In a new article published in the Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, Faculty of Education Professor Dr. Molade Osibodu explores how mathematics classrooms continue to marginalize Black students in Ontario.

Titled “What’s Black Got to Do with It?”, the study investigates the experiences of eight Black secondary students in the Greater Toronto Area, uncovering how math spaces remain shaped by antiblackness, despite recent policy changes like the 2020–2021 move to destream Grade 9 math. Students described having to constantly prove their intelligence, encountering racialized assumptions about ability, rarely seeing Black math teachers, and facing silence around social issues in class.

Dr. Osibodu’s work offers critical insight into the structural barriers Black learners face and points toward more inclusive, responsive teaching practices in mathematics education.

Read the full article here:

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RELEASED LAST NOVEMBER, ChatGPT can compose essays and news releases, research subjects, suggest story ideas, even have philosophical conversations and debug computer code. Make a request, and it scans the web for relevant information and, using what it has learned from training data, almost instantly generates a response that is usually on topic and well-drafted.

But don’t be alarmed.

While the artificial intelligence tool can write, research and “converse” in surprisingly human ways, it can’t replace the “valuable components of a well-rounded education.” That’s what the bot says when pointedly asked if its very existence will threaten critical thinking and problem-solving at the university level. “I see myself,” it continues, “as a complementary tool that can enhance learning, but not as a replacement for it.”

But can we believe that?

Since ChatGPT lacks common sense and emotional intelligence (and also can’t understand the subtleties of context and humour) the tool sometimes gives inaccurate answers. Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said as much in a tweet posted last December: “It’s a mistake to be relying on it for anything important right now. It’s a preview of progress; we have lots of work to do on robustness and truthfulness.” Not the most encouraging of words, and yet here we are – with a chatbot that’s got many in academe rethinking what they do.

As a tool that is incredibly helpful for students to use – and misuse – in their academic work, it’s compelling university professors and administrators to consider how to both leverage its educational value and hedge against cheating. “People are stressed out about it … and very concerned about what it might do for their assessment practices,” says Robin Sutherland-Harris, an educational developer at York’s Teaching Commons.

It’s not exhaustive, and it’s never going to replace someone actually doing the work

— Robin Sutherland-Harris

Within only two months of its launch, ChatGPT reached a record-setting 100 million monthly users; it took TikTok nine months to achieve that number. Because it can continuously learn from new queries it receives, ChatGPT is getting “smarter,” meaning it’s increasingly able to produce meaningful results. GPT-4, the tool’s latest iteration, was touted by OpenAI as being 60 per cent less likely to give false information.

“We need to adapt and innovate, because the technology’s not going to stop,” says Osgoode Hall law Professor Pina D’Agostino (BA ’96; LLB ’99), who co-directs York’s Centre for AI and Society. As a research and writing tool, ChatGPT “is a good start,” adds D’Agostino, who was recently named as vice-director of Connected Minds: Neural and Machine Systems for a Healthy, Just Society, a $318-million research project focused on AI. “But it’s not exhaustive, and it’s never going to replace someone actually doing the work.”

Creating and enforcing rules around students’ use of ChatGPT is happening in real time as York navigates the current Wild West terrain of advanced AI. The University now has a webpage on AI technology and academic integrity that includes advice for instructors, including instructing students that unauthorized use of ChatGPT or similar platforms in assessments is a breach of academic honesty. It also touches on teaching and learning suggestions and the detecting of AI-generated content in student work, and shares links to relevant resources.

Recently, York went a step further in these efforts by holding a professional development event on ChatGPT’s capabilities, limitations and educational uses. Organized by Sutherland-Harris with Angela Clark, academic integrity officer in the Office of the Vice-Provost Academic, the event was held in response to an influx of questions from faculty members across the institution.

Because of the unevenness of the landscape … people need to be very clear about what the expectations are for their students

— Markus Giesler

It included a two-hour panel discussion involving computer science Professor Marcus A. Brubaker of the Lassonde School of Engineering and sava saheli singh, a professor of digital futures in the Faculty of Education. Ideas for how to use ChatGPT to improve student experience at York animated the session, yielding new approaches for giving assignments, for instance, and essay writing.

