OCAD University is implementing a new initiative to support faculty members in designing, piloting and assessing new pedagogical and curricular approaches to AI in art and design education.
Grounded in the University’s Statement on the Use of Generative AI, the AI Teaching and Learning Innovation Grant Program will provide funding to faculty members to advance pedagogical experimentation and knowledge creation that responds to the evolving role of AI in art and design education.
“Our students are graduating into a world where AI is increasingly shaping creative work and professional practice. This program supports faculty in developing thoughtful and forward-looking approaches to teaching that will help students build both critical AI literacy and the creative confidence needed to navigate a rapidly changing world,” says Dr. Sandra Gabriele, vice-president, academic and provost, who is sponsoring the program. The program is being administered by the University’s Centre for Learning & Teaching (CLT).
There are three project streams:
Teaching with AI microgrants for Winter 2027 courses
The goal of this stream is to have faculty design and evaluate a teaching activity or assignment, within an existing course running in Winter 2027, that helps students think critically about AI: when to use it, when not to and its impacts on learning, creativity, society and the environment.
AI and pedagogical research grants for Winter 2027 courses
Funding will support the design and implementation of course-based research projects that explore how students critically and systematically engage with AI throughout a course and what that engagement means for their learning.
AI in the curriculum, discipline and professional practice research projects
This stream supports research teams that will explore how AI intersects with a program’s curriculum, discipline or professional practice. Teams can include a program curriculum committee, Cyclical Program Review (CPR) team, a program-specific AI Working Group or another configuration appropriate to the inquiry.
The deadline to apply is August 10, 2026.
Applications will be reviewed by a committee of OCAD U faculty and academic staff. The CLT will hold information sessions, drop-ins and one-to-one consultations throughout the summer to support proposal development.
AI INITIATIVES AT OCAD U
This new initiative is part of ongoing efforts by the University to provide opportunities that promote experimentation, research and dialogue on the key questions, ethical considerations, challenges and opportunities of AI.
For example, this spring, the CLT launched the AI Exploration Lab, offering a series of monthly workshops where OCAD U faculty, technicians, teaching assistants and academic support staff can explore and share their uses of AI tools in art, design and pedagogy.
At the most recent session, Associate Professor Nicholas Puckett guided participants through an introductory exploration of AI skills and agents. He developed his own Canvas design agent out of a desire to improve asynchronous communication with students, using the agent to develop a compelling consistent visual language for each of his courses.
At the recent Teaching Expo, two AI-focused panel discussions were held, one for faculty and one for students. The expo is a full-day conference that celebrates teaching and learning across the university and provides an opportunity for the community to gather and showcase innovation and research in art and design pedagogy.
The faculty panel, Teaching in the Tension: Creative Practice and AI, Three Years On, reflected on what has shifted since the rapid rise of Generative AI (GAI) three and a half years ago and on current key questions, challenges and opportunities. The panel, moderated by Emilie Brancato from the CLT, included Professor and President Emerita Dr. Sara Diamond, Associate Professor Dr. Adam Tindale and Associate Dean from the Faculty of Design Dr. Michelle Wyndham-West, who spoke about emerging practices and pedagogical innovations that can help students build resilient, future-oriented creative approaches.
The student panel, Unmuting Student Stories: Perspectives on Engagement, Technology and Change, focused on how the learning engagement is evolving within increasingly digital environments. Drawing on their diverse experiences, students discussed both the opportunities and tensions shaping their learning, underscoring the need for responsive and inclusive approaches to teaching and learning.
Many faculty members continue to incorporate GAI in their courses, such as Professor Alex Manu who developed the specific course, Generative AI Futures, rooted in a longer historical awareness of the impact of technological advances.
“Since the early 1980s, I have witnessed successive technological inflections. The introduction of computers, followed by computer-aided design and manufacturing, marked a point of no return for the discipline. Later, advanced visualization software such as Alias further expanded the designer’s capacity to render and simulate. Each of these moments required adaptation, not as a matter of preference, but as a matter of relevance,” explains Manu.
“To resist such shifts is to risk preparing students for a future that no longer exists. Today’s graduates enter a landscape where familiarity with these systems is not optional. It is expected. Encouraging their use is therefore not an imposition but a responsibility,” he says.
Given the impact of AI on the design field and within design education and research, Assistant Professor Dr. Lori Riva says it was an important and relevant topic to incorporate in her course, Contemporary Design Theories and Practices, for second-year students from all disciplines. Her goal was to integrate critical AI literacy into the classroom experience.
“Students are given opportunities to think critically about how we implement these tools responsibly and being aware of the impacts of its usage. Another approach I use is to focus on observation and the slower processes of analysis and research. I maintain that adopting these approaches instills more critical attitudes as to why and how to take up these tools,” she says.
Assistant Professor Parantap Bhatt has been incorporating GAI in third-year residential and hospitality studios in the Environmental Design program as well as in fourth-year interaction/experience design studios, which bring together students from Architecture, Interior Design, Advertising, Graphic Design, Industrial Design and Digital Futures.
In his teaching, AI is positioned not simply as a tool for output, but as a cognitive collaborator within the design process.
Bhatt’s assessment on how students use AI focuses on process, authorship and critical engagement. Students are required to document how AI is used throughout their workflow; reflect on what they accept/reject/transform; and demonstrate how their thinking evolves beyond AI outputs.
A key shift he has observed is that students have moved from “using AI for answers” to “using AI to ask better questions.”
