{"id":503593,"date":"2026-10-22T01:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T01:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/503593\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T01:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T01:34:14","slug":"fresno-state-faculty-integrates-ai-into-curriculum-while-addressing-its-limitations-fresno-state-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/503593\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresno State faculty integrates AI into curriculum while addressing its limitations \u2013 Fresno State Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faculty throughout Fresno State are incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning into their courses, but they\u2019re realistic about AI\u2019s limitations and concerned about AI\u2019s effects on education.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.Dr. Alex Liu, chair of the Department of Computer Science<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as we prepare our students to have critical thinking and problem-solving skills, I believe students will be able to work with AI and be even more productive,\u201d said Dr. Alex Liu, chair of the Department of Computer Science<\/a>. \u201cAI can do a lot of things, but it\u2019s not powerful enough to analyze complex problems, and it still requires humans in the loop for verification and judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI and machine learning are central in the curricula of the departments of Computer Science, Information Systems and Decision Sciences<\/a> and Electrical and Computer Engineering<\/a>, and faculty in education, business, agriculture and health are including the use of AI technologies in their courses as well. The Division of Continuing and Global Education<\/a> offers community members nine professional training courses in AI.<\/p>\n

The Department of Computer Science has seven faculty teaching and researching in AI-related fields, seven AI courses and 14 courses that apply AI tools to the curriculum. The department also offers an AI minor and two AI certificates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working to not just prepare computer science students to meet workforce demands in AI, but also to prepare the entire university,\u201d Liu said. \u201cWe are going to cover AI literacy and AI tools in our general education courses to prepare all majors to be AI competent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t believe the AI hype, faculty say<\/p>\n

Faculty say students need to clearly understand AI\u2019s limitations in order to work with AI effectively.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.Dr. Zareef Mohammed, Department of Information Systems and Decision Sciences<\/p>\n

\u201cAI does not think. It cannot think,\u201d said Dr. Zareef Mohammed, an assistant professor in the Department of Information Systems and Decision Sciences at the Craig School of Business<\/a>. \u201cAI takes pre-existing data and predicts the next plausible word or outcome. If you ask ChatGPT, \u2018give me a plan to be productive at work today,\u2019 it draws data from information you have provided and planning techniques it finds on the internet. With all of that data, it is going to use predictive modeling, not thinking, to see the likeliest probability of plans. But it is all simply numbers being crunched to give you probability-based values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite popular fears of runaway AI and robot takeovers, faculty say that AI should be evaluated as an ordinary technology.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.Dr. David Ruby, Department of Computer Science<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first myth I would debunk is the idea that AI is going to learn to code itself, that it\u2019s going to have a rapid recursive process that generates a superintelligence that we\u2019re unable to handle,\u201d said Dr. David Ruby, a computer science lecturer. \u201cWe can optimize with a recursive process, but we tend to get diminishing returns, not explosive returns. There are issues we need to be concerned about, but I put them more in the industrial safety category. Whenever you use a new technology, there are inherent risks that the technology doesn\u2019t work the way you expect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faculty were also skeptical of predictions that AI will cause widespread job losses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel too much worry about job elimination,\u201d Liu said. \u201cJob positions will be oriented toward working with AI to save time on routine work, and human effort will be dedicated to things that AI cannot do, like complex judgment, human verification, mentoring and communication.\u201d<\/p>\n

Redesigning curriculum for the AI age<\/p>\n

The immediate challenge that AI poses for educators is evaluating student learning when AI tools can easily produce written text. In response, faculty are developing different assessments and cultivating student skills that AI can\u2019t replicate.<\/p>\n

\"JasonJason McGensy, Office of IDEAS<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are tools that can produce work at the quality, or even better sometimes, of what students have traditionally produced,\u201d said Jason McGensy, an instructional designer with the Office of IDEAS<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen oral exams come back; we\u2019re seeing blue books come back and more in-class writing. We see some faculty who want to AI-proof their assignments and others who are looking at how to integrate AI so that students learn how to use AI and interpret the outputs they get from AI, while still having the knowledge and critical thinking skills we want students to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Christian Wandeler, who teaches statistics and educational research in the Kremen School of Education and Human Development<\/a>, recommends faculty embrace an approach he calls \u201cintegrity by design.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dr.Dr. Christian Wandeler, Kremen School of Education<\/p>\n

\u201cIntegrity by design is when you set up the assignment so that it\u2019s hard to not have integrity,\u201d Wandeler said. \u201cFor example, asking students to give their personal feedback or incorporate their own lived experiences. Think about your tests and assignments. If the assignment can be done by AI, think about how you can develop it where AI can\u2019t simply do it for the student.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wandeler added that teaching students how to use AI is more critical than policing AI use.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t assume that students know how to use AI,\u201d Wandeler said. \u201cSome are very good at it, and some don\u2019t know how to do it. I teach students \u2018here\u2019s how we can use AI, here is where you\u2019ve got to be careful, here is where AI can go wrong.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

McGensy said the Office of IDEAS provides resources for faculty to make deliberate choices about how AI should be used in their courses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had over 300 faculty participate in Office of IDEAS AI workshops,\u201d McGensy said. \u201cWe provide a space for the conversations faculty want to have on integrating AI and maintaining academic integrity. We don\u2019t try to push anything on anybody. We provide faculty with the options that are available and ways to think about what would work best for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Office<\/p>\n

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\"Office<\/p>\n

Computer science professor Dr. Thanos Panagopoulos said the challenge for students in the AI age is developing the intrinsic motivation to master course material and finding ways to use AI to augment, not replace, academic skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cMotivating students is the most important thing in education. Eighty percent of the work is getting students ready to learn,\u201d Panagopoulos said. \u201cThere is the argument of brain rot, that you\u2019re losing skills by substituting AI. But this is missing that you unlock higher-order skills and liberate time by automating the most redundant tasks. Motivation is more important than structuring the pedagogical process perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Computer science: teaching broad principles to future-proof education<\/p>\n

Ruby, who teaches artificial intelligence programming and deep learning for undergraduate and graduate courses, said the computer science department teaches AI fundamentals to better equip students for a rapidly changing industry.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.Dr. Thanos Panagopoulos, Department of Computer Science<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to rapidly accommodate the demands of industry, academia and students,\u201d Ruby said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to provide students with a deeper understanding of the space AI occupies. We want them to be familiar with tools, but to recognize that those tools are changing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruby said both faculty and students need to discern how to use AI creatively and appropriately.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a uniform decision in the department on the best integrated approach,\u201d Ruby said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t forced students into a particular configuration, but we do support a variety of tools. We teach how to use AI to facilitate coding. AI can do a lot of things, and there are a variety of choices for how you want to integrate AI into your coding process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panagopoulos, who has written a book on AI, \u201cRage Against the Autonomous Machine,\u201d said computer science students should also consider the social effects of AI. He is designing a general education course on the social aspects of AI that he hopes to launch in spring 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if students want to follow a very technical career, students need to understand the societal aspects of the technology,\u201d Panagopoulos said. \u201cWhen AI is in the right hands, it can be used to liberate humans from repetitive and boring jobs. AI is the basis of a new form of production, and this means that the way society functions is evolving based on AI. Who controls AI and whose interest AI is serving becomes crucial, because that dictates how society evolves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Faculty throughout Fresno State are incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning into their courses, but they\u2019re realistic about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-503593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}