To read the full report, please visit City News.

To read the article, please visit Winnipeg Free Press.

Nevertheless, David Gerhard, head of computer science at the University of Manitoba, says he doubts they will ever reach the level of a human being.

To read the entire article, please visit CBC.

To listen to the full interview, please visit CBC.

To read the entire article, please visit CTV News.

To watch the entire interview, please visit CTV News.

In swine production, for example, farmers have to deal with environmental controls, nutrition and animal body condition, markets and feed costs — all of which contribute to overall profitability.

“It’s difficult for individual farmers to track everything,” Zhang said. “With AI, we can actually put all the information together, so not just looking at the growth of my pigs … I can grab the market information and the prediction of the market in the future.”

To read the entire article, please follow the link to Manitoba Co-operator.

Generative AI in Teaching and Learning

Date and time: Wednesday, March 5, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

This workshop focuses on ethical and responsible instructional uses of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) to support student learning in higher education. Participants will gain a foundational understanding of how genAI works and explore its capabilities, limitations, and ethical issues. The core of the workshop will involve discussion about basic learning theories supported by the cognitive sciences and how genAI can enhance and hinder the learning process. Through individual and group reflections, discussions, and activities, participants will critically assess how to use genAI ethically and responsibly in ways that support student learning.

Register for the Generative AI in Teaching and Learning workshop

Teaching and Learning Research Colloquium Series: Session 3

Date and time: Thursday, March 6, 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

The 2024/25 Teaching and Learning Research Colloquium Series shares the important work of University of Manitoba scholars and educators, whose research sheds light on student support needs, barriers to support seeking, and strategies for supporting students’ learning. Over a series of three research talks, faculty, instructors, and support staff will learn from and with each other about supporting diverse learners. Each talk will be followed by a discussion period and refreshments.

Session 3:

Barriers to Support: Metastereotypes and Help-seeking Among International Students

International students face unique challenges adapting to living and studying abroad, which may influence various aspects of their postsecondary studies. The resources and support services offered by university staff, instructors, and classmates are, therefore, essential for academic success and an overall positive university experience for many international students. Dr. Matthew Quesnel’s work examines how international students’ metastereotypes of how they are viewed by Canadian faculty, staff, and students on their campus, predict whether they seek out peer support and support services offered by their postsecondary institutions. In this session, Matthew will share his research findings on international students’ metastereotypes and its relationship to their help-seeking on campus and explore how this can inform strategies for fostering a more inclusive campus environment, promoting international students’ help-seeking and academic success and well-being on campus.

Register for the Teaching and Learning Research Colloquium, Session 3

Pedagogies of Care: Science of Learning – Firing and Wiring the Neurons

Date and time: Thursday, March 13, 10:00 a.m. to 10:50 a.m.

Join us for a series of four monthly 50-minute sessions designed for graduate students, instructors, and professors committed to exploring pedagogies of care. These sessions offer strategies that foster care, inclusion, and broaden perspectives in higher education, including insights into how brain science can enhance teaching effectiveness. Each session will provide practical tools for creating inclusive, engaging, and empowering learning environments, drawing on research into neural connections, brain plasticity, and how these processes affect learning, memory retention, and student engagement. Whether you’re teaching in-person or in an online format, this series will equip you with neuroscience-based strategies and pedagogical approaches that cultivate caring and inclusive educational spaces.

During the Science of Learning – Firing and Wiring the Neurons session:

• Participants will discuss the basic principles of how brain processes, such as neural connections and plasticity, influence learning and memory retention.
• Participants will explore brain-based strategies to their teaching methods, fostering environments that enhance cognitive engagement and student learning.

Register for the Pedagogies for Care workshop

Knowledge Transfer: Transitioning from Classroom Learning to Clinical Application

Date and time: Thursday, March 13, 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Specifically relevant for Clinical Educators: Effective knowledge transfer from the classroom to the clinical setting is an ongoing goal of didactic teaching.  Effective knowledge transfer ensures that students perform well not only in their academic journey, but also after graduation when they enter their respective fields. If you would like to learn best practices for enhancing the process of transferring knowledge, this workshop will provide strategies to promote this important aspect of learning.

Register for the Knowledge Transfer workshop

Manitoba Academic Integrity Network (MAIN) Speaker Series

Date and time: Thursday, March 13, 2025, 6:00 p.m. to 6:55 p.m.

