Description:

Talk by C. Edward Watson, national expert on digital innovation in higher education.

Co-sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching as part of the efforts of Northwestern's Generative AI Advisory Committee to promote pedagogical opportunities related to ongoing advances in related technologies. Made possible by the Klopsteg Lecture Fund.

September 9, 2:00–3:30 PM

Reception to follow, 3:30–4:00 PM

Generative AI tools have had an astonishingly quick impact on the ways we learn, work, think, and create. While some in higher education initially sought to develop strategies to diminish AI’s influence in the classroom, it is clear that AI competencies and literacies must be embraced as essential learning for most colleges and universities. These responses and realities create a challenging tension that higher education must work to resolve. Drawing from the presenter’s new book, Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024), this presentation and discussion will detail the challenges and opportunities that have emerged for higher education, especially in terms of pedagogical practice and student learning. The core focus of this keynote will be on concrete approaches and strategies higher education can adopt, both within the classroom and across larger curricular structures, to best prepare students for the life that awaits them after graduation. It will also detail the pedagogical possibilities regarding how AI can have a positive impact on student learning.

**There will a videographer at the event to create a high-quality recording that will be shared with the campus community on the Searle Center for Advancing Learning & Teaching website.