Intentional Teaching — from intentionalteaching.buzzsprout.com by Derek Bruff
Rethinking Teaching in an Age of AI with James M. Lang and Michelle D. Miller

Podcast from Derek Bruff -- Rethinking Teaching in an Age of AI with James M. Lang and Michelle D. Miller

Excerpt:

In her 2022 book Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology, Michelle D. Miller writes about the “moral panics” that often happen in response to new technologies. In his 2013 book Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty, James M. Lang argues that the best way to reduce cheating is through better course design. What do these authors have to say about teaching in an age of generative AI tools like ChatGPT? Lots!

 


Governance of superintelligence — from openai.com
Now is a good time to start thinking about the governance of superintelligence—future AI systems dramatically more capable than even AGI.

Governance of superintelligence Now is a good time to start thinking about the governance of superintelligence—future AI systems dramatically more capable than even AGI.

OpenAI leaders propose international regulatory body for AI — from techcrunch.com by Devin Coldewey

Excerpt:

AI is developing rapidly enough and the dangers it may pose are clear enough that OpenAI’s leadership believes that the world needs an international regulatory body akin to that governing nuclear power — and fast. But not too fast. In a post to the company’s blog, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman and Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever explain that the pace of innovation in artificial intelligence is so fast that we can’t expect existing authorities to adequately rein in the technology. While there’s a certain quality of patting themselves on the back here, it’s clear to any impartial observer that the tech, most visibly in OpenAI’s explosively popular ChatGPT conversational agent, represents a unique threat as well as an invaluable asset.

OpenAI-backed robot startup beats Elon Musk’s Tesla, deploys AI-enabled robots in real world — from firstpost.com by Mehul Reuben Das; via The Rundown
A robotics startup backed by OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT has beaten Elon Musk’s Tesla in the humanoid robots race, and has successfully deployed humanoid robots as security guards. Next, they will be deploying the robots in hospices and assisted living facilities

A robotics startup backed by OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT has beaten Elon Musk’s Tesla in the humanoid robots race, and has successfully deployed humanoid robots as security guards. Next, they will be deploying the robots in hospices and assisted living facilities.


From DSC:
Hmmm…given the crisis of loneliness in the United States, I’m not sure that this type of thing is a good thing. But I’m sure there are those who would argue the other side of this.


Turn ideas into music with MusicLM — from blog.google
Experiment today by describing a musical idea and hearing it come to life.

MusicLM is an experimental text-to-music model that can generate unique songs based on your ideas or descriptions.

 

Trend No. 3: The business model faces a full-scale transformation — from www2.deloitte.com by Cole Clark, Megan Cluver, and Jeffrey J. Selingo
The traditional business model of higher education is broken as institutions can no longer rely on rising tuition among traditional students as the primary driver of revenue.

Excerpt:

Yet the opportunities for colleges and universities that shift their business model to a more student-centric one, serving the needs of a wider diversity of learners at different stages of their lives and careers, are immense. Politicians and policymakers are looking for solutions to the demographic cliff facing the workforce and the need to upskill and reskill generations of workers in an economy where the half-life of skills is shrinking. This intersection of needs—higher education needs students; the economy needs skilled workers—means that colleges and universities, if they execute on the right set of strategies, could play a critical role in developing the workforce of the future. For many colleges, this shift will require a significant rethinking of mission and structure as many institutions weren’t designed for workforce development and many faculty don’t believe it’s their job to get students a job. But if a set of institutions prove successful on this front, they could in the process improve the public perception of higher education, potentially leading to more political and financial support for growing this evolving business model in the future.

Also see:

Trend No. 2: The value of the degree undergoes further questioning — from www2.deloitte.com by Cole Clark, Megan Cluver, and Jeffrey J. Selingo
The perceived value of higher education has fallen as the skills needed to keep up in a job constantly change and learners have better consumer information on outcomes.

Excerpt:

Higher education has yet to come to grips with the trade-offs that students and their families are increasingly weighing with regard to obtaining a four-year degree.

But the problem facing the vast majority of colleges and universities is that they are no longer perceived to be the best source for the skills employers are seeking. This is especially the case as traditional degrees are increasingly competing with a rising tide of microcredentials, industry-based certificates, and well-paying jobs that don’t require a four-year degree.

Trend No. 1: College enrollment reaches its peak — from www2.deloitte.com by Cole Clark, Megan Cluver, and Jeffrey J. Selingo
Enrollment rates in higher education have been declining in the United States over the years as other countries catch up.

