Profile: Associate Dean of Education Quality Cloda Jenkins on why Higher Education must embrace generative AI

Generative AI advances in the education sector have met with mixed responses. The curious excitement about the nascent technology and its potential to improve how we learn and teach is tempered by concerns about its overall impact on academic integrity. 

While the noise around the risks of generative AI for education intensifies, Dr Cloda Jenkins, Associate Dean of Education Quality at Imperial Business School, cautions against knee-jerk responses.

Engaging with AI in education

“The biggest risk is deciding generative AI will undermine education or devalue what we do,” Dr Jenkins says, advocating instead for engaging with the technology to understand where it can be beneficial – and the ways in which its use should be limited.

Recently, Dr Jenkins worked with the Business School's IDEA Lab on stress testing module assessments across the Business School using a range of AI tools onto gain insights into limiting AI interference. The experiment looked at what happened if students asked AI to complete module assessment tasks, with testers evaluating each task for accuracy, clarity, relevance, compliance, referencing and ease of use. Dr Jenkins reviewed the results along with the IDEA Lab’s learning designers, calculating average scores and assigning risk levels.

With her primary focus on ensuring the delivery of high-quality education programmes across the School, Dr Jenkins is keen to support both students and faculty in the use of AI tools. But, she notes, the biggest challenge, particularly for students, is in understanding where to draw the red lines.  

“Mechanisms have to be put in place so that students understand what is and isn’t allowed. For example, if we want to use generative AI for idea generation, we can facilitate that by making time for using AI tools in the classroom where there can be oversight,” she explains.

Preparing students for the job market 

There are also wider implications for incorporating generative AI into curriculums. For example, when it comes to future employability, an area Dr Jenkins has researched for a number of years. While knowledge of AI tools could help students to develop necessary skills to navigate the job market, they will still have to be able to “critically assess, explain their ideas, and think on their feet”, which she believes is vitally important in preparing them not just for job interviews, but for life in general.

Dr Jenkins is familiar with what recruiters look for and how skill requirements evolve over time. Previously, she worked as a consultant and was headhunted to the independent UK energy regulator Ofgem to run its review of energy network regulation. As well as making use of her PhD on the regulation of price controls in the energy sector, during her time there she was exposed to strategic thinking around tackling big challenges. 

The biggest risk is deciding generative AI will undermine education or devalue what we do

“This was an exciting time for me, as it was an opportunity to apply my PhD research and really shape policymaking,” she says, regarding the price control framework she designed and implemented, which is still in use today. “It was a very rewarding time in terms of producing something that actually had an effect."

As an expert in economics education, including on the connections between degrees and skill-development, one of Dr Jenkins' key interests is research-based education, with students learning by doing. Her interest in this area stems from the criticisms levelled against economics for its reliance on theory that, at key moments such as the financial crisis and the COVID pandemic, hasn't always been effective. 

“I’m very keen on education not just being about learning theory, but giving students the tools they need to apply these theories to the real world,” she says, adding that research-based education encourages students to explore questions and work out how to find the answers and methodologies that apply. “It’s about enabling students to explore questions and feel comfortable with the idea that there isn’t always a right answer," she says. 

Active learning

In fact, it was this active learning approach that attracted her to teaching at Imperial. “At the Business School, active learning and application is always front and centre and for me that’s really key as it better prepares students for going into jobs in either the private or public sector.”

In addition to Dr Jenkins's roles as Associate Dean and co-running the Centre for Teaching & Learning Economics, she teaches five modules across BSc, MSc and MBA programmes – undoubtedly a lot to balance. But Dr Jenkins is unequivocal about the positions she holds at the School: “Being close to the ground is important to me. Fundamentally, I really enjoy teaching, but it also helps when I’m talking to colleagues in my capacity as Associate Dean – it gives me the chance to see both sides”.

Mechanisms have to be put in place so that students understand what is and isn’t allowed

Whether teaching, considering how to deliver a new education programme, or implementing a new regulatory framework, Dr Jenkins is motivated by the desire to facilitate change and improve on how things are done. 

“I’m focused on thinking about better ways of doing things. Everything I do is about finding the best path, whether in a regulation space or working with a team on a process at the Business School,” she says. “We live in a constrained world with constrained time, so thinking smarter about how we can do things is the way forward”.