Exploring the Impact of AI on Educators and Syllabus Policies

Abstract

In this study, we examined the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in higher education, supplemented by a survey on middle school teachers’ perspectives. Over the past few years, AI has become increasingly common in the classroom and has sparked conversation about its harms and benefits. We analyzed university course syllabi from the University of Maryland spanning Fall 2022 to Fall 2025, which showed a clear trend towards allowing the usage of AI in the classroom, especially by students training to be future educators. Across our dataset, a requirement to cite AI usage was the most popular restriction on AI usage, indicating educators are increasingly willing to allow AI as long as its use is transparent. Adoption is not consistent across disciplines, with the humanities and education representing the highest observed adoption, and business and engineering representing the least adoption. Additionally, we performed a supplemental study, surveying middle school teachers and their opinions on AI in the classroom, where we explored educators’ perceptions of AI and their willingness to adopt it in the classroom. Our survey results show that educators still are not sure of the potential use cases of AI in the classroom, but are encouraged by the possibility of reducing the workload. Future work should survey more instructors across more disciplines to get a more widespread opinion on AI in the classroom.