Learn from Wake Forest Professors, Norma Montague and Shannon McKeen, how to engage students responsibly with AI by focusing on mindset and critical thinking.
Students enter business and accounting programs with widely varying levels of exposure to generative AI, ranging from avoidance to over reliance to sophisticated use as a thinking partner. This variability creates both opportunities and risks for teaching, learning, and academic integrity.
A practical, program level approach introduces AI early in the student experience, whether during orientation or in an initial standalone session, to establish shared expectations and productive norms for AI use. Rather than centering on tools, the focus remains on mindset, judgment, and critical thinking.
Key themes include keeping the human in the loop and reinforcing that AI demands more critical thinking, not less; distinguishing between AI as a tutor and AI as a coach; encouraging students to use AI to extend their capabilities rather than shortcut effort; and preparing students to navigate differing AI expectations and policies across courses and instructors.
The framework provides discussion prompts and adaptable implementation ideas that can be tailored across programs or disciplines, supporting responsible, thoughtful, and transparent engagement with AI from the outset.
Norma Montague, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Accounting and the Senior Associate Dean of Academic Programs at the Wake Forest University School of Business and coauthor of Garrison: Managerial Accounting. She earned her PhD at the University of South Florida, and her BA and Master of Accounting at North Carolina State University. Prior to pursuing her PhD, she worked at an accounting firm and taught accounting at several institutions, including a correctional facility. She has taught business courses in both English and Spanish as an instructor at a community college. At WFU, she has taught a variety of accounting and business courses in the School of Business's UG, MSA, MBA, and MSBA programs. Her research focuses on enhancing auditor and investor judgments, as well as developing innovative teaching techniques in accounting courses. Professor Montague has received the American Accounting Association's award for Innovation in Auditing and Assurance Education, the Issues in Accounting Education's Best Paper Award, and Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory's Best Paper Award. At WFU, she has been awarded the T. B. Rose Fellowship in Business for innovation in teaching and the School of Business Spirit Award for displaying good citizenship and inspiring other faculty to high achievement. Her work has been featured on the cover of the Journal of Accountancy, and has been published in Accounting, Organizations and Society, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, Issues in Accounting Education, Current Issues in Auditing, CPA Journal, Today's CPA, Strategic Finance, and Executives' Tax & Management Report.
Shannon McKeen is Professor of the Practice at the Wake Forest School of Business and Executive Director of the Center for Analytics Impact (CAI). The Center advances both research and education focused on the effective application of analytics to improve organizational leadership, decision-making, and operations. CAI supports Wake Forest students, alumni, and the broader community through curricular and cocurricular experiential learning opportunities.
Prior to Wake Forest, Shannon served as Director of Strategic Engagement at the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also taught in the UNC Kenan-Flagler MBA program and served as Faculty Advisor for the STAR program. At RENCI, he held leadership roles including Deputy Director for the NSF-funded South Big Data Hub (SBDH) and Executive Director of the National Consortium for Data Science (NCDS), collaborating with research teams and working groups to advance data science initiatives regionally and nationally.
Shannon’s research interests include the impact of analytics on organizational effectiveness and economic development, assurance of learning in project-based experiential courses, and structured problem-solving in uncertain and ambiguous environments. He brings more than 25 years of executive experience in sales, marketing, and general management, with deep expertise in growth strategies, new product development, and strategic planning.
As a consultant, Shannon has served in interim senior management roles for organizations undergoing restructuring or strategic repositioning. Previously, as Vice President at HanesBrands, he worked closely with major retailers including Walmart, Target, JCPenney, Kohl’s, Costco, and Victoria’s Secret.
As an entrepreneur, Shannon has worked with startups and new divisions within large organizations, including launching eCommerce businesses in the U.S. and China and raising capital for medical product companies. He currently serves as a mentor with Winston Starts, an accelerator for entrepreneurs in Winston-Salem.
Shannon holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Williams College and an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Expertise
Team-based experiential learning, consulting frameworks, sales, marketing, decision-making
Research Interests
Project-based experiential learning, structured problem-solving in uncertain environments, consulting skills and frameworks
Teaching Interests
Structured problem solving, consulting skills and frameworks, business analytics, business modeling, sales, decision-making, project management