Reacting or Responding: The Impact of AI on the Delivery of Leisure-Related Courses

Institutions of higher education are wrestling with developing comprehensive Artificial Intelligence (AI) policies while instructors are taking hard lines in support or opposition to the use of generative AI platforms by students. While generative AI might be fairly new, this reactive approach to dealing with emerging technology in the classroom (i.e. PowerPoint, laptops, mobile devices) is not. With each new development in technology, institutions and instructors have found themselves reacting rather than responding to potential changes in the classroom. As we navigate the integration of the latest technology into the learning process and classroom environment, the authors believe a thoughtful response to generative AI platforms starts with a reflection on philosophy of teaching. An intentionally developed philosophy of teaching can serve as a guide for effectively designing course policy, content delivery, student engagement and assessment in a way that isn’t reactionary to new or emerging phenomena. It pushes an instructor beyond teaching styles and technology policies to consider the foundations of what they believe about learning and teaching and why they believe it. A reactionary approach forces the instructor to ask, what should I do about AI? An established teaching philosophy allows us to question; how can AI complement or detract from my beliefs about teaching and learning?. By reflecting on our teaching and learning beliefs, we can develop a more thoughtful response to generative AI in the classroom. This manuscript will provide a series of reflective questions we should be asking ourselves and explore how our answers to these questions might shape our perspectives on and use of generative AI in the pedagogical process. Our response to these questions, as instructors, can serve as a starting point for being more reflective about how we respond to generative AI platforms based on both our philosophy of teaching and the learning objectives we have for our students.