The Centre is excited to host the 2024-2025 Manitoba Academic Integrity Network (MAIN) Speaker Series, a collection of six professional development opportunities related to academic integrity. A Certificate of Completion will be awarded to individuals who register and attend all six sessions in this series. Visit the Manitoba Academic Integrity Network Speaker Series website for more details.

Session 6: Transforming Assessment Practices in Higher Education with the AI Assessment Scale (AIAS) 

As the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) technologies have become increasingly ubiquitous in higher education, and institutions must equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary for an AI-driven future. Although some institutions have attempted to ban the use of these tools and enforce this through an AI text detection strategy, this session proposes an alternative solution to this challenge. The AI Assessment Scale (AIAS) developed by Perkins et al. (2024), offers a flexible framework for incorporating GenAI into educational assessments while promoting academic integrity and ethical use of these technologies. It consists of five allowable levels of AI use in submitted assessments, ranging from ‘No AI’ to ‘AI Exploration’, enabling educators to design assessments that focus on areas requiring human input and critical thinking. This intervention will explore the challenges of attempting to use a detection-based approach to dealing with GenAI use in assessments, introduce the AIAS as a possible alternative, and discuss the findings of a pilot study of the AIAS at British University Vietnam which has demonstrated significant benefits in reducing misconduct and supporting student engagement and attainment. 

Register for the MAIN Speaker Series, Session 6

Small Shifts, Significant Gains: March Session

Date and time: Monday, March 17, 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Looking for ways to revitalize your teaching but don’t have time for a big redesign? In Small Teaching, author James Lang argues that small changes in classroom techniques and activities can have big impacts on student learning. Join our sessions to hear practical teaching strategies from faculty guest speakers. Bring your questions and your lunch.  Leave with ideas that you can implement right away in your courses! 

Lightning Presentation Speakers:

• C. Lee Anne Deegan from the Faculty of Social Work presents: Centering Collaboration: Applying Relational Values to Reimagine Group Work
• Cheryl Glazebrook from the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management

Register for Small Shifts, Significant Gains: March Session

Experiential Learning Community of Practice Monthly Meeting: Leveraging AI to Enhance Experiential Learning

Date and time: Wednesday, March 19, 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The Experiential Learning Community of Practice is a growing network of UM faculty, instructors, and staff passionate about experiential education.

Monthly meetings:
Join our monthly meetings to build relationships with other Community of Practice members, explore best practices and innovations, and participate in engaging conversations.

Leveraging AI to Enhance Experiential Learning:
This month, we’ll explore how AI can enhance experiential learning, showcasing the innovative ways instructors are integrating AI into their teaching. Join us for a dynamic, facilitated discussion that will dive into the benefits and challenges of AI in experiential learning and celebrate the impactful work happening in this field.

Register for Leveraging AI to Enhance Experiential Learning

Incorporating the Seven Sacred Teachings into Classroom Teaching Strategies and Giving Feedback

Date and time: Thursday, March 20, 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

This workshop will focus on an introduction to the Seven Sacred Teachings and how to incorporate them in day-to-day teaching strategies.  This workshop will also focus on how to deliver strength-based feedback. We will also put strategies into practice with scenarios.

Register for the Incorporating the Seven Sacred Teachings workshop

Universal Design for Learning in Practice: Recognize Expectations, Beliefs, and Motivations

Date and time: Thursday, March 27, 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Join us for the last Thursday of each month in an ongoing series, where participants will review discreet elements of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Participants will work together to develop pedagogical practices that align with the UDL principle being discussed that month.

Topic: This session will focus on CAST’s UDL principle of recognizing expectations, beliefs, and motivations and how it can be directly applied to pedagogical practice. There will be a brief presentation of the core elements of this principle followed by a question-and-answer session where participants can collaborate with the facilitator to develop their practice. 

Register for Recognize Expectations, Beliefs, and Motivations

Education: The Future is Open 

Friday, March 7, 2025, 2:30-4:00 p.m. 
Senate Chamber, Room E3-262 EITC 
This session will be in-person with a live-stream option. 
Details and registration 
 
Richard Baraniuk [BSc (Eng)/87] will share his experience with the Open Education movement, a grassroots movement shared by a wide range of academics, recognizing that: 

• knowledge should be free and open to use and re-use 

• collaboration should be easier, not harder 

• people should receive credit and kudos for contributions to education and research 

• concepts and ideas are linked in unusual and surprising ways and not the simple linear forms that traditional media present 

Baraniuk will speak to this pivotal moment for the OpenEd community to come together as education is reshaped by advances in AI, evolving student needs, and expanding global challenges.  

