Teaching in the GenAI Era:
Three Key Insights from The Missing Course
February 2026
Recommended by Scott Seagle, Educational Developer
First, adopt active learning strategies to create student investment in your course. Moving beyond lecture-centered teaching requires building a genuine partnership with students. Start by explaining the science behind active learning on day one to establish expectations for participation (Gooblar, pg. 22). While grades motivate students, the key to lasting engagement is helping them take ownership of their learning.
Gooblar, D. (2019). The missing course: everything they never taught you about college teaching. Harvard University Press.
- Leave portions of your syllabus open for student input on topics and assignments (Gooblar, pg. 54)
- Frame your syllabus as a compelling “sales pitch” that connects course content to students’ lives and pressing questions in the field
- Reduce your talk time during class and let students drive discussions
- Have students teach concepts to each other
Second, in your assessments, make your feedback work for your students. The distinction between summative assessment (measuring mastery) and formative assessment (guiding improvement) is crucial. Formative approaches allow students to learn from mistakes through repeated practice and targeted feedback, but only if that feedback is truly usable (Gooblar, pg.131).
Consider adopting these strategies:
- Review exams with students, focusing on commonly missed questions and offering follow-up quizzes on those concepts
- Try two-stage exams (also called pyramid exams or cooperative exams) where students first take a test individually, then immediately retake it in groups
- Share with students at the start of the term why you give feedback, how they’ll receive it, and what you expect them to do with it
- Utilize different types of feedback (peer feedback, support from online sources) and in varied formats (written, audio, in-person)
- Ensure feedback is frequent and directly tied to learning outcomes
The goal isn’t just to justify grades but to give students agency in improving their work.
Finally, emphasize process over product. This is increasingly important given the challenges we’re all experiencing with GenAI. Students learn by observing expert processes. As instructors, we need to make our own thinking visible.
Consider adopting these strategies:
- Demonstrate confidence in your course design and its relevance to students’ lives
- Embrace “modeling stupidity” by openly acknowledging knowledge gaps and mistakes, then show students how you work through difficult questions (Gooblar, pg. 160)
- Discuss scholarly work in class, revealing the processes that have shaped your expertise
- Teach not just disciplinary rules but their function and history, helping students understand the reasoning behind conventions
- Have students intentionally break rules or make mistakes, then analyze what went wrong. This metacognitive work helps them understand processes more deeply. Gooblar suggests making students break those rules because by “inviting students to write badly, or perform an experiment incorrectly, or botch an equation’s solution and then share their mistakes, we can get students to think about their processes of writing or performing experiments or solving equations. Once they start thinking about those processes, we can start helping them do them right” (Gooblar, pg. 176)
Constructivist teaching isn’t about abandoning content delivery; it’s about recognizing that disseminating information and helping students construct knowledge are two different objectives. By centering active learning, meaningful assessment, and visible expert processes, you can create learning experiences where students become genuine collaborators in their own education.
To access the full collection of teaching-related recommendations, visit CFC’s We Recommend.