Shared Course Preparation Checklist — from facultyecommons.com

Excerpt:

Utilizing the same master shell between multiple faculty is a great way to ensure students have the same experience regardless of who is facilitating the course. When developing and facilitating the course, you may want to consider the following areas within the course design and adjust elements to meet your personal preferences. You’ll want to review the following pages of the course and ensure the elements are tailored to meet your expectations and needs.

Rubric for Quality Course Videos — from facultyecommons.com

Excerpt:

Are you concerned about the quality of your recorded videos for your online courses? The Course Video Scoring Rubric below provides you with additional guidance on how to improve the quality of your online course multimedia content.

The rubric is divided into four criteria: Content, Audio, Visuals (Camera), and Visuals (Screen Capture). Each of those criteria contain multiple standards for which you can review your existing content. These specific standards are graded on a scale of 0-2 points, for a total of 26 points.

Download the Video Scoring Rubric to begin analyzing the video content in your courses! For more information on creating quality video in your online course, check out our on-demand webinar Recording Video for Your Online Course.

15 Insights From Learning Science That Help You Master New Things Faster — from medium.com by Eva Keiffenheim

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Learning how to learn is the meta-skill that accelerates everything else you do.

Once you understand the fundamentals of learning science, you can save hours every time you learn something new. You become more strategic in approaching new subjects and skills instead of relying on often ineffective learning methods many pick up in school.

Below are key insights I’ve learned about how we learn. Every single one will help you understand how your brain learns. By doing so, you’ll make better decisions on your journey to wisdom.

How Instructors Are Adapting to a Rise in Student Disengagement — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young

Excerpt:

SAN MARCOS, Texas — Live lecture classes are back at most colleges after COVID-19 disruptions, but student engagement often hasn’t returned to normal.

In the past year, colleges have seen a rise in students skipping lectures, and some reports indicate that students are more prone to staring at TikTok or other distractions on their smartphones and laptops during lecture class.

To see what teaching is like on campus these days, I visited Texas State University in October and sat in on three large lecture classes in different subjects.

ChatGPT Advice Academics Can Use Now — from insidehighered.com by Susan D’Agostino
To harness the potential and avert the risks of OpenAI’s new chat bot, academics should think a few years out, invite students into the conversation and—most of all—experiment, not panic.

Excerpt:

Faculty members and administrators are now reckoning in real time with how—not if—ChatGPT will impact teaching and learning. Inside Higher Ed caught up with 11 academics to ask how to harness the potential and avert the risks of this game-changing technology. The following edited, condensed advice suggests that higher ed professionals should think a few years out, invite students into the conversation and—most of all—experiment, not panic.

Next, consider the tools relative to your course. What are the cognitive tasks students need to perform without AI assistance? When should students rely on AI assistance? Where can an AI aid facilitate a better outcome? Are there efficiencies in grading that can be gained? Are new rubrics and assignment descriptions needed? Will you add an AI writing code of conduct to your syllabus? Do these changes require structural shifts in timetabling, class size or number of teaching assistants?

From DSC:
Faculty members, librarians, academic support staff, instructional designers, and more are going to have to be given some time to maneuver through this new environment. Don’t expect them to instantly have answers. No one does. Or rather, let me say, no one should claim that they have all of the answers. 

 

Instructional Designer: Tools of the Trade Webinar 3/8 (from Teaching: A Path to L&D) and tools of the trade

Teaching: A Path to L&D aims to provide free guidance to teachers looking to move into the world of Learning and Development, specifically Instructional Design. Check out our website at www.teachlearndev.org for free coaching, webinars, and resources to help you on your journey!

And if you want to freelance to begin making the shift, see:

Freelance Income Projection: Free Template— from christytuckerlearning.com by Christy Tucker
As a freelancer or consultant, your income can vary widely from month to month. Use this free template to project your freelance income.

How to Become an Instructional Designer – The Grind is not Glamorous — from linkedin.com by Taruna Goel

Excerpt:

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a powerful 4-minute lesson on filmmaking where, Casey Neistat, a YouTube personality, filmmaker, and co-founder of the multimedia company, Beme, said: “The grind is not glamorous.”

