Exploring AI-Assisted Teaching and Research

We extend a warm invitation to you for an insightful seminar that delves into the multifaceted role of AI in academia and broader education, with a specific focus on AI-assisted teaching and research. Led by Apostolos Spanos, Professor of History at the University of Agder (UiA, Norway), this seminar promises intriguing discussions and practical insights into leveraging AI tools, such as chatbots and modeling, to enrich educational practices.

Seminar Agenda

I. Exploring Modelling Methods: In this segment, Prof. Spanos will lead the discussion on various modeling methods, emphasizing their relevance in the Humanities, particularly in History. Participants will gain insights into analog, digital, simulation, and 3D modeling methods, and how they can serve diverse goals such as visualization, categorization, analysis, and communication. Prof. Spanos will also introduce Referencer, an AI-assisted web application developed by his colleagues at the Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center, designed to support educators and researchers worldwide in organizing and presenting teaching and research material.

II. Utilizing Chatbots in Teaching and Learning: The second part of the seminar will focus on the practical applications of chatbots in educational contexts. Prof. Spanos will share findings from a pilot project conducted in 2023, where ChatGPT was utilized by his students based on Bloom’s taxonomy of learning theory. This learning theory posits that we learn through a progression of remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Apostolos Spanos will discuss its application and share his experiences using ChatGPT in the classroom. He will also provide insights into the students' reactions, noting that they found the specific application "both challenging and interesting."

Apostolos Spanos is a professor of History at the University of Agder, Norway, where he teaches the subjects “Historical Consciousness” and “Theory and Method of History”. In a previous life, he studied Theology, Journalism, and Palaeography. His research focuses on historical consciousness, i.e., the consciousness that we are (individually and collectively) created and shaped by history, something that also applies to the world we live in, the narratives we make about the past, and even our perception of time. He also works on the multidimensionality of historical time, in other words in the coexistence and interdependence of various dimensions of historical time. In addition, he studies the ways in which individuals and communities use the past as a tool to achieve political, national, social, economic and other goals. In the recent past, he studied how various types of games can be used as sources for the study of the past.