Excerpt:

Higher education in the United States has only known growth for generations. But enrollment of traditional students has been falling for more than a decade, especially among men, putting pressure both on the enrollment pipeline and on the work ecosystem it feeds. Now the sector faces increased headwinds as other countries catch up with the aggregate number of college-educated adults, with China and India expected to surpass the United States as the front runners in educated populations within the next decade or so.

Plus the other trends listed here >>


Also related to higher education, see the following items:


Number of Colleges in Distress Is Up 70% From 2012 — from bloomberg.com by Nic Querolo (behind firewall)
More schools see falling enrollement and tuition revenue | Small private, public colleges most at risk, report show

About 75% of students want to attend college — but far fewer expect to actually go — from highereddive.com by Jeremy Bauer-Wolf

There Is No Going Back: College Students Want a Live, Remote Option for In-Person Classes — from campustechnology.com by Eric Paljug

Excerpt:

Based on a survey of college students over the last three semesters, students understand that remotely attending a lecture via remote synchronous technology is less effective for them than attending in person, but they highly value the flexibility of this option of attending when they need it.

Future Prospects and Considerations for AR and VR in Higher Education Academic Technology — from er.educause.edu by Owen McGrath, Chris Hoffman and Shawna Dark
Imagining how the future might unfold, especially for emerging technologies like AR and VR, can help prepare for what does end up happening.

Black Community College Enrollment is Plummeting. How to Get Those Students Back — from the74million.org by Karen A. Stout & Francesca I. Carpenter
Stout & Carpenter: Schools need a new strategy to bolster access for learners of color who no longer see higher education as a viable pathway

As the Level Up coalition reports ,“the vast majority — 80% — of Black Americans believe that college is unaffordable.” This is not surprising given that Black families have fewer assets to pay for college and, as a result, incur significantly more student loan debt than their white or Latino peers. This is true even at the community college level. Only one-third of Black students are able to earn an associate degree without incurring debt. 

Repairing Gen Ed | Colleges struggle to help students answer the question, ‘Why am I taking this class?’ — from chronicle.com by Beth McMurtrie
Students Are Disoriented by Gen Ed. So Colleges Are Trying to Fix It.

Excerpts:

Less than 30 percent of college graduates are working in a career closely related to their major, and the average worker has 12 jobs in their lifetime. That means, he says, that undergraduates must learn to be nimble and must build transferable skills. Why can’t those skills and ways of thinking be built into general education?

“Anyone paying attention to the nonacademic job market,” he writes, “will know that skills, rather than specific majors, are the predominant currency.”

Micro-credentials Survey. 2023 Trends and Insights. — from holoniq.com
HolonIQ’s 2023 global survey on micro-credentials

3 Keys to Making Microcredentials Valid for Learners, Schools, and Employers — from campustechnology.com by Dave McCool
To give credentials value in the workplace, the learning behind them must be sticky, visible, and scalable.

Positive Partnership: Creating Equity in Gateway Course Success — from insidehighered.com by Ashley Mowreader
The Gardner Institute’s Courses and Curricula in Urban Ecosystems initiative works alongside institutions to improve success in general education courses.

American faith in higher education is declining: one poll — from bryanalexander.org by Bryan Alexander

Excerpt:

The main takeaway is that our view of higher education’s value is souring.  Fewer of us see post-secondary learning as worth the cost, and now a majority think college and university degrees are no longer worth it: “56% of Americans think earning a four-year degree is a bad bet compared with 42% who retain faith in the credential.”

Again, this is all about one question in one poll with a small n. But it points to directions higher ed and its national setting are headed in, and we should think hard about how to respond.


 

Sam Altman and Greg Brockman on AI and the Future — from open.spotify.com; for education-related discussion go to the 9 minute mark or so

Podcast description:

How might we develop and deploy beneficial, safe artificial general intelligence for humanity? Reid and Aria are joined by Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and Greg Brockman, OpenAI co-founder and president. Sam and Greg trace their journey—from articulating their mission to early company projects and decisions to scaling and sharing GPT-4 with the world. They also explore the transformative impact artificial intelligence can have on other industries, like energy, medicine, education, and law. Plus, GPT-4 offers a poetic perspective on a piece of code.
.

