Teaching Effectiveness Symposium

PRESENTATION RESOURCES

The Teaching Effectiveness Symposium is CTE's hallmark program for SMU faculty. This year's keynote is Dr. Betsy Barre, Executive Director of Wake Forest University's Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

KEYNOTE SUMMARY

“The One Who Does the Work Does the Learning”: Motivating Student Engagement in an Age of AI

If there is anything we know about the learning process, it is that active engagement is necessary to build new knowledge. Whether students are learning new concepts or developing a new skill, they must actively work to secure meaningful development and growth. As a result, we have good reason to worry about the implications of artificial intelligence for student learning. Now that tools exist that can do much of the work we ask students to do, it is entirely possible that students might–intentionally or unintentionally–bypass the engagement that is necessary for their growth. At the same time, the more we learn about these tools, the more it becomes clear they have significant potential to deepen and extend the learning opportunities available to our students.

In this year’s TES keynote, Dr. Betsy Barre will draw on the science of learning to help participants understand the double-edged sword of AI and how we might help students wield it with care. Participants will engage in a series of reflective exercises designed to apply these insights to their own teaching contexts. They will examine their course goals, identify the types of student work necessary to achieve those goals, and consider how various uses of AI might support or undermine that work. Participants will then develop strategies to motivate students to use AI as a tool to enhance, rather than replace, their active engagement in the course.

Elizabeth Wheaton-Páramo (SMU Econ) and Mateo Langston Smith (SMU OIT), Tashima Thomas (SMU Meadows - Art History), Brett Story (SMU Lyle - CEE), and Daniel Tague (Meadows – Music Therapy)