34 Big Ideas that will change our world in 2024 — from linkedin.com
Excerpts:
6. ChatGPT’s hype will fade, as a new generation of tailor-made bots rises up
11. We’ll finally turn the corner on teacher pay in 2024
21. Employers will combat job applicants’ use of AI with…more AI
31. Universities will view the creator economy as a viable career path
3 Questions for Deborah Dougherty on Higher Ed’s Past and Future — from insidehighered.com by Joshua Kim
A conversation with the director of the Andison Center for Teaching Excellence at Alma College about higher ed in 2060.
From DSC:
I was hoping to see a bit more from Deborah’s answer to where she sees higher education (including Alma College) might end up 35 years from now. Her answer seemed like business as usual — the status quo. Nothing will change (hopefully, in her perspective). If that’s the case, many will be shut out of higher education. We can do better. I don’t mean to bash a residential, liberal arts, collegiate experience. I worked for such an institution for 10 years! But it needs to be augmented. New business models. More access.
Butler University launches two-year college with degrees free to most students — from chalkbeat.org by MJ Slaby
Students can earn an associate degree from Butler University at no cost to them, and continue on to earn a bachelor’s degree for $10,000, thanks to a new program.
On Friday, Butler announced it is opening a new two-year college on campus that will offer associate degrees in business and allied health. The program will start enrolling students in fall 2025.
The program is focused on Indianapolis-area students from low-income backgrounds, including students who are undocumented. The university said in its Friday announcement that it wants to make college more accessible and affordable for previously underserved students, and help them navigate the college-going process.
Can new AI help to level up the scales of justice? — from gtlaw.com.au by Peter Waters, Jason Oliver, and David Baddeley
So asks a recent study by two academics from Stanford Law School, David Freeman Engstrom and Nora Freeman Engstrom, on the potential impact of AI on the civil litigation landscape in the US.
It is against this landscape, the study observes, that champions of legal tech have suggested that there is an opportunity for legal tech to “democratise” litigation and put litigation’s “haves” and “have nots” on a more equal footing, by arming smaller firms and sole practitioners with the tools necessary to do battle against their better resourced opponents, and cutting the cost of legal services, putting lawyers within reach of a wider swathe of people.
But is this a real opportunity, and will AI be key to its realisation?
…
However, while AI may reduce the justice gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” of litigation, it could also exacerbate existing inequalities.
From DSC:
While this article approaches things from the lawyer’s viewpoint, I’d like to see this question and the use of AI from the common man’s/woman’s viewpoint. Why? In order to provide FAR GREATER access to justice (#A2J) for those who can’t afford a lawyer as they head into the civil law courtrooms.
Bottom line:
It is my hope that technology can help increase access to justice.
Also relevant/see:
Virtual Justice? Exploring AI’s impact on legal accessibility — from nortonrosefulbright.com by Chris Owen and Mary-Frances Murphy
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
A number of products are already under development, or have been launched. One example is a project that Norton Rose Fulbright is working on, together with not-for-profit legal service Justice Connect. The scope is to develop an automated natural language processing AI model that seeks to interpret the ‘everyday’ language used by clients in order to identify the client’s legal issues and correctly diagnose their legal problem. This tool is aimed at addressing the struggles that individuals often face in deciphering legal jargon and understanding the nature of their legal issue and the type of lawyer, or legal support, they need to resolve that problem.
Instructional Designers as Institutional Change Agents — from er.educause.edu/ by Aaron Bond, Barb Lockee and Samantha Blevins
Systems thinking and change strategies can be used to improve the overall functioning of a system. Because instructional designers typically use systems thinking to facilitate behavioral changes and improve institutional performance, they are uniquely positioned to be change agents at higher education institutions.
In higher education, instructional designers are often seen as “change agents” because they help to facilitate behavioral changes and improve performance at their institutions. Due to their unique position of influence among higher education leaders and faculty and their use of systems thinking, instructional designers can help bridge institutional priorities and the specific needs of various stakeholders. COVID-19 and the switch to emergency remote teaching raised awareness of the critical services instructional designers provide, including preparing faculty to teach—and students to learn—in well-designed learning environments. Today, higher education institutions increasingly rely on the experience and expertise of instructional designers.