One suggestion was to ask students to develop thoughtful, well-informed prompts for ChatGPT that could yield a high-quality response, then assess it for accuracy and completeness. Another was to get students to generate alternate views to an essay argument, which would give them useful starting points for further exploration. University policy will need to keep evolving to provide clarity and align with the school’s code of conduct.

“Because of the unevenness of the landscape … people need to be very clear about what the expectations are for their students course by course, and not just put it in the syllabus and assume people will read it, but talk about it, you know, really drive it home,” Sutherland-Harris says.

Markus Giesler, a professor of marketing at the Schulich School of Business, researches the impact of new technologies on consumer behaviour. He says it’s important for the sector to consider the broader social implications of this innovation. “The product itself is not a technologically neutral or objective thing, but something that has built into it certain patterns of power relation,” says Giesler, co-author of the 2020 study “Consumers and Artificial Intelligence: An Experiential Perspective,” which identified the need for guidelines around AI and ethics in marketing.

A higher education world within which only the privileged students get the real human educator, whereas the less privileged students get the chatbot, is a kind of world that I would not want

— Markus Giesler

As consumer-facing AI continues to become better at performing tasks that were once viewed as distinctly human, Giesler says universities may face more complex issues of access and equality.

“It’s actually not that far-fetched to assume that professions that are mainly about storytelling, truth seeking and articulation of language and fact could in the future be done by artificial intelligence,” he adds. “My concern is that a higher education world within which only the privileged students get the real human educator, whereas the less privileged students get the chatbot, is a kind of world that I would not want.”

To support students in producing original work, Professor D’Agostino recommends that course syllabi now include information on the strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT, and how to properly cite the information it provides when used for academic assignments. She also sees a need to balance writing assignments with oral presentations and exams, so that students can develop their public speaking skills at a time when technology is infiltrating other spheres of their lives.

“We have to become better at evaluating students, helping them produce authentic work, and training them to be critical thinkers,” D’Agostino says. “But at the same time, there needs to be regulations and rules in place … and our core values need to remain solid.”

Article originally published in The �첥��Ƶ Magazine, Summer 2023.

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A parliamentary committee member is calling for transparency from Canada's premier art institution following recent and very public staff turmoil — and he's imploring Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez to step in. 

"It's important that the minister, because [he] has an overseeing role for our cultural institutions, get the answers to questions that many people are asking," said Peter Julian, the NDP MP for New Westminster-Burnaby and a member of the standing committee on Canadian heritage, in an interview Monday with Radio-Canada. 

Gabrielle Moser, an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education at �첥��Ƶ, agreed that Hill's departure was surprising, pointing to the creation of his role as a groundbreaking moment for the gallery.

But she said talk of his exit has overshadowed recent positive developments, including the launch earlier this year of the gallery's department of Indigenous ways and decolonization. 

"Two newly hired people are still there directing that work," Moser said, adding that the gallery . 

"I worry that the big, big reaction [the staff departures are] getting is from an old guard who wants to keep things the way they were and that folks are not willing to see that this might be a necessary stage in changing the gallery so that it is more meaningful to a greater number of people." 

Read the full article on the website.

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This past year witnessed not only a global health crisis but also a dramatic hit on China’s academic profession. There has been a U-turn with respect to academic appraisal exercises in Chinese universities.

A leading scientist in China, Shi Yigong, revealed a stunning reason for this behind the scenes: Chinese universities do not produce many original or breakthrough innovations. He further warned that the current campaign for boosting publications would not necessarily lead to a boost in science and engineering.

Qiang Zha, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at �첥��Ƶ, wrote this article which was first published in International Higher Education discussing why China is falling behind on breakthrough innovation.

Read the full article at

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“Right the Future” shows how different societal challenges look today and imagines how they could look in the future, thanks to the work of students and researchers working in its different departments. Examples include an all-male engineering robotics team being replaced by a more gender-balanced team, a homeless person getting easy access to affordable shelter or ocean plastics being replaced by a thriving jellyfish. Each outcome is zeroed in on with a red rectangle, a longtime hallmark of the school’s branding.

