:: Participant Case Studies (4^th Cohort) ::

These selected case studies were written by course participants for their final reflective task.

Elvira Pacheco Vieira, Portugal

In my educational context, I have experienced the increasing use of generative AI tools to support studying and academic work. This situation occurred during my recent coursework, where students began using AI tools to help with tasks such as brainstorming ideas, summarising academic texts, and structuring written assignments. The goal of using these tools was mainly to improve efficiency and support learning, especially when students were dealing with complex readings or tight deadlines. Many students used AI as a starting point for understanding topics or organising their thoughts before writing their own work. However, I also noticed that some students used AI in different ways. In some cases, AI-generated text was used too heavily in assignments, sometimes without much critical revision. This created uncertainty about the boundaries between using AI as a learning support tool and relying on it too much for academic work. The situation involved students, educators, and the digital platforms providing AI tools. My own experience was mostly positive when using AI to clarify concepts or organise ideas, but it also made me more aware of questions about academic integrity, originality, and responsible use of technology. I have also heard classmates express different opinions, with some seeing AI mainly as a helpful study assistant and others worrying that it could undermine learning.

From an outcomes-based perspective, generative AI can bring important benefits. It can support students by helping them understand complex topics, generate ideas, and structure their work more efficiently. This can make learning more accessible and reduce some of the pressure associated with academic workloads. However, there are also potential harms. If students rely too heavily on AI-generated content, it may reduce opportunities to develop critical thinking, writing skills, and independent learning. There is also the risk of misinformation or inaccurate content being used in assignments. From a rights and rules perspective, the use of AI raises questions about academic integrity and transparency. Students have a responsibility to ensure that the work they submit reflects their own understanding. Institutions also have a duty to clearly communicate rules about acceptable AI use and ensure that students understand these expectations. From a justice perspective, access to AI tools is not always equal. Some students may have access to more advanced tools or paid services, which could create unequal advantages in learning and assessment. Overall, the technology offers clear benefits but requires careful and responsible use.

Reflecting on this situation, I think generative AI can be a valuable support tool for learning, but it should not replace students’ own thinking and effort. The ethical frameworks discussed in the course highlight the importance of balancing benefits such as efficiency and accessibility with risks related to fairness, academic integrity, and over-reliance on technology. The frameworks of outcomes and rights seem particularly important in this situation. While AI can support learning outcomes, it is also important to respect academic rules and maintain transparency about how these tools are used. In response to this evaluation, students and educators can promote responsible AI use, encouraging critical thinking, proper attribution, and reflection on the limitations of AI-generated content. Clear guidelines and open discussions about AI in education can also help ensure that these technologies support learning rather than undermine it.

Miguel B. Lambino, Philippines

A student submitted a paper which had several parts that were copied from website sources and were not properly acknowledged. As is indicated in the Student Handbook, plagiarism is not acceptable. The school procedures for handling such a case were implemented. The professor called the attention of the student and was instructed to observe the proper citation. The student re-submitted the paper, but there were still several citations lacking. The professor brought the matter to the Dean. A committee was formed to look into the matter. School guidelines were observed. The student received a failing mark for the paper.

The school guidelines concerning plagiarism were observed. These guidelines have been explained to all students during the student orientation in their first semester at school. Professors periodically remind students about these guidelines. In this particular case, the professor used reliable AI apps to verify the copied sources and the lack of citations. The student was given the opportunity to explain their side, and was given the chance to make the corrections. Honesty and integrity in academic endeavors were being upheld.

The difficulty of the student to comply with the needed corrections needs further investigation. Does the student fully understand the guidelines? The guidelines are in English, and the student was struggling with English proficiency. Did the student have the necessary skills in acknowledging sources and writing proper citations? The pedagogy in the school is student-centered. It will be fruitful if feedback is gathered from the students in order to come up with more effective ways to accompany them in their education.

Romeric F. Pobre, Philippines

The university Learning Management System (LMS) app and the constant stream of work emails synced to my personal smartphone.

It was Sunday evening around 7:00 PM. I was sitting in my living room, trying to enjoy dinner with my family and recharge before the heavy teaching week ahead. My phone, sitting on the table, began to light up and buzz continuously. They were LMS notifications: students submitting late weekend assignments, asking panicked questions about Monday morning’s reading, and requesting last-minute extensions. I picked up the phone "just to clear the notifications," but instead, I got sucked in. I spent the next two hours on the couch answering emails, tweaking rubrics, and absorbing my students' academic anxiety. My immediate goal was to be a "good, responsive educator." I wanted to alleviate my students' anxiety so they could succeed. I was chasing the ideal of the perfect mentor, but I was doing it at the expense of my own rest. This happened because of a complete collapse of boundaries—a failure of healthy Non-dual living where work and rest have their proper places. I had allowed push notifications for work apps on my personal device. Furthermore, the modern educational culture has normalized a false sense of urgency, where digital tools make us feel like every student question is an emergency that requires an instantaneous response. I was involved, along with my anxious students on the other side of the screen. But silently, my family was also involved, sitting right next to me while I ignored them for a screen. My physical and emotional experience in this moment was one of profound fragmentation. As I stared at the screen, my heart rate elevated, and my shoulders tensed. I felt a confusing mix of resentment toward my students for interrupting my weekend, and immense guilt for feeling that resentment in the first place. By answering those messages, I was physically present in my living room, but mentally I was back in the classroom. My undivided heart was fractured. I realized that by being instantly available, I wasn't actually fostering true apprenticeship; I was just enabling a culture of dependency and instant gratification. The technology had transformed me from a thoughtful educator into an automated customer service representative for my own course.

