“…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
The most significant problem I’ve seen for aspiring instructional designers is that they don’t have a solid plan in place with how to make acquiring a new job a reality. What does this involve? A monumental portion of instructional design is knowing about how learning works. Yes, there are other components about instructional design like technology, project management, relationship management, research, but at the end of the day, you need to know how people learn to design meaningful learning experiences. So, think of your instructional design journey as a learning experience. How would you reverse engineer this process to help you obtain your goal? Let’s start by asking a few questions:
Cognitive Load Theory is an influential theory from educational psychology that describes how various factors affect our ability to use our working memory resources. We’ve done a digest about cognitive load theory here and talked about it here and here, but haven’t provided an overview of the theory so I want to give an overview here.
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Cognitive load theory provides useful and dynamic model for how many different factors affect working memory and learning. Hopefully this post provides a useful overview of some of the main components of cognitive load!
Simplify the explanations of what you’re presenting as much as possible and break down complex tasks into smaller parts
Don’t place a large amount of text on a slide and then talk about it at the same time — doing so requires much more processing than most people can deal with.
Consider creating two versions of your PowerPoint files:
A text-light version that can be used for presenting that content to students
A text-heavy version — which can be posted to your LMS for the learners to go through at their own pace — and without trying to process so much information (voice and text, for example) at one time.
Design-wise:
Don’t use decorative graphics — everything on a slide should be there for a reason
Don’t use too many fonts or colors — this can be distracting
Don’t use background music when you are trying to explain something
YouTube is experimenting with AI-generated quizzes on its mobile app for iOS and Android devices, which are designed to help viewers learn more about a subject featured in an educational video. The feature will also help the video-sharing platform get a better understanding of how well each video covers a certain topic.
Since January 2023, I’ve talked with hundreds of instructors at dozens of institutions about how they might incorporate AI into their teaching. Through these conversations, I’ve noticed a few common issues:
Faculty and staff are overwhelmed and burned out. Even those on the cutting edge often feel they’re behind the curve.
It’s hard to know where to begin.
It can be difficult to find practical examples of AI use that are applicable across a variety of disciplines.
To help address these challenges, I’ve been working on a list of AI-infused learning activities that encourage experimentation in (relatively) small, manageable ways.
September 2023: The Secret Intelligent Beings on Campus— from stefanbauschard.substack.com by Stefan Bauschard Many of your students this fall will be enhanced by artificial intelligence, even if they don’t look like actual cyborgs. Do you want all of them to be enhanced, or just the highest SES students?
In the past few months we have been deluged with headlines about new AI tools and how much they are going to change society.
Some reporters have done amazing work holding the companies developing AI accountable, but many struggle to report on this new technology in a fair and accurate way.
We—an investigative reporter, a data journalist, and a computer scientist—have firsthand experience investigating AI. We’ve seen the tremendous potential these tools can have—but also their tremendous risks.
As their adoption grows, we believe that, soon enough, many reporters will encounter AI tools on their beat, so we wanted to put together a short guide to what we have learned.
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DSC:
Something I created via Adobe Firefly (Beta version)
Does this mean it will do away with the L&D job? Not at all — these tools give you superhuman powers to find content faster, put it in front of employees in a more useful way and more creatively craft character simulations, assessments, learning in the flow of work and more.
And it’s about time. We really haven’t had a massive innovation in L&D since the early days of the learning experience platform market, so we may be entering the most exciting era in a long time.
Let me give you the five most significant use cases I see. And more will come.
As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on using tech with scenarios: AI, xAPI, and VR. I’ll also share some other AI tools and links on usability, resume tips for teachers, visual language, and a scenario sample.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates saying generative AI chatbots can teach kids to read in 18 months rather than years.
Artificial intelligence is beginning to prove that it can accelerate the impact teachers have on students and help solve a stubborn teacher shortage.
Chatbots backed by large language models can help students, from primary education to certification programs, self-guide through voluminous materials and tailor their education to specific learning styles [preferences].
Unfortunately, too often attention is focused on the problems of AI—that it allows students to cheat and can undermine the value of what teachers bring to the learning equation. This viewpoint ignores the immense possibilities that AI can bring to education and across every industry.
