adjunct faculty

The resistance to AI in education isn’t really about learning — from medium.com by Peter Shea

A quick comment first from DSC:
Peter Shea gives us some interesting perspectives here. His thoughts should give many of us fodder for our own further reflection.

This reaction underscores a deeper issue: the resistance to AI in education is not truly about learning. It reflects a reluctance to re-evaluate the traditional roles of educators and to embrace the opportunities AI offers to enhance the learning experience.
…
In order to thrive in the learning ecosystem that will evolve in the Age of AI, the teaching profession needs to do some difficult but essential re-evaluation of their role, in order to better understand where they can provide the best value to learners. This requires confronting some comforting myths and uncomfortable truths.

Problem #2: The Closed World of Academic Culture
In addition, many teachers have spent little time working in non-academic professions. This is especially true for college instructors, who must devote five to seven years to graduate education before obtaining their first full-time position, and thus have little time to explore careers outside academia. This common lack of non-academic work experience heightens the anxiety that educators feel when contemplating the potential impact of generative AI on their work lives.

Also see this related posting:

Majority of Grads Wish They’d Been Taught AI in College — from insidehighered.com by Lauren Coffey
A new survey shows 70 percent of graduates think generative AI should be incorporated into courses. More than half said they felt unprepared for the workforce.

A majority of college graduates believe generative artificial intelligence tools should be incorporated into college classrooms, with more than half saying they felt unprepared for the workforce, according to a new survey from Cengage Group, an education-technology company.

The survey, released today, found that 70 percent of graduates believe basic generative AI training should be integrated into courses; 55 percent said their degree programs did not prepare them to use the new technology tools in the workforce.

How AI will change education [Woodbury], Introducing Eureka Labs [Karpathy] + numerous other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 07/18/2024, in adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, bots, career development, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, computer science, digital learning, education, education technology, emerging technologies, Europe, experimentation, faculty, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, Open AI, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, programming, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, UK, United States, universities, vendors, writing, by Daniel Christian

Introducing Eureka Labs — “We are building a new kind of school that is AI native.” — by Andrej Karpathy, Previously Director of AI @ Tesla, founding team @ OpenAI

However, with recent progress in generative AI, this learning experience feels tractable. The teacher still designs the course materials, but they are supported, leveraged and scaled with an AI Teaching Assistant who is optimized to help guide the students through them. This Teacher + AI symbiosis could run an entire curriculum of courses on a common platform. If we are successful, it will be easy for anyone to learn anything, expanding education in both reach (a large number of people learning something) and extent (any one person learning a large amount of subjects, beyond what may be possible today unassisted).

?? Excited to share that I am starting an AI+Education company called Eureka Labs.
The announcement:

—
We are Eureka Labs and we are building a new kind of school that is AI native.

How can we approach an ideal experience for learning something new? For example, in the case… pic.twitter.com/RHPkqdjB8R

— Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) July 16, 2024

After Tesla and OpenAI, Andrej Karpathy’s startup aims to apply AI assistants to education — from techcrunch.com by Rebecca Bellan

Andrej Karpathy, former head of AI at Tesla and researcher at OpenAI, is launching Eureka Labs, an “AI native” education platform. In tech speak, that usually means built from the ground up with AI at its core. And while Eureka Labs’ AI ambitions are lofty, the company is starting with a more traditional approach to teaching.

San Francisco-based Eureka Labs, which Karpathy registered as an LLC in Delaware on June 21, aims to leverage recent progress in generative AI to create AI teaching assistants that can guide students through course materials.

What does it mean for students to be AI-ready? — from timeshighereducation.com by David Joyner
Not everyone wants to be a computer scientist, a software engineer or a machine learning developer. We owe it to our students to prepare them with a full range of AI skills for the world they will graduate into, writes David Joyner

We owe it to our students to prepare them for this full range of AI skills, not merely the end points. The best way to fulfil this responsibility is to acknowledge and examine this new category of tools. More and more tools that students use daily – word processors, email, presentation software, development environments and more – have AI-based features. Practising with these tools is a valuable exercise for students, so we should not prohibit that behaviour. But at the same time, we do not have to just shrug our shoulders and accept however much AI assistance students feel like using.

