This #LTHEChat took place on Bluesky on Wednesday 4th June 2025 at 2000 BST

Led by Louise Rees, Senior Academic Developer at Swansea University, @louiserees.bsky.social

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In teaching on a PG Cert teaching in HE programme, I use creative approaches to prompt participant reflection on educator identity. I have outlined these approaches on a previous LTHEChat (Rees L.J., 2023).

Recently I caught up with several PG Alumni to discuss the ongoing development of their educator identity and journey.  One shared how they had progressed towards the professional development goals they had set themselves in their assignment several years ago. I reminded them that in their assignment submission – a great video reflecting on their practice and their journey – they had included a rollercoaster as a key element.

This didn’t represent their interpretation of their own journey but instead described how their students might experience a tumultuous rollercoaster ride through their degree programme.  But there are several instances of teachers indicating their journey and development as at least an emotional rollercoaster – see Godfrey (2023) and Marbaniang (2024) for some informal reflections. 

As I started to teach the PG Cert module again in 2025, I was, despite offering a choice of 8 possible “creative” approaches with exemplars, still concerned for those who thought they ‘could not be creative’. Would Gen AI be used to help them ‘be creative?’ Or for those pushed for time, would using a Gen AI tool be a quicker option to produce the output requested?

Simultaneously came an announcement of the University of Liverpool’s annual Islands of Innovation Conference for May 2025, with the topic of ‘Theme Park of Innovation’ and a full range of amusement park sub-themes.  An alumnus discussing teaching and learning as a rollercoaster journey.  Me wondering about Gen AI and its use in creating images. Coincidence? Something seemed to be telling me to experiment with Gen AI.

Recognising what I already knew about the limitations and ethical issues of using a Gen AI tool, I ‘tested’ whether it could adequately convert my written prompts into images and apply the ‘critically reflective’ aspect of the activity.  That involved participants annotating their “creative output” by considering what factors impacting educator identity applied to their own experiences (as explored by Thea van Lankveld et al, 2017) and/or considering what stages of educator development applied (drawing on the work of Peter Kugel, 1993).

I used Microsoft Copilot AI and a few other Gen AI tools to translate written prompts reflecting some fictitious scenarios of a day in the life of an educator in Higher Education into images. I included in the prompt instructions to include in the generated image the relevant theoretical factors and stages on teaching identity which at the time (March 2025), MS CoPilot was unable to do.

I guided workshop participants at the Islands of Innovation conference on May 9 2025 to generate an image from text describing their “educator day”, including using an amusement park ride to represent their feelings.  I invited them to critically reflect on the images generated through that process and shared my own reflections on the process and output.

During this chat I invite you to consider whether Gen AI can adequately convert written reflection to images and how you might use the activity of image generation from text to promote Gen AI digital literacy for your learners.

If you want to create your own image based on a short reflection of your “educator day”, see the ‘prompt’ below in the Note.

References

Godfrey G. (2023) The teacher’s roller coaster: navigating teacher burnout”, Edugist, November 7, 2023 The Teacher’s Roller Coaster: Navigating Teacher Burnout — Edugist  https://edugist.org/the-teachers-roller-coaster-navigating-teacher-burnout/

Kugel, P. (1993). How professors develop as teachers. Studies in Higher Education (Dorchester-on-Thames), 18(3), 315–328. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079312331382241

Marbaniang, G. (2024) Teaching: an emotional roller coaster, The Shillong Times, September 4, 2024  Teaching: an emotional roller coaster – The Shillong Times   https://theshillongtimes.com/2024/09/04/teaching-an-emotional-roller-coaster/

Rees L. J. (2023) Using creative Approaches to reflect, #LTHEChat 277: Using Creative Approaches to Reflect | #LTHEchat  https://lthechat.com/2023/11/17/lthechat-277-using-creative-approaches-to-reflect/

van Lankveld, T., Schoonenboom, J., Volman, M., Croiset, G., & Beishuizen, J. (2017). Developing a teacher identity in the university context: a systematic review of the literature. Higher Education Research and Development, 36(2), 325–342. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2016.1208154

Note:

Here is the suggested prompt:

“Prepare a SHORT, written piece based on “A day in your educator life…”.  This will be your prompt to input into a Gen AI tool of your choice. Cover the following in your text:

CONTEXT: What briefly is your role in Higher Education?

WHAT: Write a brief description of the circumstance/day you’ve experienced.

HOW: Did you feel about the situation?

INCLUDE the following instruction at the end: “Please provide an image representing my day using an appropriate amusement park ride.”

I gave participants an example “prompt” as we had a limited amount of time to do the activity and reflect on the output.

Guest Biography

Louise is a Senior Academic Developer in Swansea University’s Academy for Learning and Teaching.  She teaches on the PG Cert teaching in HE regarding professional identity for HE educators, assisting participants to reflect on their practice and PG Cert journey.  She also supports colleagues in their claims for recognition through the University’s internally accredited programme for Advance HE Fellowship.  Louise is a Certified Online Learning Facilitator and an Advance HE Senior Fellow.  She can be reached through LinkedIn: (13) Louise Rees | LinkedIn or Bluesky: @louiserees.bsky.social . Giraffes are her favourite animal 🙂

Questions and chat

• Q1 Have you or your learners used a Gen AI tool to generate an image from text?  What kinds of activities did/could you use it for?
• Q2 If you/ your learners have used Gen AI for image creation, what was captured well/accurately in the generated image? Were there any shortcomings?
• Q3 What did you/they learn about the content or order of the words used in the prompts?
• Q4 In your context, how might you use the creation of a Gen AI image as an activity or assignment for learners to demonstrate higher order evaluation skills?
• Q5 When using Gen AI to create images, what key questions or issues would you ask your learners to consider to develop their Gen AI literacy?
• Q6 If a Gen AI tool isn’t available, what other websites or platforms can learners use to find images that would help them visualise a situation?