Navigating NEW Perspectives on GenAI

Join us for Reflecting on the Impacts of Generative AI on Learning and Teaching with Professor Jane Freeman. This talk serves as an introduction to our three-part series of talks for faculty on the many pedagogical impacts of generative AI.

Professor Freeman will begin by sharing a framework created to help faculty and students discuss the many factors involved in developing “Generative AI literacy, while examining the ways in which Ursula Franklin’s comments on “deskilling” and on “the production mentality” relate to both students’ and faculty members’ uses of generative AI. She will also introduce Corbin’s two categories of approaches to assessment in the age of Generative AI, “discursive: and “structural,” and invite us to reflect on and discuss successful approaches to assessment we have tried within our own disciplinary contexts.

Event Details:

Friday, September 26, 2025
1:30 – 3:30 PM (during NEW Pedagogy)
Location: In-Person – Wilson Hall, Rm. 2053 (WI2053) – 20 Willcocks Street.

About the Speaker:

Jane Freeman – Director of the School of Graduate Studies’ Graduate Centre for Academic Communication (GCAC)

Professor Jane Freeman is the founding Director of the School of Graduate Studies’ Graduate Centre for Academic Communication (GCAC) at the University of Toronto. Jane completed a BA and a BEd at Queen’s University, an MA at the University of Warwick, and a PhD at the University of Toronto. A Senior Fellow of Massey College, a member of the Stratford Festival’s Senate, and a former Chair of Stratford’s Education and Archives Committee, Jane’s areas of expertise are Shakespeare, classical rhetoric, and oral and written communication. She completed a book in collaboration with Prof. Ursula Franklin, entitled Ursula Franklin Speaks: Thoughts and Afterthoughts, 1986–2012. In 2023, she was awarded the highest honour for teaching at the University of Toronto, the President’s Teaching Award.

Join us for Teaching Foundational Writing Skills to Do Better than GenAI with Shelia Batacharya, who teaches first-year writing programs and courses using multimodal approaches, as she explores how writing development can shape meaningful engagement with Generative AI. Shelia will share two assessment designs that demonstrate how foundational writing skills enable learners to outperform AI tools. Drawing on her recent research and conference presentations (2024, 2025), she invites participants to consider how GenAI literacy can be integrated into writing studies curricula and how writing can serve as a foundation for ethical and effective AI.

Event Details:

Tuesday, October 21, 2025
12 – 2 PM
Location: In-Person – Wilson Hall, Rm. 2053 (WI2053) – 20 Willcocks Street.

About the Speaker:

Shelia Batacharya – Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Institute for Study of University Pedagogy

Sheila holds a Ph.D. in Adult Education and Community Development from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. She has been teaching university and college courses since 2007, and this experience inspired her to specialize in English language learning and teaching. Sheila became a certified member of TESL Ontario in 2018 and completed a Master of Arts degree in Applied Linguistics at York University in 2020.  

Sheila prioritizes critical pedagogy and learner-centred approaches that develop students’ metacognition and agency. She accomplishes course learning outcomes by acknowledging students’ lived experiences and ensuring that learning objectives are relevant, achievable, and transparent. Sheila thoroughly enjoys working with undergraduate students to foster their confidence and competence as knowledge producers in their distinct academic journeys. 

Sheila’s academic work in Women and Gender Studies, Sociology and Equity Studies, Adult Education, and Applied Linguistics provides her with an interdisciplinary foundation for her teaching and research. Her publications include two co-edited volumes, Reena Virk: Critical Perspectives on a Canadian Murder (2010) and Sharing Breath: Embodied Learning and Decolonization (2018). Sheila presented Watershed Memory, Drainpipe Story (2018) at The Work of Wind Air Land Sea, Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto Mississauga, and her co-authored research on Professional English Language Skills (PELS) was published in the Journal for Second Language Writing in 2023.

Batacharya, S. (2024). Critical Reading Collaborations: Multilingual Pedagogy & Universal Design for Learning. Presented at the Centering Multilinguality in First Year Composition Classes: Creative and Inclusive Approaches. Organizer: Christine Marchand. NEMLA 2024: Northeast Modern Language Association Conference. Boston, MA. 

Batacharya, S. (2025). “Do Better Next Time: AI Use in Online Learning.” Writing & Power: Policies and Position Statements for Social Change. Eds Humphreys, S., Gaudet, L., Collins, J., Boldt, N. University of Victoria. https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/items/c871ef7a-c895-49e3-9ca2-29626e7a830d 

Join Alexandra Guerson and Tyson Seburn for GenAI as a Partner (not a plagiarizer) as they share insights from the International Foundations Program at New College which prepares English language learners for the demands of undergraduate study at U of T. This session brings together course-level and program-wide perspectives on our rejected, reserved, and cautiously embraced use of generative AI with international students whose first language is not English. Drawing on their experiences, the Alexandra and Tyson will discuss common challenges such as overreliance on automated text generation and the pursuit of perfect language use, at the expense of authentic skills practice and authorship. As well as the strategies they’ve developed to guide students toward more critical, transparent and ethical engagement with GenAI.

Event Details:

Friday, November 7, 2025 (During NEW Pedagogy)
1:30 – 3:30 PM
Location: In-Person – Wilson Hall, Rm. 2053 (WI2053) – 20 Willcocks Street.