 

Poetry writing about Flint murals allows for ‘creative freedom’ in this high school classroom — from mlive.com  by Dylan Goetz (behind paywall)

Excerpt:

It’s a new tradition in the curriculum of the senior-level English class, where teacher Carrie Mattern asks her students to seek out a mural in Flint and write poetry about it.

This year, there was a focus on writing around cultural grief and the process of healing.

It’s become a favorite assignment for the students who’ve worked on the project, who say it allows them to use “creative freedom” in a way that other classes don’t.
.


Also see:

 

Justice Through Code — from centerforjustice.columbia.edu by ; via Matt Tower
Unlocking Potential for the 80+ Million Americans with a Conviction History.

Excerpt:

A world where every person, regardless of past convictions or incarceration can access life-sustaining and meaningful careers.

We are working to make this vision a reality through our technical and professional career development accelerators.

Our Mission: We educate and nurture talent with conviction histories to create a more just and diverse workforce. We increase workplace equity through partnerships that educate and prepare teams to create supportive pathways to careers that end the cycle of poverty that contributes to incarceration and recidivism.

JTC is jointly offered by Columbia University’s Center for Justice, and the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at the Columbia Business School.

 

Tech Titans: The crossroads of humanity and technology — from enterprisersproject.com by E.G. Nadhan
This year’s panel of IT leaders discusses the ongoing problem of equitable access to technology for underserved communities

Excerpts:

Can technology be a catalyst to improve the quality of life in these communities and, thus, resist the status quo?

“You cannot escape technology – tech is intertwined no matter what we do; it has become a utility like water, heat, and electricity. Not having access to technology can be detrimental to having access to the essentials of daily life. We need to work together to ensure that everyone – especially the underserved and disenfranchised communities – have access to technology.”

Also relevant/see:

Anywhere Learning Happens: The eduroam Global WiFi Access Service — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush
A conversation with eduroam community leaders Saira Hasnain and Brett Bieber

Steadily, eduroam is reaching toward ubiquity, and that’s one big factor that will ultimately allow it to continue to expand services to users all around the globe.

Impressively, in 2022, eduroam logged more than 6.4 billion individual authentications around the globe.

 

Building a bridge to justice from the other side — from jordanfurlong.substack.com by Jordan Furlong
Our professional-centric approach to resolving unmet legal needs hasn’t worked. Maybe it’s time we empowered the people who are already there.

An enormous and intricate bridge with parts of it bending down and part of it bending up -- creating a criss-cross pattern

Excerpts:

Given all that, I think it’s time we tried demand-side approach instead — one that doesn’t require us to licence and deploy more legal services professionals, but instead focuses on and empowers those who are already dealing with people’s unmet and unrecognized legal needs.

So if we’re not looking for legal professionals, who are we looking for? If we take a user-centred, needs-focused approach, we’ll find ourselves looking for someone who’s familiar to and trusted by the vulnerable people with unmet legal needs, who’s walked with them, earned their confidence over time — “someone who looks like them, understands their situation, and are trusted members of their community.”

These individuals are already present in the lives of people with unmet legal needs. They’re community activists, librarians, hospital employees, teachers, social workers, homeless advocates, therapists, food bank employees, members of a religious order, financial counsellors, mental health clinic staffers, juvenile case workers, and many others.

 

When It Comes to College Closures, the Sky Is Never Going to Fall — from chronicle.com by Lee Gardner
Are you tired of reading nearly annual predictions of a looming wave of colleges shutting down? Not nearly as tired as one Chronicle reporter.

Excerpts:

I’ve learned a lot of things about how colleges work in the last 10 years, including that they die hard. They make new appeals to students and alumni. They scrimp. They raise their tuition-discount rate yet again. They limp along with budget deficits, sometimes for years. They make withdrawals from their endowments. They sell off assets. They look for partnerships, mergers, and buyers, although sometimes when it’s far too late.

I could be wrong, of course, and there may be a giant wave of college closures rearing somewhere on the horizon. But I can guarantee you that there are dozens of institutions in danger of quietly slipping toward a gradual end as you read this.

Also highly relevant here/see:

Contingent faculty jobs are still the standard, AAUP report finds — from highereddive.com by Laura Spitalniak

Dive Brief:

  • Colleges are continuing to increase their reliance on faculty positions that lack pathways to tenure, according to a new report from the American Association of University Professors. Over two-thirds of faculty members, 68%, held contingent positions in fall 2021, compared to about 47% in fall 1987.
  • Part-time work is also becoming more common. Almost half of faculty, 48%, taught part time in fall 2021, up from 33% in fall 1987. Less than 1% of all part-time faculty positions are tenured or tenure-track, according to AAUP.
  • Both of these factors are cutting into the number of available tenured positions, the report said. Fewer than 1 in 4 faculty members, 24%, held tenured full-time positions in fall 2021. That number fell from 39% in fall 1987.

