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About the Masterclass Series
Join us virtually for a special international collaboration between George Brown Polytechnic and Dundalk Institute of Technology. From November 16 to December 3, four leading educators from Canada, the UK, and Ireland will explore how we can design meaningful ways for students to demonstrate their learning, build future-ready capabilities, and prepare for a changing world of work in the age of AI.
Register for AI Masterclass Series
Webinar Schedule
| Date and Time | Webinar Title | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 16, 09:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. Toronto | Working with the machine: Reimagining assessment and feedback in an Age of AI | Naomi Winstone |
| Nov 23, 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Toronto | Assessment After Authorship: Designing for Learning in the Age of Generative AI | Brenda McDermott |
| Nov 30, 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. Toronto | Who’s judging? Trust and transparency in AI-assisted assessment, from student work to research | Lawrie Phipps |
| Dec 03, 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Toronto | Assessing Process, Not Product, in the Age of Agentic AI: A Postplagiarism Approach | Sarah Elaine Eaton |
Masterclass 01 | Working with the machine: Reimagining assessment and feedback in an Age of AI
Date/Time: Nov 16, 09:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Speaker: Naomi Winstone, Professor of Educational Psychology, Surrey Institute of Education, University of Surrey
Description:
Generative AI has unsettled long-standing assumptions about assessment, feedback, and academic integrity. Too often, institutional responses have defaulted to surveillance, detection, and prohibition. I will argue for a more productive stance: working with rather than against the machine, by exploring two interconnected dimensions of assessment in an age of AI.
First, I will examine how AI can be meaningfully integrated into feedback processes. Drawing on the Manifesto for Feedback in the Age of AI, I will explore how the design of feedback processes can capture the affordances of AI without displacing human judgement or care. Second, I will address the implications of AI for assessment design, by introducing the Black Box Assessment model. This approach foregrounds process over product and values learning journeys over performative outputs. Together, these perspectives offer a constructive roadmap for assessment practices that remain meaningful, credible, and educative in an AI-rich world.
Register for Naomi Winstone's webinar
About Naomi Winstone
Professor Naomi Winstone is Professor of Educational Psychology in the Surrey Institute of Education at the University of Surrey. Naomi is also an Honorary Professor in the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University, Australia. She is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a UK National Teaching Fellow. Naomi is a cognitive psychologist specialising in the processing and impact of instructional feedback, and the influence of dominant discourses of assessment and feedback in policy and practice on the positioning of educators and students in feedback processes. Using her research and institutional leadership experience, Naomi works with schools, universities and organisations across the world to embed learning-focused approaches to feedback into practice.
Masterclass 02 | Assessment After Authorship: Designing for Learning in the Age of Generative AI
Date/Time: Nov 23,11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Speaker: Brenda McDermott, Director Student Experience & Support, Student Accessibility Services, University of Calgary
Description:
As generative AI challenges traditional assumptions about authorship, originality, and ownership, educators are increasingly called upon to reconsider what meaningful learning looks like in contemporary higher education. This session explores how creative disciplines have long understood knowledge creation as an iterative, collaborative, and transformative process rather than an act of isolated production.
Participants will examine how concepts such as metacognition and evaluative judgment can shift assessment practices away from simply verifying authorship and toward understanding how students make decisions, refine ideas, evaluate sources, and demonstrate learning throughout the creative process. By exploring artistic traditions that embrace adaptation, recombination, and dialogue with existing works, attendees will consider how assessment can be redesigned to value reflection, critical engagement, and intentional use of generative AI.
Register for Brenda McDermott's webinar
About Brenda McDermott
Dr. Brenda McDermott is an adjunct professor within the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. She holds a Master of Education and a PhD in Communications Studies. She brings her decades of experience in student and accessibility services to inform her research on how artificial intelligence tools can support equity in post-secondary classrooms.
Masterclass 03 | Who’s judging? Trust and transparency in AI-assisted assessment, from student work to research
Date/Time: Nov 30, 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m.
Speaker: Lawrie Phipps, Director of Higher Education Sector Insight at Jisc and Professor of Digital Leadership at the University of Chester
Description:
Drawing on research he co-led into generative AI and the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF), Lawrie examines how AI challenges the ways academic work is produced, evaluated and trusted. The session explores questions emerging from that research around disclosure, human verification, researcher development and unequal access to AI tools and support. Who takes responsibility when AI contributes to a research output or informs a judgement about its quality?
The session then opens these questions to colleagues working in teaching, learning and assessment. What parallels exist between AI-assisted peer review and marking, or between developing researchers’ expertise and supporting students’ learning? Where do those comparisons break down? Through presentation and discussion, participants will consider what the research can contribute to institutional approaches to AI, transparency and academic integrity.
Register for Lawrie Phipps's webinar
About Lawrie Phipps
Professor Lawrie Phipps is Director of Higher Education Sector Insight at Jisc and Professor of Digital Leadership at the University of Chester. He co-led the Research England-funded REF-AI project, examining the use of generative AI in institutional preparations for the UK’s Research Excellence Framework. His wider research explores the relationships between technology, academic practice, leadership and organisational change. His latest research project is looking at the impact of AI on Knowledge Exchange and Technology Transfer Team in UK institutions.
With more than 25 years’ experience in higher education, Lawrie works across research, policy and institutional practice to help leaders understand and respond to technological change. He created Jisc’s Digital Leaders programme and has led major programmes supporting digital transformation across UK universities. His work places particular emphasis on people, trust and the choices institutions make about technology.
Masterclass 04 | Assessing Process, Not Product, in the Age of Agentic AI: A Postplagiarism Approach
Date/Time: Dec 03, 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Speaker: Sarah Elaine Eaton, Professor, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary
Description:
AI agents can now log in to a learning management system, read the instructions, and submit a finished assignment. Instructors can respond by restricting AI, or by redesigning assessment so that learning becomes visible as it happens.
In summer 2026, Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton redesigned a fully online graduate course so that 75 per cent of the grade came from three real-time tasks completed during scheduled video sessions. Students applied course readings to current policy news stories and to a synthetic case that Dr. Eaton built with disclosed AI assistance. They then submitted shared artifacts documenting their reasoning, including questions they had not resolved. Students could use AI, consistent with a postplagiarism stance: people may hand tasks to AI, but they keep responsibility for the work. In this session, Dr. Eaton explains the design, reports what students told her, describes the changes she plans, and guides participants through adapting one assessment from their own teaching.
Register for Sarah Elaine Eaton's webinar
About Sarah Elaine Eaton
Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton is a professor, ethicist, writer, and speaker. She is a strong advocate for integrity and ethics in educational contexts. Learn more about Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton’s work on her website.