Figure 1. How Instructional Designers Employ Systems Thinking
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The Colonnade of a Barcelona University Building Embodies a 13-Meter-Tall Heart by Jaume Plensa — from thisiscolossal.com by Kate Mothes
Comically Candid Snapshots Culminate in the 2023 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards — from thisiscolossal.com by Jackie Andres
“Zen-Xan” by Photographer Lawrence Hardy — from booooooom.com by Lawrence Hardy
From the world of science, see:
One of the Most Colorful Composites of the Universe Highlights Galaxies 4.3 Billion Light-Years from Earth — from thisiscolossal.com by Grace Ebert
AI Pedagogy Project, metaLAB (at) Harvard
Creative and critical engagement with AI in education. A collection of assignments and materials inspired by the humanities, for educators curious about how AI affects their students and their syllabi
AI Guide
Focused on the essentials and written to be accessible to a newcomer, this interactive guide will give you the background you need to feel more confident with engaging conversations about AI in your classroom.
From #47 of SAIL: Sensemaking AI Learning — by George Siemens
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL), a regular look at how AI is impacting education and learning.
Over the last year, after dozens of conferences, many webinars, panels, workshops, and many (many) conversations with colleagues, it’s starting to feel like higher education, as a system, is in an AI groundhog’s day loop. I haven’t heard anything novel generated by universities. We have a chatbot! Soon it will be a tutor! We have a generative AI faculty council! Here’s our list of links to sites that also have lists! We need AI literacy! My mantra over the last while has been that higher education leadership is failing us on AI in a more dramatic way than it failed us on digitization and online learning. What will your universities be buying from AI vendors in five years because they failed to develop a strategic vision and capabilities today?
AI + the Education System — from drphilippahardman.substack.com Dr. Philippa Hardman
The key to relevance, value & excellence?
The magic school of the future is one that helps students learn to work together and care for each other — from stefanbauschard.substack.com by Stefan Bauschard
AI is going to alter economic and professional structures. Will we alter the educational structures?
(e) What is really required is a significant re-organization of schooling and curriculum. At a meta-level, the school system is focused on developing the type of intelligence I opened with, and the economic value of that is going to rapidly decline.
(f). This is all going to happen very quickly (faster than any previous change in history), and many people aren’t paying attention. AI is already here.
From DSC:
As I’ve long stated on the Learning from the Living [Class]Room vision, we are heading toward a new AI-empowered learning platform — where humans play a critically important role in making this new learning ecosystem work.
Along these lines, I ran into this site out on X/Twitter. We’ll see how this unfolds, but it will be an interesting space to watch.
From DSC:
This future learning platform will also focus on developing skills and competencies. Along those lines, see:
Scale for Skills-First — from the-job.beehiiv.com by Paul Fain
An ed-tech giant’s ambitious moves into digital credentialing and learner records.
A Digital Canvas for Skills
Instructure was a player in the skills and credentials space before its recent acquisition of Parchment, a digital transcript company. But that $800M move made many observers wonder if Instructure can develop digital records of skills that learners, colleges, and employers might actually use broadly.
…
Ultimately, he says, the CLR approach will allow students to bring these various learning types into a coherent format for employers.
Instructure seeks a leadership role in working with other organizations to establish common standards for credentials and learner records, to help create consistency. The company collaborates closely with 1EdTech. And last month it helped launch the 1EdTech TrustEd Microcredential Coalition, which aims to increase quality and trust in digital credentials.
Paul also links to 1EDTECH’s page regarding the Comprehensive Learning Record
From GPTs (pt. 3) — from theneurondaily.com by Noah Edelman
BTW, here are a few GPTs worth checking out today:
Some notes from Dan Fitzpatrick – The AI Educator:
Custom GPT Bots:
Custom GPT Store:
From DSC:
I appreciate Dan’s potential menu of options for a child’s education:
Monday AM: Sports club
Monday PM: Synthesis Online School AI Tutor
Tuesday AM: Music Lesson
Tuesday PM: Synthesis Online School Group Work
Wednesday AM: Drama Rehearsal
Wednesday PM: Synthesis Online School AI Tutor
Thursday AM: Volunteer work
Thursday PM: Private study
Friday AM: Work experience
Friday PM: Work experience
Our daughter has special learning needs and this is very similar to what she is doing.