The fact is that students have already embraced this new technology, which is neither a new story nor a surprising one in education. Leaders should accept this and understand that people, not robots, must ultimately create the path forward. It is only by deploying resources, training and policies at every level of our institutions that we can begin to realize the vast potential of what AI can offer.
SAIL: State of Research: AI & Education — from buttondown.email by George Siemens Information re: current AI and Learning Labs, education updates, and technology
In this post I’d like to explore that apocalyptic model. For reasons of space, I’ll leave off analyzing student cheating motivations or questioning the entire edifice of grade-based assessment. I’ll save potential solutions for another post.
Let’s dive into the practical aspects of teaching to see why Mollick and Bogost foresee such a dire semester ahead.
I put together an initial prompt to set up Code Interpreter to create useful data visualizations. It gives it some basic principles of good chart design & also reminds it that it can output many kinds of files.
Code Interpreter continues OpenAI’s long tradition of giving terrible names to things, because it might be most useful for those who do not code at all. It essentially allows the most advanced AI available, GPT-4, to upload and download information, and to write and execute programs for you in a persistent workspace. That allows the AI to do all sorts of things it couldn’t do before, and be useful in ways that were impossible with ChatGPT.
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BREAKING: Code Interpreter is FINALLY rolling out to all ChatGPT Plus users.
It’s the most powerful feature OpenAI has released since GPT-4. It makes everyone a data analyst.
The Homework Apocalypse — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick Fall is going to be very different this year. Educators need to be ready.
Excerpt:
Students will cheat with AI. But they also will begin to integrate AI into everything they do, raising new questions for educators. Students will want to understand why they are doing assignments that seem obsolete thanks to AI. They will want to use AI as a learning companion, a co-author, or a teammate. They will want to accomplish more than they did before, and also want answers about what AI means for their future learning paths. Schools will need to decide how to respond to this flood of questions.
The challenge of AI in education can feel abstract, so to understand a bit more about what is going to happen, I wanted to examine some common assignment types.
After a successful career as a recording artist, David “TC” Ellis created Studio 4 in St. Paul to spot budding music stars.
It became a hangout spot for creative young people, most of whom had “dropped out of school due to boredom and a sense that school wasn’t relevant to their lives and dreams.”
Ellis and colleagues then opened the High School for Recording Arts in 1998.
Post-AI Assessment Design — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman A simple, three-step guide on how to design assessments in a post-AI world
Excerpt:
Step 1: Write Inquiry-Based Objectives
Inquiry-based objectives focus not just on the acquisition of knowledge but also on the development of skills and behaviours, like critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration and research skills.
They do this by requiring learners not just to recall or “describe back” concepts that are delivered via text, lecture or video. Instead, inquiry-based objectives require learners to construct their own understanding through the process of investigation, analysis and questioning.
Just for a minute, consider how education would change if the following were true –
AIs “hallucinated” less than humans
AIs could write in our own voices
AIs could accurately do math
AIs understood the unique academic (and eventually developmental) needs of each student and adapt instruction to that student
AIs could teach anything any student wanted or need to know any time of day or night
AIs could do this at a fraction of the cost of a human teacher or professor
Fall 2026 is three years away. Do you have a three year plan? Perhaps you should scrap it and write a new one (or at least realize that your current one cannot survive). If you run an academic institution in 2026 the same way you ran it in 2022, you might as well run it like you would have in 1920. If you run an academic institution in 2030 (or any year when AI surpasses human intelligence) the same way you ran it in 2022, you might as well run it like you would have in 1820. AIs will become more intelligent than us, perhaps in 10-20 years (LeCun), though there could be unanticipated breakthroughs that lower the time frame to a few years or less (Benjio); it’s just a question of when, not “if.”
On one creative use of AI — from aiandacademia.substack.com by Bryan Alexander A new practice with pedagogical possibilities
Excerpt:
Look at those material items again. The voiceover? Written by an AI and turned into audio by software. The images? Created by human prompts in Midjourney. The music is, I think, human created. And the idea came from a discussion between a human and an AI?
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How might this play out in a college or university class?