It isn’t anything new or something others haven’t said before. But these five words say more than their worth when it comes to understanding and managing expectations around building expertise.

Job Titles: It’s Not Only Instructional Design — from idolcourses.com by Ivett Csordas

Excerpt:

When I first came across the title “Instructional Designer” while looking for alternative career options, I was just as confused as anybody would be hearing about our job for the first time. I remember asking questions like: What does an Instructional Designer do? Why is it called Instructional Design? Wouldn’t a title such as Learning Experience Designer or Training Content Developer suit them better? How are their skill sets different from curriculum developers like teachers’? etc.


On a somewhat related note, see:

7 middle school career exploration tips — from edcircuit.com

Table of Contents

Introducing Careers to Middle Schoolers

  • Career Exploration Tip #1: Invite guest speakers
  • Career Exploration Tip #2: Create career-themed projects
  • Career Exploration Tip #3: Host A Career Fair
  • Career Exploration Tip #4: Offer Job Shadowing
  • Career Exploration Tip #5: Encourage Students to Explore Subjects
  • Career Exploration Tip #6: Provide Resources and Guidance
  • Career Exploration Tip #7: Encourage Parent Participation
 

Unschooler: Your AI Vocational Mentor — from techacute.com by Gabriel Scharffenorth

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

AI to help realize your dream career
The Unschooler mentor helps you understand what you need to do to achieve your dream career. You can select one of six broad areas of expertise: science, people, tech, info, art, and business. The platform will then ask questions related to your future career.

It also has some other useful features. Unschooler keeps track of your skills by adding them to a skill map that’s unique to you. You can also ask it to expand on the information it has already given you. This is done by selecting the text and clicking one of four buttons: more, example, how to, explain, and a question mark icon that defines the selected text. There’s also a mobile app that analyzes text from pictures and explains tasks or concepts.

From DSC:
This integration of AI is part of the vision that I’ve been tracking at:

Learning from the living class room -- a vision that continues to develop, where the pieces are coming into place

Learning from the living [class] room
A vision that continues to develop, where the pieces are finally coming into place!

 

What factors help active learning classrooms succeed? — from rtalbert.org Robert Talbert

Excerpt:

The idea that the space in which you do something, affects the thing you do is the basic premise behind active learning classrooms (ALCs).

The biggest message I get from this study is that in order to have success with active learning classrooms, you can’t just build them — they have to be introduced as part of an ecosystem that touches almost all parts of the daily function of a university: faculty teaching, faculty development and support, facilities, and the Registrar’s Office to name a few. Without that ecosystem before you build an ALC, it seems hard to have success with students after it’s built. You’re more likely to have an expensive showcase that looks good but ultimately does not fulfill its main purpose: Promoting and amplifying active learning, and moving the culture of a campus toward active engagement in the classroom.

From DSC:
Thank you Robert for your article/posting here! And thank you for being one of the few faculty members who:

  • Regularly share information out on LinkedIn, Twitter, and your blog (something that is all too rare for faculty members throughout higher education)
  • Took a sabbatical to go work at a company that designs and develops numerous options for implementing active learning setups throughout the worlds of higher education, K12 education, and the corporate world as well. You are taking your skills to help contribute to the corporate world, while learning things out in the corporate world, and then  taking these learnings back into the world of higher education.

This presupposes something controversial: That the institution will take a stand on the issue that there is a preferred way to teach, namely active learning, and that the institution will be moving toward making active learning the default pedagogy at the institution. Putting this stake in the ground, and then investing not only in facilities but in professional development and faculty incentives to make it happen, again calls for vigorous, sustained leadership — at the top, and especially by the teaching/learning center director.

Robert Talbert


 

Job Titles: It’s Not Only Instructional Design — from idolcourses.com by Ivett Csordas

Excerpt:

When I first came across the title “Instructional Designer” while looking for alternative career options, I was just as confused as anybody would be hearing about our job for the first time. I remember asking questions like: What does an Instructional Designer do? Why is it called Instructional Design? Wouldn’t a title such as Learning Experience Designer or Training Content Developer suit them better? How are their skill sets different from curriculum developers like teachers’? etc.

