The Effects of AI on Learning and Teaching

Time: 08:00 UK/ 09:00 Madrid & Paris/ 15:00 Vietnam / 16:00 Singapore/ 17:00 Western Australia/ 18:00 Queensland/ 19:00 New South Wales

Event mode: online via Zoom

Event format: 5-min proposition presentation from each panel member (4 in total) followed by discussion and questions from attendees.

Event duration: 60 minutes.

Dr. Jürgen Rudolph is presently the Director of Research at Kaplan Singapore. He is also Co-Editor in-chief of the open-access Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching. Jürgen has four postgraduate degrees: PhD qualifications from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany); an MBA from the University of Louisville (Kentucky, USA); and an M.Ed. from University of Adelaide (Australia). Jürgen has 30 years of Higher Education teaching experience and has taught a wide variety of subjects, ranging from Knowledge Management to Innovation & Entrepreneurship. He has published numerous journal articles and is the author/co-editor of three books (on the social history of the Peranakan Chinese in Singapore; and the Asian crisis in the late 1990’s).

Jürgen’s proposition:

In the contemporary educational landscape, fostering academic integrity necessitates a vigilant approach towards the use of AI tools, such as chatbots, which should be integrated responsibly into research and writing tasks to enhance critical reflection and creativity. Students must develop digital literacy and ethical engagement, utilising AI tools for employability enhancement and as constructive writing partners while maintaining a discerning stance against potential misinformation. Concurrently, higher education institutions should establish multi-stakeholder dialogues to amalgamate insights into actionable guidelines, underscoring digital literacy education's essential role, including a spectrum of AI tools, and preventing faculty burnout through balanced workloads and adequate training workshops. Such a holistic strategy is meant to facilitate nurturing well-rounded, critical thinkers capable of discerning and critiquing AI-generated content.

Professor Michael Cowling (Associate Professor - Information & Communication Technology, CQUniversity Australia) has been a leader in educational technology for over 20 years and was the 2020 recipient of the Universities Australia AAUT Award for Teaching Excellence (Physical Sciences). He is an Advance Queensland Community Digital Champion, and an Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) Community Fellow. Tens of thousands of academics, teachers, and students have heard his mantra, 'pedagogy before technology', whilst learning directly and indirectly from him through his award-winning educator workshop series ‘Weaving Technology into the Fabric of the Classroom’, and his Australian government supported ‘Professor Tech’ K-12 student engagement program.

Michael’s proposition:

AI is a tool that is going to become a part of our lives; for both our sake and that of our students, we will need to learn how to use it.

Dr. Mike Perkins is the Head of the Centre for Research & Innovation, and a Senior Lecturer in Management at the British University Vietnam (BUV). Mike completed his PhD at the University of York, studying public confidence of policing within North Yorkshire. Mike's research interests revolve around performance management, academic integrity and generative AI tools, with a focus on the policy responses of institutions in academia to these new tools.

Mike’s proposition:

In an educational landscape dramatically altered by the popularisation of Generative AI tools, the ethical use of AI text detectors is paramount. While these tools seemed to offer a lifeline to educators struggling with maintaining academic integrity in assessments, recent research  requires us to critically question their accuracy and the implications of false positives/negatives on student assessment. Moving beyond a simple 'No AI tools allowed' mentality, we must adapt by shifting assessment strategies and considering how to support students in using AI ethically, and in alignment with the future requirements of industry. By doing so, we can ensure an equitable and progressive educational environment, harnessing AI's capabilities while upholding academic integrity. Mike will present some of his work regarding the accuracy of AI text detectors, as well as a proposed AI Assessment Scale which can be set to make clear to student's how AI tools are expected to be used.

Dr Miriam Sullivan is Team Leader, Learning Advisers at Edith Cowan University. Her research uses qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate university teaching and outreach. Miriam is currently researching students’ attitudes towards genAI use at university.

Miriam’s proposition:

Students are worried about generative AI, and many are reluctant to use it, even when encouraged to. Universities are responsible for preparing students for the future, including training them in how to use AI in a discipline-specific field. Our research shows that specific training in generative AI can increase students’ confidence to use generative AI while complying with the institutional academic integrity policy.