Also, Dan has a couple of videos out here at Google for Education:
The future of generative AI in higher ed? How to be critical, pragmatic, and playful at once? Nothing like having someone you admire ask you hard questions in a friendly way. This Q&A with Leon Furze got me to take a stab at articulating some responses.https://t.co/IxreZYwWmv
— Anna Mills, annamillsoer.bsky.social, she/her (@EnglishOER) November 13, 2023
Tuesday’s AI Ten for Educators (November 14) — from stefanbauschard.substack.com by Stefan Bauschard
Ten AI developments for educators to be aware of
Two boxes. In my May Cottesmore presentation, I put up two boxes:
(a) Box 1 — How educators can use AI to do what they do now (lesson plans, quizzes, tests, vocabulary lists, etc.)
(b) Box 2 — How the education system needs to change because, in the near future (sort of already), everyone is going to have multiple AIs working with them all day, and the premium on intelligence, especially “knowledge-based” intelligence, is going to decline rapidly. It’s hard to think that significant changes in the education system won’t be needed to accommodate that change.
There is a lot of focus on preparing educators to work in Box 1, which is important, if for no other reason than that they can see the power of even the current but limited technologies, but the hard questions are starting to be about Box 2. I encourage you to start those conversations, as the “ed tech” companies already are, and they’ll be happy to provide the answers and the services if you don’t want to.
Practical suggestions: Two AI teams in your institution. Team 1 works on Box A and Team 2 works on Box B.
Universities Can’t Accommodate All the Computer Science Majors — from insidehighered.com by Johanna Alonso
High interest in the field has led to overcrowded classes and other issues. Now some institutions are adding requirements to help force students out of the major.
Before this year, if you wanted to major in computer science at the University of Michigan, your only barrier was getting accepted to the university.
But a new model requires all students who want to study computer science—whether they are incoming or already enrolled—to apply for the major separately.
Michael Wellman, Michigan’s chair of computer science and engineering, said that the university has worked for years to try to accommodate everyone who wants to study the subject, hiring as many as six faculty members annually in recent years and even building a new computer science facility. The number of CS degrees awarded rose from 132 in 2012 to 600 in 2022.
A future-facing minister, a young inventor and a shared vision: An AI tutor for every student — from news.microsoft.com by Chris Welsch
The Ministry of Education and Pativada see what has become known as the U.A.E. AI Tutor as a way to provide students with 24/7 assistance as well as help level the playing field for those families who cannot afford a private tutor. At the same time, the AI Tutor would be an aid to teachers, they say. “We see it as a tool that will support our teachers,” says Aljughaiman. “This is a supplement to classroom learning.”
If everything goes according to plan, every student in the United Arab Emirates’ school system will have a personal AI tutor – that fits in their pockets.
It’s a story that involves an element of coincidence, a forward-looking education minister and a tech team led by a chief executive officer who still lives at home with his parents.
In February 2023, the U.A.E.’s education minister, His Excellency Dr. Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, announced that the ministry was embracing AI technology and pursuing the idea of an AI tutor to help Emirati students succeed. And he also announced that the speech he presented had been written by ChatGPT. “We should not demonize AI,” he said at the time.
Fostering deep learning in humans and amplifying our intelligence in an AI World — from stefanbauschard.substack.com by Stefan Bauschard
A free 288-page report on advancements in AI and related technology, their effects on education, and our practical support for AI-amplified human deep learning
Six weeks ago, Dr. Sabba Quidwai and I accidentally stumbled upon an idea to compare the deep learning revolution in computer science to the mostly lacking deep learning efforts in education (Mehta & Fine). I started writing, and as these things often go with me, I thought there were many other things that would be useful to think through and for educators to know, and we ended up with this 288-page report.
