Is it time to teach kindergarteners prompt engineering, yet? This New York Times article is about grade school education, but I thought the subhead was telling: “Artificial intelligence companies are urging teachers to prepare students for an ‘A.I. -driven future.’ What that means varies from school to school” (Singer 2026).  

In meme parlance: I feel seen. Singer goes on to talk about the concept of AI literacy, but mostly in terms of the fact that it’s a thing, and we don’t agree on how to teach it. I see the same thing in higher education, where at my own university, we have both a major AI initiative and an anti-AI working group and many efforts in between.  

The Times article states, “The pitch to train schoolchildren on the latest tech has stayed roughly the same since the introduction of personal computers in the late 1970s: improved and better career prospects.” These are similar arguments to those I hear from my colleagues who are technical enthusiasts.  

They are also the arguments I heard back in the early spring of 2023, when another faculty member and I were invited to speak to the political science department’s student think tank. One student at the event was notably resentful that his expensive university education was not already addressing the social and career implications of ChatGPT, which hadjust been introduced to the public a few months earlier. Here we are, three years later, and we’re still actively struggling—both at my university and throughout academia.  

What is AI literacy, and does it matter? Long and Magerko (2020) offer a detailed review on the topic that results in the following definition: “We define AI literacy as a set of competencies that enables individuals to critically evaluate AI technologies; communicate and collaborate effectively with AI; and use AI as a tool online, at home, and in the workplace” (2). With a tool that is rapidly pervading email, search results, social media, and elsewhere, it does seem like this kind of literacy matters. However, it’s not clear that some faculty themselves have sufficient AI literacy to effectively lead students.  

Emerging research on the topic suggests that this is the case. For example, Salhab (2024), Ayyoub et al. (2025), and Wilton et al. (2022) have all published work suggesting that college instructors’ AI literacy is lacking. An emerging body of research suggests some kinds of faculty are further from being literate. A large-scale study from Dringó-Horváth et al. (2025) found, among other things, that there were a variety of differences, including by gender and by academic field. Other studies, including literature reviews and small studies, have found similar results, including work by Salhab (2004), Asio (2024), and Neumann and Gerstl-Pepin (2025). 

As Dringó-Horváth et al. (2025) note in their work, different levels of AI literacy across fields may mean that a universal training approach may fail. Improving AI literacy for faculty may require nuanced approaches.  

References 

Asio, John Mark R. 2024. “AI Literacy, Self-Efficacy, and Self-Competence among College Students: Variances and Interrelationships among Variables.” MOJES: Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Sciences 12 (3): 44–60. https://doi.org/10.22452/aldad.vol12no3.4.  

Ayyoub, Amadalkarim M., Zuheir N. Khlaif, Mahmoud Shamali, et al. 2025. “Advancing Higher Education with GenAI: Factors Influencing Educator AI Literacy.” Frontiers in Education10. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1530721. 

Chen, Si, Xiuxiu Tang, Alison Cheng, et al. 2025. “AI Academy: Building Generative AI Literacy in Higher Ed Instructors.” arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2509.11999.  

Dringó-Horváth, Ida, Zoltán Rajki, and Judit T. Nagy. 2025. “University Teachers’ Digital Competence and AI Literacy: Moderating Role of Gender, Age, Experience, and Discipline.”Education Sciences 15 (7): 868. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15070868. 

Long, Duri, and Brian Magerko. 2020. “What Is AI Literacy? Competencies and Design Considerations.” In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376727.  

Neumann, Maureen D., and Cynthia Gerstl-Pepin. 2025. “Faculty Responses to Generative AI: The Shifting Landscape of Higher Education.” EEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS). 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISTAS65609.2025.11269643. 

Salhab, Reham, and Mosab M. Aboushi. 2025. “Influence of AI Literacy and 21st-Century Skills on the Acceptance of Generative Artificial Intelligence among College Students.” Frontiers in Education 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1640212. 

Singer, Natasha. 2026. “‘AI Literacy’ Is Trending in Schools. Here’s Why.” New York Times, February 23. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/business/ai-literacy-faq.html.  

Warrier, Aparna Maya, Arav Agarwal, Jaromir Savelka, Christopher A. Bogart, and Heather Burte. 2025. “AI Literacy for Community Colleges: Instructors’ Perspectives on Scenario-Based and Interactive Approaches to Teaching AI.” arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2511.05363. 

Wilton, Lesley, Steven Ip, Meera Sharma, and Frank Fan. 2022. “Where Is the AI? AI Literacy for Educators.” In Artificial Intelligence in Education. Posters and Late Breaking Results, Workshops and Tutorials, Industry and Innovation Tracks, Practitioners’ and Doctoral Consortium. AIED 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, edited by Maria Mercedes Rodrigo, Noburu Matsuda, Alexandra I. Cristea, and Vania Dimitrova. 13356. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11647-6_31. 

About the Author 

Amanda Sturgill, associate professor of journalism, is the 2024-2026 CEL Scholar. Her work focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and engaged learning in higher education. Dr. Sturgill also previously contributed posts on global learning as a seminar leader for the 2015-2017 research seminar on Integrating Global Learning with the University Experience. 

How to Cite This Post 

Sturgill, Amanda. 2026. “AI Literacy and Higher Education Instructors.” Center for Engaged Learning (blog). Elon University. March 17, 2026. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/ai-literacy-and-higher-education-instructors/.