WPI Honored as Leader in Field of Educational Development and GenAI

WPI is being recognized as leading the field in educational development around generative AI (GenAI). The POD Network, which is the premiere professional association for professional and organizational development in higher education, is awarding a WPI team the Robert J. Menges Award for Outstanding Research in Educational Development.

Kimberly LeChasseur (Morgan Teaching & Learning Center), Gillian Smith (IMGD), Yunus Telliel (HUA), and Geoff Pfeifer (DIGS) are being given the honor for their paper, “...But We’re Not Stochastic Parrots: CTLs Leading GenAI Pedagogy.” The paper explores what it means to form inclusive GenAI educational development supports within institutions of higher education, rather than focusing exclusively on building technical knowledge and skills. The paper’s title is a reference to AI systems that parrot back human-like responses that may be convincing, yet ultimately are merely performative and lack authentic meaning. 

The team has been behind much of the professional development at WPI on GenAI for teaching and learning, including the GenAI for Teaching and Learning microcourse, two Professional Learning Communities on GenAI, and several seminars and AI jam sessions. While analyzing what they were learning, the team generated a new framework for understanding where centers for teaching and learning fit into the university’s broader pedagogical ecosystem. The framework describes GenAI initiatives and interventions with a range of foci from technical to humanistic, as well as a range of scopes from depth (such as a master’s degree program in AI) to breadth (such as a university-wide undergraduate learning outcome on AI). 

“The framework can be used as a tool to assess which types of GenAI initiatives are present within an institution’s pedagogical ecosystem and point to any gaps,” says LeChasseur.  

In addition to providing a professional community for educational developers, the POD Network serves as a leading voice on teaching and learning in higher education. The WPI team’s paper will be presented in Chicago at the 2024 annual meeting on November 13 and will be available on the POD Network website.