This digital dialogue is hosted by HELTASA’s Digital Learning and Teaching project team. It is framed by the following questions:

• What are our students actually using GenAI tools for and why?
• How can university stakeholders incorporate student perspectives on GenAI into their guidelines, policies and practices?

Our first provocateur is Dr Alette Schoon (School of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University), part of a research team of academics in the field of media and communication who wanted to understand how university students were using GenAI and AI-powered tools in their academic practices. They administered an online survey to undergraduate students at five South African universities: the University of Cape Town, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Stellenbosch University, Rhodes University, and the University of the Witwatersrand. Since sharing their initial findings they have been doing follow-up focus groups with students at their institutions. Their research findings shed light on the uses and understandings of AI tools by students from a global south and multilingual context and contribute to broader ongoing conversations on the potentials and pitfalls of these tools for student learning. They argue that we should factor in students’ perspectives because the way educators and researchers view AI use differs from how students perceive their use of AI tools.

Our second provocateur, Dr Cheng-Wen Huang (Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching, University of Cape Town) has been involved in facilitating workshops designed to support processes of co-designing AI guidelines in departments with lecturers and students. She will share how this differs from what is currently happening at many universities, the value of such conversations for lecturers and students and advice for colleagues who may want to facilitate similar processes.

Provocateurs will kick off the digital dialogue and incorporate facilitated activities where participants can share their views, highlights, concerns and further questions.

This event is open to all participants.

Please sign up here. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.