Dr. Ana Schalk

Biography

Ana has been a lecturer, researcher, academic developer, and academic manager for over 30 years. In Trinity, she leads the Digital Learning in Teaching, Learning and Assessment, which includes the GenAI plan at the Centre for Academic Practice. This plan considers resources to support academic staff, collaboration with faculties and schools, and research development. Her approach to GenAI in Education highlights the need to disseminate AI Literacy by understanding its complexities and uncertainties, as well as developing critical and reflective T&L practices to produce new knowledge in a field that evolves rapidly and requires expertise, collaboration, ethical, responsible, and human-centred actions. She teaches as part of the Sp Certificate and other professional development initiatives. She led the creation and implementation of the open course "GenAI in T&L: How to do it right?" (digital badge), funded by the National Forum to develop AI Literacy skills for academic staff in Higher Education. This initiative was in conjunction with the University of Limerick and UCD, and at the same time, co-led the Interinstitutional project of GenAI in T&L in Irish Universities in collaboration with the other six Universities to develop an open-access publication with showcases across disciplines, exploring and reflecting on the uses of GenAI to support T&L. Before Trinity, Ana worked at TU Dublin's Learning, Teaching, and Assessment Team, where she led several strategic learning initiatives and taught on the MSc Education and Postgraduate Certificate in University Learning and Teaching. Prior to joining TU Dublin, she led several institutional, national, and international digital education initiatives in Latin America (in nine countries), working with the Ministries of Education, UNESCO, the Iberoamerican States Organisation (OEI), and European Universities. She is part of the Mexican Embassy's Educational Committee in Ireland and Co-Chair of the Educational Developers in Ireland Network (EDIN).