UNC Charlotte’s CTL Share AI Story with UNC-FADC

The UNC Faculty and Academic Development Consortium (UNC-FADC) is a collaborative body that works to enhance educational development across the UNC system’s 17 institutions. One of its key roles is to create a channel for sharing resources and best practices among its member institutions. 

At the UNC-FADC September 6th convening, Heidi Echols and Jordan Register, instructional design staff at the center, were invited to share UNC Charlotte’s AI initiatives and experiences as a model for other institutions in the UNC System, highlighting CTL’s AI Across the Curriculum initiative to help UNC Charlotte faculty to develop AI literacy and incorporate AI into their teaching and learning practice.

AI-Empowered Teaching and Faculty Development

• Faculty Innovation Workshops on AI. All faculty and staff are invited to participate in our Innovate Your Teaching Fall Workshops on high-impact and innovative teaching strategies designed to support student success and enhance classroom effectiveness.  Seven of the workshops are unique and directly related to AI.
• Teaching Guides on AI.  Seven AI For Teaching and Learning guides are available on the CTL Teaching Guides webpage.

Faculty Fellows and Grants

• Faculty Fellows on AI. The Faculty Fellows on Generative AI program provides a bridge to faculty interested in exploring AI tools in their classrooms and supporting their colleagues in doing the same (2023-2024 AI Fellows).
• Faculty Grant on AI. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Grants program offers stipends to faculty who wish to research the impact of Generative AI in their classrooms.

Campus Conversations, Collaboration, and Growth

• Annual AI Institute for Smarter Learning (2023) (2024). The AI Institute convenes faculty, staff, and administrators from the UNC Charlotte community to engage in discussions on the potential of AI in teaching and learning.

• AI Roundtable on Policy and Practice. Roundtable events bring together representatives from units across campus to discuss policy and practice implications in the classroom and beyond.

Data-Driven Programming

• Campus Surveys. The CTL regularly collects information from faculty and staff to gauge the pulse of the campus and to design events tailored directly to the needs, interests, and readiness of the attendees.
• Attendance Data. Attendance and feedback data are leveraged to measure the estimated faculty, course, and student impact of AI-related events. 

FADC Participants Value Data Collection and Metrics

A key piece of feedback from the FADC participants was related to the CTL’s innovative use of data to direct programming, and the usefulness of metrics like estimated student impact in their reporting. As requested by the FADC participants, instruments developed and used by the CTL to collect this data were shared in the meeting to be modified and used by the UNC System. Sharing and collaboration ensure the UNC System has access to innovative strategies and resources for integrating AI into curriculum and campus culture. 

By sharing its resources, strategies, metrics, and insights with other UNC campuses, CTL engages in system-wide collaboration to shape the future of AI in higher education.