Teachers say AI usage has surged since the school year started — from eschoolnews.com by Laura Ascione
Half of teachers report an increase in the use of AI and continue to seek professional learning

Fifty percent of educators reported an increase in AI usage, by both students and teachers, over the 2023–24 school year, according to The 2024 Educator AI Report: Perceptions, Practices, and Potential, from Imagine Learning, a digital curriculum solutions provider.

The report offers insight into how teachers’ perceptions of AI use in the classroom have evolved since the start of the 2023–24 school year.

OPINION: What teachers call AI cheating, leaders in the workforce might call progress — from hechingerreport.org by C. Edward Waston and Jose Antonio Bowen
Authors of a new guide explore what AI literacy might look like in a new era

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

But this very ease has teachers wondering how we can keep our students motivated to do the hard work when there are so many new shortcuts. Learning goals, curriculums, courses and the way we grade assignments will all need to be reevaluated.

The new realities of work also must be considered. A shift in employers’ job postings rewards those with AI skills. Many companies report already adopting generative AI tools or anticipate incorporating them into their workflow in the near future.

A core tension has emerged: Many teachers want to keep AI out of our classrooms, but also know that future workplaces may demand AI literacy.

What we call cheating, business could see as efficiency and progress.

It is increasingly likely that using AI will emerge as an essential skill for students, regardless of their career ambitions, and that action is required of educational institutions as a result.

Teaching Writing With AI Without Replacing Thinking: 4 Tips — from by Erik Ofgang
AI has a lot of potential for writing students, but we can’t let it replace the thinking parts of writing, says writing professor Steve Graham

Reconciling these two goals — having AI help students learn to write more efficiently without hijacking the cognitive benefits of writing — should be a key goal of educators. Finding the ideal balance will require more work from both researchers and classroom educators, but Graham shares some initial tips for doing this currently.

Why I ban AI use for writing assignments — from timeshighereducation.com by James Stacey Taylor
Students may see handwriting essays in class as a needlessly time-consuming approach to assignments, but I want them to learn how to engage with arguments, develop their own views and convey them effectively, writes James Stacey Taylor

Could they use AI to generate objections to the arguments they read? Of course. AI does a good job of summarising objections to Singer’s view. But I don’t want students to parrot others’ objections. I want them to think of objections themselves.

Could AI be useful for them in organising their exegesis of others’ views and their criticisms of them? Yes. But, again, part of what I want my students to learn is precisely what this outsources to the AI: how to organise their thoughts and communicate them effectively.

How AI Will Change Education — from digitalnative.tech by Rex Woodbury
Predicting Innovation in Education, from Personalized Learning to the Downfall of College

This week explores how AI will bleed into education, looking at three segments of education worth watching, then examining which business models will prevail.

Personalized Learning and Tutoring
Teacher Tools
Alternatives to College
Final Thoughts: Business Models and Why Education Matters

New Guidance from TeachAI and CSTA Emphasizes Computer Science Education More Important than Ever in an Age of AI — from csteachers.org by CSTA
The guidance features new survey data and insights from teachers and experts in computer science (CS) and AI, informing the future of CS education.

SEATTLE, WA – July 16, 2024 – Today, TeachAI, led by Code.org, ETS, the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE), Khan Academy, and the World Economic Forum, launches a new initiative in partnership with the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) to support and empower educators as they grapple with the growing opportunities and risks of AI in computer science (CS) education.
…

The briefs draw on early research and insights from CSTA members, organizations in the TeachAI advisory committee, and expert focus groups to address common misconceptions about AI and offer a balanced perspective on critical issues in CS education, including:

Why is it Still Important for Students to Learn to Program?
How Are Computer Science Educators Teaching With and About AI?
How Can Students Become Critical Consumers and Responsible Creators of AI?

Predicting college closures — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
Colleges across the country are closing at a rapid rate – on average, about one a week. Some of the closures were unexpected, shocking people at institutions that enrolled new students and hired new faculty right up until the decision was made to close. We chatted with Jon Marcus, our senior higher education reporter, to learn more about how students and faculty can protect themselves.

Q: What made you decide to devote an entire episode of your College Uncovered podcast to college closures?

Jon Marcus: The number of colleges that are closing has grown so fast that it’s become a big part of what we cover on our beat. And since the College Uncovered podcast is meant to help consumers navigate the complicated process of pursuing higher education, we wanted to answer a question we increasingly hear from prospective students and their parents: How do I know if the college I pick will be around long enough for me to graduate? (The fact that this has become something people wonder speaks to the low level of confidence the public has in higher education these days.)

