Teaching with AI, featuring Dr. C. Edward Watson

April 15, 2025

The Dreamery (ground level of the Shields Building)

In-person attendance is encouraged. A virtual option will be available for attendees located across the commonwealth.

Tuesday, April 15

10:00 – 11:30 a.m: Embracing AI as Essential Learning: Preparing Students for Life Beyond College

Generative AI tools have had an astonishingly quick impact on the ways we learn, work, think, and create. While higher education’s initial response was to develop strategies to diminish AI’s influence in the classroom, it is now clear that AI competencies and literacies must be embraced as essential learning for most colleges and universities. These responses and realities create a challenging tension that higher education must work to resolve. Drawing from his new book, Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024), Dr. Watson will detail the challenges and opportunities that have emerged for higher education, especially in terms of pedagogical practice and student learning. The core focus of this keynote will be on concrete approaches and strategies higher education can adopt, both within the classroom and across larger curricular structures, to best prepare students for the life that awaits them after graduation. It will also detail the pedagogical possibilities regarding how AI can have a positive impact on student learning.

1:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.: Exploring AI for Teaching and Learning: A Hands-on Workshop

Designed for those who are interested in employing AI within the context of their curriculum and/or courses, this hands-on workshop will begin by providing participants with a guided, hands-on exploration of key generative AI tools currently being used today. The world of generative AI is not monolithic, as there are a variety of systems and each has different strengths and weaknesses. After exploring this landscape, the workshop will shift to specific applications of AI within teaching and learning settings. A key theme will be how faculty can ensure their students achieve the learning outcomes of their course while also engendering AI competencies and literacies that are of increasing demand in the world of work. Assignment design, feedback, and grading will be key topics. A hallmark of this session will be opportunities for attendees to explore AI within the specific context of their own course. Relatedly, participants are encouraged to bring at least one assignment they plan to use in the fall semester or have recently used and would like to reconsider within the context of opportunities presented by AI.

Fall 2024 Speaker: Dr. Luis Perez

As the Disability & Digital Inclusion Lead for CAST, Luis promotes the creation, delivery and use of high quality accessible educational materials and technologies to support equitable learning opportunities for all learners. Luis is embedded with the Postsecondary and Workforce Development group at CAST that works to increase access to middle- and high-income careers for populations underrepresented in the workforce, including people with disabilities. Luis’s perspective is informed by his own lived experience as a person with a disability/disabled person and multilingual learner.

During his visit, Luis provided insights from the learning sciences that challenge all educators to think differently about ability and disability, including the latest updates to the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines pioneered at CAST as a framework for designing barrier-free learning experiences. Additionally, Luis facilitated a workshop on best practices for creating accessible content. Luis ended the day by sharing how UDL principles can create inclusive, flexible, and student-centered learning environments through curriculum design, assessments, classroom materials, and student interactions.

Fall 2023 Speaker: Adam Finkelstein 

Adam Finkelstein is Associate Director of Learning Environments (Physical and Digital) at Teaching and Learning Services at McGill University where he develops university-wide initiatives to improve teaching and learning environments. His responsibilities include both the physical (learning spaces) as well as the digital (online ecosystem of teaching and learning tools). He and his team have worked with thousands of instructors to help them improve their teaching and learning with many faculty development initiatives, from active learning, to assessment, to inclusive space design. Adam has over 20 years of experience with innovative physical and digital learning spaces including designing, teaching, and assessing them.

During his visit, Finkelstein presented on how the design of physical and digital spaces facilitates active and inclusive learning, highlighting the influence learning environments has on student engagement and learning. Additionally, Finkelstein facilitated an interactive workshop on developing active and inclusive strategies to engage students in physical and digital classroom spaces. Finkelstein provided instructors with practical examples and scenarios on how to take advantage of the affordances provided by physical or digital spaces to better support student learning.

Fall 2022 Speaker: Dr. Tanya Joosten

As the Director of Digital Learning Research and Development at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Dr. Tanya Joosten is a pioneer in her field. She is also the Executive Director of the National Research Center for Distance Education and Technological Advancements.

Joosten’s discussion on Approaching Intentionality: Factors That Influence Student Success focused on moving from instinct to intentionality in rethinking instructional practices in courses from onsite to online. She also led a conversation about Considerations for Equity-Minded Practices, emphasizing the importance of designing courses with equity in mind.