UBC Use Cases
This website features stories and content submitted by individuals within the UBC community. You can submit your own. We value the diversity of perspectives and experiences that these stories bring to our platform. Any views or opinions expressed in these user-generated stories are solely those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UBC as a whole. The presence of user-generated content on our website does not imply endorsement or agreement by UBC with any particular perspective.
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Designing Spaces for Critical AI Engagement: Teaching with HelpMe and GenAI
Rachel Horst’s teaching practice engages Generative AI openly and relationally, as a space for collaborative inquiry, critical reflection, and pedagogical experimentation. In her Master of Educational Technology courses, she invites students to work with AI systems such as HelpMe, a course-embedded, transparent, and configurable chatbot developed at UBC Okanagan that draws on curated course materials,…
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Reimagining Learning about the Social Determinants of Health: Integrating Critical AI Literacy into Social Work Education
Kelly Allison thoughtfully redesigned a social work assignment to give students choice in leveraging Generative AI within a scaffolded approach that explores the social determinants of health (SDOH) in a social work context. By considering bias, ethics, and AI literacy, alongside explicit guidance and reflection on how and when AI should be used, students can…
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Building Automation Resilience: A Design-Based Approach to Integrating AI in Computer and Data Science Education
Led by Dr. Dongwook Yoon, the Automation Resilience project successfully integrated eight ‘AI modules’ as structured learning activities into the existing Computer Science curriculum. These modules empower students to achieve specific AI-related learning outcomes alongside traditional course content and ensure that students develop the technical resilience needed for an AI-integrated workforce. For the 2026-2027 academic…
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What Students Are Telling Us about GenAI Use in Classrooms: Key Findings from UBC Arts Students
We’re Only Human (WOH) is an Arts-based, TLEF-funded, initiative that explores new challenges and opportunities presented by generative AI in courses where writing plays a key role in students’ understanding of foundational, discipline-specific knowledge and practice. To explore how students are using GenAI in their academic lives, at the end of Fall 2024 and Spring 2025, the WOH team surveyed UBC students enrolled in…
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Developing Critical GenAI Literacy
In his WRDS 151 and WRDS 150 classes, Dr. Jonathan Otto works with students to develop critical Generative AI (GenAI) literacy. This includes introducing students to the technology’s social, political, economic, and environmental dimensions and expanding their understanding of its benefits and limitations for emerging academic writers. He invites—but does not require—students to use GenAI,…
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BIOCBOT: A GenAI study buddy tool
BiocBot is a Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) biochemistry study buddy tool that acts as both a tutor (the mentor) and protégé (the mentee) to remove situational barriers and encourage more students to engage in the highly effective strategy of learning-by-teaching.
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Enriching Spanish language teaching and learning with AI
Dr. Brianne Orr-Álvarez integrates Generative AI to support communicative and intercultural competence by helping students practise autonomously, experiment with expression and dialect, and reflect on how meaning is constructed across linguistic and cultural contexts. Her approach includes guided and scaffolded use of AI across core skills—reading, writing, listening, and speaking—and activities with clear instructions and…
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HelpMe: An AI-Enhanced Student Support System Hosted at UBC
Our group developed HelpMe, an AI-enhanced student support platform that unifies multiple help channels including an AI chatbot, asynchronous questions, and office hours into a single system. The tool was created to address the challenge of supporting (large) classes with limited instructional staff while ensuring that students receive timely, course-specific guidance. By embedding instructor validation…
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Boosting Engagement with GenAI: How Interview Practice Improves Learning
Dr. Angele Beausoleil, a UBC Sauder entrepreneurship educator, designs a Generative AI (GenAI) exercise to simulate empathy interviews before sending students to engage with real customers. The activity helped them explore target customer personas, practice open-ended interview techniques, and analyze responses for key themes. Students reported increased engagement, enjoyment, and appreciation for GenAI’s role in…
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Enhancing Clinical Skills with GENRx: A Generative AI Approach to Pharmacy Education
A team from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences shares what sparked their use of Generative AI in a teaching and learning activity—and key insights they’ve gained through this experience so far.
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Transforming MTRL 251: student-partnered course redesign through digital integration and artificial intelligence
Dr. Amir Dehkhoda employed Generative AI to revamp a core engineering course, thermodynamics, to boost student engagement and comprehension. In collaboration with faculty, students, and GenAI specialists, Dr. Dehkhoda explores effective GenAI tools and strategies for question generation and the creation of digital aids, promising a significant impact on student participation and overall learning experience.…
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Designing a case-based activity and simulation using an AI chatbot
UBC Health is set to pilot a GenAI-powered chatbot into the Integrated Curriculum, a series of interprofessional workshops and online modules embedded in the core curricula of UBC’s health professional programs. These learning activities are specifically designed to support the development of competencies needed for collaborative practice. The GenAI-powered chatbot will be featured in a…
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Student reflections on how GenAI supports learning in a Graduate Hydrology course
In EOSC 533, Advanced Groundwater Hydrology, Dr. Roger Beckie encouraged his 36 students to reflect on their experience with GenAI, specifically how students use AI to enhance their learning. He shared a blog post with his students by Sandrine Desforges, Research Associate at the Higher Education Strategy Associates (HESA) that highlights recent developments in the…
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Q&A – How Dr. Maryam Aliabadi uses Generative AI to automatically grade exams in her Cloud Computing course
Dr. Maryam Raiyat Aliabadi is a postdoctoral teaching and research fellow in the Faculty of Computer Science. In this Q&A, she explains how she and her team are using GenAI to automatically grade exams for her cloud computing course. Responses have been edited for clarity.
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Firas Moosvi explores the ethics of generating course materials in his computer fluency class
Firas Moosvi, lecturer in the Department of Computer Science, explores the use of AI for generating his own class materials, and contemplates the ethics of such a choice, given that it draws from the hard work of other educators who have posted their materials on the Internet.
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Jared Taylor is encouraging Microbiology 418 students to reflect, and take responsibility when using AI tools
In MICB 418: Industrial Microbiology, Jared Taylor allows students to use any available generative AI tools to research and develop their final group presentation about ethical and legal issues within the field of industrial microbiology. The caveat is that each group must take responsibility for any false information provided by these AI tools. They must…
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Patrick Parra Penefather is infusing AI into creative Media Studies student exercises and assessments
In all courses facilitated by Dr. Patrick Parra Pennefather, assistant professor at UBC Theatre and Film, on creativity, sound, user experience, emerging technology development and collaborative co-creation, students are invited to use Generative AI tools in multiple creative ways for assignments, including text-image, text-video, image-image, image-video, video-video, as well as LLMs to develop scripts and…
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Elisa Baniassad explores using ChatGPT to create Computer Science assessments and practice materials
Elisa Baniassad, associate professor of teaching in the Faculty of Computer Science, explores using ChatGPT to create not only quiz questions, but the associated practice questions.