Deakin Distinguished Professor & Foundation Director, Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE), Deakin University
Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Design and Society, University of Technology Sydney
Keynote: Challenges for Courses and Learning in a World Infused with Generative Artificial Intelligence
Abstract:
Higher education and adult learning are being challenged by pervasive new technology as never before. We are starting to see how generative AI demands changes to the curriculum, to assessment and to the relations between teachers and learners. Learners have at their fingertips a resource that can not only substantially enhance their learning, but simultaneously lead them to avoid learning altogether. While there have been many responses to the problems that have arisen, many have been naïve and simplistic. Mostly, they failed to acknowledge the substance of the challenges that now need to be confronted. The initial focus on this started with assessment and feedback; the more substantial implications for the curriculum and what we expect students to be able to do and under what circumstances has been deferred in many places. The theme of the presentation will be on how the widespread availability of genAI changes the ways we think about courses and learning. The challenge we face is both immediate and ongoing. We know some implications now, but we have yet to embrace the magnitude of what we have to confront. How do we teach when students and graduates in the workplace now have access to aids more powerful than we could have dreamed of a few years ago? What do we really need to assess, how do we assess and under what conditions, when all members of society have AI to assist them? What is the role of teachers when cogent, well-expressed explanations of any question are available at any time of the day or night? How can the university position itself to survive in such an environment?
Biography:
David Boud is Deakin Distinguished Professor and Foundation Director of the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University, Australia. He is also Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Design and Society at the University of Technology Sydney. In recent years he has focused on research on assessment and feedback, and he has been influential in changing ideas on self-assessment, sustainable assessment, the development of students’ evaluative judgement and feedback. He is one of the most highly cited scholars in the world in the field of higher education with a Google Scholar h-index of 123. https://experts.deakin.edu.au/28619-david-boud/about