This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The Canadian government recently introduced AI for All, a national artificial intelligence strategy that has two focuses: building trust and creating opportunity. As Canada invests in AI literacy and adoption, schools and post-secondary institutions can play a central role in ensuring that future generations are prepared to discern appropriate, effective and ethical uses of the technology.
Over the past year and a half, as doctoral students in education, we have worked with more than 800 educators from schools, universities and professional learning settings to explore how they understand, discuss and respond to generative AI. Our experience with educators led to the development of the GenAI-dentity Survey and Workshop project, designed to help educators reflect on: So far, more than 800 educators have filled out our survey, whether through our guided workshop or by completing the module on our website. Our forthcoming research describes the development of this survey and workshop in more detail and reports on what we've learned so far from surveys and workshops we have conducted.
This book chapter, "The Generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) Comfort Spectrum: Navigating the Role of genAI Through Self-Assessment to Support Educator Growth," is part of the Handbook of Theory and Research in Digital Media and Education. As students leading this project, we're grateful that it's been supported by our academic mentors and professors: Saad Chahine and Pamela Beach here at Queen's University. We work with educators to engage early adopters and those who look the other way in discussions about the changing educational landscape.
We seek to build trust and create opportunities for discussions on AI use in educational settings. This matters because educators are on the front lines, from elementary schools to post-secondary institutions. They are encountering genAI as both an opportunity and a disruption.
While genAI has been shown to support efficiency and open up new possibilities for education, it raises questions about academic integrity, equity, privacy, bias, environmental impact, dependence on large technology companies and the nature of education itself. This tension sits at the center of our research on AI comfort in educational settings. To date, we've found that while educators play an important role in Canada's AI future, many feel unprepared, unsupported and uncomfortable with the new technology.
This can lead to them ignoring genAI rather than mentoring students on when and how to use it. Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. d research that matter—daily or weekly. In developing the survey and workshop, we found that educators do not fall neatly into simple categories of being for or against genAI.
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