Then, the more I learnt about the different roles of Instructional Designers, and the more job interviews I had, ironically, the less clarity I had over the companies’ expectations of us.

The truth is that the role of an Instructional Designer varies from company to company. What a person hired with the title “Instructional Designer” ends up doing depends on a range of factors such as the company’s training portfolio, the profile of their learners, the size of the L&D team, the way they use technology, just to mention a few.

From DSC:
I don’t know a thing about idolcourses.com, but I really appreciated running across this posting by Ivett Csordas about the various job titles out there and the differences between some of these job titles. The posting deals with job titles associated with developers, designers, LXD, LMS roles, managers, L&D Coordinators, specialists, consultants, and strategists.

 

 

Education is about to radically change: AI for the masses — from gettingsmart.com by Nate McClennen and Rachelle Dené Poth

Key Points:

  • AI already does and will continue to impact education – along with every other sector.
  • Innovative education leaders have an opportunity to build the foundation for the most personalized learning system we have ever seen.

Action

Education leaders need to consider these possible futures now. There is no doubt that K-12 and higher ed learners will be using these tools immediately. It is not a question of preventing “AI plagiarism” (if such a thing could exist), but a question of how to modify teaching to take advantage of these new tools.

From DSC:
They go on to list some solid ideas and experiments to try out — both for students and for teachers. Thanks Nate and Rachelle!


Also from Rachelle, see:


 

From DSC:
A few items re: ChatGPT — with some items pro-chat and other items against the use of ChatGPT (or at least to limit its use).


How About We Put Learning at the Center? — from insidehighered.com by John Warner
The ongoing freak-out about ChatGPT sent me back to considering the fundamentals.

Excerpt:

So, when people express concern that students will use ChatGPT to complete their assignments, I understand the concern, but what I don’t understand is why this concern is so often channeled into discussions about how to police student behavior, rather than using this as an opportunity to exam the kind of work we actually ask students (and faculty) to do around learning.

If ChatGPT can do the things we ask students to do in order to demonstrate learning, it seems possible to me that those things should’ve been questioned a long time ago. It’s why I continue to believe this technology is an opportunity for reinvention, precisely because it is a threat to the status quo.

Top AI conference bans use of ChatGPT and AI language tools to write academic papers — from theverge.com by James Vincent; with thanks to Anna Mills for this resource
AI tools can be used to ‘edit’ and ‘polish’ authors’ work, say the conference organizers, but text ‘produced entirely’ by AI is not allowed. This raises the question: where do you draw the line between editing and writing?

Excerpt:

The International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) announced the policy earlier this week, stating, “Papers that include text generated from a large-scale language model (LLM) such as ChatGPT are prohibited unless the produced text is presented as a part of the paper’s experimental analysis.” The news sparked widespread discussion on social media, with AI academics and researchers both defending and criticizing the policy. The conference’s organizers responded by publishing a longer statement explaining their thinking. (The ICML responded to requests from The Verge for comment by directing us to this same statement.)

How to… use AI to teach some of the hardest skills — from oneusefulthing.substack.com by Ethan Mollick
When errors, inaccuracies, and inconsistencies are actually very useful

Excerpt:

Instead, I want to discuss the opportunity provided by AI, because it can help us teach in new ways. The very things that make AI scary for educators — its tedency to make up facts, its lack of nuance, and its ability to make excellent student essays — can be used to make education better.

This isn’t for some future theoretical version of AI. You can create assignments, right now, using ChatGPT, that we will help stretch students in knew ways. We wrote a paper with the instructions. You can read it here, but I also want to summarize our suggestions. These are obviously not the only ways to use AI to educate, but they solve some of the hardest problems in education, and you can start experimenting with them right now.

NYC education department blocks ChatGPT on school devices, networks — from ny.chalkbeat.org by Michael Elsen-Rooney

Excerpt:

New York City students and teachers can no longer access ChatGPT — the new artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that generates stunningly cogent and lifelike writing — on education department devices or internet networks, agency officials confirmed Tuesday.

Teachers v ChatGPT: Schools face new challenge in fight against plagiarism — from straitstimes.com by Osmond Chia; with thanks to Stephen Downes for this resource

Excerpt:

SINGAPORE – Teachers in Singapore say they will likely have to move from assignments requiring regurgitation to those that require greater critical thinking, to stay ahead in the fight against plagiarism.

