AI's Impact on Learning with Marc Watkins

There was a moment in the summer of 2023 where it seemed all of higher education faculty realized that they would need to rethink their fall assignments in light of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools. "Assignment makeovers" then dominated the conversations (and faculty development workshops) for the rest of the summer, as instructors in all kinds of disciplines considered how AI text generation might be used to enhance or subvert their regular assignments and then redesigned those assignments in response. Will we have another moment like that in the summer of 2024?

I'm thinking we will based on the new Intentional Teaching podcast interview with Marc Watkins. Marc is a lecturer in writing and rhetoric at the University of Mississippi, as well as an academic innovation fellow there. He's been a leading voice in conversations about AI and teaching and learning, and I was very excited to have him on the podcast to talk about his new blog series, "Beyond ChatGPT." Where last summer we had to worry about AI text generation's effects on our assignments and assessments, this summer Marc argues we need to be thinking about AI's impact on all kinds of elements of learning, from reading to notetaking to tutoring and more.

In the podcast interview, Marc reports out on the ways that generative AI is being marketed to students on TikTok, explains some of the opportunities and problems posed by AI reading and notetaking assistants, and offers some ideas for how instructors might add some useful friction to learning activities so that students don't outsource important skill development to AI. Marc is someone I look to in order to keep up with this rapidly changing landscape, and I'm glad to have him share some of his insights and ideas with my podcast audience.

​You can listen to my interview with Marc Watkins here, or just search for "Intentional Teaching" in your favorite podcast app.

New Collections on UVA's Teaching Hub

I've been working with the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Virginia to recruit more contributors to Teaching Hub, a CTE website designed to crowdsource the best teaching and learning resources around higher ed, resources useful for instructors, educational developers, and instructional designers.

Each collection on Teaching Hub features a relatively small number of resources (usually between four and seven) that have been curated by an expert on a particular teaching topic. These best-of-the-best resources include journal articles, teaching guides, books, podcasts, and more, all selected to help folks dig into the topic.

Two of the latest collections on Teaching Hub are from past Intentional Teaching podcast guests. Justin Shaffer, teaching professor at the Colorado School of Mines, has curated a new collection on high structure course design, the topic of his forthcoming book. And Pary Fassihi, senior lecturer in academic writing, research, and digital media at Boston University, has shared her favorite resources on navigating an AI-driven writing classroom.

Both of these new collections are fantastic, and I'm excited to have Justin and Pary join the roster of Teaching Hub curators! By the way, Pary was on episode 35 of the podcast talking about AI-enhanced learning, and Justin was on episode 9 talking about studio-style courses in biology.

I also have two new collections on Teaching Hub, one on annotation in teaching and learning and one on supporting neurodivergent learners. I don't consider myself an expert on either of those topics, but I know people who are, and my collections point to their great work.

​You can explore all of the Teaching Hub collections here, and if you're interested in curating a collection on a topic you know well, let me know!

Beyond the Scope by Sarah Silverman

A lot of smart people have Substacks these days. I know Substack (the company) wants us to call these things Substacks or newsletters but they all look like blogs to me, and so that's what I call them. Marc Watkins has a blog on Substack as mentioned above, as does the teaching center where I work. And two of my teaching center colleagues, Josh Eyler and Emily Donahoe, have blogs on Substack, too.

Those are all great, but one of my favorite new blogs on Substack is by Sarah Silverman, an educator and faculty developer who focuses on pedagogy, accessibility, and disability studies. Her blog is called "Beyond the Scope," and it explores topics in higher education that are a little beyond the scope of a typical introductory workshop on teaching and learning.

For example, last month Silverman wrote a piece called "The Asterisk to 'Active Learning'" in which she noted that a lot of workshops on active learning give the impression that active learning is a better choice than traditional lecture in all cases. That's not actually supported by the research on active learning, even the now-classic meta-analysis by Scott Freeman and colleagues. Yes, on average active learning leads to greater student learning and student success (as measured by grades, sorry, Josh Eyler) than traditional lecturing, but that's on average. Individual course contexts will have varying results, particularly depending on how active learning is implemented.

Here's an excerpt from Silverman's conclusion to that piece:

I love the nuance Silverman is bringing to important conversations on teaching and learning in higher education, and she's inspiring me to bring that nuance to my workshops and other faculty development work. If you're not already reading her "Beyond the Scope" blog, please check it out.

Thanks for reading!

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