Reconceptualizing the Role of Instructors in Liberal Arts Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Theoretical Construction of Pedagogical Presence in Response to the Diffusion of Adaptive Learning Systems (ALS)

Abstract

This study examines the structural tensions between Adaptive Learning Systems (ALS) and the essential learning experiences of liberal arts education, as the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence has driven the widespread diffusion of ALS across educational settings, posing fundamental challenges to the role of instructors. Adopting a theoretical design research methodology through critical review of literature in adult learning theory, educational technology, and philosophy of education, the study finds that the optimization mechanisms of ALS structurally conflict with the conditions of transformative learning identified by Mezirow (1991) and Hoggan (2016), systematically foreclosing the experiences of uncertainty and disorientation necessary for learners to critically reconstruct their existing frameworks of thought. In response, this study critically reinterprets the Community of Inquiry model (Garrison et al., 2000) to propose the concept of pedagogical presence, constituted by three attributes: the design of transformative learning, the facilitation of discourse, and relational responsiveness. Drawing on Biesta's (2010) three-dimensional framework of educational purpose and Hoggan's (2016) criteria for transformative learning, the study delineates a complementary framework in which ALS and pedagogical presence operate in concert. This study ultimately argues that the role of human instructors in liberal arts education is not rendered obsolete by technological advancement, but becomes more foundational as the irreplaceable agents of educational functions that algorithmic systems are structurally incapable of performing.