When I zoom out from my own screen fatigue, I see the ripple effects on others: My Family: They experience the "absent presence." They see my physical body at the dinner table, but they know my attention has been hijacked by the machine. They experience the loss of my time and focus. My Students: While they might feel momentary relief getting an email back at 8:00 PM on a Sunday, they are ultimately harmed by this routine. By responding, I am implicitly telling them that they should be working and stressing about school on a Sunday night. I am modeling poor digital wellbeing for them, fueling their own burnout instead of protecting their brilliance.

Reflecting deeply on the "Sunday Evening LMS Avalanche," I recognize that answering work messages on a weekend feels like a helpful, noble choice in the moment. However, when I subject this routine to rigorous ethical evaluation, it reveals how this misuse of digital technology is fundamentally damaging to my well-being, my family, and even my students.

Here is my ethical evaluation of this everyday scenario:

1. Consequentialism: Weighing Harms and Benefits

Through a consequentialist lens, I have to ask if my immediate availability brings about more good than harm.
The Short-Term Benefit: In the immediate moment, replying to the LMS notifications reduces my students' anxiety. It gives them the answer they need to finish their assignment.
The Long-Term Harm: However, the long-term consequences are disastrous. By being available 24/7, I am accelerating my own emotional burnout. I am actively harming my relationship with my family by being physically present but mentally absent. Furthermore, I am harming my students by modeling a toxic, "always-on" digital culture, teaching them that academic emergencies supersede personal rest.
Evaluation: The long-term, compounding harms of boundary erosion and burnout severely outweigh the short-term benefit of instantly solving a student's minor crisis.

2. Rights and Rules: Duties and Deception

When evaluating this through the lens of rights and duties, I see a profound failure in how I treat myself and my role.
Means to an End: By turning myself into a 24/7 digital responder, I am treating myself as a mere instrument of the institution—a means to the end of student satisfaction. I am violating my own right to a Non-dual balance of work and rest.
Duties: I certainly have a professional duty of care to my students, but I mistakenly allowed that to override my fundamental duty to my own Belovedness and my duty to be present for my family.
Consent and Rules: There is an unspoken rule—and often a contractual one—that weekends are uncompensated time. By voluntarily working through my Sunday evening, I am implicitly consenting to the erosion of labor boundaries, making it harder for other educators to maintain theirs.

3. Virtue Theory: Vices Practiced and Virtues Needed

Virtue ethics forces me to ask: What kind of person is this technology shaping me to be?
The Vices Supported: This situation actively cultivates the vice of intemperance (an inability to moderate my digital consumption) and a lack of boundaries. It also fosters impatience in my students, denying them the productive struggle of waiting and problem-solving on their own.
The Virtues Called For: To navigate this ethically, I must cultivate Prudence - the wisdom to know the difference between a true, life-threatening emergency and a standard academic question.
More importantly, it requires Courage: the bravery to turn off my notifications, sit with the uncomfortable knowledge that a student is anxious, and trust that they will survive until Monday morning.

4. Justice: The Burden of Invisible Labor

Evaluating the justice of this situation highlights the quiet inequities of digital education: Who does the work? I am doing the work. I am performing invisible, uncompensated emotional labor on my personal time.
Who benefits? The university benefits. The institution appears highly responsive and supportive to its paying students, but it does so by extracting free labor from my weekend.
Who is harmed? I am harmed by the depletion of my energy. My family is harmed by the theft of my attention (my Undivided Heart). Ultimately, my students are harmed, too, because they are being socialized into a workforce culture that does not respect human limits.

My overarching conclusion is that true care for my students cannot come at the expense of my own humanity. The technology, designed to make communication seamless, actually created a frictionless environment where my boundaries easily collapsed. By reflecting on this through different ethical lenses, I have gained clarity on why this situation felt so deeply conflicting, and what I must do to change it.

When I lay the different ethical frameworks side-by-side, I see a profound tension between my short-term instincts and my long-term duties. The conflict lies primarily between short-term Consequentialism and Deontology (Rights/Rules). In the heat of the moment, the consequentialist urge to alleviate a student's immediate anxiety feels like the "right" thing to do. However, this directly conflicts with my deontological duty to honor my own limits (my Belovedness) and my family's right to my undivided presence. Ultimately, Virtue Ethics, Justice, and long-term Consequentialism all point to the exact same conclusion: the "always-on" culture is destructive. They all agree that yielding to the immediate ping of a notification stunts student resilience, extracts unjust labor, and degrades my own character by cultivating intemperance. In this specific situation, Virtue Theory and Deontology (Rights and Duties) are the most important frameworks to me. Relying solely on consequentialism (measuring harms vs. benefits) is a trap in the digital age, because the immediate benefit of sending a quick email always feels larger than the invisible, creeping harm of burnout. Instead, I must anchor myself in Virtue Theory: asking myself, "Is answering this email on a Sunday making me a wiser, more patient, and more resilient human being?" Furthermore, honoring my Duty to protect my Undivided Heart ensures that when I am on the clock, I am offering my students the best, most rested version of my Apprenticeship, rather than an exhausted, resentful fraction of my attention.

Knowing that the technology will not set boundaries for me, I must take proactive, ethical action. Here is what I will do in response:

The "Digital Sundown" for Devices: I will permanently disable push notifications for the LMS and my university email on my personal smartphone. If I need to check them, I will do so intentionally from my laptop during designated working hours.
The Syllabus Communication Covenant: I will rewrite the communication policy in my syllabus. I will explicitly state that my working hours end at 5:00 PM on Fridays and resume at 8:00 AM on Mondays. I will frame this not as a lack of care, but as a deliberate modeling of the Non-dual balance between work and rest.
Teaching Digital Resilience: When students inevitably panic about a weekend deadline, I will use it as a teaching moment. I will explicitly talk to them about digital wellbeing, encouraging them to practice the virtue of patience and problem-solving before relying on an instant digital rescue.