How can generative AI support learning while keeping students thinking for themselves?

Champlain Saint-Lambert colleagues are helping explore that question through research grounded in teachers’ classroom experiences.

Supported by a $340,800 Entente Canada–Québec (ECQ) grant over the course of the 2025–2026 academic year, the completed project, Mieux enseigner, mieux soutenir : Usage éthique et responsable de l’IA générative en enseignement, brought Champlain Saint-Lambert together with Université de Montréal and other college partners. The project explored responsible, transparent, and equitable uses of AI in higher education.

Sara Hashem (CTL) and Neerusha Baurhoo Gookol (UdeM) were the co-principal investigators, securing the grant and playing a central role in bringing the project to completion. Faculty collaborators Aicha Mein (English), Catherine Nygren (English), Jenny Doubt (English), Bahman Zamani (Comp Sci and technology), and Paul Catanu (Humanities) kept practical teaching questions at the heart of the work: plagiarism, overreliance on AI, critical thinking, and how to set clear expectations.

As part of the project’s dissemination, over 60 guests gathered at the project’s closing symposium at Université de Montréal to learn about the research findings and explore their applications in the classroom. Hashem joined the keynote panel to situate the project, while Mein, Nygren, Doubt, and Catanu contributed English and Humanities perspectives, alongside other practical workshops on ethical decision-making, prompting, and inclusive assessment.

The response was just as strong at the 15th SALTISE conference, where attendees stood at the back of the room and spilled into the hallway. Nygren, Mein, and Doubt joined Hashem and colleague John Abbott to share faculty experiences and practical strategies for responsible AI use: explicit AI literacy instruction, transparent classroom policies, redesigned assessments, and critical reflection.

The next step is to make the work more widely accessible. A bilingual interactive platform is being revised following beta testing, with a relaunch planned in the coming months. Look out for research updates and resources to help bring informed, responsible AI use into teaching.