“Artificial intelligence (AI) is the in thing. It is trending, and I think we all require these skills because they are applicable to all of us, from lecturers to senior management,” said Dean of Faculty of Education, Professor Chika Sehoole, at the AI Exploration workshop hosted by The Living Lab for Innovative Teaching (LLITUP) at the University of Pretoria (UP).

The workshop brought together UP academics and staff at the Groenkloof campus to explore and investigate the possibilities of AI in teaching, learning and research in higher education. The participants acknowledged that innovations like Chat-GPT have prompted the higher education sector to explore how these technologies can be optimised ethically and responsibly.

“It is an important workshop, and I am very impressed by the participation of staff members from all faculties in the university,” Prof Sehoole said.

“We are looking at it from a positive perspective and trying to see how we as academic members embrace this disruptive technology that is almost scaring the world,” said Jody Jourbert, manager of the LLITUP Research Unit. “We are trying to see how we can embrace it in such a way that we can use it to the best of our abilities going forward. What makes this workshop significant is that we are not asking what we can learn from the world or what has the world done, but we are saying this is our approach towards this disruption.”

UP academics explore AI technologies as a means of teaching and learning in higher education.

The workshop explored generative AI applications like Chat-GPT, an advanced AI language model capable of understanding and generating human-like text responses to engaging in natural and interactive conversations; Fliki, an AI-empowered tool for quickly creating audio and video content; Synthesia, a tool that has revolutionised content creation by enabling users to produce professional videos effortlessly without cameras, microphones or a studio and; GPTZero, an AI text analyser platform designed to help instructors distinguish between plagiarised and original work. 

Participants learnt, for example, that Chat-GPT can give students access to 24/7 tutor support, assist them summarise and theme information, solve mathematic equations and explains the steps, provide overview of complex concepts, give feedback on written work, and improve grammar and sentence structure. At the same time, lecturers can use it to create ten-slide PowerPoint presentations and tables of pros and cons on various topics, translate reports written in other languages to English, generate a marking scheme for an essay, design comprehensive lesson plans, and solve complex mathematics problems for the purposes of learning to teach others.

“Many past technologies were designed to alleviate the burden of physical work, while AI automates certain types of cognitive tasks,” said Prof Gerrit Stols, Director at UP’s Department for Education Innovation. “Generative AI can make humans productive and creative by complementing human labour and creativity. Hybrid human-AI writing or creations will become standard, but humans will remain responsible for the final product,” he said. 

A guide to help lecturers to navigate and leverage generative artificial intelligence for teaching and learning in a responsible, ethical, and education manner has been created: Leveraging Generative Artificial Intelligence for Teaching and Learning Enhancement.