Private colleges likely won’t see big net tuition growth anytime soon, Fitch says — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
Fitch Ratings found a 1.1% year over year increase in net tuition revenue for fiscal 2023, but this isn’t enough to preserve margins at private nonprofits.

Dive Brief:

Fitch Ratings found net tuition grew in fiscal 2023 among the colleges it rates but warned that the hikes would not be sufficient to preserve margins for private nonprofits.
Across its portfolio of rated institutions, Fitch found a 1.1% year-over-year increase in net tuition and fees, marking renewed growth after two years of declines, according to Fitch Senior Director Emily Wadhwani.
“In our view, prospects for future growth in net tuition for 2024 and beyond remain limited, and will likely remain near or below 2%-2.5% annually on average for the next few years,” Wadhwani said by email.

Do Shocking College Tuition Prices Reflect What Students Actually Pay? — from edsurge.com by Nadia Tamez-Robledo

It’s no secret that high school students are looking at the prospect of college more skeptically, and a large part of their hesitation comes from worry about taking on thousands of dollars in student loans.

It’s only natural that they would experience sticker shock after researching the annual cost of attendance at universities that have caught their eye — which might be equivalent to a parent’s annual salary.

But should students count on having to scrape together that full amount?

Not likely, based on EdSurge’s number crunching.

From DSC:
But the problem is that many don’t know the games that are played behind the scenes within the world of higher education. Some families/students might see the retail price of a degree and say, “No way man…no can do.” The sticker shock is real in many cases (and not to mention the stories of seeing other friends and family members in debt decades after graduating).

How merit aid is expanding — from jeffselingo-14576223.hs-sites.com by Jeffrey Selingo

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Bottom line: Discounting is so widespread in higher ed now that the frequent comparisons of merit aid to “Kohl’s cash,” the discount strategy employed by the mid-market retailer–where basically every day is a sale–are not wrong.

“With a few exceptions, colleges all now have an opening bid with families,” said Brian Zucker, who runs Human Capital Research Corporation, one of several firms that assists colleges with their discounting strategies.
This discounting approach worked when institutions were able to raise their top-line prices and thus extract more revenue each year from students.
But at many colleges, net-tuition revenue is flat or falling. Fitch Ratings said last week that institutions it rates for bonds saw their net-tuition revenue rise just 1.1% last year–not enough to keep up with inflation or have enough of a financial cushion to weather the current enrollment storms.
Just like in the 1970s, when colleges developed tuition discounts, the time has come for higher ed to come up with a new pricing scheme in addition, of course, of finding ways to reduce costs.

The New Trick Families Are Using to Lower College Tuition Bills — from nymag.com by Jeffrey Selingo
Many schools are eager for paying students — and ready to offer deals.

“Colleges keep giving out more merit aid to more families because they can’t get them to pay more,” Mark Salisbury told me. Salisbury, a former administrator at Augustana College in Illinois, runs TuitionFit, a website where people can share their financial-aid offers and see what others like them got. Most of the money that colleges are giving out in merit aid isn’t coming from the endowment. Rather, it’s revenue the college never receives — a simple price cut off the top. Salisbury and others in the business refer to it as “Kohl’s cash,” after the discount strategy employed by the mid-market retailer.

“Content can be turned into interactive learning games” [Cheung] + other items re: AI in our LE’s

On 07/11/2024, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, assessment, Canvas - and other Instructure-related items, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, law schools, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, online media, personalized/customized learning, platforms, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Higher Education Has Not Been Forgotten by Generative AI — from insidehighered.com by Ray Schroeder
The generative AI (GenAI) revolution has not ignored higher education; a whole host of tools are available now and more revolutionary tools are on the way.

Some of the apps that have been developed for general use can be customized for specific topical areas in higher ed. For example, I created a version of GPT, “Ray’s EduAI Advisor,” that builds onto the current GPT-4o version with specific updates and perspectives on AI in higher education. It is freely available to users. With few tools and no knowledge of the programming involved, anyone can build their own GPT to supplement information for their classes or interest groups.

Excerpts from Ray’s EduAI Advisor bot:

AI’s global impact on higher education, particularly in at-scale classes and degree programs, is multifaceted, encompassing several key areas:

1. Personalized Learning…

2. Intelligent Tutoring Systems…

3. Automated Assessment…

4. Enhanced Accessibility…

5. Predictive Analytics…

6. Scalable Virtual Classrooms

7. Administrative Efficiency…

8. Continuous Improvement…

Instructure and Khan Academy Announce Partnership to Enhance Teaching and Learning With Khanmigo, the AI Tool for Education — from instructure.com
Shiren Vijiasingam and Jody Sailor make an exciting announcement about a new partnership sure to make a difference in education everywhere.

Is College Worth It? Poll Finds Only 36% of Americans Have Confidence in Higher Education — from usnews.com by Associated Press
A new poll finds Americans are increasingly skeptical about the value and cost of college

Americans are increasingly skeptical about the value and cost of college, with most saying they feel the U.S. higher education system is headed in the “wrong direction,” according to a new poll.

Overall, only 36% of adults say they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, according to the report released Monday by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation. That confidence level has declined steadily from 57% in 2015.

“Student AI Use Surges, Leaving Faculty Behind” + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 07/03/2024, in adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, colleges, community colleges, digital video, education, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, Microsoft, platforms, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, skills, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, United States, universities, vendors, youth, by Daniel Christian

A New Digital Divide: Student AI Use Surges, Leaving Faculty Behind— from insidehighered.com by Lauren Coffey
While both students and faculty have concerns with generative artificial intelligence, two new reports show a divergence in AI adoption.

Meanwhile, a separate survey of faculty released Thursday by Ithaka S+R, a higher education consulting firm, showcased that faculty—while increasingly familiar with AI—often do not know how to use it in classrooms. Two out of five faculty members are familiar with AI, the Ithaka report found, but only 14 percent said they are confident in their ability to use AI in their teaching. Just slightly more (18 percent) said they understand the teaching implications of generative AI.

“Serious concerns about academic integrity, ethics, accessibility, and educational effectiveness are contributing to this uncertainty and hostility,” the Ithaka report said.

The diverging views about AI are causing friction. Nearly a third of students said they have been warned to not use generative AI by professors, and more than half (59 percent) are concerned they will be accused of cheating with generative AI, according to the Pearson report, which was conducted with Morning Consult and surveyed 800 students.

What teachers want from AI — from hechingerreport.org by Javeria Salman
When teachers designed their own AI tools, they built math assistants, tools for improving student writing, and more

An AI chatbot that walks students through how to solve math problems. An AI instructional coach designed to help English teachers create lesson plans and project ideas. An AI tutor that helps middle and high schoolers become better writers.

These aren’t tools created by education technology companies. They were designed by teachers tasked with using AI to solve a problem their students were experiencing.

Over five weeks this spring, about 300 people – teachers, school and district leaders, higher ed faculty, education consultants and AI researchers – came together to learn how to use AI and develop their own basic AI tools and resources. The professional development opportunity was designed by technology nonprofit Playlab.ai and faculty at the Relay Graduate School of Education.

The Comprehensive List of Talks & Resources for 2024 — from aiedusimplified.substack.com by Lance Eaton
Resources, talks, podcasts, etc that I’ve been a part of in the first half of 2024

Resources from things such as:

Lightning Talks
Talks & Keynotes
Workshops
Podcasts & Panels
Honorable Mentions

Next-Gen Classroom Observations, Powered by AI — from educationnext.org by Michael J. Petrilli
The use of video recordings in classrooms to improve teacher performance is nothing new. But the advent of artificial intelligence could add a helpful evaluative tool for teachers, measuring instructional practice relative to common professional goals with chatbot feedback.

Multiple companies are pairing AI with inexpensive, ubiquitous video technology to provide feedback to educators through asynchronous, offsite observation. It’s an appealing idea, especially given the promise and popularity of instructional coaching, as well as the challenge of scaling it effectively (see “Taking Teacher Coaching To Scale,” research, Fall 2018).
…

Enter AI. Edthena is now offering an “AI Coach” chatbot that offers teachers specific prompts as they privately watch recordings of their lessons. The chatbot is designed to help teachers view their practice relative to common professional goals and to develop action plans to improve.

To be sure, an AI coach is no replacement for human coaching.

Personalized AI Tutoring as a Social Activity: Paradox or Possibility? — from er.educause.edu by Ron Owston
Can the paradox between individual tutoring and social learning be reconciled though the possibility of AI?

We need to shift our thinking about GenAI tutors serving only as personal learning tools. The above activities illustrate how these tools can be integrated into contemporary classroom instruction. The activities should not be seen as prescriptive but merely suggestive of how GenAI can be used to promote social learning. Although I specifically mention only one online activity (“Blended Learning”), all can be adapted to work well in online or blended classes to promote social interaction.

Stealth AI — from higherai.substack.com by Jason Gulya (a Professor of English at Berkeley College) talks to Zack Kinzler
What happens when students use AI all the time, but aren’t allowed to talk about it?

In many ways, this comes back to one of my general rules: You cannot ban AI in the classroom. You can only issue a gag rule.

And if you do issue a gag rule, then it deprives students of the space they often need to make heads and tails of this technology.

We need to listen to actual students talking about actual uses, and reflecting on their actual feelings. No more abstraction.

In this conversation, Jason Gulya (a Professor of English at Berkeley College) talks to Zack Kinzler about what students are saying about Artificial Intelligence and education.

What’s New in Microsoft EDU | ISTE Edition June 2024 — from techcommunity.microsoft.com

Welcome to our monthly update for Teams for Education and thank you so much for being part of our growing community! We’re thrilled to share over 20 updates and resources and show them in action next week at ISTELive 24 in Denver, Colorado, US.
…
Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Educator features
Guided Content Creation
Coming soon to Copilot for Microsoft 365 is a guided content generation experience to help educators get started with creating materials like assignments, lesson plans, lecture slides, and more. The content will be created based on the educator’s requirements with easy ways to customize the content to their exact needs.
Standards alignment and creation
Quiz generation through Copilot in Forms
Suggested AI Feedback for Educators
Teaching extension
To better support educators with their daily tasks, we’ll be launching a built-in Teaching extension to help guide them through relevant activities and provide contextual, educator-based support in Copilot.
Education data integration

Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Student features
Interactive practice experiences
Flashcards activity
Guided chat activity
Learning extension in Copilot for Microsoft 365
…

New AI tools for Google Workspace for Education — from blog.google by Akshay Kirtikar and Brian Hendricks
We’re bringing Gemini to teen students using their school accounts to help them learn responsibly and confidently in an AI-first future, and empowering educators with new tools to help create great learning experiences.

“There are many reasons undergrad enrollment is down, but they all come down to two interrelated trends: jobs and affordability.” + We need to “reposition higher ed for a different future of competitors.” [Selingo]

On 06/29/2024, in adjunct faculty, Adobe, apprenticeships, business side of he, career development, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, culture, curriculum, faculty, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, innovation, IT in HE, leadership, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, parents/guardians, reinvent, skills, society, sociology, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, trends, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
As I can’t embed his posting, I’m copying/pasting Jeff’s posting on LinkedIn:

According to Flighty, I logged more than 2,220 flight miles in the last 5 days traveling to three conferences to give keynotes and spend time with housing officers in Milwaukee, college presidents in Mackinac Island, MI, and enrollment and marketing leaders in Raleigh.

Before I rest, I wanted to post some quick thoughts about what I learned. Thank you to everyone who shared their wisdom these past few days:

We need to think about the “why” and “how” of AI in higher ed. The “why” shouldn’t be just because everyone else is doing it. Rather, the “why” is to reposition higher ed for a different future of competitors. The “how” shouldn’t be to just seek efficiency and cut jobs. Rather we should use AI to learn from its users to create a better experience going forward.
Residence halls are not just infrastructure. They are part and parcel of the student experience and critical to student success. Almost half of students living on campus say it increases their sense of belonging, according to research by the Association of College & University Housing Officers.
How do we extend the “residential experience”? More than half of traditional undergraduates who live on campus now take at least once course online. As students increasingly spend time off campus – or move off campus as early as their second year in college – we need to help continue to make the connections for them that they would in a dorm. Why? 47% of college students believe living in a college residence hall enhanced their ability to resolve conflicts.
Career must be at the core of the student experience for colleges to thrive in the future, says Andy Chan. Yes, some people might see that as too narrow of a view of higher ed or might not want to provide cogs for the wheel of the workforce, but without the job, none of the other benefits of college follow–citizenship, health, engagement.
A “triple threat grad”–someone who has an internship, a semester-long project, and an industry credential (think Salesforce or Adobe in addition to their degree–matters more in the job market than major or institution, says Brandon Busteed.
Every faculty member should think of themselves as an ambassador for the institution. Yes, care about their discipline/department, but that doesn’t survive if the rest of the institution falls down around them.
Presidents need to place bigger bets rather than spend pennies and dimes on a bunch of new strategies. That means to free up resources they need to stop doing things.
Higher ed needs a new business model. Institutions can’t make money just from tuition, and new products like certificates, are pennies on the dollars of degrees.
Boards aren’t ready for the future. They are over-indexed on philanthropy and alumni and not enough on the expertise needed for leading higher ed.

From DSC:
As I can’t embed his posting, I’m copying/pasting Jeff’s posting on LinkedIn:

It’s the stat that still gnaws at me: 62%.

That’s the percentage of high school graduates going right on to college. A decade ago it was around 70%. So for all the bellyaching about the demographic cliff in higher ed, just imagine if today we were close to that 70% number? We’d be talking a few hundred thousand more students in the system.

As I told a gathering of presidents of small colleges and universities last night on Mackinac Island — the first time I had to take [numerous modes of transportation] to get to a conference — being small isn’t distinctive anymore.

There are many reasons undergrad enrollment is down, but they all come down to two interrelated trends: jobs and affordability.

The job has become so central to what students want out of the experience. It’s almost as if colleges now need to guarantee a job.

These institutions will need to rethink the learner relationship with work. Instead of college with work on the side, we might need to move to more of a mindset of work with college on the side by:

Making campus jobs more meaningful. Why can’t we have accounting and finance majors work in the CFO office, liberal arts majors work in IT on platforms such as Salesforce and Workday, which are skills needed in the workplace, etc.?
Apprenticeships are not just for the trades anymore. Integrate work-based learning into the undergrad experience in a much bigger way than internships and even co-ops.
Credentials within the degree. Every graduate should leave college with more than just a BA but also a certified credential in things like data viz, project management, the Adobe suite, Alteryx, etc.
The curriculum needs to be more flexible for students to combine work and learning — not only for the experience but also money for college — so more availability of online courses, hybrid courses, and flexible semesters.

How else can we think about learning and earning?

Reflections on “The Musician’s Rule and GenAI in Education” [Wiley]

On 06/19/2024, in adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, Daniel S. Christian, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, IT in HE, leadership, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning theories, liberal arts, pace of change, pedagogy, platforms, professional development, research, strategy, teaching & learning, tools, trends, United States, universities, using teams, by Daniel Christian

The Musician’s Rule and GenAI in Education — from opencontent.org by David Wiley

We have to provide instructors the support they need to leverage educational technologies like generative AI effectively in the service of learning. Given the amount of benefit that could accrue to students if powerful tools like generative AI were used effectively by instructors, it seems unethical not to provide instructors with professional development that helps them better understand how learning occurs and what effective teaching looks like. Without more training and support for instructors, the amount of student learning higher education will collectively “leave on the table” will only increase as generative AI gets more and more capable. And that’s a problem.

From DSC:
As is often the case, David put together a solid posting here. A few comments/reflections on it:

I agree that more training/professional development is needed, especially regarding generative AI. This would help achieve a far greater ROI and impact.
The pace of change makes it difficult to see where the sand is settling…and thus what to focus on
The Teaching & Learning Groups out there are also trying to learn and grow in their knowledge (so that they can train others)
The administrators out there are also trying to figure out what all of this generative AI stuff is all about; and so are the faculty members. It takes time for educational technologies’ impact to roll out and be integrated into how people teach.
As we’re talking about multiple disciplines here, I think we need more team-based content creation and delivery.
There needs to be more research on how best to use AI — again, it would be helpful if the sand settled a bit first, so as not to waste time and $$. But then that research needs to be piped into the classrooms far better.
.

We need to take more of the research from learning science and apply it in our learning spaces.

Daniel Christian: My slides for the Educational Technology Organization of Michigan’s Spring 2024 Retreat

On 06/13/2024, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Access to Justice (A2J), adjunct faculty, Adobe, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, bots, business side of he, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, creativity, culture, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, liberal arts, library / librarians, lifelong learning, media/film, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new business models, NVIDIA, online media, online tutoring, Open AI, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, reinvent, skills, smart/connected TV, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, teachers, technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, training / L&D, United States, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Last Thursday, I presented at the Educational Technology Organization of Michigan’s Spring 2024 Retreat. I wanted to pass along my slides to you all, in case they are helpful to you.

Topics/agenda:

Topics & resources re: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Top multimodal players
- Resources for learning about AI
- Applications of AI
- My predictions re: AI
The powerful impact of pursuing a vision
A potential, future next-gen learning platform
Share some lessons from my past with pertinent questions for you all now
The significant impact of an organization’s culture
Bonus material: Some people to follow re: learning science and edtech

Slides of the presentation (.PPTX)
Slides of the presentation (.PDF)

Plus several more slides re: this vision.

Doing Stuff with AI: Opinionated Midyear Edition — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick

Every six months or so, I write a guide to doing stuff with AI. A lot has changed since the last guide, while a few important things have stayed the same. It is time for an update.
…
To learn to do serious stuff with AI, choose a Large Language Model and just use it to do serious stuff – get advice, summarize meetings, generate ideas, write, produce reports, fill out forms, discuss strategy – whatever you do at work, ask the AI to help. A lot of people I talk to seem to get the most benefit from engaging the AI in conversation, often because it gives good advice, but also because just talking through an issue yourself can be very helpful. I know this may not seem particularly profound, but “always invite AI to the table” is the principle in my book that people tell me had the biggest impact on them. You won’t know what AI can (and can’t) do for you until you try to use it for everything you do. And don’t sweat prompting too much, though here are some useful tips, just start a conversation with AI and see where it goes.

You do need to use one of the most advanced frontier models, however.

.

2024 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report® Teaching and Learning Edition

Trends
As a first activity, we asked the Horizon panelists to provide input on the macro trends they believe are going to shape the future of postsecondary teaching and learning and to provide observable evidence for those trends. To ensure an expansive view of the larger trends serving as context for institutions of higher education, panelists provided input across five trend categories: social, technological, economic, environmental, and political. Given the widespread impacts of emerging AI technologies on higher education, we are also including in this year’s report a list of “honorary trends” focused on AI. After several rounds of voting, the panelists selected the following trends as the most important:

Colleges are now closing at a pace of one a week. What happens to the students? — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
Most never finish their degrees, and alumni wonder about the value of degrees they’ve earned

About one university or college per week so far this year, on average, has announced that it will close or merge. That’s up from a little more than two a month last year, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, or SHEEO.
…
Most students at colleges that close give up on their educations altogether. Fewer than half transfer to other institutions, a SHEEO study found. Of those, fewer than half stay long enough to get degrees. Many lose credits when they move from one school to another and have to spend longer in college, often taking out more loans to pay for it.
…
Colleges are almost certain to keep closing. As many as one in 10 four-year colleges and universities are in financial peril, the consulting firm EY Parthenon estimates.

Students who transferlose an average of 43 percentof the credits they’ve already earned and paid for, the Government Accountability Office found in the most recent comprehensive study of this problem.

Also relevant:

Instructors as Innovators: a Future-focused Approach to New AI Learning Opportunities, With Prompts –from papers.ssrn.com by Ethan R. Mollick and Lilach Mollick

Abstract

This paper explores how instructors can leverage generative AI to create personalized learning experiences for students that transform teaching and learning. We present a range of AI-based exercises that enable novel forms of practice and application including simulations, mentoring, coaching, and co-creation. For each type of exercise, we provide prompts that instructors can customize, along with guidance on classroom implementation, assessment, and risks to consider. We also provide blueprints, prompts that help instructors create their own original prompts. Instructors can leverage their content and pedagogical expertise to design these experiences, putting them in the role of builders and innovators. We argue that this instructor-driven approach has the potential to democratize the development of educational technology by enabling individual instructors to create AI exercises and tools tailored to their students’ needs. While the exercises in this paper are a starting point, not a definitive solutions, they demonstrate AI’s potential to expand what is possible in teaching and learning.

“The AI Tools in Education Database” + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 04/23/2024, in adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, assessment, colleges, communications, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, education, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, face-to-face, faculty, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, lifelong learning, mathematics, more voice more choice more control, motivation, pedagogy, project-based learning, reinvent, skills, student-related, teachers, tools, United States, universities, vendors, youth, by Daniel Christian

The AI Tools in Education Database — from aitoolsdirectory.notion.site; via George Siemens

Since AI in education has been moving at the speed of light, we built this AI Tools in Education database to keep track of the most recent AI tools in education and the changes that are happening every day. This database is intended to be a community resource for educators, researchers, students, and other edtech specialists looking to stay up to date. This is a living document, so be sure to come back for regular updates.

Another Workshop for Faculty and Staff — from aiedusimplified.substack.com by Lance Eaton
A recent workshop with some adjustments.

The day started out with a short talk about AI (slides). Some of it is my usual schtick where I do a bit of Q&A with folks around myths and misunderstandings of generative AI in order to establish some common ground. These are often useful both in setting the tone and giving folks a sense of how I come to explore generative AI: with a mixture of humor, concern, curiosity, and of course, cat pics.

From there, we launched into a series of mini-workshops where folks had time to first play around with some previously created prompts around teaching and learning before moving onto prompts for administrative work. The prompts and other support materials are in this Workshop Resource Document. The goal was to just get them into using one or more AI tools with some useful prompts so they can learn more about its capabilities.

The Edtech Insiders Rundown of ASU+GSV 2024 — from edtechinsiders.substack.com by by Sarah Morin, Alex Sarlin, and Ben Kornell
And more on Edtech Insiders+, upcoming events, Gauth, AI Reading Tutors, The Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute, and TeachAI Policy Resources

Alex Sarlin

4. Everyone is Edtech Now
This year, in addition to investors, entrepreneurs, educators, school leaders, university admins, non-profits, publishers, and operators from countless edtech startups and incumbents, there were some serious big tech companies in attendance like Meta, Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Tiktok, and Canva. Additionally, a horde of management consultancies, workforce organizations, mental health orgs, and filmmakers were in attendance.

Edtech continues to expand as an industry category and everyone is getting involved.

Ep 18 | Rethinking Education, Lessons to Unlearn, Become a Generalist, & More — Ana Lorena Fábrega — from mishadavinci.substack.com by Misha da Vinci

It was such a delight to chat with Ana. She’s brilliant and passionate, a talented educator, and an advocate for better ways of learning for children and adults. We cover ways to transform schools so that students get real-world skills, learn resilience and how to embrace challenges, and are prepared for an unpredictable future. And we go hard on why we must keep learning no matter our age, become generalists, and leverage technology in order to adapt to the fast-changing world.

Misha also featured an item re: the future of schooling and it contained this graphic:

Texas is replacing thousands of human exam graders with AI — from theverge.com by Jess Weatherbed

The Texas Tribune reports an “automated scoring engine” that utilizes natural language processing — the technology that enables chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT to understand and communicate with users — is being rolled out by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to grade open-ended questions on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exams. The agency is expecting the system to save $15–20 million per year by reducing the need for temporary human scorers, with plans to hire under 2,000 graders this year compared to the 6,000 required in 2023.

Debating About AI: An Easy Path to AI Awareness and Basic Literacy — from stefanbauschard.substack.com by Stefan Bauschard
If you are an organization committed to AI literacy, consider sponsoring some debate topics and/or debates next year and expose thousands of students to AI literacy.

Resolved: Teachers should integrate generative AI in their teaching and learning.

The topic is simple but raises an issue that students can connect with.

While helping my students prepare and judging debates, I saw students demonstrate an understanding of many key issues and controversies.

These included—

*AI writing assessment/grading
*Bias
*Bullying
*Cognitive load
*Costs of AI systems
*Declining test scores
*Deep fakes
*Differentiation
*Energy consumption
*Hallucinations
*Human-to-human connection
*Inequality and inequity in access
*Neurodiversity
*Personalized learning
*Privacy
*Regulation (lack thereof)
*The future of work and unemployment
*Saving teachers time
*Soft skills
*Standardized testing
*Student engagement
*Teacher awareness and AI training; training resource trade-offs
*Teacher crowd-out
*Transparency and explainability
*Writing detectors (students had an exaggerated sense of the workability of these tools).

Learning Ecosystems

Reflections on “The Musician’s Rule and GenAI in Education” [Wiley]

Doing Stuff with AI: Opinionated Midyear Edition [Mollick]

2024 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report® Teaching and Learning Edition

Instructors as Innovators: a Future-focused Approach to New AI Learning Opportunities, With Prompts [Mollick & Mollick]

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