What does active learning require from students? There is no secret that PBL and all other active learning approaches are much more demanding from students compared to traditional methods, mainly in terms of skills and attitudes towards learning. Here are some of the aspects where students, especially when first faced to active learning, seem to struggle:
Formulating own learning goals and following through with independent study. While in traditional teaching the learning goals are given to students, in PBL (or at least in some of its purest variants), they need to come up with their own, for each problem they are solving. This requires understanding the problem well but also a certain frame of mind where one can assess what is necessary to solve it and make a plan of how to go about it (independently and as a group). All these seemingly easy steps are often new to students and something they intrinsically expect from us as educators.
From DSC: The above excerpt re: formulating one’s own learning goals reminded me of project management and learning how to be a project manager.
It reminded me of a project that I was assigned back at Kraft (actually Kraft General Foods at the time). It was an online-based directory of everyone in the company at the time. When it was given to me, several questions arose in my mind:
Where do I start?
How do I even organize this project?
What is the list of to-do’s?
Who will I need to work with?
Luckily I had a mentor/guide who helped me get going and an excellent contact with the vendor who educated me and helped me get the ball rolling.
I’ll end with another quote and a brief comment:
Not being afraid of mistakes and learning from them. The education system, at all stages, still penalises mistakes, often with long term consequences. So it’s no wonder students are afraid of making mistakes…
Which Way to the Fitting Room? — from michelleweise.substack.com by Dr. Michelle R. Weise Trying on the Jobs of the Future
What if there was a way in which we could try on different careers and pathways? What if there was such a thing as a career pathway fitting room so that we could better understand the direction we might want to pursue before we make an investment or take out a loan?
One venture-backed company called Springpod has made this challenge its central focus: Helping more people not choose the wrong career or pathway. In its current formation in the UK (Springpod is now branching out to the state of Rhode Island), over 400,000 British middle and high school learners can try a “course taster,” or 10 to 15 hours of a university course from an array of universities (1/3 of the postsecondary institutions in the UK offer a course spotlight on Springpod). Alternatively, a learner can try a one- to two-hour work-based learning experience with one of the 200 employers featured on the platform.
From DSC: Speaking of finding out more about careers, I haven’t yet checked this program out, but we would like our youngest daughter to watch some of its episodes:
Ever wondered what you might want to do for the rest of your life? Have you thought about your “dream” job? Do you have any idea what it takes to get there? Are you headed in the right direction? Real Life 101 takes you “on the job” so you can see for yourself why these professionals love what they do.
The Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) has announced the launch of its virtual stage, a tech-focused project designed to bring immersive technologies into ballet.
The BRB has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator Programme, allowing the institution to invest in equipment and staff training to allow its team to explore immersive technologies with its partners Canon and RiVR.
The virtual stage project aims to explore ways in which AR, VR, 3D mapping and motion capture can be used to enhance the BRB’s productions and experiences.
With the advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), designers now have access to a wide array of free AI-powered tools that streamline their creative process, enhance productivity, and add a touch of uniqueness to their designs. In this article, we will explore ten such free AI tools websites for graphic designing that have revolutionized the way designers approach their craft.
Generative Art in Motion— from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather Cooper Animation and video tools create an explosion of creative expression
Google will soon require that political ads using artificial intelligence be accompanied by a prominent disclosure if imagery or sounds have been synthetically altered.
AI-generated election ads on YouTube and other Google platforms that alter people or events must include a clear disclaimer located somewhere that users are likely to notice, the company said in an update this week to its political content policy.
What we teachers desperately need, though, is an ocean of examples and training. We need to see and share examples of generative AI—any type of artificial intelligence that can be used to create new text, images, video, audio, code, or data—being used across the curriculum. We need catalogs of new lesson plans and new curriculum.
And we need training on theoretical and practical levels: training to understand what artificial intelligence actually is and where it stands in the development timeline and training about how to integrate it into our classes.
So, my advice to teachers is to use any and all the generative AI you can get your hands on. Then experience—for yourself—verification of the information. Track it back to the source because in doing so, you’ll land on the adjustments you need to make in your classes next year.
From DSC: Interesting.
Learners can now seamlessly transition between AI-powered assistance (AI Tutor) and Live Expert support to get access to instant support, whether through AI-guided learning or real-time interactions with a human expert.
