Generative AI within the Teaching and Learning Context of McMaster University
Generative AI within the Teaching and Learning Context of McMaster University
As the previous chapter highlighted, the risks and challenges to post-secondary education created or energized by generative AI are significant and wide-reaching from how we assess student learning, to promoting academic integrity, to considering what we want students to learn and what their future will be after graduation. Taken together these challenges are significant, and required a full institutional response.
This chapter reviews how McMaster responded to this challenge, and what will come next as an institution.
Generative AI at McMaster University
While generative AI emerged as a transformative technology tool after McMaster’s Institutional Priorities and Strategic Framework (2021-2024) and McMaster’s Partnered in Teaching and Learning Strategy (2021-2026) were launched, the impact of generative AI nevertheless aligns with existing institutional strategic priorities and ongoing efforts to enhance teaching and learning.
In McMaster’s Institutional Priorities and Strategic Framework (2021-2024), for example, Teaching and Learning, one of five priorities listed, identifies the development of active and flexible learning spaces as one key objective. It notes that in “recognizing the ways that online and virtual classrooms have changed the teaching and learning environment for both our educators and our students, [McMaster must] use evidenced based research to make decisions about tools and platforms to optimize learning in the digital environment” (p. 10). While there is little peer reviewed literature yet available on generative AI in post-secondary teaching and learning, McMaster is staying abreast of such research, and even engaging in research of its own in an effort to develop and maintain guidelines and good practices with respect to the usage of generative AI at the institution.
Likewise, McMaster’s Partnered in Teaching and Learning Strategy (2021-2026) connects to generative AI via not one, but two of its four strategic pillars: 1) Fostering Inclusive Excellence and Scholarly Teaching strategy, via the themes Teaching as a Professional and Innovative Practice, and Assessment and Evaluation of Student Learning, and 2) Developing Active and Flexible Learning Spaces, via the Digital Learning theme.
McMaster’s Task Force on Generative AI in Teaching and Learning
Recognizing that the initiatives in these strategies alone could not respond quickly enough to the challenges presented by generative AI, on May 1, 2023, McMaster University struck a Task Force on Generative AI in Teaching and Learning to consider impacts posed by generative AI on teaching and learning at McMaster.
The Task Force was also to provide strategic guidance and actionable recommendations for educators planning for fall courses. Co-chaired by Kim Dej, Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning, and Matheus Grasselli, Deputy Provost, the Task Force includes students, faculty, and staff from across the