Educational Guidance in an AI Age
I’ve been an associate faculty with College of the Redwoods Adult & Community Education for 11 years, 10 of which with much of my time teaching at Humboldt County Correctional Facility (HCCF) in Eureka.
HCCF classes are old-school: pencil and paper. Our HCCF students do not have access to the internet. Discussions are a centerpiece of all of my classes, and the more questions and ideas shared, the more we all learn.
However, internet use and social media, as well as the rapidly developing role of artificial intelligence, are not foreign topics in my classroom. What I remind my students — and often myself — is that AI is not an alien that has surfaced from an unknown place. AI is people. (OK, intentionally referencing the sci-fi film “Soylent Green.”)
“Disturbingly self-aware? Maybe. But also an illusion.” Ethan Mollick makes this statement in his book, “Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI” (2024), in which he examines AI’s good and bad potential. I was part of a CR book club that read and discussed this book.
Humans are AI’s teachers. Let’s not forget that. AI is a tool we created, and the way it helps us is by learning from us. In the interest of efficiency (and that’s what we want, yes?), it models, analyzes and predicts.
Among the places AI now plays an undeniably sizable role is within educational institutions.
During the 2025-26 academic year, CR formed an AI Task Force that, in collaboration with the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Research, administered a collegewide AI Use/Needs Survey and also conducted interviews with Student Services employees. An AI Ad Hoc Committee was then created to develop districtwide guidance and recommendations. The committee has released its “Artificial Intelligence Guidance Report: Principles, Recommendations, and Proposed Institutional Guidance.”
A key word in the title and the report’s content is “guidance,” not policy, because the purpose is to be a guide through establishment of shared expectations and to move forward with an approach where the college adapts to the fact that AI technology is changing and doing so quickly.
I asked CR President/Superintendent Dr. Keith Flamer to comment about how CR has chosen to address AI.
“We know that artificial intelligence is dramatically reshaping the workforce. We also know that as technology changes public and private sector jobs, our curriculum must keep pace,” he said. “College of the Redwoods must answer two basic questions. First, what should students know about artificial intelligence by the time they leave CR? Second, how can community colleges, which are designed to move slowly and deliberately, keep pace with the fast-evolving technology?”
“Higher education institutions are not set up to rapidly respond to changes,” Flamer said. “For example, changes in curriculum require a lot of time to work through, as do changes in administrative operations. That’s to protect what institutions see as their core functions from the influence of a current fad or trend.”
Wendy Butler is a teacher and radio producer/host who lives in Eureka.