ASSIGNMENT MAKEOVERS IN THE AI AGE WITH DEREK BRUFF — from teachinginhighered.com by Bonni Stachowiak Derek Bruff shares about assignment makeovers in the AI age on episode 481 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast
Comment on this per Derek Bruff:
Why not ask ChatGPT to write what King or X would say about a current debate and then have the students critique the ChatGPT output? That would meet the same learning goals while also teaching AI literacy.
(Be sure to read Asim’s contribution for a useful take.)
Here’s a closer look at the concurrent AI landscape in schools — and a prediction of what the future holds.
So far, high-profile ventures in the instruction realm, such asKyron Learning, have fused teacher-produced, recorded content with LLM-powered conversational UX. The micro-learning tool Nolej references internet material when generating tasks and tests, but always holds the language model closely to the ground truth provided by teachers. Both are intriguing takes on re-imagining how to deliver core instruction and avoid hallucinations (generated content that is nonsensical).
As a result, real-time 3D jobs are among the most in demand within the tech industry. According to Unity’s vice president of Education and Social Impact, Jessica Lindl, demand is 50% higher than traditional IT jobs—adding that salaries for real-time 3D jobs are 60% greater.
“We want to provide really simple on ramps and pathways that will lead you into entry level jobs so that at any point in your career, you can decide to transfer into the industry,” Lindl says.
University World News continues its exploration of generative AI in our new special report on ‘AI and Higher Education’. In commentaries and features, academics and our journalists around the world investigate issues and developments around AI that are impacting on universities. Generative AI tools are challenging and changing higher education systems and institutions — how they are run as well as ways of teaching and learning and conducting research.
My advice for you today is this: fill your LinkedIn-feed and/or inbox with ideas, inspirational writing and commentary on AI.
This will get you up to speed quickly and is a great way to stay informed on the newest movements you need to be aware of.
My personal recommendation for you is to check out these bright people who are all very active on LinkedIn and/or have a newsletter worth paying attention to.
I have kept the list fairly short – only 15 people – in order to make it as easy as possible for you to begin exploring.
It is crucial to recognize that the intrinsic value of higher education isn’t purely in its ability to adapt to market fluctuations or technological innovations. Its core strength lies in promoting critical thinking, nurturing creativity, and instilling a sense of purpose and belonging. As AI progresses, these traits will likely become even more crucial. The question then becomes if higher education institutions as we know them today are the ony ones, or indeed the best ones, equipped to convey those core strengths to students.
Higher education clearly finds itself caught in a whirlwind of transformation, both in its essence and execution. The juxtaposition of legacy structures and the evolving technological landscape paints a complex picture.
For institutional leaders, the dual challenge lies in proactively seeking and initiating change (not merely adapting to it) without losing sight of their foundational principles. Simultaneously, they must equip students with skills and perspectives that AI cannot replicate.
“They begged, bargained with, and berated their instructor in pursuit of better grades — not “because they like points,” but rather, “because the education system has told them that these points are the currency with which they can buy a successful future.””
36% satisfied with U.S. K-12 education quality, matching record low in 2000
76% of K-12 parents satisfied with own child’s, 41% with U.S., education
Republicans’ satisfaction with K-12 education at new low of 25%
Still, parents of elementary and secondary school students remain quite satisfied with the education their child is getting, and they offer mostly positive reviews of the performance of their children’s teachers. If parental satisfaction wanes, however, parents may choose to move their child to a different school.
Exclusive new polling by The Chronicle suggests Americans still believe that college credentials have value, even as many hold reservations about higher education’s track record of benefiting society and educating students, our Eric Kelderman reports.
People would generally tell a close friend or relative that getting a college degree is worth it, according to a national survey conducted for The Chronicle. Almost eight in 10 respondents said they’d tell a close friend to seek a bachelor’s degree. Even among those who thought their own associate or bachelor’s degree wasn’t worthwhile, 57 percent would tell a friend to go for a bachelor’s.
… But wait. Respondents were tepid when asked how well colleges were fulfilling key parts of their missions.
Only 30 percent said colleges were doing an excellent or very good job leveling the playing field for success.
Just 40 percent said colleges are excellent or very good at educating students.
A flashing red light: Those with more education felt worse about colleges’ ability to educate students than did those with a high-school degree or less.
The bigger picture: Colleges still have reservoirs of public support to tap, but they can’t expect to win more hearts and minds merely by telling their stories better. Higher ed’s skeptics include many people who’ve passed through campuses, suggesting business as usual won’t cut it — even when it comes to the core work of educating students.