Imagine assignments which require students to craft such a video. Start from film, media studies, or computer science classes. Students work through a process:
I continue to try to imagine ways generative AI can impact teaching and learning, including learning materials like textbooks. Earlier this week I started wondering – what if, in the future, educators didn’t write textbooks at all? What if, instead, we only wrote structured collections of highly crafted prompts? Instead of reading a static textbook in a linear fashion, the learner would use the prompts to interact with a large language model.These prompts could help learners ask for things like:
overviews and in-depth explanations of specific topics in a specific sequence,
examples that the learner finds personally relevant and interesting,
interactive practice – including open-ended exercises – with immediate, corrective feedback,
the structure of the relationships between ideas and concepts,
Designed for K12 and Higher-Ed Educators & Administrators, this conference aims to provide a platform for educators, administrators, AI experts, students, parents, and EdTech leaders to discuss the impact of AI on education, address current challenges and potentials, share their perspectives and experiences, and explore innovative solutions. A special emphasis will be placed on including students’ voices in the conversation, highlighting their unique experiences and insights as the primary beneficiaries of these educational transformations.
The use of generative AI in K-12 settings is complex and still in its infancy. We need to consider how these tools can enhance student creativity, improve writing skills, and be transparent with students about how generative AI works so they can better understand its limitations. As with any new tech, our students will be exposed to it, and it is our task as educators to help them navigate this new territory as well-informed, curious explorers.
The education ministry has emphasized the need for students to understand artificial intelligence in new guidelines released Tuesday, setting out how generative AI can be integrated into schools and the precautions needed to address associated risks.
Students should comprehend the characteristics of AI, including its advantages and disadvantages, with the latter including personal information leakages and copyright infringement, before they use it, according to the guidelines. They explicitly state that passing off reports, essays or any other works produced by AI as one’s own is inappropriate.
Thanks to the rapid development of artificial intelligence tools like Dall-E and ChatGPT, my brother-in-law has been wrestling with low-level anxiety: Is it a good idea to steer his son down this path when AI threatens to devalue the work of creatives? Will there be a job for someone with that skill set in 10 years? He’s unsure. But instead of burying his head in the sand, he’s doing what any tech-savvy parent would do: He’s teaching his son how to use AI.
In recent months the family has picked up subscriptions to AI services. Now, in addition to drawing and sculpting and making movies and video games, my nephew is creating the monsters of his dreams with Midjourney, a generative AI tool that uses language prompts to produce images.
To bridge this knowledge gap, I decided to make a quick little dictionary of AI terms specifically tailored for educators worldwide. Initially created for my own benefit, I’ve reworked my own AI Dictionary for Educators and expanded it to help my fellow teachers embrace the advancements AI brings to education.
So, it sounds like if there’s a learning goal that a parent has in mind, the way to do that is to engage in guided play versus setting a kid free to just do what they would like? Yeah, definitely. So free play is fundamental to anyone’s life, right? We know that it can help social emotional development, physical development, and executive function development. It’s really important. But research is finding when there’s a learning goal, that guided play yields the best results for that. The reason why guided play is so effective is because it reflects these key characteristics of decades and decades of research of how we know how human brains learn best. We know that we learn best when we’re active, not passive, engaged, not distracted, when it’s meaningful, when it’s connected to what matters what we already know. When it’s iterative, so children can test and try out different ideas, and when they’re interacting socially with others, and when they’re joyful. And so that’s part of why guided play is so powerful.
Generative AI has taken the world by storm since OpenAI launched ChatGPT-3 in November 2022. Generative AI is characterized by its capacity to generate human-like content based on deep learning models in response to prompts. There is a wealth of opinions about how this will impact higher education spanning from the need to limit the use in the protection of higher education to embracing the tool as a means to improve higher education. In this webinar session, speakers from different regions shared their views and perspectives and discuss how Generative AI will transform higher education. What are the challenges to be addressed and which opportunities can be pursued to improve the quality of higher education? Watch the webinar and learn about the uncertainties, tensions, and opportunities triggered by Generative AI.
Trust and Transparency Are Key Factors When Using AI in Academia — from by Dr. Andrew Lang Much can be learned from embracing artificial intelligence in the teaching and learning process. Here, two professors share their experiences using ChatGPT freely in the classroom.
The AI-Education Divide— from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Philippa Hardman How the rise of AI has reinforced inequity in education (and what we need to do to reverse it) .
