Yeah (sorry): Start of Semester Planning
Should You Add an AI Policy to Your Syllabus? (Kevin Gannon, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 31, 2023): What to consider in drafting your own course policy on students’ use of tools like Chat GPT.
Engagement Tip: Create a First-Day Survey (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, July 25, 2023) Professors can start their academic terms off on the best foot with students by creating a first-day survey to collect information about learning goals, personal information and prior knowledge.
The First Day of Class: Fostering a Zest for Learning with a Sense of Empathy (Faculty Focus, Episode 63): Teacher-tested activities for the first day of class and how to make slight tweaks to make meaningful strides in relieving student mental health concerns and stress. By setting the stage on day one, students will be invested, interested, and ready for your class.
Productively and Painlessly Integrating Gen AI into Your Fall Classes (Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed, July 19, 2023): It is important that we give our learners experience in using generative AI to prepare them for job interviews, career advancement and efficient practices in the workplace. See, as well, This Fall, How Will You Integrate Gen AI into Your University Work (Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed, July 5, 2023): Now is the time to put into action your resolution to apply the power of AI at work.
How to Make Smart Choices About Tech for Your Course (Michelle D. Miller, Chronicle of Higher Education): Choosing the right tech tools for your teaching means making strategic choices, weighing costs against payoffs, and staying laser-focused on your course goals — and that is what this guide aims to help you do.
Teaching and Learning
Too Heavy to Go It Alone (William Cunion, Inside Higher Ed, August 4, 2023): The author describes what guidance from his fitness coach has reminded him about the importance of feedback in teaching.
What Does It Take to Elevate Good Teaching? (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 3, 2023): A lot, is the simple answer. Report includes collection of free advice guides, written by experts, to help improve teaching.
Promoting Student Success: Enhancing Student Engagement through Second Chances and Accountability (Thilagha Jagaiah, Faculty Focus, July 31, 2023): A second chance to redo the assignment aligns with the scaffolding theory of learning. As posited by Vygotsky (1978), learning is most effective when students are provided with the appropriate level of support and guidance to help them develop their skills and knowledge.
Learning from Math Errors (Learning Scientists, July 27, 2023): Perfection does not necessarily mean we’ve mastered the material or learned it well. Embracing errors and challenges can be a positive thing for learning.
Help Students Unlock the Power of Human Connection on Campus (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 27, 2023): Connecting with peers, professors, and staff members is a fundamental part of having a good college experience. But students don’t always know how important those relationships are — or how to form them. A new book is here to help. Connections Are Everything: A College Student’s Guide to Relationship-Rich Education is the student-facing follow-up to Relationship-Rich Education: How Human Connections Drive Success in College. The first book’s authors, Peter Felten and Leo M. Lambert, have added two more for the second: Isis Artze-Vega and Oscar R. Miranda Tapia. The book can be read free online.
The Psychodynamics of the College Classroom (Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, July 25, 2023): Understanding the relational and emotional aspects of teaching.
‘Teaching on Eggshells’: Students Report Professors’ Offensive Comments (Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, July 21, 2023): A recent survey shows about 75% of students would report professors for saying something they find offensive.
The ‘Profound Disadvantage’ of Nonnative English Speakers (John Ross, Inside Higher Ed, July 21, 2023): Survey finds it takes them much longer to perform routine academic tasks.
5 Ways to Ease Students Off the Lecture and Into Active Learning (Jeremy T. Murphy, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 18, 2023): Lecturing endures in college classrooms in part because students prefer that style of teaching. How can we shift that preference?
Five Benefits of Classroom Dialogue and One Way to Get Students Talking (Cambriae Lee, Faculty Focus, July 17, 2023): Classroom dialogue is a dynamic and interactive approach to learning that goes beyond passive listening and transforms education into a vibrant conversation.
A ‘Good Enough” Approach to Encouraging Attendance (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 13, 2023): Two faculty discuss ways to think about class attendance.
Deliberative Pedagogy (Timothy J. Shaffer, Teaching in Higher Ed, July 13, 2023): Listening deeply enough to be changed by what you learn is a hugely important practice. 43 minute podcast in which Shaffer shares his work on deliberative pedagogy.
Fostering Students’ Intercultural Competence (Shakil Rabbi, Inside Higher Ed, July 12, 2023): How an innovative class helped diverse students from various countries and backgrounds navigate cultural differences.
Teaching Evaluations Are Racist, Sexist, and Often Useless (David Delgado Shorter, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 11, 2023): It’s time to put these flawed measures in their place.
Sources of Cognitive Load (Althea Need Kaminske, Learning Scientists, July 6, 2023): An overview of the theory of cognitive load.
Little-Known Methods for Creating Co-Curricular Programming (Kathy Johnson Bowles, Inside Higher Ed, July 5, 2023): Explore the little-known challenges of selecting visiting artists for exhibitions and working with students.
Neurodivergent Students Need Flexibility, Not Our Frustration (Katie Rose Guest Pryal, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 3, 2023): In negotiating accommodations, we need more communication and less suspicion.
