Thursday, October 2, 2025
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1:00 - 2:30 p.m.
Online (Zoom)
Online (Zoom)
It doesn’t matter whether it’s chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude, personal assistants like Google Gemini or Microsoft Copilot, or tools for creativity like Midjourney or Adobe Firefly: If it uses generative AI, you can bet that students are using it in the classroom. Generative AI tools have disrupted what we thought we knew about teaching and learning in extraordinary ways — not the least of which is changing the incentive structure for finding information. Students can now complete assignments, do research, or get help on creative projects in a fraction of the time and effort needed before AI tools became commonplace. As a result, core values we used to place in the ideas of information creation as process and research as iterative encounters with inquiry — values enshrined in the leading frameworks of current information literacy education — have been displaced, devaluing process in favor of the products of interactions with AI being the end goal. As the initial hype around generative AI tools settles down and our understanding of what role AI plays in the classroom matures, educators have an opportunity to steward what comes next.
How do we restore value in encountering information as an iterative, inquiry-driven process, rather than simply engineering a series of prompts to get the answer you’re looking for? If the incentive structure for students’ learning has changed, maybe that means it’s time for us to change the incentive structures that guide our pedagogy, too. This virtual chat explores strategies for meeting students where they are in the current technological environment, while also identifying interventions to help students claim their own interactions with AI tools — and ultimately, their own learning — as a creative, inquiry-driven process.
This program is open to library workers, faculty, and staff with Q&A opportunities to discuss ideas for using AI in teaching and one-shots.
Speakers:
Steven Geofrey is a research-practitioner in data, computation, and design, specializing in the methods of data visualization, information design, statistics, and computational modeling to investigate representations of the world around us and how we interpret them. As an Associate Teaching Professor at Northeastern University, they teach courses in creative coding, human-centered AI, and value-sensitive design. As a Senior Research Scientist with PIL, they have contributed to major PIL reports including the Covid Study (2020), The PIL Retrospective (2022), and most recently the Climate Study (2024). In addition, Steven is also a Research Associate with the Partnering Lab, in which role they use the methods of value-sensitive design to investigate the ethics of physical interaction and representation in multimodal and multidisciplinary domains, including technology and dance.Alison Head, Ph.D. is the Founder and Director of Project Information Literacy (PIL), a national research institute studying news and information in the digital age. Alison is an information scientist, social science researcher, and former new media professor who has led all 14 PIL studies, including “Information Literacy in the Age of Algorithms: Student Experiences with News and Information, and the Need for Change,” which received the 2021 Ilene F. Rockman Instruction Publication of the Year Award from ALA. Alison has held appointments as a Fulbright at Western Sydney University in Australia (2024) and as a Research Fellow and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the Library Innovation Lab, and the metaLAB — all at Harvard University (2011 - 2020).
Related resources:
Geoffrey Fowler, “We tested which AI gave the best answers without making stuff up. One beat ChatGPT,” Washington Post, August, 27, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/08/27/ai-search-best-answers-facts/Alison J. Head, Barbara Fister, and Margy MacMillan. Information Literacy in the Age of Algorithms: Student Experiences with News and Information, and the Need for Change, Project Information Literacy Research Institute, January 15, 2020, https://projectinfolit.org/publications/algorithm-study
Barbara Fister and Alison J. Head, “Getting a grip on ChatGPT,” Inside Higher Ed, May 4, 2023. https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/05/04/getting-grip-chatgpt
Salman Khan. Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That's a Good Thing), Viking Books, 2024.
Ethan Mollick. Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, Portfolio Books, 2024.