The AI in Education Community of Practice (CoP) brings together UCT staff who are exploring how artificial intelligence is shaping teaching, learning, and assessment. The CoP is a cross-institutional space for collaboration, experimentation, and shared learning.

Chaired by Sukaina Walji and supported by CILT, the CoP connects academics and professional staff from all faculties and departments, including UCT Libraries, ICTS, and the Institutional Planning Department. Together, members exchange ideas, test tools, and co-develop resources that promote responsible and creative uses of AI in higher education.

Our ongoing focus areas include:

  • Building AI awareness and literacies;
  • Facilitating workshops and learning opportunities;
  • Exploring ethical and inclusive AI practices;
  • Supporting assessment and academic integrity;
  • Sharing innovations and research; and
  • Developing frameworks and resources.

In 2026, the Community is expanding its work through new podcasts, collaborative resources, and themed workshops to help UCT staff navigate and shape the evolving AI landscape.

Interested?

 

Interested in Joining?

Please email Azraa Dawood to be added to the list of members. There's also a dedicated Teams channel on the UCT Teaching Community for the CoP where we will subsequently post information and events.

 Upcoming (AI in Education Community of Practice) Sessions

Change of topic: AI in Education CoP session, Thursday 8 October

Please note a change to tomorrow's AI in Education Community of Practice session.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Dr Yunus Omar's session, Teaching students to navigate AI in postgraduate classrooms: pedagogies and conundrums, will move to a later date. We look forward to welcoming him then and will share the new date once it has been confirmed.
The session will still go ahead at the same time and venue, with a new topic.

Topic: What do you need to innovate with AI in your teaching context?
Facilitated by Stephen Marquard

What would help you turn an idea for an AI-enabled teaching and learning innovation into something you could try in your course? Join us for an overview of the AI innovation landscape at UCT, insights from UCT’s 2025 AI Teaching Innovation Grants process, and an interactive discussion to explore questions such as:

 

  • What time, funding, specialist support and digital infrastructure would you need?
  • What design and safeguards would help you experiment responsibly, and what evidence and evaluation approach would tell you whether the change benefits students?
  • How could peer networks and collaboration across departments support your work, and what would meaningful institutional support look like?
  • How can innovations move from experiment to sustainable ongoing capabilities?

Bring an idea you’re considering, an experience to share, or simply your curiosity, and help identify what would make it easier to move from an initial concept to a supported experiment in your course.

Event Details
Date: Thursday, 8 October, 2026
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Venue: Hlanganani Junction
Location: Level 5 (top floor) of the Chancellor Oppenheimer Library, UCT Upper Campus
Format: In-person (online attendance will be observation only)

If you have already accepted the calendar invitation, there is no need to respond again. If you are no longer able to attend, please decline the invitation so that we can adjust catering.

Thank you for your understanding, and we hope to see you tomorrow.

If you do not have a calendar invitation to the above event, please get in touch with Azraa Dawood.

Further CoP session dates for 2026:

  • Monday, 23 February
  • Monday, 23 March (12:30pm - 2pm / Venue: CILT Level 7)
  • Thursday, 30 April
  • Wednesday, 20 May
  • Thursday, 18 June
  • Thursday, 30 July
  • Wednesday, 26 August
  • Wednesday, 23 September
  • Thursday, 8 October
  • Thursday, 26 November

All sessions are from 12pm - 2pm. Session themes and further details will be communicated closer to the time.

Previous Sessions

 

 
Reflections on: Can AI chatbots support multilingual teaching strategies? - 26 August 2026

Although a somewhat oversimplification of the rich conversation that surfaced, it's an important question nonetheless, and one that sat at the centre of last week's UCT AI in Education Community of Practice session, co-hosted by A/Prof Bongi Bangeni (Head of the Academic Development Programme), Dr. Msakha Mona (Language Development Group), and Dr Nolubabalo Tyam (Multilingualism Education Project), with CILT's Lubabalo Badi and Mishka Reddy.

UCT's language policy, approved in December 2024, names English, isiXhosa, and Afrikaans as official languages. But officialising a language. isn't neutral, especially in the classroom. Historically, much of the codification of Southern African languages was done by European missionaries. sePedi itself was one of roughly 27 pre-colonial dialects before standardisation elevated it above the rest.

That history, foregrounded by Dr Msakha, shaped how the room approached the AI conversation. Staff tested chatbots against real teaching tasks, translating, generating, and mixing languages. One example stood out. A common isiXhosa idiom for anger came back from an AI tool grammatically fluent, but completely stripped of its cultural meaning.

One takeaway wasn't "avoid AI", it was that AI can be a useful entry point into multilingual teaching, but only alongside real checking and conversation, never as a substitute for it.