This comes on the back of the rise of ChatGPT, an intelligent chatbot that is able to spin essays and solve mathematical equations in seconds.

ChatGPT Is Not Ready to Teach Geometry (Yet) — from educationnext.org by Paul T. von Hippel
The viral chatbot is often wrong, but never in doubt. Educators need to tread carefully.

Excerpt:

Can ChatGPT provide feedback and answer questions about math in a more tailored and natural way? The answer, for the time being, is no. Although ChatGPT can talk about math superficially, it doesn’t “understand” math with real depth. It cannot correct mathematical misconceptions, it often introduces misconceptions of its own; and it sometimes makes inexplicable mathematical errors that a basic spreadsheet or hand calculator wouldn’t make.

Here, I’ll show you.


Addendum on 1/9/23:

9 ways ChatGPT saves me hours of work every day, and why you’ll never outcompete those who use AI effectively. — from .linkedin.com by Santiago Valdarrama

A list for those who write code:

  1. 1. Explaining code…
  2. Improve existing code…
  3. Rewriting code using the correct style…
  4. Rewriting code using idiomatic constructs…
  5. Simplifying code…
  6. Writing test cases…
  7. Exploring alternatives…
  8. Writing documentation…
  9. Tracking down bugs…
 

Teaching: Will ChatGPT Change the Way You Teach? — from Chronicle.com by Beth McMurtrie

Excerpt:

Want to get involved in the conversation around AI writing tools? Here are a few resources you might find helpful.

Anna Mills has put together several documents:

Elsewhere, a group of professors is compiling examples of how instructors are using text generation technologies in their assignments. The results will be published in an open-access collection. You can find out more about the project on this site, Teaching with Text Generation Technologies.

If you’re rather listen to a discussion, here are a couple of webinars:

 

 

37 predictions about edtech’s impact in 2023 — from eschoolnews.com by Laura Ascione
What edtech trends will take top billing in schools and districts in the new year?

Excerpts:

School districts will begin to offer microschool options. With 65% of K-12 parents backing school choice, school districts will realize that in order to stay competitive and meet the needs of students and parents, adopting and offering innovative learning models is key. One of the shifts the industry can expect to see in the coming years is school districts offering mircoschool options within the district itself. While historically independent learning institutions, microschools will be adopted within school districts that are responsive to this need for choice and evolving learning needs of students.
—Carlos Bortoni, Principal, Industry Advisor, K-12 Education, Qualtrics

In 2023, educators nationwide will benefit from the most recent wave of edtech consolidation. The various services and products acquired by consolidators over the last year or two will be integrated into increasingly comprehensive platforms offering instructional content, assessments, and classroom tools all in one place.  As this occurs, the power and effectiveness of those edtech resources will grow as they begin to work in concert with each other seamlessly. The combination of these resources will empower administrators, teachers, families, and students to better leverage edtech’s ability to improve learning.
–Kelli Campbell, President, Discovery Education

From DSC:
Vision is key here…not just data. If data provided all of the answers, being an effective, impactful leader/administrator would be far easier.


Also from Laura Ascione, see:


 

 
 

From DSC:
Our son recently took a 3-day intensive course on the Business of Acting. It was offered by the folks at “My College Audition” — and importantly, the course was not offered by the university where he is currently working on a BFA in Acting. By the way, aspiring performing arts students may find this site very beneficial/helpful as well. (Example blog posting here.)

mycollegeaudition.com/

The course was actually three hours of learning on a Sunday night, a Monday night, and a Tuesday night from 6-9pm.

The business of acting -- a 3-day virtual intensive course from mycollegeaudition.com

He learned things that he mentioned have not been taught in his undergrad program (at least not so far). When I asked him what he liked most about the course, he said:

  • These people are out there doing this (DSC insert: To me, this sounds like the use of adjunct faculty in higher ed)
  • There were 9 speakers in the 9 hours of classtime
  • They relayed plenty of resources that were very helpful and practical. He’s looking forward to pursuing these leads further.

