Webinars

ACPIL run a series of research webinars and seminars each year.

These webinars are relevant to academics and researchers from most Faculties, Departments and Schools. They deliver practical useful information which may be put to use immediately. They also gives participants an opportunity to network with other researchers.

Current webinar

Critical Thinking & AI, how it works:
Pedagogy, Employability, and Organisational Reality

Duration: 60 minutes

Presented by Dr. Dan Remenyi

Mode of presentation: Zoom

Date and Time: November 19, 14:00 GMT

Overview

Critical thinking (CT) impacts research and teaching through its role in pedagogy, its importance in employment and its impact upon organisational reality.

Higher education is continually called upon to foster CT as a core graduate capability, with employers citing a critical skills gap among new entrants to the workforce. However, the term CT encompasses a wide spectrum of concepts, ranging from encouraging impromptu questioning to conducting deep, disruptive evaluations of complex organisational policies and structures.

The capacity for critical thinking depends as much on a psychological disposition and intellectual habits as it does on skill. While basic analytical skills can be taught, applying them appropriately requires a specific mindset.

This webinar invites academics, researchers, and curriculum designers to critically examine how CT is conceptualised in university settings versus how it operates in practice. It explores the implicit tension between academic ideals of objective inquiry and the political, emotional, and cultural realities of modern organisations. In addition, it demonstrates how GenAI can be used to develop critical thinking skills.

This webinar makes clear exactly what critical thinking is and how universities can promote its development in students. It also addresses critical thinkings limitations and potential problems that can arise if it is not used wisely.

This event includes a group exercise using a critical thinking approach to analysis and understanding how to refocus a proposition.

Key Issues Addressed

Conceptual Unpacking: Defining critical thinking and establishing its place in epistemology. Differentiating between trivial questioning, pedagogical tools, and high-level organisational inquiry.
The “Work-Ready” Assumption: The notion of CT, being work ready and new graduates to deploy non-trivial CT in entry-level roles overlooks organisational power dynamics and hierarchy.
Analytical Frameworks in Pedagogy: Examining Socratic questioning, standards-based models, multi-perspective inquiry, and first principles thinking within higher education contexts.
The Cognitive Challenge of GenAI: Assessing how generative AI tools may impact the necessary cognitive friction required for deep, reflective thought.

After this event participants will:

understand the nature and characteristics of critical thinking.
Be able to valuate competing assumptions regarding critical thinking and employability.
Be able to assess the opportunities and risks that GenAI presents for the development of critical thinking.
have used a critical thinking approach to text.

To whom this event will be useful

Lecturers & Course Directors designing modules on critical thinking, management, and research methodology.
Educational Researchers & Academic Leaders interested in graduate employability, assessment design, and higher education policy.
PhD Supervisors, Mentors & Student navigating the intersection of academic rigor and workplace expectations.

Webinar Details

Attendance free of charge to members of the ACPIL Forum.
Registration to join the Forum is also free and is accessed at https://www.academic-conferences.org/forum/

To join this event register as a member of the Forum and then book a place on the Webinar.

Registration closes 24 hours before the event.

Webinar Facilitator

Professor Dan Remenyi has spent the last 30 years working with research students who were encouraged to employ techniques of critical thinking. He has therefore encountered this technique in many of its forms with many of its challenges. Prior to becoming an academic Dan spent more than a decade in the ICT industry working in a wide range of positions. During his years in academe, he has been a Visiting or Extraordinary Professor at 10 different universities. He holds a B Soc Sc, MBA and a PhD.