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Lab short abstract

This lab addresses polarization around student GenAI-use through survey insights, World Café discussions, and best-practice examples. Providing ample room for mutual exchange, this lab will be the start of a teaching guide and future position paper on teaching anthropology at the age of GenAI.

Lab long abstract

The use of GenA.I. by students has become polarising at universities, forcing instructors to consider limiting its use, banning A.I., reconceptualizing teaching, and/or training students on how to use it critically. The consequence is a generalised suspicion and pressure in the classroom, creating didactic, epistemic and political uncertainties that can disadvantage students who are navigating time challenges, language barriers, or (other) effects of neurodiversity.

Our first activity conducts an interactive exercise to gauge participants’ positionality and teaching experiences in the era of GenAI. We will then introduce the results of a recent survey of BA and MA students in anthropology, which indicated that 76% of students thought that the use of GenA.I. for assignments was problematic and should be limited, yet many still seem to rely on it. Taking this as a starting point, this lab aims to spark a cross-university conversation about instructors' concerns regarding students’ use of GenAI, the gaps between values and practice that instructors navigate.

The second activity features a World Café, where participants collectively uncover and confront assumptions, anecdotes, and experiences with GenAI in the classroom, and share best practice assessment and teaching examples like zines, photography and process-based portfolios. To wrap up, we will discuss how anthropological understandings can inform pedagogies, including abolitionist frameworks, and how we can create learning environments shifting focus to critical engagement for students and lecturers alike.

This lab will result in a position paper and a pedagogical toolkit on the future of teaching anthropology and GenAI.