VIRTUAL MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY

Abstract

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded within creative industries, educators are under growing pressure to develop AI-literate graduates. At the same time, students are demonstrating heightened ethical awareness, raising concerns around sustainability, authorship, data extraction, and digital coloniality. This presentation explores what happens when these agendas collide. Drawing on a sequence of undergraduate teaching interventions within art and design education at Nottingham Trent University, the presentation traces a shift from successful AI integration toward unexpected and sustained student resistance. While earlier work positioned AI as a creative collaborator — supported by industry partnerships and the development of an QAA funded AI integration toolkit — subsequent cohorts challenged its inclusion, with some refusing to engage entirely, citing values-led objections and a preference for peer-based collaboration. Rather than positioning this resistance as a barrier to be overcome, the presentation reframes refusal as a critical pedagogical moment. It examines how this disruption prompted a reconfiguration of teaching approaches, moving from tool adoption toward speculative and student-led models in which learners were invited to redesign AI systems aligned with principles of sustainability, community governance, and ethical data use. The presentation argues that in an era of rapid technological change, effective pedagogy must move beyond integration toward negotiation — recognising that ethical hesitation, resistance, and refusal are not failures of engagement, but essential indicators of evolving student values and agency.