Generative AI Works in Progress Series- Cultivating Discernment in Skill Development in using ChatGPT

The Generative AI Works in Progress series is a new offering designed to encourage ongoing, open, institutional-level conversations about generative AI in teaching and learning. Over the Winter 2024 term, the series will offer a range of one-hour presentations targeted towards a broad teaching and learning audience where current questions, ideas, inquiries or works in progress will be shared with a community of peers. The goal for this series is to create a space for experimentation, sharing and problem-solving.

Presented on behalf of the Digital Learning Innovation office and the Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation

Facilitator: Jane Freeman, Professor, Teaching Stream, School of Graduate Studies

This session will be guided by questions raised by Prof. Ursula Franklin in her work on the social impact of technology, namely, What specific skills do students need/cultivate when using ChatGPT and what needed skills are potentially not developed because of the use of this new technology? We will consider a range of specific types of writing assignments/tasks, the specific purposes of those tasks in terms of intended skill development, and the ways in which use of ChatGPT may support or prevent that development. The goal of the session is to help participants consider how best to maximize the benefits of generative AI without unintentionally supporting deskilling.

This presentation is a slightly modified version of the workshop offered on December 8th, 2023 at the Faculty of Information, repeated by request.