2024

Tigerstedt, Christa; Forsström, Mikael; Fabricius, Susanna

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, particularly in generative AI, presents a transformative opportunity for higher education, especially within business studies. This paper explores the potential applications and implications of generative AI from a teacher's perspective, focusing on its integration into the curriculum and pedagogical strategies of business education. The teacher’s role is multifaceted, encompassing several aspects essential for adopting and integrating Generative AI (GenAI) in their teaching. Recent advancements in GenAI have propelled interest across various sectors, with higher education being no exception. Business educators can leverage GenAI to enhance teaching, research, and students’ learning and experiences. This explorative study looks at how a team of business administration teachers have approached GenAI in their multi-level role as educators. Insights have been collected from workshops with business teachers in spring 2024, where current AI practices, specific tools used, challenges faced, training needs, and general feedback on AI integration was in focus. Additionally, perspectives were gathered from the specializations within the business department, financial management, marketing, tourism, and logistics, to understand their strategies for integrating AI into their course offerings for the upcoming academic year. Furthermore, this paper addresses the challenges and ethical considerations that arise with the adoption of AI technologies in educational settings. Issues such as data privacy, potential bias in AI outputs, and the need to maintain academic integrity are critically analyzed. Educators must address concerns related to accuracy, bias, and overreliance on technology when integrating GenAI into teaching practices. This analysis not only informs the immediate integration efforts but also sets the stage for future research on optimizing AI use in education. From creating dynamic course content that adapts to individual learning paces to evaluating student performance with greater precision, generative AI promises to enrich business education by offering more personalized and engaging learning experiences. The paper concludes with a discussion on future trends and the evolving role of educators in an AI-enhanced educational landscape, advocating for a balanced approach that leverages technology to improve educational outcomes while nurturing the human skills that AI cannot replicate. GenAI can elevate courseware by providing personalized content, dynamically adjusting format, level, and pace based on student progress. It also facilitates collaborative inputs from learner groups and interactive experiences that enhance student engagement and knowledge retention. This explorative study contributes to the understanding of the challenges and opportunities that business teachers face in integrating GenAI into their work, mapping the specific obstacles and strategies they encounter. Additionally, this research lays the groundwork for a future framework for integrating AI into education, which will emphasize critical thinking and ethical reasoning. The insights gained from this study will inform subsequent research, which will focus on evaluating the effectiveness of these integration strategies and refining best practices based on feedback from teachers.