About the presenter 

Dr. Richard G. Baraniuk, a graduate of the University of Manitoba, is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice University and founder and director of OpenStax (formerly Connexions) as a platform for open knowledge sharing and the world’s largest OER publisher with more than 70 digital textbooks used by 7 million college and high school students this school year. He is also the founder and director of SafeInsights, a large-scale education research hub that will safely connect educational institutions, researchers, and learning platforms. Baraniuk has been active in AI theory research and education applications for 15 years and is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors, AAAS, and IEEE.  He has received numerous research and education awards, including the IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal, the James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal, and the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education. 

This event is supported by the Advance Open Ed project. 

At the University of Manitoba, Bisons are at the centre of health care, finance, Reconciliation and so much more. Wherever there’s a challenge, you’ll find UM alumni leading the charge. Explore the Bisons at the Centre campaign and meet the alumni shaping Manitoba and beyond. 

Related activities 

• Check out the previous event in the series: From Access to Justice: Realizing the Transformative Potential of Open Educational Practices, with Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani. 

• Advance Open Ed provides financial and practical support along with educational opportunities to help the UM community create, adapt, and adopt open educational resources (OER).  

The graduate of University of Manitoba Extended Education’s Micro-certificate in Artificial Intelligence: Machine Learning Solutions discovered the program by googling AI and Machine Learning programs near him. It was the first one he found.

“So I said, why not? I wanted a program from a good school and UM has a good brand. I wanted my employer to sponsor my learning. And they paid for it,” says the UM alum who also holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree.

Artificial Intelligence: Machine Learning Solutions is a micro-certificate for every professional looking to understand the possibilities of AI and Machine Learning and what they can do for their business or organization, no coding required. It’s one of several Extended Education program and course options designed to improve your professional process and technology management to move forward in your career.

As Arooj Ahmed Quereshi, instructor and content provider for one of the program’s three courses, says, “This new technology, AI, is here and I think everybody should be aware of it so they can make good use of it.”

Solving business challenges

That’s just what Sheth plans to do.

As a business systems analyst at New Flyer, he is applying what he learned. Sheth will now work on various AI projects, automating the routine and tedious tasks so staff can focus more on speaking with customers. The process will become optimized, better.

“I was amazed by the knowledge I gained. Now I can link AI to a business application to get rid of a business problem. It is a very good way to impress the boss.”

Jessica Charney is also applying knowledge she gained from this program in her work as a learning and development specialist with Birchwood Automotive Group.

“I am now able to do a deeper dive into the research side to make sure that the AI that we are using is ethical,” Charney says. “For me, personally, I feel that AI is a way to advance the human experience, and how we interact with each other. I think it’s just enhancing how humans go about their day-to-day lives.”

Don’t be afraid

When many people think of Artificial Intelligence, they think of that scary robot assassin in the Terminator movie. But don’t be afraid, says Briana Brownell, instructor and content provider for the program. AI is good for every industry and savvy professionals must be aware of the technologies and how they can determine effective solutions to their most important business challenges like retaining customers, making better products, reducing risk, marketing effectively, innovating and leading in their marketplace.

“This mission is critical for most industries now. There is a push to have technology infrastructure, the ability to collect and analyze data quickly, and to create solutions,” says the founder and CEO of Pure Strategy Inc. noting examples of AI and Machine Learning in action are all around us providing us with relevant data from Netflix recommendations to Facebook news, and even auto-correcting us on our phones.

Artificial Intelligence is the backbone of all advances in technology, says Cuneyt Akcora, program consultant from the Faculty of Science. Over time, any intelligent developments in computer science are AI-related. If you want to use them, you need to know the basics.

A new kind of literacy

“I see it as an important new kind of literacy. If you don’t understand AI and Machine Learning, others have an advantage over you. You don’t need to program but you need to understand,” says the professor of computer science and statistics.

For example, if you work in human resources, algorithms on job search websites narrow down applications for specific jobs. You need to know how they are figuring this out.

“Understanding AI will help you and your company in most of the jobs today,” says Akcora.

“I very much like the practical aspects of this program. It is not coding, and not using data searches. Coding is often automated these days. It is about understanding the decisions made by AI, understanding the main direction, where to focus, the tools needed to know.”

UMextended.ca/programs

As seen in the Winnipeg Free Press