The Hidden Labor in the Age of GenAI: Emotions, Identities, and Teaching Conundrums
Spark Talk
Abstract
This Spark Talk seeks to shed light on the invisible emotional labor that many teachers, especially those in humanities and social sciences, perform in the age of GenAI. The talk is based on a one-semester long study of nine cases of writing instructors' emotions. By highlighting the emotional aspect of teaching, this talk hopes to respond to the key question--how do we preserve the distinctly human dimensions of teaching within increasingly technologically mediated environments?-- and illustrate teaching as both intellectual and emotional effort. Instead of providing solutions to the teaching conundrums that many teachers face, this talk seeks to create an open environment for teachers to explore their feelings, professional identities, and pedagogical aspirations. Through this talk, I hope to contribute to this year's theme by focusing on the teachers who are at the heart of excellence in higher education.
Presenters
Xiao Tan
Assistant Professor
Xiao Tan is an Assistant Professor of English at Utah State University. She received her Ph.D. in Writing, Rhetorics, and Literacies from Arizona State University. Her research focuses on multimodal writing, second language/multilingual writing, digital writing, and writing with Artificial Intelligence. As a writing teacher, she has been exploring innovative ways of teaching writing that prepares students for critical reading and writing in digital environments. She has shared her creative teaching practices with fellow writing scholars and educators on TextGenEd: Teaching with text generation technologies, Dynamic activities for first-year composition, Digital literacies for human connection, and Multimodal composition and writing transfer pedagogy.