Talking Teaching across the Globe

This popular webinar series brings together Oxford Brookes University staff, and colleagues from across the sector, to discuss and explore inspirational practice and emerging trends in teaching, learning and assessment. We believe in the power of community and connection to lessen academic isolation and to provide hope and help in rapidly changing times so that we can continue to create effective student learning environments. Each webinar or workshop offers the opportunity to share practice, ask questions and consider ways to enhance your academic practice. 

Our focus for 2023/24 will be "Approaches to the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence". 

The use of generative AI is emerging as an essential graduate skill (QAA, 2023), anticipated by the World Economic Forum for some time (WEF, 2018). Whilst there is deep anxiety about the threat AI poses to HE teaching, learning and assessment (Advance HE, Feb 2023; Crawford, et al, 2023) and academic integrity, at the same time it is acknowledged that AI tools can provide benefits “including increased student engagement, collaboration, and accessibility” (Cotton et al, 2023). This raises the issue of fair and equal access to AI and digital security. It is an issue relevant to all disciplines (including technical and visual arts), levels of study, taught or research programmes. 

Throughout 2023 sector agencies have been responding at pace:

If you too have discovered interesting ways to adapt your academic practice in the face of AI, especially those that come out of partnership with students, please get in touch via talkingteaching@brookes.ac.uk or use the same email to let us know what topics you would like us to address.

Webinars

Student voices: exploring the opportunities and challenges of GenAI as a UCL changemaker

Tuesday 7 May 2024, 1.00pm - 1.50pm

Judith Castellanos, UCL ChangeMaker student co-creator.

Judith joins us to discuss her co-creator project supporting learning and provide an overview of how some AI applications could be readily applied in circular and sustainable practices, to processes in enterprises, and to support teaching in this field. She will share the way she used it in her own studies, both as a non-native speaker of English and to facilitate her dissertation research on prototyping innovative solutions through a participatory research method and AI to address the socio-environmental challenges in rural communities(see the Climate Innovation Lab).

Unleash your creative potential: crafting simulation-based learning content with generative AI

Thursday 9 May 2024, 12.00pm - 12.50pm

Paul Driver is the Director of Simulation-based Learning in the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Social Care at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. He specialises in immersive virtual scenario creation and designing XR-based simulations and teaching materials. 

In this webinar, we will explore the seemingly boundless possibilities of harnessing Generative AI to create captivating, credible learning content. With a focus on simulation, we will discover how co-authoring materials with AI can empower educators and content creators to break free from traditional constraints and generate new opportunities for creativity at scale.

Using Generative AI as a reflective writing tutor for nursing students

Thursday 23 May 2024, 12.00pm - 12.50pm

Michelle Reid, Learning Development Tutor Oxford Brookes University. Michelle works in the Centre for Academic Development helping students to develop their study skills and Academic Literacies on a one-to-one basis and through embedded workshops. She has recently co-authored the third edition of Planning Your Dissertation (Bloomsbury, 2023). 

In this webinar, we will explore how Generative AI could be used as a tutor to guide nursing students through a reflective process involving questions and responses. Michelle will explain the prompts she used to create this chatbot-like tool and some of the unexpected challenges and benefits raised by experimenting with Gen AI as a tutor.