI for planning and formative learning support; and (4) policy gaps have expanded the educator’s role as an ethical guide and designer of AI-integrated learning environments. The study draws on institutional documents, course artifacts, reflexive journaling, and critical-friend dialogue, analyzed through iterative thematic coding and triangulation. The findings suggest that policy acts less as prescriptive instruction and more as a stimulus for inquiry-led redesign, leaving substantial interpretive responsibility at the instructor level. Implications include the need to embed AI literacy, articulate course-level AI permissions and disclosure expectations, protect student data privacy by prohibiting uploads to public large language models, and align assessment with authentic processes in asynchronous, pre-developed curriculum contexts. The paper concludes with next steps for deepening the S-STEP, attending to socio-cultural considerations (including Indigenous education and international student experiences), and monitoring policy developments that shape faculty autonomy and ethical practice.
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Conference: IICE2026Stream: Teaching Experiences
This paper is part of the IICE2026 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Watson G. (2026) Teaching on Shifting Ground: A Self-Study of AI Policy, Practice, and Online Graduate Education ISSN: 2189-1036 – The IAFOR International Conference on Education – Hawaii 2026 Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 401-408) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-1036.2026.36
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-1036.2026.36
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