Faculty Led by Crystal Brown Publish Paper on a Framework for Teaching with and About AI

During the 2025–26 academic year, our Faculty Learning Community (FLC), funded by the Morgan Teaching and Learning Center, brought together faculty from across economics, political science, engineering, computer science, business, development, and geography to examine how artificial intelligence is reshaping undergraduate teaching and learning. The FLC focused on developing critical AI literacy, promoting ethical and responsible engagement with AI, exploring interdisciplinary teaching strategies, and preparing students to enter an increasingly AI-infused workforce. 

One of the key outcomes of the FLC was a collaborative paper, “Teaching with (and About) AI: A Convergence-Divergence Framework for Engineering Education.” The paper was accepted for presentation at the 2026 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference & Exposition in Charlotte, N.C. Building on that work, the faculty further developed the paper for publication in Systems journal. 

The paper introduces an interdisciplinary “convergence–divergence” framework for AI education. The framework recognizes that students across disciplines need a shared set of competencies—including AI literacy, ethical awareness, and an understanding of governance—while also recognizing that the ways students engage with and apply AI will differ across disciplines. The work draws on perspectives from engineering, computer science, economics, political science, development, geography, and business to consider what students should commonly understand about AI and what AI education should look like within different disciplinary contexts. 

Crystal Brown, assistant professor and associate department head of Social Science and Policy Studies (SSPS) was the lead researcher on the project. Co-authors were Patricia Agupusi, SSPS assistant professor; Stephen McCauley, associate professor of teaching and head of the Department of Integrative and Global Studies; Raha Moraffah, assistant professor, Department of Computer Science; Oleg Pavlov, SSPS professor; Daniel Treku, assistant teaching professor, The Business School; and former WPI faculty member Shams Bhada, systems engineer at MITRE Corp.