Academics, university leaders, regulators and policy experts gather at the SPGA Digital Education Symposium to share best practice for the future of university pedagogy.
By Eve Lacroix (Senior Communications Officer), Published
“We can’t stop students from using AI when they will be asked about it in future job interviews,” argues Professor Charles Lees, Executive Dean of the School of Policy & Global Affairs (SPGA) at City St George’s, University of London.
His comments came as part of the SPGA Digital Education and Innovation Forum, hosted in June in partnership with the Finsbury Institute, the City of London’s dedicated policy hub.
The Symposium brought together leading academics and sector policy experts to share best practice on the future of higher education in a digital-first world.
Speakers and attendees included senior leaders from the London School of Economics (LSE) and King’s College London, as well as thinktankers and regulators from the Office for Students (OfS), AdvanceHE and the Higher Eduction Policy Institute (HEPI).
AI and the graduate premium
Rapid advances in large language models (LLMs) and generative artificial intelligence (AI) are degrading the “graduate premium” that employers previously sought in early career recruits.
At the same time, students are graduating into a challenging global economy and jobs market. Public and political attitudes towards higher education are shifting, leaving the sector in a state of flux.
Stefan Swift, Head of Communications at the European Social Survey (ESS), which is based in SPGA, gave data-informed insights the slow adoption of digital tools in the UK compared to its European peers.
Policy leads Rose Stephenson and Charlotte Armstrong from HEPI shared data from a recent report on the increased use of generative AI among students. Their findings highlighted that students are looking towards their lecturers to instil in them confidence in how to best use these tools.
The writing is on the wall: educators and researchers need to adapt their pedagogy to prepare students for this brave new world.
Professor Lees believes that universities banning students from AI – as part of their revision tactics or even to work on coursework – are being shortsighted.
Instead, he argues universities will need to provide students with “digital skills, agency and the sense of professionalism” to succeed in their careers.
The future is now: SPGA’s Digital Champions trialling new educational tools
SPGA recently hired four Digital Champions, whose role is to trial new innovative teaching methods and resources with their respective departments, with a view to roll them out across the University if successful, and each presented their projects at the Symposium.
The Digital Champions project is lead by Dr Xiaogang Che, Associate Dean for Innovation & Digital Transformation in SPGA.
Dr Anna Kaliciak collaborated with Dr Panagiotis Giannarakis to create an AI chatbot which helps students work on their dissertation, from answering questions about planning, research design to methodology.
The AI-led reasoning tool TutorialX, which Dr Camilo Calderon Morales presented, teaches students critical thinking skills and adapts the level of difficulty to the student’s ability.
Dr Yoav Galai discussed a playful social studies module he ran to teach students how to combine their skills in a meaningful way for their future careers. The project saw students carry out digital mapping, take photos, research facts by sending out Freedom of Information requests, and learn to code to create their own websites to host their projects.
Dr Luis Da Vinha showed his video lecture series, which makes learning interactive rather than passive by embedding quizzes and allowing students to click to specific parts of the class they want to review.
Collaboration and intentional skills-building
Sarah Knight, the Director of Digital Transformation for Higher Education at Jisc (the UK’s digital, data and technology agency focused on tertiary education), praised City St George’s work on digital innovation.
“City St George’s has a great emphasis on curriculum design, and its senior leadership team are digital advocates,” she said. “These are fundamental critical success factors.”
Reflecting on the event, Professor Diana Beech, Director of the Finsbury Institute, said: