3.4 Inquiry into Teaching and Learning 4

3.4.1 The ‘wellness complex’: Studying graduate education in Ontario through a critical disability studies lens
Dr. Lori Ross, Associate Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Dr. Savitri Persaud, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Health and Society, University of Toronto Scarborough

In Canada and internationally, high rates of poor mental health reported among postsecondary students have raised concern; however, research on this topic has primarily centred on undergraduate students. Our study aimed to address this gap through a critical disability-informed examination of graduate student mental health in three Ontario universities. A critical disability studies orientation turns our attention away from the individual student and towards understanding how systems and structures (e.g., the postsecondary institution) may be producing disabling environments for students. We utilized situational analysis, a postmodern extension of grounded theory, to examine qualitative data from graduate students (n=26), faculty (n=14), and staff (n=4). Our findings reveal that biomedical and psychocentric understandings of mental health and mental illness dominate university-based programs, supports, and accommodations for graduate students experiencing psychiatric distress, together making up a sector-wide schema that we have termed the ‘wellness complex.’ These biomedical and psychocentric conceptualizations conflict with the lived realities of students in our study, whose experiences were deeply shaped by ableism and other intersecting structural oppressions. Our analysis brings to the fore the processes whereby the academic institution acts in concert with other systems and structures (e.g., neoliberalism) to produce this ‘wellness complex’, within which responsibility for wellbeing is downloaded onto students (and allied faculty), making invisible the role of larger structural forces (such as entrenched ableism) in producing graduate student distress. Mapping the ‘wellness complex’ allows us to expose, examine, and challenge normalized ableism and to contribute to necessary systemic change in graduate education.

3.4.2 Facilitating students’ ability to reduce over-reliance on AI and do their own reading, thinking and writing in the Age of AI
Elaine Khoo, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, Centre for Teaching and Learning, UTSC, Kayna Mufidah, Undergraduate student Year 2

When we listen carefully to our students’ challenges with their academic work, we learn about the under-acknowledged language- and culture-related inequities faced by many students (especially multilingual students whose dominant language is not English).  In the Age of AI, there are concerns that over-reliance on AI in order tosubmit their assignments may result in students depriving themselves of valuable learning opportunities.  Addressing these multiple issues depend greatly on positioning students as partners, with agency to address the inequities through an empowerment approach that involve (a) exponential expansion of linguistic competence and knowledge capital through ethical use of AI in the process of reading; (b) development of critical AI literacy and (c) low-risk, confidence-boosting opportunities to articulate their ideas. The research questions are: (1) What challenges do students report that they face with reading academic texts? (2) What affordances can be provided through AI-powered individualized support depending on individual student needs?; (c) What “small teaching” tweaks can be made to help address the previously insurmountable reading challenges?  Findings and insights again from the study will be shared, and discussion of implications for different teaching contexts will be explored.