Article
By Allison Westgate
Partner Success Manager @ Collage AI
The Usage Gap
Faculty first, tools second
63%
This hesitancy collides with rising student expectations. Students are increasingly looking to their institutions to prepare them for an AI-reshaped workforce, yet there is a clear misalignment in how readiness is defined: while administrators and faculty often emphasize general professional skills, students define readiness through tangible, real-world applications. The Tyton Partners data reveals that while 63% of faculty claim they assign real-world projects, only 26% of students report actually completing one. Students expect higher education to explicitly model how AI will be used in their future careers.
Bridging the gap between AI’s potential and its practical application in the classroom, requires professional development (PD) that is highly intentional; one-off workshops and generic webinars are insufficient for a technology that fundamentally shifts pedagogical paradigms. Effective AI professional development instead rests on a few core principles. Because faculty possess varying levels of technological readiness, PD must offer tiered learning paths: from introductory AI basics to intermediate teaching applications, up through advanced assessment redesign delivered through varied formats such as self-paced modules, 1:1 consultations, and comprehensive toolkits that accommodate diverse schedules and learning styles, as noted by Every Learner Everywhere’s 10 Best Practices for Generative AI Faculty Development. Before asking faculty to deploy AI in high-stakes grading or curriculum design, they also need safe environments to experiment: hands-on exploration in low-stakes “AI playgrounds” builds confidence and demystifies the technology.
In Practice
What effective support looks like
Ed-tech companies are uniquely positioned to put these principles into practice and ease the transition for higher education institutions, provided they act as partners rather than mere vendors. At Collage, a Public Benefit Corporation, we believe that AI should serve to amplify human-centered teaching, and we address faculty development not just as an add-on, but as a core component embedded both within our platform and through the customized live professional development we offer to our partner institutions.
That commitment starts with the platform itself. Generic AI tools operate outside the pedagogical structure of higher education, leaving faculty to figure out how to integrate them on their own, so Collage AI is designed around the daily workflows of faculty instead. By seamlessly connecting to existing course materials, it builds the pedagogical structures of a course automatically, giving faculty just-in-time guidance on how to use AI to design smarter without a steep learning curve.
The platform also continuously models best practices in teaching, learning, and assessment. It empowers faculty to easily create active learning environments, supporting instructor-defined assessments in multiple formats, and as faculty use the platform, they are guided on how to assess their impact and leverage AI to provide adaptive feedback, giving them better visibility into student progress. And because professional development is hindered when faculty have to learn entirely new, disconnected systems, Collage simplifies the adoption process through LMS integration, ensuring that AI-powered teaching feels like a natural extension of the tools faculty already use and reducing cognitive load and administrative friction.
Beyond the intuitive design of the platform itself, Collage also provides tailored, live support to ensure institutions successfully navigate the AI transition. Rather than simply handing over software, we partner with institutions during the pilot phase to provide customized live professional development, helping faculty understand how to best leverage the platform for their specific disciplines and learning goals.
The Takeaway
Ultimately, AI offers higher education a profound opportunity to rethink teaching and learning. However, this transformation will not be driven by the software itself; it will be driven by the faculty who wield it. By investing in scaffolded professional development and by partnering with mission-driven platforms like Collage that prioritize faculty expertise, institutions can empower educators to confidently navigate this new landscape. When we value faculty expertise and equip them with the right resources, we ensure that AI serves to reignite and enhance the human core of higher education, rather than diminish it.
References
1
Every Learner Everywhere. 10 best practices for generative AI faculty development: Insights from the field.
2
Tyton Partners. (2026, June 12). Time for class 2026: The AI tipping point: From monitoring students to engaging them.
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