He didn’t like that there were no discussion avenues/forums available. And as a paying parent, I didn’t like that we had to pay for yet another course and content that he wasn’t getting at his university. It may be that the university that he’s studying at will offer such a course later in the curriculum. But after two years of college experience, he hasn’t come across anything this practical and he is eagerly seeking out this type of practical/future-focused information. In fact, it’s critical to him staying with acting…or not. He needs this information sooner in his program.

It made me reflect on the place of adjunct faculty within higher education — folks who are out there “doing” what they are teaching about. They tend to be more up-to-date in their real-world knowledge. Sabbaticals are helpful in this regard for full-time faculty, but they don’t come around nearly enough to keep one’s practical, career-oriented knowledgebase up-to-date.

Again, this dilemma is to be expected, given our current higher education learning ecosystem. Faculties’ plates are full. They don’t have time to pursue this kind of endeavor in addition to their daily responsibilities. Staff aren’t able to be out there “doing” these things either.

This brings me back to design thinking. We’ve got to come up with better ways of offering student-centered education, programming, and content/resources.

My son walked away shaking his head a bit regarding his current university. At a time when students and families are questioning the return on their investments in traditional institutions of higher education, this issue needs to be taken very seriously. 


Also potentially relevant for some of the performing arts students out there:


 

Also see:

Redbridge | The future of lifelong learning — from redbridgesf.org and with thanks to Michael Horn for this resource

Excerpts from their home page:

  • Red Bridge is a school that teaches students to set goals, work together, reflect, and own their learning.
  • For families who value lifelong learning and share a sense of responsibility for their community.
  • Our vision is for all students to graduate with a sense of ownership over their learning and their lives – so that no matter what the future looks like, they have the capacity to adapt and flourish.

 

 

ChatGPT and The Professional’s Guide to Using AI — from linkedin.com by Allie K. Miller

Excerpt:

Real Ways Professionals Can Use ChatGPT to Improve Job Performance
Let’s dive into some real examples of how professionals across sales, marketing, product management, project management, recruiting, and teaching can take advantage of this new tool and leverage it for even more impact in their careers.

Teachers and ChatGPT

  1. Help with grading and feedback on student work.
    Example prompt: “Tell me every grammar rule that’s been violated in this student’s essay: [paste in essay]”
  2. Create personalized learning materials.
    Example prompt: “Help me explain photosynthesis to a 10th grade student in a way similar to sports.”
  3. Generate lesson plans and activities.
    Example prompt: “Create an activity for 50 students that revolves around how to learn the different colors of the rainbow.” or “Generate a lesson plan for a high school English class on the theme of identity and self-discovery, suitable for a 45-minute class period.”
  4. Write fake essays several reading levels below your class, then print them out, and have your students review and edit the AI’s work to make it better.
    Example prompt: “Generate a 5th grade level short essay about Maya Angelou and her work.”
  5. Providing one-on-one support to students.
    Example prompt: “How can I best empower an introverted student in my classroom during reading time?”

From DSC:
I haven’t tried these prompts. Rather I post this because I’m excited about the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help people teach and to help people to learn.

 
Imagine my delight when co-founder of Coursera Daphne Koehler came into my office in 2012 to explain the radical concept behind her new business. What if you could Partner with the World’s best universities and professors to provide FREE online courses? Like other successful FREEMIUM models, you monetize the platform downstream by creating massive network effects and convert a small percentage to paying customers (we had invested in other successful FREEMIUM models such as Facebook, Twitter, Spotify and Snap, so why wouldn’t that work here?)

Today, over 113 million learners from around the world access the platform to gain knowledge, to earn certificates and get diplomas from the top universities.

The Coursera ride has been amazing for most of the past decade, with over 100 million students, 200 universities and 5000 courses on the platform. And while the vast majority of the students on Coursera don’t pay a dime, the company has built a business with over $500 million in revenue and nearly a $2 billion market cap today.

Estimates are for the company to do $520 million in revenue in 2022, up from $415 million in 2021 and estimated $623 million in 2023. Coursera is losing money currently but has $424 million in cash and could turn profitable if it prioritized that and sells at 1.3x 2023 sales.

 
© 2024 | Daniel Christian