Digital Futures for Education: Which university education do we need for an AI future?

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The emergence of generative artificial Intelligence (GAI) started a heated debate about its impact on higher education. On the one hand, discussions have focused on the significant disruption of everyday university practices such as assessment and plagiarism detection and, on the other hand, the need to embrace a technology presented as central to student future competence development. In this context, this conversation aims to generate public debate about the following guiding questions:

• How does higher education need to adapt in the face of the changes driven by technological developments and the expanding, increasing capabilities and ease of access to different AI tools?
• What are the students’ skills we university teachers need to cultivate so students are well-prepared to deal with the many challenges that arise with the free use of GAI in society?
• Besides the hype, what is the impact of GAI on students’ knowledge development and university teachers’ assessment practices?

With this conversation series, we aim to understand better how bachelor’s and master’s programs need to redesign their curricula, courses, assignments, and examinations. We also aim to learn how the different universities in Sweden and outside of it are reasoning about GAI and making decisions in their educational practices.

Welcome to the conversation, and join us at Digital Futures!

Moderator: Teresa Cerratto Pargman, Prof. Stockholm University and Associate Director for Outreach, Digital Futures

Speakers include:

Henrika Florén – MSc, MEd, MA is an educational developer at the unit of Teaching and Learning at Karolinska Institutet and a final year Ph.D. candidate at UCL Institute of Education, Department of Culture, Communication and Media.

• Moving into unchartered territories of future AI educational landscapes
  Big Tech companies often highlight digital technologies such as AI as solutions to societal problems. At the other end of the scale, we find those who see dangers with digital technologies and, therefore, advocate strict limitations to the use of AI. In the future, people may increasingly use AI to facilitate the creation of text, still and moving images, voice, music, code, and support decision-making. In this discussion, I will highlight how higher education will need to adapt in the face of the changes being driven by technological developments and the expanding, increasing capabilities and ease of access to different AI tools.

Arnold Pears – Professor, Unit of Learning in STEM at KTH, Working group Educational Transformation, PI of research project Transforming Higher Education Practice Through Generative-AI, Digital Futures Faculty.

• Integrating AI skills into tertiary education: An absolute necessity!
  AI skills will permeate many areas of technology and engineering in the next few years. This means that university graduates will need to be educated on how AI is used in their future professions. How professions integrate AI tools into professional workflows needs to be understood, and strategies and pedagogies that help future professionals in our degree programs learn these skills are paramount. In this context, how should we meet this challenge?

Cormac McGrath – Associate Professor (Docent) at Stockholm University, Digital Futures Faculty

• Chatbots, Intelligence, or anthropomorphism?
  Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a potentially transformative force. Some view it as a threat to Higher Education, while others view it as a tool to enhance teaching and learning experiences. I will discuss the potential impacts of AI on students’ knowledge development and university teachers’ assessment practices.

Through Digital Futures for Education, we aim to:

• Stimulate an interdisciplinary dialogue across national and international universities to identify social demands and needs locally and globally.
• Bring about a well-founded debate on the possibilities of digitalization and data-driven education in Sweden.
• Cultivate critical and generative discussions on the ongoing research educational programs and projects at KTH, Stockholm University, and RISE.
• Align research goals and agendas in educational technology with everyday sociotechnical practices.
• Promote more inclusive conversations on digital transformation in higher education.

We invite you to be part of the conversation on digital transformation in education by suggesting topics and potential speakers to Teresa Cerratto Pargman, Associate Director Outreach, Digital Futures. Please send your suggestion to  tessy@dsv.su.se. Write “Digital Futures Outreach” in the subject of your email.

Digital Futures for Education consists of conversations and events that bring together key actors from academia, civil society, and the private and public sectors. Its mission is to provide a colloquial space for discussion and reflection on the digital transformation in education and the role of universities in today’s complex societies. The goal is also to build a community with key national and international educational actors.