The CTE supports instructors in learning the skills necessary to creatively leverage instructional technologies in their in-person courses. Learn more about BC’s supported technologies below and take advantage of our technology-related consultations, resources, and programs.

AI & Teaching

The advent of AI has fundamentally changed the landscape of higher education, and various units across Boston College have stepped up to help instructors navigate the opportunities and challenges of this moment. The CTE’s role in this effort is focused on helping instructors unpack the pedagogical implications of our AI era and strategize their responses to this new teaching context. Read about the values that guide our work below.

Through a variety of programs and services—such as individual consultations, workshops, and Faculty Cohorts—the CTE assists instructors in making sense of the rapidly-changing AI ecosystem and its impact on the classroom, providing support for course and assignment design, classroom policy development, and strategic use of AI tools for teaching and learning.

Whether you’re just starting to learn about AI or well-versed in its capabilities, you can find inspiration from our self-enrolled online course on Teaching in an AI Context and the AI Teaching Artifact Repository, featuring innovative examples from BC faculty. Whatever your questions or needs, don’t hesitate to contact us at centerforteaching@bc.edu.

CTE’s AI Commitments

Grounded in the CTE’s mission to accompany BC educators as they navigate changing teaching and learning contexts, we commit to the following values in our AI-focused work:

  1. Inclusive Faculty Development: We make space for all instructors to navigate the promises and challenges of AI in teaching. We reject technochauvinism and foster reflective, critical engagement with AI across diverse scholarly perspectives.

  2. Adaptation and Transparency: In service of supporting student learning and formation, we support instructors to align their teaching goals in light of GenAI, advocating for responsible and transparent AI use for students and instructors alike.

  3. Informed Critique: We take seriously the risks of algorithmic bias, embedded misinformation, outsourcing of metacognitive work, reshaping of teacher/student and student/student relationships, environmental costs, and equitable access for diverse learners regardless of physical context or background.

  4. Continuous Reflection: We remain open-minded about AI’s potential to extend—and limit—human learning, staying attuned to evolving technological and educational landscapes.

  5. Joy in Teaching: We intentionally surface how this moment in teaching can both catalyze and stifle the joy instructors feel in their practice. We attend to each educator’s journey to personal fulfillment in their pedagogical practice.

Canvas

Canvas is a Learning Management System (LMS) designed to help faculty share course content, administer and grade assignments, and manage asynchronous interactions such as online discussions. A course site is provided for every course at BC, and students and instructors are automatically enrolled.

How Can It Help My Class?

For Instructors

  • Provides a space for you to organize course content and structure student interaction in a way that suits your learning goals and teaching practice
  • Makes course structure legible to students, reducing cognitive load and helping them stay on track

For Students

  • Provides a single, central location for course material and communication 
  • Introduces a standard set of tools that are used across campus, reducing the amount of new technology students have to learn from class to class

Getting Started

LOG IN TO CANVAS

Panopto

Panopto allows instructors to create recordings of lectures or presentations, including audio, video and screen content, and share them with students in Canvas. “Lecture Capture” is available in technology-equipped classrooms, while “Personal Capture” recordings can be made on your personal laptop.

How Can It Help My Class?

For Instructors

  • Lecture capture encourages students to focus on engaging in class rather than note-taking and provides a means for absent students to review missed material  
  • Personal capture provides a means for conveniently recording tutorials or lectures if you are “flipping” the classroom and plan for active discussion and engagement during class time
  • Both types of recordings provide analytics to track student viewing, and integrate easily into Canvas so they are contextualized by other course content.

For Students

  • Allows students to rewatch the material as often as they like with additional navigational aids like headings and notes that can further support learning 
  • Assignments feature enables students to demonstrate their knowledge with a multimedia presentation

Getting Started

Perusall

Perusall is a collaborative annotation tool that turns individual reading and viewing assignments into engaging collective learning activities. Integrated with Canvas, Perusall allows instructors to share readings and videos with students, who then work together to annotate and comment on the material.

How Can It Help My Class? 

For Instructors

  • Ensures that students come to class prepared and having thoroughly reviewed the material
  • Supplies insight into students’ engagement with course material outside of class
  • Provides analytics that allow the instructor to better address common misconceptions and difficult concepts

For Students

  • Fosters collaborative and text-based engagement with course material
  • Provides space to actively engage with content and share questions
  • Lays the groundwork for more meaningful in-class engagement and deeper learning

Getting Started

Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere is a web-based personal response system that enables students to use any internet-connected device to respond to instructor questions. This tool can be used to engage students synchronously (both in-person and online) or student responses can be collected asynchronously.

How Can It Help My Class?

For Instructors

  • Provide immediate feedback about how well students understand the course material.
  • Use to take attendance, give quizzes, and assess participation with the option to export scores into the Canvas gradebook.
  • Create anonymous polls to gather honest opinions about sensitive topics.

For Students

  • Allows students to share their thoughts and see what other classmates have submitted.
  • Gives students an opportunity to check their own understanding of the course material.
  • Fosters increased student engagement and increases the involvement of those students who typically remain quiet.

Getting Started

 

Zoom

Zoom is a virtual conferencing tool that allows instructors and students to meet in real time through audio and video. It also supports screen sharing and small group interaction through break-out rooms.  Zoom sessions can be recorded so students who can’t be present can view them afterward.

How Can It Help My Class?

For Instructors

  • Allows meeting when circumstances prevent in-person gathering, if you want to maintain continuity through inclement weather, when you’re away at a conference, etc.
  • Serves as an entry into the classroom for guest speakers who can’t be there in person
  • Offers flexibility for office hours and other individual meetings with students

For Students

  • Gives students who need to be absent (for example because of illness) a chance to listen in and keep up with course work
  • Provides a way to connect outside of class time on their own initiative in spite of busy schedules, for group or project work
  • Furnishes a platform for recorded presentations

Getting Started

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