At CDIL, we are constantly reflecting on how we can best support our faculty colleagues in shaping the future of GenAI at Boston College. For John FitzGibbon, Director of Digital Learning Innovation & GenAI, supporting faculty development with GenAI is all about providing space for thoughtful engagement with the tool.

This article discusses three of CDIL’s faculty development programs and how they enable faculty members to test out the ever-changing GenAI tools and resources in a curious, education-oriented community. These are tools that BC provides to all faculty, staff, and students. With AI Test Kitchen, NotebookLM Sandbox, and AI Learning Exchange, faculty members learn from one another and can facilitate GenAI discussions in the classroom from an informed perspective.

An Opportunity to Explore

What does it mean to get an education? What are we asking from students? These are the questions that GenAI is forcing us to confront in the classroom, and more than ever, it is crucial that we explain to students why we are asking them to learn something. Participating in these faculty programming opportunities helps faculty to answer these questions. Once faculty have explored GenAI tools and gained knowledge on their benefits and drawbacks, they can explain to students if and where GenAI can be used in their classroom, centering its effects on student learning. Most importantly, instructors can come to these important discussions with a disciplinary expertise, which students tend to respond to more. 

While CDIL offers multiple opportunities for faculty members to develop this informed perspective, this article will focus on three in particular: AI Test Kitchen, NotebookLM Sandbox, and AI Learning Exchange. These programs are especially useful starting points for faculty unsure where to begin learning about GenAI and are open to any faculty member eager to learn and explore.

What CDIL Offers

AI Test Kitchen

Aptly named, the AI Test Kitchen is a three-session workshop series meant to help you “cook up” a custom GenAI assistant to explore practical uses of GenAI in your context. What surprises most faculty is that no prior coding knowledge or technology experience is required to try out these GenAI chatbots. CDIL provides the recipes and ingredients to get started.

There are three, hour and a half synchronous workshop sessions: one to prep your ideas and decide on potential uses for an GenAI chatbot in your field, one to cook up a prototype, where you begin to build a chatbot and learn how to prompt it, and one to move from kitchen to table, or discuss as a community takeaways from this experience and where to go next.

NotebookLM Sandbox

NotebookLM is one of the most accessible starting points for faculty to experiment with GenAI, as it combines the benefits of an LLM, such as pulling and summarizing data,  without drawbacks such as the risk of misinformation. Unlike ChatGPT, NotebookLM allows you to control where the information is pulled from – you can upload your selected scholarly sources, for instance, and it will pull information directly from those readings only, cite it, and bring you to the place it gathered the information. The Sandbox provides a way for faculty to try out this technology in a synchronous community setting. 

Unlike the Test Kitchen, there are two workshops. Each workshop includes a brief introduction explaining NotebookLM, dedicated time for individual work to test out the program, with availability for technical questions if needed, and time to report back on your discoveries. 

AI Learning Exchange

The AI Learning Exchange is a place to go beyond the initial experimentation with the Test Kitchen and NotebookLM and hear from the broader BC community about how they are engaging with GenAI. Participants provide updates on how they are using these ever-changing technologies and workshop ideas for future development.

Discussing GenAI from an Informed Perspective

Across offerings, the goal is to give faculty members space to try the tools Boston College already offers and, crucially, share results and learn from one another’s experiences. By participating in these offerings, faculty members can not only better discuss GenAI’s role in the classroom but also help answer fundamental questions about what it means to get an education and what universities expect from students. Whether you choose to use GenGenAI in your classroom or not, these opportunities enable faculty to approach it from an informed perspective and help students engage with GenAI intentionally, advancing their learning.