The University of Waterloo is partnering with Google to explore the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on education in a new workshop.
Google has invested $1 million into the partnership, which will have a mandate to research and educate the public on how humans interact with AI.
The chair will be held by Edith Law, professor of computer science at the University of Waterloo and executive director of the Future of Work Institute.
“The partnership will enable a number of research and education initiatives at the intersection of technology design and pedagogical innovation, including hands-on learning labs for students to envision technologies for the future of work and learning through prototyping,” the University of Waterloo stated in a press release.
The partnership is one piece of a larger mandate from the Future of Work Institute, which is funded by a $450,000 grant from the University of Waterloo’s Global Futures Fund.
The research being conducted through the partnership has three main pillars.
The first is a set of research projects looking at AI-facilitated learning technologies.
“This is really just understanding and developing novel education tools and understanding how students might use it,” Law said.
“One of the research topics is learning by teaching. So instead of having AI be the information provider, we’re turning it on its head and having AI act as a less knowledgeable peer that can be taught by students, and the students learn by teaching such an agent.”
Another aspect of the partnership is to investigate new paradigms of learning and teaching through an eight-week program that began in early October.
Law said the labs allow technical and non-technical students across campus to work together to envision what learning tools could look like using AI-supported prototyping tools.
For example, students will use Gemini Canvas and Google AI studio, where they can create a whole app just by prompting AI.
The third main piece of the partnership is to understand how technology can co-evolve with learning environments and policy.
“This is something I think is needed for learning technology to actually work in real-world learning environments,” Law said.
Law noted that learning technology is complex to incorporate into learning environments. When AI and learning technology enter classrooms, Law said educators must consider the role of the technology, the role of instructors, and the role of peers and how the technology may evolve in these roles.
Additionally, policy can help guide students and educators to understand how learning technology can be used, how to assess the quality of the work produced, and more.
For Law, this research is coming at an important time.
“There’s no question that students have access [to AI],” Law said.
“I think that there’s definitely an evolution going on where students have access to these tools and then instructors are adapting the way they deliver their courses and do the evaluation. I’ve heard of lots of interesting ways in which instructors have done that,” she said.
In this way, Law is also thinking about the impact AI will have on career readiness.
“I think it is important for the next generation to have just a basic level of AI literacy,” Law said.
“Understanding ways of thinking about AI and understanding the context of use…Being able to operate in this kind of environment and understanding how to get around an AI-rich environment is something that all students should be trained to do,” she said.
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