About the Speakers:

Alexandra Guerson – Vice Principal, Associate Professor Teaching Stream, Part-Time

TBA

Tyson Seburn – MA EdTech & TESOL – Assistant Academic Director of International Programs

Tyson Seburn (MA EdTech & TESOL, University of Manchester) is the Assistant Academic Director of International Programs at New College. He has been involved in English language teaching as a teacher, materials writer, and consultant since 1998. His interests focus on Queer and racialised ELT experiences within English language teaching and learning contexts. He is the author of Academic Reading Circles (2015) and How to Write Inclusive Materials (2021).   

Join Jordana Lobo-Pires and Matt Jones for a hands-on workshop to examine strategies for using generative AI in the revision stage of writing. Participants will be lead through a process of prompt engineering and critical evaluation to assess the potential value and limitations of AI-assisted revision.

Please bring your laptop to this session.

Event Details:

Friday, January 23, 2026
1 – 3 PM
Location: In-Person – Wilson Hall, Rm. 2053 (WI2053) – 20 Willcocks Street
Online via Zoom

About the Speakers:

Jordana Lobo Pires – Assistant Professor (Teaching Stream), Graduate Centre for Academic Communication (GCAC)

Jordana Lobo-Pires is an Assistant Professor (Teaching Stream) at the Graduate Centre for Academic Communication (GCAC). She holds a PhD in English Literature from the University of Toronto and is a recipient of the SSHRC-CGD scholarship. Jordana’s research interests include the reception of classical legal rhetoric in the early modern period, and the ways classical modes of argument continue to reverberate in current persuasive speech and writing. At the GCAC, Jordana conducts courses and workshops in oral presentation skills, graduate writing, and runs the dissertation writing boot camp. 

Matt Jones – Assistant Professor (Teaching Stream), Graduate Centre for Academic Communication (GCAC)

Matt Jones is Assistant Professor (Teaching Stream) at the University of Toronto’s Graduate Centre for Academic Communication. Matt is a scholar of Performance Studies and Communication with expertise in student-centered learning and equity-oriented teaching. His research draws on concepts from Performance Studies to devise strategies to improve graduate students’ communication practices. He was the recipient of a 2022 UTSC Teaching Award from the University of Toronto Scarborough and he is a Co-Investigator on Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories of Performance, a project supported by a Partnership Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada. 

In our current moment, there is flexibility for instructors to integrate GenAI into their assignments but also to thoughtfully lean away from GenAI use as needed. This flexibility, then, leads instructors into a delicate dance with technology, where they must assess the affordances and limitations of AI, with a view to effectively navigate AI-driven environments or eschew AI when it threatens to erode the development of critical thinking and writing skills. This session will help instructors and TAs think through various facets of student learning in ways that do not short-circuit or offload crucial learning processes and research skills to Gen AI. Drawing on various approaches to assignments in various disciplines, this session will address how various disciplines are navigating this dance and invite instructors to consider where they might —or might not — integrate GenAI. Taking a workshop approach, we will look at sample assignments and discuss potential revisions with GenAI Literacy in mind. Whether you’ve already started integrating GenAI into your assignments, or you’ve banned it altogether thus far, this session is for you!

Event Details:

Friday, January 30, 2025
1:00 – 3:00 PM
Location: In-Person – Wilson Hall, Rm. 2053 (WI2053) – 20 Willcocks Street.

About the Speakers:

Marci Prescott-Brown – Director of the New College Writing Centre and Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream in Writing Studies

Marci Prescott-Brown (she/her/elle) is the Director of the New College Writing Centre and Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream in Writing Studies. She has practiced decolonialist and antiracist writing pedagogies since she began tutoring students from low income and minority backgrounds as a teenager. For over seventeen years, she has taught writing in various postsecondary and other academic contexts. She completed her dissertation using the principles of antiracist writing, receiving her PhD in English from the University of Toronto in 2019. She also completed a TESL Diploma in 2020 and earned the OCELT professional designation. Currently, she is the President of the Canadian Writing Centres Association/Association Canadienne des Centres de Rédaction (CWCA/ACCR). Her pedagogical and research focus is on how varieties of speech, language, and technology can be used as part of decolonialist and antiracist writing instruction to empower writers. She has published in Canadian journals in Writing Studies such as Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie and SKRIB: Critical Studies in Writing Programs and Pedagogy. Marci facilitates the writing group for the Caribbean, African, Equity and Solidarity Studies (CAESS) programs as well as the Write Now! Staff and Faculty Writing Group at New College.

Paola Bohorquez – Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, at Woodsworth College, and she is the Director of the Academic Writing Centre and Coordinator of the Academic Bridging Program

Paola Bohórquez is an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, at Woodsworth College, and she is the Director of the Academic Writing Centre and Coordinator of the Academic Bridging Program. Her pedagogical practice centers reading, writing, and rhetoric as technologies of agency and self-transformation, and her current interdisciplinary research on digital annotation and commonplacing strategies leverages classical rhetorical pedagogies in the design of curricular innovations that expand and deepen the range of students’ print and digital reading practices. Informed by her own translingual and multilocal experiences, Paola’s academic work has explored relations between language and identity, translation, and the condition of living between languages. She is the co-editor, with Verónica Garibotto, of the collection Psychoanalysis as Social and Political Discourse in Latin America and the Caribbean (Routledge, 2022) and has published in the Journal of Intercultural Studies, Synthesis, and Tusaaji: A Translation Review, and in the collections On and Off the Page: Mapping Place in Text and Culture, American Multicultural Studies, and La Lingua Spaesata: Il Multilinguismo Oggi.