Last month, the LTC hosted a mini-conference for BCIT faculty at the Town Square on Burnaby Campus. The focus of the conference was to deepen faculty’s understanding of the challenges and opportunities of teaching with GenAI.
Lucas Wright, Senior Educational Consultant at UBC’s Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology, presented the keynote address, Currents of Change: Generative AI’s Impact on Teaching, Learning. He began with a quick, hands-on demonstration of how to write a GenAI prompt, then identified the three factors he sees as instrumental to why GenAI is having such a profound impact on higher education: (1) rapid adoption (students are already using GenAI), (2) growing capabilities (GenAI is continually improving), and (3) the emergence of new skills (necessary for learning and working in a world that uses GenAI).
Lucas spoke about the ethical issues facing GenAI users (environmental impacts, concerns around privacy and copyright, and accuracy of output), then concluded with some examples of the opportunities provided by GenAI, including personalized learning, co-creation, and the development of evaluative judgment skills.
After lunch, attendees had the opportunity to further explore the topics and issues raised by Lucas in a variety of sessions led by BCIT faculty and IDCs from the LTC. Those in attendance were engaged and came away with a better understanding of how a world with AI can function.
A recording of Lucas Wright’s keynote address and presentation slides of the sessions are available on the LTC’s GenAI website. Another event is in the planning stages for fall 2025. Details will be posted on the website as they come available.
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