Time has passed since the unleashing of ChatGPT for public consumption in November 2022, and we are no longer faced with the dilemma of whether to incorporate generative AI into our students’ teaching and learning activities; it’s more a matter of how and how much to incorporate. The dilemmas around academic integrity with which we are faced due to ChatGPT use are similar to those with which colleagues in the School of Languages and Cultures (SLC) have been grappling since around 2016, when translation tools such as Google Translate and DeepL developed sophisticated neural-machine capabilities.

A 2024 University of Sydney Strategic Education Grant allowed colleagues in SLC in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) to partner with students on a curriculum project that aimed to address the challenges posed by gen AI and identify the opportunities, to mitigate integrity breaches and increase student engagement.

The project

Four academics, four casual tutors and 16 students from two Asian and two European languages collaborated in their respective disciplines. Their goal was to redesign seven first-year units of study to integrate gen AI into 2025 teaching and learning activities, educate students on ethical and responsible use of gen AI, and redesign assessment tasks to align with the University’s two-lane approach. The project also aimed to build staff-student relations within and across the disciplines of French, German, Japanese and Korean, and aspired to produce guidelines for both staff and students across SLC on how gen AI can be used to improve students’ language-learning journeys.

Working in discipline teams, we redesigned learning and teaching activities across the four language competencies (listening, speaking, reading and writing) that could be enhanced by the incorporation of gen AI. AI agents were developed in Cogniti to provide opportunities for consolidation of content or conversation and listening comprehension practice. Assessment tasks were also redesigned to be either open or secure. The teams collaborated to produce a set of SLC student guidelines for gen AI use, as well as some SLC staff guidelines for gen AI use. Both sets were based on the material developed by student and staff partners in Education Innovation for staff and students, and have been taken up and adapted by other schools in FASS.

Learnings and insights

Having previously partnered with students on a project aimed at facilitating the transition into university for international students, I used Healey and Healey’s 2019 Advance HE Framework for enhancing student success: student engagement through partnership, this time focusing on the area of curriculum design and pedagogic consultancy. Students were paid to attend meetings, conduct research, trial AI agents and lead student focus groups. The University of Sydney’s July 2024 Student Partnership Charter was a helpful point of reference, particularly the RESPECT principles, although the charter was not launched until we were well into our project.

One of the best aspects of this project was being able to collaborate closely with student partners across a whole year, to incorporate their experience as learners into curriculum redesign and assessment. I was reminded of the need to acknowledge power dynamics and reiterate the concept of partnership to all team members. One tip I would pass on to colleagues contemplating a staff-student partnership project is to have all those involved in the project sign up to the USyd Student Partnership Charter to reflect support for the RESPECT principles and improve the outcomes of the project.

Advaith Madhav’s article on staff-student partnerships from a student’s perspective provides a great example of the opportunities for student growth in self-confidence through participation in such projects.

Feedback from colleagues involved in the 2024 SEG indicates that the Cogniti agents developed have been used across units of study in 2025 to support student learning in three main ways:

• as a study buddy to develop writing, reading and listening skills outside the classroom ahead of secure, in-class tests
• as an editing agent that provides feedback on written homework tasks and, with acknowledgement and critical analysis of the AI outputs, on summative writing task drafts
• as teaching assistants that provide feedback and opportunities to practise Asian script writing and conversation based on uploaded course material

Final thoughts

If gen AI has revolutionised the way we teach and the way our students learn, so too has the student partnership model as a framework for collaborative action across research, curriculum design and pedagogy in the university sector. Just as the use of gen AI is increasingly considered as BAU, so too is collaboration with students that goes beyond seeking feedback through questionnaires and focus groups towards authentic staff-student partnerships that improve learning outcomes for students and empower them to take control of their learning.

Additional contributions from Lionel Babicz, Japanese Studies, Benoit Berthelier, Korean Studies, and Kylie Giblett, Germanic Studies, School of Languages and Cultures (SLC), Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS).