The bigger picture: Culture is exceedingly hard to change, especially after trust evaporates in a crisis. And crises can be particularly wrenching when institutions haven’t established cultures of transparency and accountability during good times. Instead, trust continues to erode in a vicious cycle.
And I thought to myself, the scope of Rick’s conclusion could likely be expanded/applied to institutions of higher education as a whole.
Why do so many students have the impression that they should attend office hours only if they’ve got a question? Here’s my hunch: Well-meaning, supportive professors mention their office hours at various points throughout the course: If you have questions about fill-in-the-blank, come to my office hours. The professors mean, “I am here to help! Come talk to me.” Students hear: “If you have a question.”
It’s a frustrating misunderstanding, because it contributes to the big problem my article focuses on: Many students miss out on the support professors stand to provide.
… ‘Adjunct Faculty 101’
“Sessions offered this year included ‘An Orientation to the Canvas LMS,’ ‘The First Day of Class,’ ‘Creating Student-Centered Course Materials,’ ‘Classroom-Management Tips,’ ‘Academic-Integrity Tips and Processes,’ ‘An Introduction to Our Tutoring Services and Writing Center,’ ‘Writing Across the Disciplines With AI,’ and more.”
From DSC: I like the idea of using “office hours” for building relationships, helping students with their future career decisions, building broader understanding, ongoing mentoring, and for developing potential networking opportunities.
Habit #2: Engage students in a brain dump or two things as an entry ticket or exit ticket. Spend one minute or less having students write down everything (or just two things) they remember from class. The key: Don’t grade it! Keep retrieval practice no-stakes to emphasize it’s a learning strategy, not an assessment strategy.
Teaching from the heart in 13 steps — from timeshighereducation.com by Beiting He Engaging your students through empathy requires teachers to share their own stories and vulnerabilities and foster a safe space for learning. Here, Beiting He offers 13 ways to create a caring classroom
In summary, “I wish” is about proposing positive changes and improvements, while “I wonder” is about asking thoughtful questions to gain insight and foster meaningful conversations within the team.
During this special keynote presentation, Western Michigan University (WMU) professor Sue Ellen Christian speaks about the importance of media literacy for all ages and how we can help educate our friends and families about media literacy principles. Hosted by the Grand Rapids Public Library and GRTV, a program of the Grand Rapids Community Media Center. Special thanks to the Grand Rapids Public Library Foundation for their support of this program.
What if you could have a conversation with your notes?That question has consumed a corner of the internet recently, as companies like Dropbox, Box, Notion, and others have built generative AI tools that let you interact with and create new things from the data you already have in their systems.
Google’s version of this is called NotebookLM. It’s an AI-powered research tool that is meant to help you organize and interact with your own notes.
That got me to thinking…
What if the presenter/teacher/professor/trainer/preacher provided a set of notes for the AI to compare to the readers’ notes?
That way, the AI could see the discrepancies between what the presenter wanted their audience to learn/hear and what was actually being learned/heard. In a sort of digital Socratic Method, the AI could then generate some leading questions to get the audience member to check their thinking/understanding of the topic.
The end result would be that the main points were properly communicated/learned/received.
What if you could have a conversation with your notes?That question has consumed a corner of the internet recently, as companies like Dropbox, Box, Notion, and others have built generative AI tools that let you interact with and create new things from the data you already have in their systems.
Google’s version of this is called NotebookLM. It’s an AI-powered research tool that is meant to help you organize and interact with your own notes.
… Right now, it’s really just a prototype, but a small team inside the company has been trying to figure out what an AI notebook might look like.
The single narrative education system is no longer working.
Its main limitation is its inability to honor young people as the dynamic individuals that they are.
New models of teaching and learning need to be designed to center on the student, not the teacher.
When the opportunity arises to implement learning that uses immersive technology ask yourself if the learning you are designing passes the Ready Player One Test:
Does it allow learners to immerse themselves in environments that would be too expensive or dangerous to experience otherwise?
Can the learning be personalized by the student?
Is it regenerative?
Does it allow for learning to happen non-linearly, at any time and place?
VIEW CHILDREN AS ACTIVE LEADERS IN THEIR LEARNING I was co-teaching in an inclusive preschool classroom 20 years ago when I led my first professional development workshop (the project approach). The aim was to show teachers that children could co-construct their learning experiences when they were invited to do so. Two groundbreaking Reggio Emilia books came to mind—Shoe and Meter and Everything Has a Shadow Except Ants. These inspirational books were part of a series published in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Education called “The Unheard Voice of Children.”
The series recognized children as active leaders of their learning and endeavored to document the process of learning through children’s learning experiences.
Let Kids Make Decisions — from edutopia.org by Sean Cassel An overreliance on rules can backfire. Instead, teachers can focus on providing students with choices and teaching good decision-making skills.
I’ve deeply thought about that last part over the course of my career: Let kids make decisions. Twenty years later, I am a high school administrator tasked with enforcing rules every day. Let me be clear: Schools need rules to function, but they don’t have to be the focus. My school focuses on allowing students to make choices: It is a centerpiece of how we operate. And although kids don’t always make the right choices, often enough they do. An overreliance on rules, in either a classroom or an entire school, can limit the ability of students to grow and develop their decision-making skills.
From DSC: Some nice ideas and tools listed here to start developing relationships even before the first day of school.
An Intentional Approach to Improving Your Teaching Practice — from edutopia.org by Marcus Luther By selecting one area for growth, collecting resources, and connecting with others, teachers can make meaningful improvements in the classroom.
Last summer, my focus was improving the level of inquiry in my classroom. I describe my process below, which transfers to any area or topic on which you might hope to focus your own professional learning.
Setting Up Libraries to Be the Best Space in School— from edutopia.org by Paige Tutt We took a peek inside school libraries across America to see how librarians are reframing the space to support students’ social, emotional, and creative growth—while still prioritizing excellent reads.
The recently renovated library—now known as the Learning Commons—is a bright, spacious multipurpose hub within the school. There are bistro tables where kids can work together; comfortable and flexible seating; a makerspace where students can explore activities like sewing and jewelry making; an audio recording and production studio; and a video production studio where kids can create TikToks or YouTube videos using their phones or school-issued laptops. It’s a far cry from the space it used to be—an attendance sheet from 2008 tracked just 21 students signing into the library one day.
So, as educators, mentors, and guides to our future generations, we must ask ourselves three pivotal questions:
What value do we offer to our students?
What value will they need to offer to the world?
How are we preparing them to offer that value?
The answers to these questions are crucial, and they will redefine the trajectory of our education system.
We need to create an environment that encourages curiosity, embraces failure as a learning opportunity, and celebrates diversity. We need to teach our students how to learn, how to ask the right questions, and how to think for themselves.
Leveraging ChatGPT for learning is the most meaningful skill this year for lifelong learners. But it’s too hard to find resources to master it.
As a learning science nerd, I’ve explored hundreds of prompts over the past months. Most of the advice doesn’t go beyond text summaries and multiple-choice testing.
That’s why I’ve created this article — it merges learning science with prompt writing to help you learn anything faster.
Midjourney AI Art for Teachers (for any kind of teacher, not just Art Teachers) — from The AI Educator on YouTube by Dan Fitzpatrick
From DSC: This is a very nice, clearly illustrated, free video to get started with the Midjourney (text-to-image) app. Nice work Dan!
In the new-normal of generative AI, how does one articulate the value of academic integrity? This blog presents my current response in about 2,500 words; a complete answer could fill a sizable book.
Massive amounts of misinformation are disseminated about generative AI, so the first part of my discussion clarifies what large language models (Chat-GPT and its counterparts) can currently do and what they cannot accomplish at this point in time. The second part describes ways in which generative AI can be misused as a means of learning; unfortunately, many people are now advocating for these mistaken applications to education. The third part describes ways in which large language models (LLM), used well, may substantially improve learning and education. I close with a plea for a robust, informed public discussion about these topics and issues.
Many of the more than a dozen teachers TIME interviewed for this story argue that the way to get kids to care is to proactively use ChatGPT in the classroom.
…
Some of those creative ideas are already in effect at Peninsula High School in Gig Harbor, about an hour from Seattle. In Erin Rossing’s precalculus class, a student got ChatGPT to generate a rap about vectors and trigonometry in the style of Kanye West, while geometry students used the program to write mathematical proofs in the style of raps, which they performed in a classroom competition. In Kara Beloate’s English-Language Arts class, she allowed students reading Shakespeare’s Othello to use ChatGPT to translate lines into modern English to help them understand the text, so that they could spend class time discussing the plot and themes.
I found that other developed countries share concerns about students cheating but are moving quickly to use AI to personalize education, enhance language lessons and help teachers with mundane tasks, such as grading. Some of these countries are in the early stages of training teachers to use AI and developing curriculum standards for what students should know and be able to do with the technology.
Several countries began positioning themselves several years ago to invest in AI in education in order to compete in the fourth industrial revolution.
AI in Education— from educationnext.org by John Bailey The leap into a new era of machine intelligence carries risks and challenges, but also plenty of promise
In the realm of education, this technology will influence how students learn, how teachers work, and ultimately how we structure our education system. Some educators and leaders look forward to these changes with great enthusiasm. Sal Kahn, founder of Khan Academy, went so far as to say in a TED talk that AI has the potential to effect “probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen.” But others warn that AI will enable the spread of misinformation, facilitate cheating in school and college, kill whatever vestiges of individual privacy remain, and cause massive job loss. The challenge is to harness the positive potential while avoiding or mitigating the harm.
