Welcome to the Intentional Teaching newsletter! I'm Derek Bruff, educator and author. The name of this newsletter is a reminder that we should be intentional in how we teach, but also in how we develop as teachers over time. I hope this newsletter will be a valuable part of your professional development as an educator.
New Teaching Hub collections, AI learning assistants, and Flip replacements
New Collections on UVA's Teaching HubI'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. I'm excited to announce two new Teaching Hub collections! Universal Design for Learning - This new collection is curated by Lillian Nave from Appalachian State University, producer and host of the Think UDL podcast. What is UDL? Lillian writes: "Universal Design for Learning (UDL) seeks to eliminate barriers to learning based on research on how people learn. It's an inclusive approach that recognizes student strengths and provides flexibility in how students access and engage with material and show what they know." Getting Started with Discipline-Based Education Research - Friend of the podcast Justin Shaffer (Colorado School of Mines) curated this collection. What is DBER? Justin writes: "Discipline-based education research (DBER) is the scientific study of teaching and learning via a combination of disciplinary expertise and social sciences methodology." (Justin also curated a Teaching Hub collection on high-structure course design.) 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! New Developments in AI Learning AssistantsYou may have seen the news that Morehouse College is piloting AI learning assistants that feature digital avatars of students' instructors. These learning assistants will be trained on course materials so that they'll be better equipped to answer student questions than a general purpose AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Claude. That's not far off from Top Hat Ace, the AI learning assistant that Sravanti Kantheti and I talked about in episode 34 of the podcast. Sravanti noted that her course, anatomy and physiology, can be taught at very different levels (from elementary school to medical school), so it's helpful that Ace is trained on course materials pitched at the right level for her students. However, the Morehouse pilot goes beyond a simple chat interface by having students interact through their web browsers with an avatar that looks and sounds like their instructor. I was quoted in that Chronicle piece by Alex Walters, and I was skeptical that the digital avatar would add much to the chatbot interaction. If the goal is to give students a better option for out-of-class questions than a Google search, [Bruff] said, it makes more sense to develop straightforward chatbots that work quickly and on mobile devices.“Students need to ask good questions and the AI needs to give good answers,” he said. “A lot of the other stuff is just window dressing.” We know that for most students, learning is a social experience and the student-teacher relationship is key to that experience. Is it possible that a digital avatar that looks and sounds like the instructor might enhance that relationship? Maybe, but I'd love to see a study that compares the digital avatar approach with a simple chatbot approach like Top Hat Ace. There has been some initial research done on AI learning assistants, and there's a tentative but important finding mentioned in the Chronicle story: Some early research suggests that interacting with a digital educator “with the knowledge that it’s not a real person frees up students to ask more questions and take more risks,” said Michael Fried, a senior researcher with Ithaka S+R’s Educational Transformation Program. It makes sense that some students would be more willing to ask questions of an AI chatbot than their professor, either during class or in office hours. If it's relatively easy to frame good questions for the chatbot (which is not a given, says Fried later in the article) and if the chatbot can provide reliable answers (something that Sravanti has found to be true), then this could be a useful additional avenue of student support. Yes, Flip Is Going Away, TooI've mentioned here in the newsletter that Google Jamboard is sadly going away, and several of you sent in feedback on potential Jamboard replacements. Jamboard isn't the only wildly useful educational technology going away this year; Microsoft Flip, formerly known as Flipboard, is dying a quick death. The app is already view only, and all access entirely will end on September 30th. Microsoft apparently wants people to use Teams for videos, but that's hardly a replacement for the teaching-friendly Flipboard many of us came to know and love during pandemic teaching. If you're looking for Flip alternatives, take a look at Michelle Pacansky-Brock's recent post exploring some options. Many thanks to Michelle for this round-up! Thanks for reading!If you found this newsletter useful, please forward it to a colleague who might like it! That's one of the best ways you can support the work I'm doing here at Intentional Teaching. 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Intentional Teaching with Derek Bruff
Welcome to the Intentional Teaching newsletter! I'm Derek Bruff, educator and author. The name of this newsletter is a reminder that we should be intentional in how we teach, but also in how we develop as teachers over time. I hope this newsletter will be a valuable part of your professional development as an educator.
Neurodivergent Students in Active Learning Classes A lot of the accommodations that have traditionally been given for students with learning disabilities, like notetaking assistance and extra time on exams, assume that a college course is mostly lectures and tests. That's not as true as it once was, especially for STEM courses where years of research on active learning have directed faculty to structure their courses differently. What is it like to experience an active learning class if...
Surfacing Students' Prior Experience with AI Last week I helped lead a two-day institute for faculty members participating in the University of Virginia's new Faculty AI Guides program. These faculty have signed up to explore the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their own teaching and support their colleagues as they make informed, intentional decisions about the roles of AI in their teaching. We covered a lot of ground in our two days with the AI Guides, as you might...
Culturally Responsive Teaching with Emily Affolter On this week's Intentional Teaching podcast episode, I talk with Emily Affolter, who teaches in the PhD program in sustainability education at Prescott College in Arizona. Her students come from all different professions, some even already have PhDs. They’re in the program to pursue what Emily describes as “social and environmental justice as enacted in teaching, learning, and leading.” How do Emily and her colleagues meet these diverse...