Americans Are Losing Faith in College Education, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds — from wsj.com by Douglas Belkin (behind a firewall)
Confidence in value of a degree plummeted among women and senior citizens during pandemic

Excerpt:

A majority of Americans don’t think a college degree is worth the cost, according to a new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll, a new low in confidence in what has long been a hallmark of the American dream.

The survey, conducted with NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan research organization, found that 56% of Americans think earning a four-year degree is a bad bet compared with 42% who retain faith in the credential.

Skepticism is strongest among people ages 18-34, and people with college degrees are among those whose opinions have soured the most, portending a profound shift for higher education in the years ahead.
 


Also relevant/see:

We have moved from Human Teachers and Human Learners, as a diad to AI Teachers and AI Learners as a tetrad.


 

How AI will revolutionize the practice of law — from brookings.edu by John Villasenor

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to fundamentally reshape the practice of law. 

Excerpt:

BROADENING ACCESS TO LEGAL SERVICES
AI also has the potential to dramatically broaden access to legal services, which are prohibitively expensive for many individuals and small businesses. As the Center for American Progress has written, “[p]romoting equal, meaningful access to legal representation in the U.S. justice system is critical to ending poverty, combating discrimination, and creating opportunity.”

AI will make it much less costly to initiate and pursue litigation. For instance, it is now possible with one click to automatically generate a 1000-word lawsuit against robocallers. More generally, drafting a well-written complaint will require more than a single click, but in some scenarios, not much more. These changes will make it much easier for law firms to expand services to lower-income clients.

 

World Down Syndrome Day

Join us to promote full inclusion on World Down Syndrome Day
21 March is World Down Syndrome Day (WDSD) as declared by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2011.

On this day, people with Down syndrome and those who live and work with them throughout the world organise and participate in activities and events to raise public awareness and create a single global voice advocating for the rights, inclusion and well-being of people with Down syndrome.

WDSD has an official website, created and updated by DSi, where we share global events and activities.


March 21 2023 is World Down Syndrome Day

United Nations | March 21 2023 is World Down Syndrome Day — from un.org

Excerpt:

Down syndrome occurs when an individual has an extra partial (or whole) copy of chromosome 21. It is not yet know why this syndrome occurs, but Down syndrome has always been a part of the human condition. It exists in all regions across the globe and commonly results in variable effects on learning styles, physical characteristics and health.

Adequate access to health care, to early intervention programmes, and to inclusive education, as well as appropriate research, are vital to the growth and development of the individual.

Also relevant/see:

 

Challenging ‘Bad’ Online Policies and Attitudes — from insidehighered.com by Susan D’Agostino
Academic and industry leaders spoke with conviction at the SXSW EDU conference this week about approaches that impede educational access to motivated, capable learners.

Excerpts:

“It’s driven by artificial intelligence,” Barnes said of IBM’s training and reskilling effort. “It’s a Netflix-like interface that pushes content. Or an employee can select content…

The leaders discussed the ways in which colleges, policymakers, and employers might work together to help more Americans find or advance in viable employment, while also addressing the workforce skills gap. But some “bad” policies and attitudes about online learning undermine their efforts to work together, expand access and deliver outcomes to motivated, capable learners.

“Employers were saying, ‘We have job openings we can’t fill, and we want to work with the education system, but it is so unbelievably frustrating because they’re very rigid, and they don’t want to customize to our needs,’” Hansen said. These employers sought workforce training that could produce a pipeline of learners-turned-employees, and Hansen said they told him, “If you can do that, I’ll pay you.”

 

How ChatGPT is going to change the future of work and our approach to education — from livemint.com

From DSC: 
I thought that the article made a good point when it asserted:

The pace of technological advancement is booming aggressively and conversations around ChatGPT snatching away jobs are becoming more and more frequent. The future of work is definitely going to change and that makes it clear that the approach toward education is also demanding a big shift.

A report from Dell suggests that 85% of jobs that will be around in 2030 do not exist yet. The fact becomes important as it showcases that the jobs are not going to vanish, they will just change and most of the jobs by 2030 will be new.

