AI in education

 Here is a digest of my presentation on the perceived trustworthiness of AI and GPT tools and their use (and disuse) in higher education for a PIL webinar.

Training in Higher Education Pedagogy

PIL 103 Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 3: Applied Analysis, University of Gothenburg, March 2024

PIL102 Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (badgr.com) University of Gothenburg, Mar 2023 (Also: PIL101)

PIL101 Microteaching (badgr.com) University of Gothenburg, Apr 2023

PIL101 Lesson plan (badgr.com) University of Gothenburg, May 2023

PIL101 Legal Module. University of Gothenburg, January 2024

PIL201 Supervision in Postgraduate Programmes, Universtity of Gothenburg, Nov 2023

Pedagogical Statement: my view on doctoral supervision 

The role of the PhD supervisor is to make sure that students are ready to transition into the next stage of a research career: becoming an independent researcher (Åkerlind, 2015). In my opinion, there are three equally important approaches to this: (i) the external, by making sure the student is exposed to new ideas and communities, (ii) the constructive, not only enhancing research skills but also fostering inspiration towards research, and (iii) the realistic, concerned with ensuring that the PhD journey is well both research- and emotion-wise.

External approaches, such as helping students to publish their work and attend conferences and research events, are standardised to help students attain a set of skills up to par to their peers in other universities. These efforts also include build the student's confidence, so important in academic endeavours. There can be, of course, different schools of thought regarding the value of dissemination activities or participation in events. For example, I personaly believe that, for PhD  students, it is more valuable to attend a conference (independently of its rank!) where interesting conversations with key researchers can be held, than publishing in a reputed journal. I believe that smaller venues are key for open dialogue about research directions, career expectations, and (sometimes tangential) topics that are key for the development of the students (Johansson, 2018).

On the other hand, the inner workings of a supervisor-student relationship can vary a lot. Åkerlind stated that supervisors should foster the development of the students, not only in terms of their hard skills but also fostering their personal development, e.g., inspire their enthusiasm towards research (Åkerlind, 2015). In my own supervision, this materialises in many formal and informal discussions with PhD students, supervised by me or not, about the beauty of the collective effort towards scientific progress. This is a concept easy to forget if a PhD journey is only a race against time with a number of set-in-stone measurable goals: more papers!, better ranked conferences!, more citations! I also try to invite senior researchers to these conversations, for they have often a different point of view (often more down-to-earth and pragmatic).

Which takes me to the third point: the realistic supervision. Schierenbeck states that the PhD supervisor should help the PhD student in "scaling down the ambitions" instead of addressing problems with too big of a scope (Schierenbeck, 2018). This is, of course, the best recommendation for a PhD student. However, in my opinion, PhD students should have a grace period every now and then (in the beginning of their journey and after each big submission, perhaps) to explore ideas, to diverge from their main line of research and converge in a topic to be discussed, and (if needed) to be discarded. That is research! Schierenbeck also discusses a similar issue, related to providing feedback: they suggest giving comments and criticism to the PhD student’s work should be addressed to achieving a result (in the case of a PhD, be it a paper, a presentation, or a thesis) that is "good enough" (Schierenbeck, 2018). I believe this is key in maintaining a balanced workplace for PhD students: their journey should be sufficient for them to grow into an independent researcher (Åkerlind, 2015) but, at the same time, should not be a weary obstacle race. 

Frequent supervision meetings and short follow-up sessions can be very helpful to achieve help reduce stress of the student (Schierenbeck, 2018) and understand what is going well and what are the struggles. In my experience, the main obstacles for PhD students are not related to their research but the environment, that should be welcoming and inclusive but often is not. Sometimes, though, work itself is challenging: academics are and should always be subject to criticism, and acknowledging criticism and learning to appreciate it is part of a PhD student’s journey. Those troubled times can also be a time for the PhD supervisors to check up on their students’ overall feelings about their PhD journey and try to enhance the students’ enjoyment of and commitment to the doctoral experience, key for personal development as suggested by Åkerlind (Åkerlind, 2015).

In my YouTube Channel you can find videos about Computer Science, 2D videogame creation (Python + PyGame from scratch), etc. + other videos that are not Computer-Engineering-related. I am also mantaining a couple of interesting compilations/playlists that might be useful to you or your students. Feel free to take a look!

• Recorded classes and Q&A sessions for Introduction to programming (labs and seminars, 2020) https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpkg5PEI-IvuATijFxgE6yJDo_EZCfNT9  

• Multimedia materials for the online summer school “Video games with Artificial Intelligence in Python” https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpkg5PEI-IvtrzydXhdobad5YEKnv3UBE  

• Multimedia materials (recorded interviews) for the “Bots: from video games to smart houses” course https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpkg5PEI-IvsgBTG8NLcLAPWvhby8WVqI   

• Multipurpose programming guide available online to review concepts (used in class) https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1PZpbiBaTwn_eEs_V2rmaD99if_Y7ZRvD