“This is a time for �첥��Ƶ to be bold and clarify what we stand for,” says Susan Webb, the university’s chief communications and marketing officer.

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Sarah Barrett, Associate Professor at �첥��Ƶ's Faculty of Education was recently interviewed by 105.9 The Region on the impact of online learning and the results of Barrett's survey conducted in 2020.

Through surveying teachers Barrett found that last year's sudden change to online learning affected the majority of teacher's as they did not have a chance to prepare for the pivot from face to face to online learning. "That was a major source of difficulty for both the students and the teachers," says Barrett. 

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Every day, Jessy Duncombe has to figure out how to put food on the table, help her two school-aged kids navigate the complexities of online learning, and keep her three-year-old daughter occupied and out of trouble.

But the current system is putting single parents — predominantly women such as Duncombe — in precarious situations, said Beyhan Farhadi, a postdoctoral visitor at �첥��Ƶ’s Faculty of Education.
“The impact on women is something I think about a lot,” she said. “A lot of the labor that’s taking place right now and over the next two weeks and beyond is going to be disproportionately borne by women.”
Farhadi said the current model of online learning places too much emphasis on synchronous learning, during which a teacher delivers a live lesson to students over video chat.

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Students at �첥��Ƶ surprised their professors during Zoom classes to thank them for their work during a challenging year.

Professor Mario Di Paolantonio of �첥��Ƶ in Toronto, where he's been an educator for over 20 years, spent time reworking his in-person coursework for online learning due to the pandemic and found this surprise by his Educational Studies students to be "a real gift.

"I think there was this feeling of thanks, not just to me, but for the whole thing that we managed to do, that we we did something educational, in spite of it all," Di Paolantonio, 55, told NBC News. "Very difficult conditions, you know, with people being in their own homes, with some having childcare issues as well, and other things...but they committed they got through it, we got through it."

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Plenty of families this December will be flipping through “T’was the Night Before Christmas," or “A Christmas Carol.” They’re often considered required seasonal entertainment, like “Home Alone” or “Die Hard.”

But two authors of colour are urging parents and children to remember to snuggle up and also read books where the main characters aren’t just white, but also Black, such as in “Grace at Christmas;” Latinx, such as in “Too Many Tamales” and “N is for Navidad;” Asian, such as in “Yoon and the Christmas Mitten;” or South Asian, such as in “The Night the Reindeer Saved Christmas” written by British South Asian author Raj Kaur Khaira.

At the height of protests against anti-Black racism this summer, there was a surge in interest of literature touching on Blackness, race and diverse perspectives. And, at the time, Carl James, professor and Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora at �첥��Ƶ’s Faculty of Education, told CTVNews.ca, it was vital for parents of all races to openly discuss these issues with younger generations and to start while they were constructing ideas about race.

“All of us have different histories and those histories are rooted in the stories that we tell and our relationship to the state so, therefore, it’s not one blank all-racialized group,” he said. “We have to pay attention to some of these differences because those differences inform how we see the different groups.”

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Participants in the Faculty of Education’s Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) program have seen the impact of change upon multiple fronts, because the program involves faculty, students and community partners at York’s Keele Campus, as well as in the Dadaab Refugee Complex in Kenya. Rachel Silver, an assistant professor of education at York, with the help of a team of her colleagues in both Toronto and Dadaab, has created a virtual colloquium series, Reciprocal Learning in Times of Crisis, for the program’s faculty and students and other interested parties to consider the issues arising from the confluence of education, the pandemic, and the new waves of resistance to anti-Black racism.

“We’re in this moment together, despite our different individual positions, different colonial histories, and different national public health and education system responses,” Silver said. “It’s an opportunity to learn from each other about how we make sense of and respond to a global crisis in distinct local contexts.

“We can see how systemic inequity is reflected in each space, and how COVID-19 brings to light the underlying systemic issues.”

