SDA Bocconi wins Best Workshop Award again with paper on relationship between AI and executive management education

In the face of major technological acceleration, the world of executive management education must also find innovative solutions to shape increasingly effective and engaging learning ecosystems. In particular, one of the greatest challenges of the coming years concerns the potential of artificial intelligence. The ability to anticipate these scenarios is what led the "Teaching with Technology: In the Shadow of AI" workshop to be awarded the "Best Workshop for Junior Faculty and Doctoral Students" by the Management Education and Development Division of the Academy of Management.

The workshop involved a team of faculty members from universities and business schools around the world and was presented at AoM, the leading academic conference for management faculty and researchers globally. Leonardo Caporarello, Associate Dean for Online Learning and Professor of Practice of Leadership and Negotiation at SDA Bocconi, among others, gave a presentation entitled "Faculty's Readiness for (Un)accepting AI in Education." The prestigious award rewards the impact of the workshop and the collaborative capacity of the team composed of faculty members from countries like Italy, Switzerland and Ireland.

Caporarello pointed out that the AI market will exceed $20 billion in value by 2027 and that many educational activities, about 30 percent, can be managed by AI systems. Is it a risk? Not if the scope of the phenomenon is understood and action is taken to manage it instead of "watching from afar." Using AI "correctly" would allow teachers to focus more on personalizing programs and supporting students. In this context, it is crucial to define, as Caporarello suggested, some concrete actions to "facilitate" the processes of approaching and accepting AI technologies within educational pathways. How can AI concretely contribute to innovation in executive management education? Below are three areas of work presented by Caporarello during the workshop. For each of them it is possible – as well as necessary – to identify concrete projects to create "easy & quick results":

• GREATER INVOLVEMENT AND PERSONALIZATION
  AI makes it possible to bring increasingly personalized experiences to life, for example by leveraging exploratory learning environments, virtual and augmented reality systems, and by embedding AI mechanisms within simulated environments in which actors (characters) are "guided" by AI;

• INTERACTION
  AI can more effectively support faculty and students, for example with intelligent and "dialogue-based" dynamic tutoring systems, ones that can in part adjust, for example, narrative style and learn how to best address queries of the same type;

• EVALUATION
  

  AI can contribute to student self-assessments by providing continuous feedback defined within a theoretical framework identified by teachers, which can support the students' continuous learning process while giving the teacher feedback to design subsequent teaching sessions.

Finally, Caporarello highlighted the major critical issues that experts must overcome, including the need to protect privacy and encourage the ethical use of information, the possibility of bias and prejudice in algorithms, and the relational issues due to a lack of interaction with human beings.

SDA Bocconi School of Management