A.I. and Higher Ed
Scared of AI? Don’t Be, Computer-Science Instructors Say (Maggie Hicks, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 2, 2023): The discipline offers a potential model for integrating ChatGPT and other artificial-intelligence tools into the curriculum.
Embracing Constructive Dialogue and Oral Assessments in the Age of AI (Graham Clay and Cambriae W. Lee, Inside Higher Ed, August 3, 2023): Since AI is here to stay, instructors should consider using new approaches to assessing student knowledge.
Professors Craft Courses on ChatGPT with ChatGPT (Lauren Coffey, Inside Higher Ed, July 31, 2023): While some institutions are banning the use of the new AI tool, others are leaning into its use and offering courses dedicated solely to navigating the new technology.
Preparing Yourself for AI in the Classroom (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 20, 2023): McMurtrie describes an online training program to help faculty understand AI and shares additional resources, including How to Learn and Teach Economics With Large Language Models, Including GPT (preprint by Tyler Cowen and Alexander Tabarrok at George Mason University) and Using ChatGPT and Other Large Language Model (LLM) Applications for Academic Paper Assignments (preprint by Andreas Jungherr at the University of Bamberg).
GPT-4 Can Already Pass Freshman Year at Harvard (Maya Bodnick, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 26, 2023): Professors need to adapt to their students’ new reality – fast. See, as well, her earlier article, Chat GPT Goes to Harvard (Slow Boring, July 18, 2023): And does better than you might think! Read along with Stop Being Polite and Start Getting Real (John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, July 19, 2023): Don’t let students get away with a writing performance. Have them do the real thing.
AI Eroding AI? A New Era for Artificial Intelligence and Academic Integrity (JT Torres and Claude E. P. Mayo, Faculty Focus, July 19, 2023): When we view any kind of knowledge as property, the emergent danger is the potential for someone to “steal” someone else’s knowledge. But these anxieties emerge from an individualistic view of learning. What happens when we take a more social orientation to teaching and learning?
Warming Up to the Power of ChatGPT (Erin E. Kelly, Inside Higher Ed, July 13, 2023): Think of ChatGPT, the author argues, like a microwave oven – over time, we figured out what it was good for and how not to have to clean up after a potato that exploded.
Don’t Use A.I. to Cheat in School. It’s Better for Studying (Brian X. Chen, New York Times, June 30, 2023): Generative A.I. can be used as a study assistant, to make highlights in long research papers, answer questions about the material, and be used as like quizzes and flashcards.
100+ Creative Ideas to Use AI in Education, a crowdsourced collection edited by Chrissi Nerantzi, Antonio Martínez-Arboleda, Marianna Karatsiori, and Sandra Abegglen.
myessayfeedback.ai allows instructors to supervise and comment on supplementary formative AI feedback on student essays. The system is instructed not to revise student work or suggest new wording, and students are prompted to reflect critically on the feedback.
Free Speech and Academic Freedom
When Free Speech Collides with Academic Freedom (John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, July 6, 2023): Investigates a recent incident at the University of Chicago and the university’s “Chicago statement” tepid response.
Admissions After Affirmative Action
Study of Elite College Admissions Data Suggests Being Very Rich Is Its Own Qualification (Aatish Bhatia, Claire Cain Miller, and Josh Katz, The New York Times, July 24, 2023: A large new study argues that for applicants with the same SAT or ACT score, children from families in the top 1 percent were 34 percent more likely to be admitted than the average applicant, and those from the top 0.1 percent were more than twice as likely to get in. See, as well, Why You Have to Care About These 12 Colleges (Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic, July 24, 2023), and Harvard Will Never Be An Engine of Social Mobility (Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring, July 31, 2023).
The Supreme Court’s Segregationists (Richard Thompson Ford, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 10, 2023): Colleges must follow the law. But they don’t need to help the court fulfill its worst ambitions.
Who Knows What Potential Lurks in the Hearts of Students? The Professor Knows. (Maybe.) (Timothy Burke, Eight by Seven, July 6, 2023): Burke on John McWhorter, affirmative action, and meritocracy. McWhorter, he argues, “is simply wrong when he thinks that meritocracy ought to be so tightly tuned that only the absolute best, only the absolutely hardest worker, ought to be given the best rewards, the best chances, the most opportunities.”
GOP Senator Presses Colleges to Comply with Supreme Court Affirmative Action Ruling (Rebecca Shabad, NBC News, July 6, 2023): Senator J.D. Vance singles out Oberlin and Kenyon, along with the Ivies, to suggest there will be dangerous consequences if schools don’t comply with last week’s ruling.
Higher Ed
American Confidence in Higher Ed Hits Historic Low (Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, July 11, 2023): A Gallup poll shows only 36 percent of Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, which is down by about 20 percentage points from eight years ago.
Have a short article or some news related to teaching and learning at your institution that you’d like to share with colleagues? Send your contribution along to us. Also, please email Colleen Monahan Smith (smith@glca.org) if you have colleagues who would like to receive this weekly report.
Steven Volk (steven.volk@oberlin.edu), Editor
GLCA/GLAA Consortium for Teaching and Learning
Co-Directors:
Lew Ludwig (ludwigl@denison.edu)
Colleen Monahan Smith (smith@glca.org)