Merlyn Mind, an AI-powered digital assistant platform, announced the launch of a suite of large language models (LLMs) specifically tailored for the education sector under an open-source license.
Designing courses in an age of AI— from teachinginhighered.com by Maria Andersen Maria Andersen shares about designing courses in an age of artificial intelligence (AI) on episode 469 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.
With generative AI, we have an incredible acceleration of change happening.
Their most recognisable role is to partner with faculty and provide them with inspiration, expertise and support in their teaching. But a broader role is emerging at institutional level- helping create a culture where people value talking about teaching and more generally, fostering a culture of continuous learning. In this respect, CTLs act as agents of change, aiming to influence the organizational (learning) environment.
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CTLs are part of an ecosystem, internally and externally, and they have the potential to play a very important role, that of a network node. Internally, this can mean connecting various silos within the university, a much needed task, while externally it implies establishing collaboration flows with other CTLs that can in turn lead to broader inter-university collaboration. Making use of the full potential of this role can make a big difference for the success of a CTL.
Speaking of Teaching & Learning Centers, also see:
7 Questions on Engaging Faculty in Digital Accessibility — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly We asked the Technical College System of Georgia’s accessibility champions how they help instructors create a more inclusive learning experience for all students.
Higher ed may appear less impacted on the surface. But a small yet critical cohort of students and families has been heavily affected – students and parents who take out private student loans. Private student loans are a small piece of the overall student loan puzzle, representing roughly 8% of outstanding student debt (~$146.9 billion) according to a March 2023 analysis from Federal Student Aid.
… Private student loans have gotten way more expensive With that context in mind, it’s worth analyzing how the rise in interest rates has impacted borrowing costs for families. The numbers are staggering. As the Fed has hiked interest rates, private loan borrowing costs have more than doubled since November of 2021. The average interest rate on a 10-year private student loan has jumped from a low of 3.3% in November 2021 to 7% at the end of May 2023. Interest rates for 5-year private loans have skyrocketed even faster, jumping from a low of 2.4% all the way to 8.70% across the same period. .
Tuesday, June 6, 2023 – Far too often, individuals in higher education don’t understand the nuances of how accreditors operate and the role they play in supporting—or constraining—institutions. Jeff and Michael welcome Barbara Brittingham, former president of the New England Commission on Higher Education, to give the history of accreditation, break down how accrediting agencies operate, show how they compare to one another, and delve into how they might evolve in the future with an eye toward how these organizations impact institutional transformation and support learners in achieving their education and career goals. This episode is made possible with support from Ascendium Education Group, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Course Hero. .
On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, host Amrit Ahluwalia was joined by Rich Novak to evaluate the changes in higher education over the past decade, and the opportunities ahead for continuing education. .
Partnering With Higher Education I believe that companies can gain a competitive edge in hiring and retention by establishing long-term partnerships with educators, universities and other pedagogically-driven institutions. However, it is crucial to design these partnerships with scale and replication in mind in order to avoid high costs and low adoption rates that can result in failure.
Establishing a successful partnership will also require companies and universities to determine and agree on the skill-based outcomes they aim to achieve. They will have to find effective ways to share data, develop timelines and measure success for both parties.
This is a shift from traditional partnerships, which often focus on research and innovation initiatives. With this, intellectual property was the outcome of the collaboration. Instead, in a reskilling partnership, in-demand skills are the outcome. .
EDUCAUSE and WCET QuickPoll Results: Current Trends in Microcredential Design and Delivery — from er.educause.edu by Jenay Robert Microcredentialing programs remain nascent at many institutions, but interest continues to grow. As the demand for flexible learning experiences increases, stakeholders might find renewed interest in and uses for microcredentials.
This moment requires agility — and L&D can lead the way.
For individuals, agility fuels career growth and relevance. For organizations, agility equals the ability to survive and thrive even amid economic headwinds.
And what is agility if not constant learning? To build a resilient and adaptable future, learning leaders are working across HR to ensure everyone has the tools, the career paths, and the skills to succeed.
Read on for insights and ideas to power your own path.
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) June 23, 2023
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On giving AI eyes and ears— from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick AI can listen and see, with bigger implications than we might realize.
