Crystal Mackay

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has already changed our day-to-day lives, from popping up in our Google searches to curating our camera roll to assisting with everyday tasks. On a broader scale, it is also continuing to change the way people work – including shaping how universities prepare students for the future. A task force on AI, convened by the Council of Ontario Universities (COU), released a report on May 29 outlining recommendations for universities on preparing students for an AI-enabled world, supporting industry adoption and innovation and transforming teaching, research and operations. The task force work was led by Western’s chief AI officer Mark Daley as vice-chair, alongside University of Waterloo president Vivek Goel. “We have created machines that are recognizably intelligent, and that will inevitably and fundamentally change how we approach education,” said Daley. “For universities, our fundamental roles as an educator, as a social and cultural reservoir and a place of discovery will be more important than ever.” Daley is helping to set the foundation for the role higher education institutions will play in an AI-enabled future. As student learning shifts in the age of AI, post-secondary institutions are empowering students to consider how to thoughtfully adopt the technology – not to replace their critical thinking and creativity, but to leverage as a tool. The COU report highlights how universities are poised to play a central role in an AI-enabled society, including responsibly integrating AI into teaching, research and institutional operations, and acknowledges universities are key resources for informing and supporting society’s overall approach to thoughtful and ethical AI adoption. The report also outlines the need for universities to prepare students for an AI-driven labour market.  

The Centre for Teaching and Learning

Western is already leading the way in this space, from GenAI Teaching Fellows who are innovating and researching AI applications for teaching, to a dedicated AI resource centre for faculty and staff. Western’s Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) has also developed robust programming to help guide faculty and instructors on all things GenAI, from providing a basic introduction, to rethinking assessments, to interactive workshops on how GenAI can be considerately used to support teaching and learning. “AI is encouraging instructors to re-examine how they form relationships in the classroom, how they assess student learning and the purpose of education,” said Dani Dilkes, a CTL educational developer focused on digital learning. “They are asking themselves, what does learning look like and how can AI support that?” The team takes an approach rooted in values – asking questions about what instructors and their students care about and what they are concerned about – to inform their use of GenAI and ensure their decisions are traced back to those values. The Centre’s work recognizes and is responsive to the spectrum of perspectives on GenAI, from refusal and resistance through to thoughtful adoption and enthusiastic excitement. The CTL has been facilitating workshops that bring together educators within the same department to rethink assignments and the way they assess student knowledge in response to generative AI. This collaborative approach sharpens the focus on what students should gain from their degrees, while acknowledging the infeasibility of a one-size-fits-all policy on AI use. “For example, a chemical engineering program and a history department can arrive at very different, but equally principled, approaches to responding to generative AI. The goal is coherence within programs without being prescriptive,” said Aisha Haque, CTL director. CTL also offers educators opportunities to explore and experiment with generative AI tools. Educators gain direct experience using the tools so they can understand how they might meaningfully integrate them into their teaching practices and support student learning goals.  

GenAI Teaching Fellows at Western

Western’s three Generative AI Teaching Fellows have been developing, implementing and assessing the impact of specific GenAI teaching applications in their classrooms across the disciplines of physiotherapy, marketing and history, and sharing their findings with colleagues. History professor Bill Turkel is one of three fellows. In his digital research methods course, he is empowering students to test out “vibe coding.” “What that means is that instead of me teaching students how to program from the ground up, they are now describing the programs they want in natural language and seeing if the computer can implement it for them.” He says he’s seen students create powerful AI applications they can use in their research right away. “If we know what we want to do, and have much faster ways of doing it, we can take on more ambitious projects,” he said. Ivey Business School professor Guneet Kaur Nagpal and physiotherapy professor Andrews Tawiah, the other two fellows, are using GenAI to help augment case-based teaching methods in their courses. Nagpal has developed a marketing strategy simulation called plAIbook, designed to help students learn to question and analyze the results they get from AI. Students act as the CEO and use structured prompts, constraints and verification checkpoints to turn GenAI into a research assistant that helps inform their marketing plans. The goal is to harness the power of AI while retaining ownership of business decisions. “We have to accept that AI-integration is inevitable and prepare students for the presence of AI in their lives,” said Nagpal. “The challenge is finding ways to integrate it so it enhances learning, rather than inhibiting it.” Tawiah is developing an AI learning platform where physiotherapy students can practice dealing with different patient examples they may encounter in clinical work, especially rare scenarios they may not experience during placements. “AI is becoming part of health care. We want students to use AI responsibility and understand when it’s helpful and when it shouldn’t be relied on,” he said.  

Exploring responsible AI use with students

And it isn’t just the teaching fellows who are recognizing a need to reshape teaching and learning to adapt to an AI-enabled world. Ken Yeung, associate dean (academic) in the Faculty of Science has eagerly watched his colleagues find innovative ways to incorporate AI into their courses. He was also being asked by his peers when it is or isn’t appropriate to use it. “It’s not about having a universal policy for the Faculty of Science – instead we need to think about what it means to use a tool to help us accomplish something, and what are the consequences of those decisions. Is it helping or hindering learning?” he said. With that in mind, he developed a graduate-level course that explores the responsible use of generative AI in science. The course, co-designed and co-taught with Cortney Hanna-Benson, associate director of digital learning at the CTL, focused on helping students think critically about generative AI and how these technologies can be used ethically and responsibly. The course was centered on a students-as-partners model that Hanna-Beson says ensured students were not just recipients of instruction but also helped shape the course. “We’re seeing a diversity of perspectives, which is what we expected. Some students are very concerned about AI, and others are very excited about it. A key part of the course is helping them listen to each other and understand different perspectives. That’s incredibly valuable,” said Yeung. The course outcome was the production of a five-chapter open educational resource written by graduate students for undergraduate science students, to be published on eCampusOntario Pressbooks.  

Artificial Intelligence Resource Centre offers support

Western Technology Services has also recently launched the Artificial Intelligence Resource Centre (AIRC), which will provide training, consultation and collaboration to help faculty and staff implement AI tools and solutions in a safe and practical way. “The AIRC was created to support how we explore emerging technologies and to equip our community to lead in a rapidly evolving landscape,” said Jason Oliver, Western’s Chief Technology Officer. “In an AI-enabled world, institutions need dedicated resources that help people navigate these tools thoughtfully, responsibly and effectively. The AIRC provides an environment where faculty and staff can safely experiment, collaborate and build practical solutions that enhance our day-to-day work.” Once staff and faculty have determined that they may be able to use AI tools to support their work, representatives from the AIRC – including students – can help build and test those tools.  Oliver says the work of the AIRC follows a people-first approach with the lens that AI supports, not replaces, the human elements of work. “It enables our community to focus on higher-value, creative and strategic contributions. As adoption accelerates across higher education, the AIRC positions Western to remain competitive while staying true to our values – supporting academic excellence, enhancing the student experience, and strengthening institutional effectiveness,” he said. “AI is already a fixture in modern workplaces, and by the time the class of 2030 graduates, AI literacy will be a baseline expectation from employers.  Embedding AI ethics and awareness into the university experience is essential if we are to truly prepare students for the future.” Learn more about how Western is navigating new realities.