Tech Advances
"We All Need a Personal Assistant": University Professors' Use of AI to Facilitate Teaching and Learning View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dr. Salma Waly
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an undeniable reality in our world—constantly advancing, expanding, and impacting nearly every field. As educators and academic institutions, it is crucial that we not only acknowledge the presence of AI but also proactively embrace, adopt, and leverage it to support teaching, enrich learning experiences, and improve educational outcomes. While extensive research has focused on how K-12 educators integrate AI into their teaching practices and the effects on student outcomes, there remains a significant gap in understanding how university professors are utilizing AI to enhance higher education. This paper sheds light on a qualitative study involving 20 university professors from various disciplines across the UAE, examining how AI has influenced, transformed, or reshaped their roles as educators, researchers, and practitioners. The study explores the myriad ways in which AI has impacted their day-to-day tasks, from streamlining research processes and preparing instructional materials to delivering knowledge more effectively and assessing student progress. The findings presented are both insightful and practical, offering valuable perspectives for professors in higher education. The offer deeper understanding of how AI can be harnessed to improve efficiency in areas such as course planning, content creation, personalized teaching, and data-driven decision-making. This content is valuable for educators, researchers, and leaders in higher education, aiming to provide actionable tips and strategies to help professors integrate AI effectively into their academic practices, ultimately fostering a more innovative and responsive educational environment.
Lexical Semantic Analysis of AI-Paraphrasing Output: The Case Study of QuillBot and Paraphraser View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rima Jamil Malkawi
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly streamlined a range of academic tasks, notably in terms of quality and efficiency. The study examines both the quality and efficiency of AI-driven paraphrasing tools in preserving the originality of the source text. We employ a mixed-method approach of qualitative and quantitative analyses based on Taylor’s (2017) lexical semantic framework and previous research on AI paraphrasing strategies. The study focuses on the paraphrased output of nouns generated by the top AI tools used for academic writing: QuillBot and Paraphraser. The corpus of 100 abstracts (hard science and soft science) was collected from the ScienceDirect database. The analysis examines two categories of AI paraphrasing strategies: structure-related and lexical semantic-related. A jury of linguists assessed the researchers’ strategy classification for validity and accuracy. The findings show that while QuillBot scores the top in preserving meaning in hard science abstracts, Paraphraser scores the lowest due to its distortion of the grammatical structure of the source text. For soft science abstracts, the Paraphraser-AI tool produces similar output, generalising concepts in soft science abstracts, hence altering the original meaning. It also reveals that the top paraphrasing strategies used among the two AI tools were using synonyms and changing parts of speech. However, QuillBot used fewer synonyms in hard science than in soft science abstracts, therefore preserving technical terms, clarity, and quality of the original text. Pedagogically, the findings serve as a guideline for scholarly writing by replicating the most accurate AI paraphrasing strategies in preserving the meaning.
Digital Sticky Notes and Synchronous Learning: A Hybrid Approach to Enhance EFL Students' Engagement and Writing Skills View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ayat Tarazi, José Luis Ortega-Martín
Appropriate strategies are currently highly demanded to assist EFL bachelor students in enhancing their English writing skills, especially in synchronous lectures. However, the development of various Web 2.0 tools and applications in recent years has further enriched teaching and influenced the learning mode. To that end, this study investigated the perceptions of EFL students towards the impact of digital sticky notes on enhancing their engagement levels and English writing skills. To reach this goal, the researchers used a quantitative approach to investigate 39 bachelor students' perspectives toward the role of using digital sticky notes to improve their engagement level in English synchronous lectures and writing skills. The results emphasize that using colorful digital sticky notes makes online discussion more engaging and interactive and helps students identify their errors, fix them, and avoid repeating them in subsequent activities. In addition, the study found no significant differences in student perceptions based on years of study, major specialization, prior online learning experience, or familiarity with digital tools. This suggests that digital sticky notes are effective across diverse student populations. Considering these results, the researchers recommend that educators design activities that facilitate peer feedback and self-assessment using digital sticky notes and investigate the best practices for integrating digital sticky notes into different EFL learning contexts.
