Events

As the programme shows, throughout the week we considered the topical theme of Intelligence in Teaching Today. The theme emerged in response to the rise of ChatGPT which has raised many questions about the future of artificial intelligence in higher education, the way we design our assessments, and how we might prepare our students to live and work in the world today.  

“Gen AI like ChatGPT is going to be another tool like Google. Students are starting to evaluate which assessments are worth their time. Students might think generic, recall-based assessments might be better off with AI assistance. So, assessment should be based around higher order thinking, be authentic and make students use their own voice.”

Focusing on student experiences of AI, another student added that:

“A diverse range of students benefit from AI in positive ways. Students with learning disabilities can use AI to understand content better. Old versions of Chat GPT are not always accurate and are of limited help when writing essays. Another thing would be detection: Students who are neurodivergent and students who have English as a second language often use the formal English that ChatGPT uses so detection software is not always reliable. Students do not want to move towards traditional closed-door exams.”

Responding to a question about mainstreaming Gen AI in the world of work, one of the lecturers said:

“It’s time to move on from a phase of panic to understanding what it means to grapple with these (Gen AI) tools so that the students work with the tools as an aid without sacrificing their creativity entirely (in fields like multimedia). Re-thinking teaching and assessment to map it on transversal skills and competences and moving towards authentic assessment is key. Students are capable of combining their creativity with AI (to get expected outcomes in certain disciplines) so meaningful assessment is necessary without completely restricting the use of Gen AI. Essentially, a look into how the learning process looks when assisted by Gen AI is needed.”

Donlon (2021) discusses the myriad changes forced upon academic conferences during the Covid pandemic but lauds the creativity in formats and reimagined solutions that have ensued. Once such format referenced, “a combination of live-streamed presentations and pre-recorded content”, was the approach taken for the 2020/2021 Teaching and Learning events.

The theme of the 2021 event was influenced by the wealth of resources from webinars, blogs, and  academic papers discussing the impacts to teaching of the current Covid-19 pandemic (many available in the NIDL resource bank.) All highlight the significant shift in educational practices caused by the move to online teaching and learning.  This change has not been easy; learning new pedagogies and technologies, trying to engage and support students, all whilst living and working through pandemic anxiety and fatigue has been challenging. The Teaching & Learning Week event sought to offer an opportunity to pause, reflect, and consider the impact of this on future teaching approaches but utilise a playful approach to ward off Zoom fatigue and create an engaging learning environment.

As well as the now traditional Zoom presentations, the 2021 event included novel learning formats including recorded fireside chats with students, virtual worlds with Topia, and synchronous and asynchronous escape rooms activities on the below themes:

• Enhancing engagement in the online space through playful practices
• Promoting a pedagogy of care
• Impactful technology integration beyond Covid

Feedback indicated that the Escape rooms were particularly interesting to staff and having participated they are likely to use this form of immersive problem-solving experience to engage their own learners “I think that the Escape is a fabulous idea” “Thanks for a really interesting session, …. I'd be very interested in using some of/replicating your session for a tutorial class in a first year module”. Two escape rooms were offered as part of the programme; one to support podcasting skills and the other to promote Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approaches in the Moodle virtual learning environment. In addition, the playful approach was continued in the social spaces of Teaching & Learning week. A Topia virtual world was designed to encompass areas to sit and chat as well as a virtual dance floor where numerous participants were able to share their moves!

Over 100 participants attended the live sessions and over 220 engaged with the online resources and activities on the custom Moodle page this year. In conjunction with Teaching and Learning week, new episodes of the Edge of Discovery podcast series dropped; some specially recorded as submissions for the annual CPD event. 

Increasing staff workload can lead to less time to focus on professional development activities (Foster & Warwick, 2018) and during a global pandemic where educators have been frantically trying to change pedagogies and embrace new technologies, this has never been more relevant. In the spirit of bringing the best back from Covid and to enable the ongoing engagement of DCU staff, all online resources will remain available on the custom Moodle page.  

References

Donlon, E. (2021). Lost and found: the academic conference in pandemic and post-pandemic times. Irish Educational Studies, 1-7.

Foster, T., & Warwick, S. (2018). Nostalgia, gamification and staff development–moving staff training away from didactic delivery. Research in Learning Technology, 26.

A hybrid learning approach spread over a week was used to help showcase good practice and ensure that the DCU community could continue to share and engage in discussions about teaching and learning during these extraordinary times. A variety of insights from award winners at this year’s President's Awards for Excellence in Teaching & Learning were offered, live workshops on topics such as "contract cheating" and "students as partners in assessment", as well as podcasts and online discussions which were centred on the theme of Pedagogy in Practice: Teaching excellence, in class and online.

This mix of synchronous and asynchronous resources and activities were offered through our Moodle instance, internally called Loop, supported by Zoom webinars and recordings which enabled staff to engage with the resources as best suited them. The Edge of Discovery podcast series was launched as part of the event and to date has notched up over 175 downloads. The Loop page had over 3,300 interactions by DCU staff incorporating 415 unique visitors. Importantly, the online space facilitated learning to continue beyond the designated week with over 200 interactions occurring post event. This highlights one of the benefits of a longer online versus a finite face to face event. A further comparative is planned to examine the relative impact of our annual Teaching & Learning event across both formats.

The TEU were delighted to create an opportunity for so many DCU staff to connect with each other and engage with best practices around pedagogy online during these unusual times.  Sincere thanks to all our contributors who made Teaching & Learning Week such a success:  Ann Marie Farrell, Martin Brown, Joanne Lynch, Lucien Waugh-Daly, Suzanne Stone, Orla Bourke, Roisin Lyons, Fiona O’ Riordan, Rob Lowney, and Orna Farrell.  The materials will remain available to review for the upcoming semester.

We look forward to planning the next Teaching & Learning Week for August 2021.