Education Teachers, Postsecondary

Prepare and deliver lectures to undergraduate or graduate students on topics such as children's literature, learning and development, and reading instruction.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can generate high-quality lecture content and deliver prerecorded or interactive lectures, enabling full automation of preparation and delivery in many instructional contexts.

Prepare course materials, such as syllabi, homework assignments, and handouts.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can autonomously create syllabi, assignments, and handouts tailored to course goals and standards with minimal human input.

Maintain student attendance records, grades, and other required records.

AI: Fully automatable - Maintaining attendance, gradebooks, and required records is routine and already fully automatable through LMS and administrative software integrated with AI.

Compile bibliographies of specialized materials for outside reading assignments.

AI: Fully automatable - AI can search, filter, validate available digital sources, and format specialized bibliographies automatically with high reliability and speed.

Initiate, facilitate, and moderate classroom discussions.

AI: Partial - AI can initiate and moderate asynchronous or online discussions and prompt students, but struggles with live classroom dynamics and nuanced pedagogical judgment.

Supervise students' fieldwork, internship, and research work.

AI: Partial - AI can monitor progress, provide feedback, and assist with research supervision, but cannot fully ensure fieldwork safety, on-site mentorship, or complex academic guidance.

Keep abreast of developments in the field by reading current literature, talking with colleagues, and participating in professional conferences.

AI: Partial - AI can continuously monitor and synthesize literature and conference outputs, but cannot fully replace informal colleague interactions and live professional networking.

Evaluate and grade students' class work, assignments, and papers.

AI: Partial - AI can grade objective assessments and provide rubric-based feedback and draft critiques for essays, but human judgment remains important for nuanced, subjective evaluation and integrity issues.

Conduct research in a particular field of knowledge and publish findings in professional journals, books, or electronic media.

AI: Partial - AI can assist heavily with literature reviews, data analysis, and drafting manuscripts but cannot reliably conceive, execute, and take responsibility for novel research that passes peer review without human oversight.

Collaborate with colleagues to address teaching and research issues.

AI: Partial - AI can facilitate collaboration by generating documents, summarizing discussions, and coordinating communication, but it cannot replace human judgment, negotiation, and shared academic responsibility in collegial decision-making.

Advise students on academic and vocational curricula and on career issues.

AI: Partial - AI can provide personalized academic and career advice based on transcripts and labor-market data, but it lacks institutional authority, deep contextual understanding, and the mentorship relationship students often require.

Plan, evaluate, and revise curricula, course content, course materials, and methods of instruction.

AI: Partial - AI can design, map, and suggest curricula, learning outcomes, and instructional materials, yet final curriculum planning, evaluation, and approval require human pedagogical expertise and institutional governance.

Compile, administer, and grade examinations, or assign this work to others.

AI: Partial - AI can compile and administer exams and auto-grade objective and many constructed responses, but reliable assessment of complex, subjective work and integrity concerns still need human oversight.

Maintain regularly scheduled office hours to advise and assist students.

AI: Partial - AI chatbots can hold scheduled advising sessions and answer many student questions, but they cannot fully replicate the mentorship, discretion, and institutional responsibility of faculty office hours.

Perform administrative duties, such as serving as department head.

AI: Partial - AI can automate many administrative tasks (scheduling, reporting, policy drafts) but cannot fully replace human leadership, nuanced personnel decisions, and institutional politics.

Select and obtain materials and supplies, such as textbooks.

AI: Partial - AI can research and recommend textbooks and even automate ordering based on specifications, but final selection and procurement approvals typically require human judgment and budgetary decisions.

Write grant proposals to procure external research funding.

AI: Partial - AI can draft persuasive grant narratives, budgets, and supporting materials, but designing viable research plans, establishing leadership credibility, and managing sponsor relationships require human investigators.

Serve as a liaison between the university and other governmental and educational agencies.

AI: Partial - AI can manage communications, draft liaison materials, and summarize interactions, but cannot fully replicate the relationship-building, diplomacy, and institutional representation a human liaison provides.

Participate in student recruitment, registration, and placement activities.

AI: Partial - AI can automate large parts of recruitment outreach, registration workflows, and matching for placements, but relationship-building, individualized negotiation, and institutional representation still require humans.

Serve on academic or administrative committees that deal with institutional policies, departmental matters, and academic issues.

AI: Partial - AI can draft analyses, synthesize policy implications, and prepare meeting materials, but cannot fully replace the human decision-making, institutional knowledge, and representational duties required on academic committees.

Advise and instruct teachers employed in school systems by providing activities, such as in-service seminars.

AI: Partial - AI can design and deliver seminar materials and interactive training modules autonomously, but lacks the full human facilitation, contextual classroom experience, and responsive mentorship often needed for in-service teacher development.

Provide professional consulting services to government or industry.

AI: Partial - AI can produce technical analyses, modeling, and written recommendations for government or industry, but typically cannot fully substitute for human consultants' domain credibility, client management, and implementation oversight.

Participate in campus and community events.

AI: Partial - AI can create event content, run virtual appearances, and automate logistics, but cannot fully replicate in-person presence, spontaneous networking, and community relationship-building.

Act as advisers to student organizations.

AI: Partial - AI can provide continuous advising content, resources, and procedural guidance to student organizations, but cannot fully substitute for human mentorship, judgment, and the institutional responsibilities of a faculty adviser.