This year’s December teaching symposium will explore the impact of AI on education at Tufts, highlighting a Keynote Address, “Sparking Curiosity: Transforming Teaching & Learning with AI” by Dr. Cynthia J. Alby, Georgia College and a panel of Tufts faculty talking about how they are responding to AI in their classrooms. After lunch, there will be an open conversation and an opportunity to play with AI yourself (bring your laptops!)

This event is part of the Fall 2023 AI Series  all recordings and notes can be found online here.

Keynote – Sparking Curiosity: Transforming Teaching & Learning with AI

by Cynthia J. Alby, Georgia College

Abstract: Many of us are feeling overwhelmed on multiple fronts.  What if we can change the narrative of AI from a burden to a path to re-enchanting teaching and learning for both you and your students? With AI’s advanced algorithms and adaptive tools, we can tailor educational experiences to enhance learning outcomes and student engagement like never before. AI offers nearly limitless opportunities for co-exploration, higher order thinking, active learning, and engagement. In this session, I will show you how AI can make it possible to easily incorporate more case studies, examples, games, and simulations (all evidence based strategies for deep learning) tailored to your content and your students. Discover how it can support learning for all students, but especially English language learners and students with special needs. In this presentation, I’ll share how I’ve used AI successfully myself and how others are using it to reinvigorate their courses. Get ready to enjoy AI.

Speaker Bio

Cynthia Alby, Professor of Teacher Education and Faculty Director for High Impact Practices at Georgia College,  has spent most of her career immersed in “avid cross-disciplinary idea synthesizing.” She studies pedagogy, sociology, psychology, neuroscience, behavioral economics – anything that might yield useful clues to improving the art and craft of teaching. Her primary research question is, “How might we re-enchant learning in order to help faculty and students flourish?” Her new collaborative book  Learning that matters: A field guide to course design for transformative education, is the basis for Tufts’ Course Design Institute. Cynthia and her husband, Charlie, live on a farm called “Shangri-Baa” where they raise a critically endangered breed of sheep and livestock guardian dogs.

Faculty Panel

Moderated by Freedom Baird & Justin Horvath, ETS

Meera Gatlin, DVM, MPH, DACVPM Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Infectious Disease and Global Health Clinical Assistant Professor, Public Health and Community Medicine	Rebecca Shakespeare Lecturer, Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning	Erica Kemmerling Assistant Teaching Professor, Mechanical Engineering

Play Space Learning Lab with Dr Ethan Danahy, CEEO & CS

Ethan Danahy Research Associate Professor, Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO) Research Associate Professor, Computer Science

Bring your laptop to this open classroom play space for hands-on exploration of AI. This session will begin with a fellow faculty member demonstrating some of the ways that he has experimented with AI in his teaching. Then each participant will be encouraged to create something themselves using generative artificial intelligence.

No experience necessary.  Hands on support will be provided from ETS & CELT’s Freedom Baird, Carie Cardamone, Justin Lauzon & Justin Horvath.

Schedule (Tuesday December 12th 9am-2pm)

The in-person event will be hosted at the Joyce Cummings Center on the Medford Campus. The online program will run 9:30am-12:30pm and provide zoom access to the Welcome, Keynote Address and Faculty Panel.

This event is supported by a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation established by Stanton and Elizabeth Davis after Mr. Davis’ retirement as chairman of Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc.

Past Symposiums

December 2019 Teaching Symposium