Date: Monday, June 23rd, 2025
Time: 2:00-3:00pm (AT) / 1:00-2:00pm (ET) / 10:00-11:00am (PT)
SoTL Speaker Session Description:
When ChatGPT launched publicly in November 2022, Ben Lee Taylor was teaching writing-intensive courses and serving on an academic integrity committee at Seneca Polytechnic in Toronto. By December 2022, the committee was already adjudicating its first case of suspected AI misuse by a student, sparking questions about how this new technology might forever reshape the landscape of higher education. For Dr. Taylor, these questions ultimately evolved into the Generative AI and Assessment (GAIA) project, a multiphase study funded by McMaster University’s MacPherson Institute involving surveys of Canadian instructors, analysis of sample assessments, and follow-up interviews.
This session will introduce some of the project’s findings and outputs (including a descriptive assessment design framework), while also detailing some key practical steps involved in SoTL research, from question formation to ethics approval, recruitment, and data management. In doing so, the session will explore how SoTL research offers opportunities to investigate specific teaching contexts, contribute to broader pedagogical conversations, engage in meaningful cross- and interdisciplinary collaboration, and develop new technical and professional skills.
If you’ve ever had questions or thoughts about teaching and learning that are worth investigating systematically, this session will hopefully make the SoTL research process feel more accessible and less intimidating.
SoTL Speaker Bio:
Ben Lee Taylor received his PhD in English from York University in 2021, where his dissertation examined the intersections of gender politics and artistic production in early 20th century satire. His experiences teaching during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, however, led him to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship with McMaster University’s MacPherson Institute. In this position, he conducted a study (results pending) investigating how university and college instructors in Canada continue to respond to generative AI through assessment practices. He currently oversees writing support programs and services for undergraduate and graduate students with McMaster’s Student Success Centre, and his thinking about the role that generative AI can and should play in the writing process fluctuates daily.
Matthew Dunleavy (he/him) is an educational developer and scholarly teacher with over 9+ years’ experience. He immediately joins our CTEI from York University where he was an Educational Developer with the Teaching Commons; before entering that role, he served as the Program Director of the Online Learning and Technology Consultants (OLTC) Program at the Maple League of Universities (Acadia University; Bishop’s University; Mount Allison University; and St. Francis Xavier University). In 2022, he was awarded the D2L Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning by the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) for this work.
