Canadian professors on how AI is changing education
5/4/202628 min
A big issue hangs over university students and professors, and that’s artificial intelligence. There are some rules and guidelines, but professors are largely left on their own to determine how much they want to adopt AI or not – and that’s created a wide range of opinions.
Today, we hear from five Canadian university professors about how they’re thinking about education and students in the world of AI. We speak with Amanda Perry, professor of literature at Champlain College-Saint Lambert and Concordia University; Matt Dinan, associate professor and director of the Great Books program at St Thomas University in New Brunswick; Sarah Elaine Eaton, professor in the Workman School of Education at the University of Calgary; Adegboyega Ojo, professor and Canada Research Chair in AI Governance at Carleton University; and Mike Welland, professor of Engineering Physics at McMaster University.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsCheryl Sutherland· Host0:00
[bell dings] The academic year has wrapped up for Canadian universities, and there's been a big issue hanging over classrooms.
Matt Dinan· Guest0:09
It would be an exaggeration to say it's the only thing that we talk about, but we certainly talk about and think about it a lot.
Amanda Perry· Guest0:16
For people in departments like English and French, it's hard to undersell how hugely disruptive this has been.
Cheryl Sutherland· Host0:25
If you hadn't guessed it, the issue they're talking about is AI.
Sarah Elaine Eaton· Guest0:29
[upbeat music] AI has been a huge deal in education since about January of 2023, a few months after ChatGPT was released. It's become a pervasive topic across education at all levels. I study academic integrity and plagiarism, and AI is permeating everything that we do.
Cheryl Sutherland· Host0:50
It feels like AI has seeped into every corner of our lives now, and we wanted to hear from professors about how higher education has changed.
Sarah Elaine Eaton· Guest0:59
If you ask me, the essay is dying a slow death. It's palliative, and we should let it die with dignity.
Cheryl Sutherland· Host1:07
So I'm here in the studio with Decibel producer Rachel.
Rachel Levy McLachlan1:11
Hey.
Cheryl Sutherland· Host1:12
So you spoke with five professors with a range of opinions on AI in the classroom.
Rachel Levy McLachlan1:18
Yeah, I really wanted to understand how they're dealing with this technology and how it's changing what they do. And the professors I spoke with were dealing with it in really different ways, from skeptics who are trying to keep