Dear Colleagues,
I am excited to announce a call for chapter proposals for the upcoming edited collection The Messy Middle of Teaching & Generative AI: How We Know Students are Learning When Teachers Use—or Refuse—AI. This collection, co-edited with Travis N. Thurston, will be published as an open-access book through Utah State University. Chapter proposals of 500-800 words are due Monday, Dec. 14th.
For more details, please read the CFP below. For further information, including starting questions and possible resources, please visit beth.buyserie. ~ Beth Buyserie, Director of Composition, Utah State University
Call for Chapter Proposals
In 2024, Teaching and Generative AI: Pedagogical Possibilities and Productive Tensions brought together instructors, librarians, instructional designers, and other higher education practitioners to examine the opportunities, limitations, and ethical questions surrounding generative AI. Rather than simply praising or rejecting AI, the collection offered practical resources grounded in the varied ways instructors were responding to a changing teaching environment. This new volume builds on that work by returning to the productive tensions of teaching with, around, and sometimes without generative AI.
The central question of this volume is straightforward but increasingly difficult to answer: How do we know students are learning? The messy middle is the ongoing work of navigating how both student and instructor uses of AI reshape teaching and learning: what to preserve, what to redesign, where AI may support learning, and where it may displace essential thinking, motivation, judgment, or human interaction.
We welcome chapter proposals from instructors and other higher education practitioners who use AI, establish intentional limits, or decline to use it when refusal better serves their values and learning outcomes. Chapters should grow from actual teaching, course design, library practice, instructional support, or faculty development and should offer insights that readers can adapt in their own settings.
For this collection, teaching inquiry includes formal research, classroom assessment, practitioner inquiry, critical reflection, and other evidence-informed examinations of teaching and student learning.
We invite proposals for three related types of chapters of 500-800 words. Proposals are due Monday, December 14th by 11:59pm Mountain Time. The proposal submission button is at the online Call for Proposals (under “Submit a Chapter Proposal”).
Accepted chapters are expected to be 3,000–5,000 words, excluding references, and may range in style from academic to narrative. We offer three options for chapter formats to encourage a wide range of pedagogical scholarship:
- Option 1: Evidence-Based Study or Assessment of Student Learning
- Option 2: Practitioner Inquiry, Critical Narrative, or Practice-Based Case
- Option 3: Blended Contribution
Discipline-specific experiences are encouraged, but chapters should explain what instructors and practitioners in other fields or institutional settings might learn or adapt.
Editorial Commitments
Travis and I are committed to a collaborative and respectful editorial process. We’ll provide constructive feedback and mentorship to proposers and authors at all stages of the process. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at beth.buyserie.
Thanks,
Beth
Beth Buyserie
Director of Composition
Associate Professor
Department of English
Utah State University
FL 201B