Teaching guidance for the Fall 2026 semester [September 3, 2026]

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome back—I hope your summer was productive and restorative. As we begin Fall 2026: thank you for teaching and supporting our students. This message offers reminders of best practices, key policies, and teaching resources. Our practices and policies aim to blend excellence and empathy, setting rigorous academic standards and providing support for students in meeting them. Clarity about our expectations may not be glamorous, but it serves both those aims. Please welcome all of our students and support them in doing their best.

Rules of the road:
If you are teaching Fall subjects, please bear in mind the following reminders of our policies on grading, assignments and exams; most can be found at more length in Rules and Regulations of the Faculty, Sections 2.50 and 2.60. A few minutes checking your syllabus against faculty policies helps limit student complaints about potential violations and ensures productive learning for everyone. (Some common issues are flagged below.) If you have questions or foresee the need for an exception, please contact me as soon as possible.

Grading Guidelines (an important reminder): At MIT the grade for each student is determined independently of other students – not on a curve. Familiarize yourself with our grading policy and use clear language on syllabi (which should include grading criteria and procedures: see Sections 2.53 and 2.54) and in communications with students.

Assignment and Exam Restrictions: Over the years, the faculty have developed rules to manage the complex interactions between scheduled work for our various subjects and between academic work and protected time for students. Please see information on: Undergraduate subjects; Graduate subjects; Requests for clarification or exceptions.

Scheduling Exams, Quizzes, and Review Sessions: Please ask students to flag potential scheduling conflicts early in the semester to allow for timely planning of any appropriate accommodations.

Generative AI Use Policies:
For Fall 2026, as in previous years, there are no Institute-wide requirements for setting policies on AI use in classes. However, the final report of the Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training notes that students “want to feel sure about when, where, and why AI is prohibited, allowed, or required”, and recommends that we “should make sure that every MIT subject has a clear policy about the use of generative AI, posted prominently in the syllabus and on the course website”. The committee has offered a Four-Option Menu of Acceptable AI Use Policiesfor instructors to draw upon, and an experimental tool designed to assist instructors in constructing an AI policy tailored to your class is also available. Please consider using these resources to create an AI use policy to post on your own syllabus and class website. The committee also recommends disclosure around instructors’ own AI use: if you plan to present content substantially generated by AI, or to use AI for some aspect of evaluation, grading, or feedback, be transparent with your students about how and why. In order to understand how AI may impact our classes and student work within them, it is also in all instructors’ interest to maintain familiarity with the capabilities of modern generative AI systems available to students. This IS&T webpage lists generative AI tools licensed for use by the MIT community and provides instructions for obtaining access as well as usage guidance.

Contingency planning: 
Make sure that multiple staff, including the instructor of record, have access throughout the semester to grade sheets, student records, and class communication channels. Instructors should have backup plans for instruction and assessments in the event of substantial or extended illness, absence of instructors and/or teaching staff, or other unexpected disruptions. See also the Teaching and Learning Lab’s advice for ensuring academic continuity.

Other resources:
Finally, the Division of Student Life provides resources for faculty to support student wellbeing, including a faculty guide on how to respond if a student in distress or having difficulty coping. There is also a network of support in student residences and other organizations on campus. If you see students who are struggling, please reach out to the nearest point of contact with any of those networks so that we can, collectively, help them.

Please reach out to me directly if you have questions or concerns about these policies, resources, and student accommodations either in general or for a specific issue. Your teaching is at the heart of MIT’s purpose, and my colleagues and I will do our best to support you in thinking through any questions that arise.

Best wishes for the fall semester,

Roger Levy
Chair of the Faculty