Excerpt:
But even this is just the beginning, and new modes of using AI are appearing, which further increases their capabilities. I want to show you some examples of this emerging world, which I think will soon introduce a new wave of AI use cases, and accompanying disruption.
We need to recognize that these capabilities will continue to grow, and AI will be able to play a more active role in the real world by observing and listening. The implications are likely to be profound, and we should start thinking through both the huge benefits and major concerns today.
Even though generative AI is a new thing, it doesn’t change why students cheat. They’ve always cheated for the same reason: They don’t find the work meaningful, and they don’t think they can achieve it to their satisfaction. So we need to design assessments that students find meaning in.
Tricia Bertram Gallant
Caught off guard by AI— from chonicle.com by Beth McMurtrie and Beckie Supiano Professor scrambled to react to ChatGPT this spring — and started planning for the fall
Excerpt:
Is it cheating to use AI to brainstorm, or should that distinction be reserved for writing that you pretend is yours? Should AI be banned from the classroom, or is that irresponsible, given how quickly it is seeping into everyday life? Should a student caught cheating with AI be punished because they passed work off as their own, or given a second chance, especially if different professors have different rules and students aren’t always sure what use is appropriate?
…OpenAI built tool use right into the GPT API with an update called function calling. It’s a little like a child’s ability to ask their parents to help them with a task that they know they can’t do on their own. Except in this case, instead of parents, GPT can call out to external code, databases, or other APIs when it needs to.
Each function in function calling represents a tool that a GPT model can use when necessary, and GPT gets to decide which ones it wants to use and when. This instantly upgrades GPT capabilities—not because it can now do every task perfectly—but because it now knows how to ask for what it wants and get it. .
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How ChatGPT can help disrupt assessment overload— from timeshighereducation.com by David Carless Advances in AI are not necessarily the enemy – in fact, they should prompt long overdue consideration of assessment types and frequency, says David Carless
Excerpt:
Reducing the assessment burden could support trust in students as individuals wanting to produce worthwhile, original work. Indeed, students can be co-opted as partners in designing their own assessment tasks, so they can produce something meaningful to them.
A strategic reduction in quantity of assessment would also facilitate a refocusing of assessment priorities on deep understanding more than just performance and carries potential to enhance feedback processes.
If we were to tackle assessment overload in these ways, it opens up various possibilities. Most significantly there is potential to revitalise feedback so that it becomes a core part of a learning cycle rather than an adjunct at its end. End-of-semester, product-oriented feedback, which comes after grades have already been awarded, fails to encourage the iterative loops and spirals typical of productive learning. .
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.
These claims conjure up the rosiest of images: human resource departments and their robot buddies solving discrimination in workplace hiring. It seems plausible, in theory, that AI could root out unconscious bias, but a growing body of research shows the opposite may be more likely.
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Companies’ use of AI didn’t come out of nowhere: For example, automated applicant tracking systems have been used in hiring for decades. That means if you’ve applied for a job, your resume and cover letter were likely scanned by an automated system. You probably heard from a chatbot at some point in the process. Your interview might have been automatically scheduled and later even assessed by AI.
From DSC:
Here was my reflection on this:
DC: Along these lines, I wonder if Applicant Tracking Systems cause us to become like typecast actors and actresses — only thought of for certain roles. Pigeonholed.
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) June 23, 2023
In June, ResumeBuilder.com surveyed more than 1,000 employees who are involved in hiring processes at their workplaces to find out about their companies’ use of AI interviews.
The results:
43% of companies already have or plan to adopt AI interviews by 2024
Two-thirds of this group believe AI interviews will increase hiring efficiency
15% say that AI will be used to make decisions on candidates without any human input
More than half believe AI will eventually replace human hiring managers
Watch OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on the Future of AI — from bloomberg.com Sam Altman, CEO & Co-Founder, OpenAI discusses the explosive rise of OpenAI and its products and what an AI-laced future can look like with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang at the Bloomberg Technology Summit.
The implementation of generative AI within these products will dramatically improve educators’ ability to deliver personalized learning to students at scale by enabling the application of personalized assessments and learning pathways based on individual student needs and learning goals. K-12 educators will also benefit from access to OpenAI technology…