Silver put together a committee comprising Esther Munene, the academic administrator of the BHER Learning Centre in Dadaab; Philemon Misoy, the BHER project co-ordinator; Molade Osibodu, a Faculty of Education colleague whose work draws heavily on African de-colonial theories; and two international York graduate students, Sharareh Kashi from Iran and Theodata Fafa Bansah from Ghana, to plan and organize the colloquium, which is a monthly event.

“We have planned to change the format each month with different speakers and different hosts,” said Silver. “We are drawing on the talents of diverse graduate students and academics in Kenya and in Canada. But we also wanted to feature our Kenyan institutional partners and BHER students speaking from their lived experiences in the camps.”

“This series is not only for a scholarly audience, but also for community leaders, NGOs and students in both countries.”

The remaining events in the series will touch on a range of topics, including the unique needs of inter-African migrants in southern Africa during COVID-19; the Toronto diasporic community; and the gendering of pandemic-related risks in Kenya, featuring a panel of York’s academic and organizational partners there.

“The series is even more important since we haven’t been able to meet face-to-face with our York colleagues for months due to COVID-19,” said Misoy. “This really opens the lines of communication and allows us to share our experiences working during the pandemic.

“We can look at issues of social, economic and racial discrimination and consider how we support people emerging from conflict. We can take stock of achievements and, by hearing from different people, get ideas how we can shift toward the future. It’s important for north-south relations that we can share ideas freely and help each other.”

Munene agreed.

“It’s good to get the Toronto context on many issues, such as race and gender and learn what it’s like there,” she said. “They can also get to understand our context.”

An eagerness to learn about the Dadaab context was apparent at the most recent session of Reciprocal Learning in Times of Crisis on Nov. 4. It focused on the educational challenges faced in Dadaab due to the pandemic and featured representatives of York’s partner organizations in Dadaab, as well as Abdikadir Bare Abikar, a graduate of the first class of York’s Dadaab-based Masters of Education students, who is now teaching in Somalia. All of the educational organizations based in Dadaab collaborate to ensure that there is no duplication of effort.

Schools in Dadaab have been closed since mid-March, forcing educators to be creative in offering lessons in the camps, where not every student has a computer or laptop and internet connectivity can be suspect.

“The president of Kenya announced the school closures on a Sunday and they had to close the next day,” said Norah Kariba of Windle International Kenya, which runs the secondary schools in Dadaab. “This left students confused about how to continue.

“The quick fix was to introduce radio lessons, although not all learners were able to access them, and there wasn’t enough air time to handle all of the content. However, at least it was a starting point.

“Teachers also formed classes through WhatsApp [a popular phone application used to communicate with groups] and contacted their students. They were able to create a timetable and students were able to download lessons.”

At the university level, there was also disruption.

“Kenyan universities didn’t offer online learning,” said Munene. “It delayed graduation and caused stress, something we had to address with students. A few universities offered online exams, but exams here are usually administered in person, so it was a big hill to tackle.”

Luckily, York continued to offer online courses through its BHER project, and even though the learning centre in Dadaab was closed, students could access lectures.

“It was an abrupt shift to online learning, and many students weren’t used to the lack of interaction,” said Munene. “BHER also had to buy laptops or tablets and data bundles, so the students had access. We have learned to adapt to technological change.

“However, many students had lost jobs due to the pandemic and it was tough for them to concentrate on school. We tried to comfort them and did some mental health awareness work about the value of sharing their concerns.”

Dakane Bare, a representative of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees in Kenya, offered an observation that served as the motto for the group going forward: “With calamity comes opportunity.”

Silver and the colloquium organizing committee hope that the series continues to provide excellent opportunities for learning and connection.

“Our big goal is to push back against the notion of expertise being located only in one geo-political space, such as the university,” Silver said. “There is much learning to be done.”

Visit the series website at /edu/reciprocal-learning-in-times-of-crisis/ for a full listing of upcoming talks and to view the Zoom recordings from all previous talks.

By Elaine Smith, special contributing writer

Article from the , a special issue of YFile devoted to teaching and learning innovation at �첥��Ƶ. It offers compelling and accessible feature-length stories about �첥��Ƶ’s commitment to excellence in teaching, learning, internationalization and the student experience.

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