Read the full reflections email

 

 
Reflections from the Generative AI and the Literature Review session – Thursday, 30 July 2026

Senior Lecturer Shanali Govender facilitated this moderated seminar on generative AI and the literature review, drawing lecturers, supervisors, support staff, and library colleagues into a wide-ranging conversation. The room grappled with where AI genuinely helps from sourcing, brainstorming, to unpacking concepts; and where it doesn't. Some agreed that synthesis, the real intellectual work of a literature review, is where a student's own judgement has to stay in charge. Threads on authorship and voice, equity of access to AI and paywalled research, and what happens when an external examiner raises concerns post-submission all surfaced, alongside a provocative reframe - what ethical obligation do we have in what we feed into AI, not just what we tell students to avoid.

Read the full reflections email

 

 
Reflections from the AI Powered Feedback session - Thursday, 18 June 2026

The session drew on initial findings from the 2025 AI in Assessment Survey, which showed that just over half of the 177 staff respondents are using AI tools in their assessment practices, primarily for question development and rubric design, with automated marking and feedback still relatively low but growing in interest.

This framed two show-and-tell presentations. A/Prof Jacqui Kew from UCT’s College of Accounting shared an early exploration of Lumi Feedback for typed project submissions in a large first-year course, reflecting honestly on its promise and its limitations. Liza Hitge from UCT’s Career Services presented about a pilot using a ChatGPT-based system to assess student reflections for the UCT Plus programme and compared it to human markers. There was a productive discussion in the CoP about the issues and lessons arising from these pilots and how these pilots are helping to shape thinking about enhancing feedback and assessment with AI.

Continue the conversation
You can revisit and continue engaging with the session through the following materials:

 

 
Reflections from the hand-on Lumi Tutor session - Wednesday, 20 May 2026

The May 2026 session gave colleagues a hands-on opportunity to explore Lumi Tutor within their own Amathuba course sites, reflecting on its potential use cases and engaging critically with its affordances and limitations. Participants returned with candid feedback, surfacing tensions between the chatbot's general knowledge and the specificity UCT courses demand, and noting both promising applications and gaps around navigation, quiz depth, and multilingual content. The session closed with a look at customisation pathways and a call for community-led topics, with AI-supported feedback via Lumi Feedback confirmed as the focus for the June gathering.

 

 

 
Reflections from the designing and using customised AI tools to support T&L - Thursday, 30 April 2026

The session explored how colleagues are conceptualising, building, and trialling AI-powered tools within their teaching contexts. Discussions highlighted both the growing accessibility of these tools and the importance of thoughtful pedagogical design, ethical considerations, and ongoing refinement to ensure meaningful support for student learning.

A key thread emerging from the session was that, even as technical barriers to building AI tools are lowering, pedagogical work is becoming more complex. Discussions highlighted the importance of designing tools with a clear educational purpose, aligning them with learning outcomes, and carefully considering how they support, rather than shortcut, student engagement and learning.


Continue the conversation
You can revisit and build on the session through the following resources:

 

 
Reflections from the AI and the future of the academic essay CoP - Monday, 23 March 2026

Three colleagues (teaching in different departments in the Humanities) shared an approach they have adopted to an essay writing assignment. A key thread throughout the session was a shift from asking whether the academic essay still “works”, to interrogating what it is for. Breakout group discussions about the three cases highlighted the importance of designing assessments that foreground process, critical engagement, and the student voice. Questions around authorship, academic literacy, and what it means to “write” in a human–AI landscape also surfaced as ongoing areas for exploration.

We appreciated the openness with which participants engaged, raising important questions and insights from across disciplines.

Session resources
You can revisit and continue engaging with the session through the following materials:

 

 
Reflections from the AI Teaching Innovation Grants CoP - Monday, 23 February 2026

Our first CoP session for the year focused on AI Teaching Innovation Grants. This session featured colleagues who were awarded 2025 AI Teaching Innovation Grants and had not yet had the opportunity to present their projects to a wider audience. It offered an interactive space to learn about new AI tools, share emerging practices, reflect on lessons learned, and engage with peers interested in better understanding AI-enabled teaching innovation. Opportunities were presented to CoP members to ideate new topics or key questions for future CoP sessions.

Launch icon

 

Launch of the AI in Education Community of Practice

In 2025, UCT formally launched the AI in Education Community of Practice (CoP), marking an important step in strengthening collaborative engagement around the role of artificial intelligence in teaching and learning.

The launch event brought together colleagues from across faculties, departments, and professional services to explore practical applications of UCT-licensed AI tools — including Padlet, Lumi, NotebookLM, and Copilot Chat. Through hands-on demonstrations and shared discussion, participants reflected on how AI can be used to enhance learning design, assessment approaches, curriculum practices, student support, and research.

By creating a space where colleagues can learn from one another, the CoP encourages informed, ethical, and context-sensitive decision-making that aligns with UCT’s educational values.

As the CoP continues to evolve, it will build on the momentum of the launch by sharing insights, highlighting innovative practices, and showcasing resources developed through ongoing collaboration.

Visit the CILT LinkedIn page for event highlights.