Despite enrollment and completion rates declining and Americans’ confidence in higher education falling, the economic case for earning a college degree remains solid. College graduates earn about $1 million more over the course of their working years than U.S. adults with no college degree, on average.
However, a college degree has value beyond financial gain.
…
The results show that additional years of education beyond high school make for a healthier, more civic-minded individual who is more likely to interact with neighbors and family members, and to do work that aligns with their natural talents and interests.
Whilst we typically cover a single ‘prompt’ to use with ChatGPT, today we’re exploring a new feature now available to everyone: custom instructions.
You provide specific directions for ChatGPT leading to greater control of the output. It’s all about guiding the AI to get the responses you really want.
To get started:
Log into ChatGPT ? Click on your name/email bottom left corner ? select ‘Custom instructions’
We’re excited to introduce you to AI Companion (formerly Zoom IQ), your new generative AI assistant across the Zoom platform. AI Companion empowers individuals by helping them be more productive, connect and collaborate with teammates, and improve their skills.
…
Envision being able to interact with AI Companion through a conversational interface and ask for help on a whole range of tasks, similarly to how you would with a real assistant. You’ll be able to ask it to help prepare for your upcoming meeting, get a consolidated summary of prior Zoom meetings and relevant chat threads, and even find relevant documents and tickets from connected third-party applications with your permission.
From DSC: “You can ask AI Companion to catch you up on what you missed during a meeting in progress.”
And what if some key details were missed? Should you rely on this? I’d treat this with care/caution myself.
That’s because, as it turns out, it’s nearly impossible to remove a user’s data from a trained A.I. model without resetting the model and forfeiting the extensive money and effort put into training it. To use a human analogy, once an A.I. has “seen” something, there is no easy way to tell the model to “forget” what it saw. And deleting the model entirely is also surprisingly difficult.
This represents one of the thorniest, unresolved, challenges of our incipient artificial intelligence era, alongside issues like A.I. “hallucinations” and the difficulties of explaining certain A.I. outputs.
This strategic move aims to make the process of creating visuals such as logos, banners, and more, even more simple for businesses and entrepreneurs.
This latest integration could improve the way users generate visuals by offering a streamlined and user-friendly approach to digital design.
From DSC: This Tweet addresses a likely component of our future learning ecosystems:
Excited to introduce YouPro for Education—your AI study buddy.
Access unlimited AI chat + search, unlimited AI writing generations, unlimited AI art generations, supercharged with GPT-4 and Stable Diffusion XL at just $6.99/month for students and teachers. pic.twitter.com/0t8zf0AaLr
That’s why a growing number of researchers—computer scientists, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, linguists—want to overhaul the way they are assessed, calling for more rigorous and exhaustive evaluation. Some think that the practice of scoring machines on human tests is wrongheaded, period, and should be ditched.
“There’s a lot of anthropomorphizing going on,” she says. “And that’s kind of coloring the way that we think about these systems and how we test them.”
“There is a long history of developing methods to test the human mind,” says Laura Weidinger, a senior research scientist at Google DeepMind. “With large language models producing text that seems so human-like, it is tempting to assume that human psychology tests will be useful for evaluating them. But that’s not true: human psychology tests rely on many assumptions that may not hold for large language models.”
In concert with the fine folks at Datos, whose opt-in, anonymized panel of 20M devices (desktop and mobile, covering 200+ countries) provides outstanding insight into what real people are doing on the web, we undertook a challenging project to answer at least some of the mystery surrounding ChatGPT.
“In terms of human capital development, for instance, AI can be the teacher that helps the national workforce upskill in both AI-related and other domains.”
With the field of artificial intelligence evolving at near breakneck speed, scammers now have access to tools that can help them execute highly sophisticated attacks en masse, warns the co-founder of Web3 security firm Quantstamp.
For nearly 39 years, I have taught about and advocated for diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-racism and social justice in Christian contexts. I have been sustained by the knowledge that diversity is a part of God’s good creation and is celebrated in the Bible.
And not just diversity, but love for our neighbors, care for the immigrant, and justice for the marginalized and oppressed. In fact, the Hebrew and Greek words for justice appear in Scripture more than 1,000 times.
It could be argued that Jesus’ ministry on earth exemplified the value of diversity, the importance of inclusion and the obligation of justice and restoration. Our ministry — in schools, churches, business, wherever we find ourselves — should reflect the same.