***
Here’s an abstract from that report:
This report looks at the growing gap between the attention paid to the development of intelligence in machines and humans. While computer scientists have made great strides in developing human intelligence capacities in machines using deep learning technologies, including the abilities of machines to learn on their own, a significant part of the education system has not kept up with developing the intelligence capabilities in people that will enable them to succeed in the 21st century. Instead of fully embracing pedagogical methods that place primary emphasis on promoting collaboration, critical thinking, communication, creativity, and self-learning through experiential, interdisciplinary approaches grounded in human deep learning and combined with current technologies, a substantial portion of the educational system continues to heavily rely on traditional instructional methods and goals. These methods and goals prioritize knowledge acquisition and organization, areas in which machines already perform substantially better than people.
Also from Stefan Bauschard, see:
13 Nuggets of AI Wisdom for Higher Education Leaders — from jeppestricker.substack.com by Jeppe Klitgaard Stricker
Actionable AI Guidance for Higher Education Leaders
Incentivize faculty AI innovation with AI.
Invest in people first, then technology.
On teaching, learning, and assessment. AI has captured the attention of all institutional stakeholders. Capitalize to reimagine pedagogy and evaluation. Rethink lectures, examinations, and assignments to align with workforce needs. Consider incorporating Problem-Based Learning, building portfolios and proof of work, and conducting oral exams. And use AI to provide individualized support and assess real-world skills.
Actively engage students.
Some thoughts from George Siemens re: AI:
Sensemaking, AI, and Learning (SAIL), a regular look at how AI is impacting learning.
Our education system has a uni-dimensional focus: learning things. Of course, we say we care about developing the whole learner, but the metrics that matter (grade, transcripts) that underpin the education system are largely focused on teaching students things that have long been Google-able but are now increasingly doable by AI. Developments in AI matters in ways that calls into question large parts of what happens in our universities. This is not a statement that people don’t need to learn core concepts and skills. My point is that the fulcrum of learning has shifted. Knowing things will continue to matter less and less going forward as AI improves its capabilities. We’ll need to start intentionally developing broader and broader attributes of learners: metacognition, wellness, affect, social engagement, etc. Education will continue to shift toward human skills and away from primary assessment of knowledge gains disconnected from skills and practice and ways of being.
AI, the Next Chapter for College Librarians — from insidehighered.com by Lauren Coffey
Librarians have lived through the disruptions of fax machines, websites and Wikipedia, and now they are bracing to do it again as artificial intelligence tools go mainstream: “Maybe it’s our time to shine.”
A few months after ChatGPT launched last fall, faculty and students at Northwestern University had many questions about the building wave of new artificial intelligence tools. So they turned to a familiar source of help: the library.
“At the time it was seen as a research and citation problem, so that led them to us,” said Michelle Guittar, head of instruction and curriculum support at Northwestern University Libraries.
In response, Guittar, along with librarian Jeanette Moss, created a landing page in April, “Using AI Tools in Your Research.” At the time, the university itself had yet to put together a comprehensive resource page.
From Dr. Nick Jackson’s recent post on LinkedIn:
Last night the Digitech team of junior and senior teachers from Scotch College Adelaide showcased their 2023 experiments, innovation, successes and failures with technology in education. Accompanied by Student digital leaders, we saw the following:
Almost an Agent: What GPTs can do — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick
What would a real AI agent look like? A simple agent that writes academic papers would, after being given a dataset and a field of study, read about how to compose a good paper, analyze the data, conduct a literature review, generate hypotheses, test them, and then write up the results, all without intervention. You put in a request, you get a Word document that contains a draft of an academic paper.
A process kind of like this one:
What I Learned From an Experiment to Apply Generative AI to My Data Course — from edsurge.com by Wendy Castillo
As an educator, I have a duty to remain informed about the latest developments in generative AI, not only to ensure learning is happening, but to stay on top of what tools exist, what benefits and limitations they have, and most importantly, how students might be using them.
However, it’s also important to acknowledge that the quality of work produced by students now requires higher expectations and potential adjustments to grading practices. The baseline is no longer zero, it is AI. And the upper limit of what humans can achieve with these new capabilities remains an unknown frontier.
Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: Trick or Treat? — from tytonpartners.com by Kristen Fox and Catherine Shaw
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