The Future of Human Agency — from pewresearch.org by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie

Excerpt:

Thus the question: What is the future of human agency? Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center asked experts to share their insights on this; 540 technology innovators, developers, business and policy leaders, researchers, academics and activists responded. Specifically, they were asked:

By 2035, will smart machines, bots and systems powered by artificial intelligence be designed to allow humans to easily be in control of most tech-aided decision-making that is relevant to their lives?

The results of this nonscientific canvassing:

    • 56% of these experts agreed with the statement that by 2035 smart machines, bots and systems will not be designed to allow humans to easily be in control of most tech-aided decision-making.
    • 44% said they agreed with the statement that by 2035 smart machines, bots and systems will be designed to allow humans to easily be in control of most tech-aided decision-making.

What are the things humans really want agency over? When will they be comfortable turning to AI to help them make decisions? And under what circumstances will they be willing to outsource decisions altogether to digital systems?

The next big threat to AI might already be lurking on the web — from zdnet.com by Danny Palmer; via Sam DeBrule
Artificial intelligence experts warn attacks against datasets used to train machine-learning tools are worryingly cheap and could have major consequences.

Excerpts:

Data poisoning occurs when attackers tamper with the training data used to create deep-learning models. This action means it’s possible to affect the decisions that the AI makes in a way that is hard to track.

By secretly altering the source information used to train machine-learning algorithms, data-poisoning attacks have the potential to be extremely powerful because the AI will be learning from incorrect data and could make ‘wrong’ decisions that have significant consequences.

Why AI Won’t Cause Unemployment — from pmarca.substack.com by Marc Andreessen

Excerpt:

Normally I would make the standard arguments against technologically-driven unemployment — see good summaries by Henry Hazlitt (chapter 7) and Frédéric Bastiat (his metaphor directly relevant to AI). And I will come back and make those arguments soon. But I don’t even think the standand arguments are needed, since another problem will block the progress of AI across most of the economy first.

Which is: AI is already illegal for most of the economy, and will be for virtually all of the economy.

How do I know that? Because technology is already illegal in most of the economy, and that is becoming steadily more true over time.

How do I know that? Because:


From DSC:
And for me, it boils down to an inconvenient truth: What’s the state of our hearts and minds?

AI, ChatGPT, Large Language Models (LLMs), and the like are tools. How we use such tools varies upon what’s going on in our hearts and minds. A fork can be used to eat food. It can also be used as a weapon. I don’t mean to be so blunt, but I can’t think of another way to say it right now.

  • Do we care about one another…really?
  • Has capitalism gone astray?
  • Have our hearts, our thinking, and/or our mindsets gone astray?
  • Do the products we create help or hurt others? It seems like too many times our perspective is, “We will sell whatever they will buy, regardless of its impact on others — as long as it makes us money and gives us the standard of living that we want.” Perhaps we could poll some former executives from Philip Morris on this topic.
  • Or we will develop this new technology because we can develop this new technology. Who gives a rat’s tail about the ramifications of it?

 

Mixed media online project serves as inspiration for student journalists — from jeadigitalmedia.org by Michelle Balmeo

Excerpt:

If you’re on the hunt for inspiration, go check out Facing Life: Eight stories of life after life in California’s prisons.

This project, created by Pendarvis Harshaw and Brandon Tauszik, has so many wonderful and original storytelling components, it’s the perfect model for student journalists looking for ways to tell important stories online.

Facing Life -- eight stories of life after life in California's prisons

 

Employment of people with disabilities surges to a record high amid remote work policies — from thenationalnews.com; with thanks to Robert Gibson on LinkedIn for this resource
Employment among disabled people in the US rose to 21.3% in 2022

Excerpt:

Daily tasks such as commuting and navigating an office space can be difficult for people depending on their disabilities. As companies adopted remote and hybrid work arrangements, more disabled people applied for and landed jobs — sometimes for the first time in years.

The recent push by companies urging workers to return to the office may threaten the gains made by disabled people, who comprise about 12 per cent of the population, according to the bureau. A report by the consulting firm McKinsey and Company published last June estimated that 35 per cent of companies offered a fully remote option.

Overall, disabled people are still less likely to be employed than their counterparts who don’t have disabilities, and they are twice as likely to be employed part-time, the BLS report said. They’re also more likely to be self-employed.

 
© 2024 | Daniel Christian