Exploring the AI Grief Cycle: Finding a Path Forward for Faculty
In the past few years, GenAI has been profoundly disruptive in higher education, and in conjunction with COVID’s impact, nearly every aspect of our jobs has changed. Many faculty find themselves reeling, and a close examination makes clear that many of us are stuck in different phases of the DABDA grief cycle (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance). In this workshop we’ll explore the nuances of how AI has brought this on, name and describe what we’re feeling, and ultimately work on finding practical solutions for moving through this and retaking our classrooms, both for our students’ sake and our own sanity.
You can check out this episode of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast where Chris is a guest, and he shares a little about this topic plus the work he does with students navigating the evolution of gen AI in the classroom.
Facilitator:
Christopher Ostro is an Assistant Teaching Professor for the Division of Continuing Education at the University of Colorado, Boulder, teaching Writing and Rhetoric courses; in addition, he is a 50 percent course designer with the Learning Design Group at the University of Colorado. In this role he designs talks and trainings for faculty that are informed by recent, relevant in-the-classroom experience. His research interests include artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom, AI detection, the impact of COVID-19 on higher-education students, and political radicalization.
Modality:
On Zoom. Look up the link on this list of AI Symposium Zoom links (Highline login required)
About the 2026 AI Symposium workshop series:
2026 AI Symposium workshop sessions take place throughout Spring Quarter. Click here to view other workshops in the series.