From DSC: I was at Calvin (then College) when Michelle was there. I am very grateful for her work over my 10+ years there. I learned many things from her and had my “lenses” refined several times due to her presentations, questions, and the media that she showed. Thank you Michelle for all of your work and up-hill efforts! It’s made a difference! It impacted the culture at Calvin. It impacted me.
The other thing that hepled me in my background was when my family moved to a much more diverse area. And I’ve tried to continue that perspective in my own family. I don’t know half of the languages that are spoken in our neighborhood, but I love the diversity there! I believe our kids (now mostly grown) have benefited from it and are better prepared for what they will encounter in the real world.
8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly[a] with your God.
64 The earth is filled with your love, Lord; teach me your decrees.
DC: I can’t see the LORD’s face — not in this lifetime. But I can try to fix my *thoughts* & *heart* on the LORD. Thus, slowly & over the years, the transformation is made — via what I think about & how I think.
“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) August 31, 2023
Habit #2: Engage students in a brain dump or two things as an entry ticket or exit ticket. Spend one minute or less having students write down everything (or just two things) they remember from class. The key: Don’t grade it! Keep retrieval practice no-stakes to emphasize it’s a learning strategy, not an assessment strategy.
Teaching from the heart in 13 steps — from timeshighereducation.com by Beiting He Engaging your students through empathy requires teachers to share their own stories and vulnerabilities and foster a safe space for learning. Here, Beiting He offers 13 ways to create a caring classroom
In summary, “I wish” is about proposing positive changes and improvements, while “I wonder” is about asking thoughtful questions to gain insight and foster meaningful conversations within the team.
The intersection of AI and the world of work: Not only are job postings increasing, but we’re seeing more LinkedIn members around the globe adding AI skills to their profiles than ever before. We’ve seen a 21x increase in the share of global English-language job postings that mention new AI technologies such as GPT or ChatGPT since November 2022. In June 2023, the number of AI-skilled members was 9x larger than in January 2016, globally.
The state of play of Generative AI (GAI) in the workforce: GAI technologies, including ChatGPT, are poised to start to change the way we work. In fact, 47% of US executives believe that using generative AI will increase productivity, and 92% agree that people skills are more important than ever. This means jobs won’t necessarily go away but they will change as will the skills necessary to do them.
A look back over 10 years of MOOCs— from timeshighereducation.com by Melissa Highton Lessons learned over a decade of developing and delivering massive open online courses (MOOCs)
We began developing massive open online courses (Moocs) 10 years ago. The aim was to experiment with new ways of teaching online, to research what kinds of learning and courses could be achieved, and to have fun. We were never in it for the money.
Although it was undeniably expensive at the start, a decade later, this activity has brought considerable return on that investment in terms of what we have learned, the places we have reached and the impact we have had, inside and outside our institution.
The University of Edinburgh now offers 80 online master’s courses drawn from all disciplines and 100 Moocs and microcredentials, reaching 4.7 million learners around the world.
A new international survey of lawyers, law students and consumers finds that nearly half believe generative AI will have a significant or transformative impact on the practice of law.
Conducted by LexisNexis and released this morning at ILTACON, the annual conference of the International Legal Technology Association, the survey polled 7,950 lawyers, law students and consumers in the U.S., U.K., Canada and France about their overall awareness of generative AI and their perspectives on its potential impact on the practice of law.
Thomson Reuters has released its Future of Professionals Report. The research was conducted during the months of May and June 2023 via an online survey. More than 1,200 professionals from the legal, tax and accounting, and risk professions employed by corporations, firms, and government agencies completed the survey.
Art created by artificial intelligence cannot receive copyright protection under U.S. law, a federal judge ruled last week in a case that could influence the outcomes of future disputes over authorship and intellectual property.
Thanks for dropping by my Learning Ecosystems blog!
My name is Daniel Christian and this blog seeks to cover the teaching and learning environments within the K-12 (including homeschooling, learning pods/micro-schools), collegiate, and corporate training spaces -- whether those environments be face-to-face, blended, hyflex, or 100% online.
Just as the organizations that we work for have their own learning ecosystems, each of us has our own learning ecosystem. We need to be very intentional about enhancing those learning ecosystems -- as we all need to be lifelong learners in order to remain marketable and employed. It's no longer about running sprints (i.e., getting a 4-year degree or going to a vocational school and then calling it quits), but rather, we are all running marathons now (i.e., we are into lifelong learning these days).