Generative AI and education futures — from ucl.ac.uk Video highlights from Professor Mike Sharples’ keynote address at the 2023 UCL Education Conference, which explored opportunities to prosper with AI as a part of education.
Bringing AI Literacy to High Schools— from by Nikki Goth Itoi Stanford education researchers collaborated with teachers to develop classroom-ready AI resources for high school instructors across subject areas.
To address these two imperatives, all high schools need access to basic AI tools and training. Yet the reality is that many underserved schools in low-income areas lack the bandwidth, skills, and confidence to guide their students through an AI-powered world. And if the pattern continues, AI will only worsen existing inequities. With this concern top of mind plus initial funding from the McCoy Ethics Center, Lee began recruiting some graduate students and high school teachers to explore how to give more people equal footing in the AI space.
If we want students to remember – to lock new information or ideas into long-term memory – getting meaningful repetitions still is key. And the science of learning still backs that up.
So … if we want students to get repetitions to make new learning permanent, how can they do it? Here are 10 ways to help students get repetitions for practice – and how classroom technology can help.
In this episode, I share ten engaging activities that combine education, technology, and plenty of fun to make the first week of class super memorable. From digital scavenger hunts to virtual field trips, hear about a few of my favorite ways to create an interactive start to your school year.
Tips for First Week of School Activity Ideas
Establish routines in a fun way.
Provide opportunities for collaboration.
Introduce tech tools that will be used all year.
From DSC: Dr. Burns has a great list of tools/tips/resources in this posting.
Four directions for assessment redesign in the age of generative AI— from timeshighereducation.com by Julia Chen The rise of generative AI has led universities to rethink how learning is quantified. Julia Chen offers four options for assessment redesign that can be applied across disciplines
Direction 1: From written description to multimodal explanation and application
Direction 2: From literature review alone to referencing lectures
Direction 3: From presentation of ideas to defence of views
Direction 4: From working alone to student-staff partnership
With the latest national test results showing a dispiriting lack of progress in catching students up academically in the wake of the pandemic, one potential explanation stands out: stubbornly high rates of student absenteeism. Vast numbers of students haven’t returned to class regularly since schools reopened.
I get weary of AI hype auto-generated by *gasp* ChatGPT without any real applicability to the classroom. I’m collecting blogs of teachers who are in the classroom actually use AI and have practical, real examples to share. Got links for those teachers? Enough of the junk.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., July 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — A new survey of teens conducted for Junior Achievement by the research firm Big Village shows that nearly half of teens (44%) are “likely” to use AI to do their schoolwork instead of doing it themselves this coming school year. However, most teens (60%) consider using AI in this way as “cheating.” The survey of 1,006 13- to 17-year-olds was conducted by Big Village from July 6 through 11, 2023.
From DSC: In a competitive society as we have in the U.S. and when many of our K-12 learning ecosystems are designed to create game players, we shouldn’t be surprised to see a significant amount of our students using AI to “win”/game the system.
As it becomes appropriate for each student, offering more choice and control should help to allow more students to pursue what they want to learn about. They won’t be as interested in gaming the system if they truly want to learn about something.
“Some of the stuff we’re doing is creating templates and workflows that capture multiple feeds: not just the teacher, [but also] the white board, an overhead camera,” Risby says.
“The student can then go in and pick what they look at, so it’s more interactive. You might be watching it the first time to listen to the lecturer, but you might watch the second time to concentrate on the experiment. It makes the stream more valuable.”
“…what if generative AI could provide every instructor with a genuine teaching assistant – a teaching assistant that actually assisted instructors with their teaching?”
For my cryptography course, Mollick’s first option would probably mean throwing out all my existing reading questions. My intent with these reading questions was noble, that is, to guide students to the big questions and debates in the field, but those are exactly the kinds of questions for which AI can write decent answers. Maybe the AI tools would fare worse in a more advanced course with very specialized readings, but in my intro to cryptography course, they can handle my existing reading questions with ease.
What about option two? I think one version of this would be to do away with the reading response assignment altogether.
Generative AI imagines new protein structures — from news.mit.edu by Rachel Gordon; resource from Sunday Signal MIT researchers develop “FrameDiff,” a computational tool that uses generative AI to craft new protein structures, with the aim of accelerating drug development and improving gene therapy.
Ready to Sing Elvis Karaoke … as Elvis? The Weird Rise of AI Music — from rollingstone.com by Brian Hiatt; resource from Misha da Vinci From voice-cloning wars to looming copyright disputes to a potential flood of nonhuman music on streaming, AI is already a musical battleground
