Date/Time
Date(s) - Tue 13 May
18:30 - 19:30
The 2025 Gibbons Lecture Series theme is How Artificial Intelligence is Reshaping Education.
Overview: Artificial Intelligence offers new opportunities to enhance teaching, personalise learning and improve student outcomes. The 2025 Gibbons Lecture Series explores the role of AI in modern education, examining real-world applications, discussing the impact on teachers and students, and addressing the challenges of interacting with AI. Whether you are an educator, student or policymaker, this series will provide valuable insights into how AI is revolutionising education and what the future holds.
Tuesday 13 May 2025
Talk title: How might AI contribute to solving our educational challenges?
Speaker: Prof Stuart McNaughton, Curriculum and Pedagogy, University of Auckland
Abstract
Rather than start with the promise of AI, I first introduce the big challenges we face in education in Aotearoa New Zealand. Then ask the question how AI might contribute to solving these. Two overarching concerns are posed as equity and excellence. Contributing to solving these requires solving four system problems: variability in performance, scalability of what works, capability to implement what works and sustainability of what works. AI can contribute assessments for complex cognitive and social emotional skills, and instruction that goes beyond simple tutorial functions. Prototypes of both standalone assessments and games illustrate that promise. These could have direct and indirect effects on each of the four challenges. However, educational change always carries risks. A notable risk with AI is exacerbating the overarching concerns.
Biography
Stuart is Professor of Education at Waipapa Taumata Rau the University of Auckland. He has published extensively on children’s development, the design of effective educational programmes for culturally and linguistically diverse populations, and cultural processes in development. He was the Founding Director of the Woolf Fisher Research Centre/ Te Pūtahi which pioneered research in design based school change. His current research focuses on designing and testing digital tools to promote online resilience and social and cognitive skills. He is a recipient of national and international research prizes, consults on curricula and educational interventions nationally and internationally, is a member of a number of academic bodies, and is a Senior Research Fellow at East China Normal University (Shanghai Municipal Institute for Lifelong Learning). In 2011 he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and from 2014 until 2024 was Aotearoa New Zealand’s inaugural Chief Education Scientific Advisor.
Livestream: https://youtube.com/live/J2h4lKbp3ec?feature=share