Take It or Leave It with Stacey Johnson, Emily Donahoe, and Lance EatonA couple of months ago, the American Birding Podcast tried out a new format that host Nate Swick called “Take It or Leave It.” Nate put together a list of hot takes from the birdwatching community, noting that “birders are full of strong opinions, some serious and some silly.” He invited on the podcast two experienced birders to discuss those hot takes and, for each one, either take it (that is, agree with the hot take) or leave it (that is, disagree). I thought the same format would work for exploring current issues in the higher education community, so I talked a few colleagues into giving it a try on this week's episode of Intentional Teaching. I spent some quality with recent essays published in the Chronicle and Insider Higher Ed and elsewhere looking for arguments about teaching and learning that would be open to debate. For each hot take, I asked our three panelists to take it or leave it, forcing them into an artificial binary that led to some robust discussion. Who did I corral into this fun experiment? Stacey M. Johnson is director of learning and engagement at the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan University (and a former Vanderbilt colleague of mine), Emily Pitts Donahoe is a current colleague of mine at the University of Mississippi Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, where she serves as an associate director of instructional support. Lance Eaton is not someone I’ve worked with, but I’ve following his work at College Unbound, a nontraditional college for nontraditional students, where he is director of faculty development. The panelists discussed hot takes about attendance policies, "studenting" skills, and AI's role in teaching and learning. I was really happy with how the panel discussion turned out, and I'm very grateful to Stacey, Emily, and Lance for going out on a limb with me to try this format. I've already gotten a lot of positive feedback on the episode, so I'll plan on doing another one in a few months! Feel free to send me your higher ed hot takes between now and then. You can listen to (or read the transcript of) the "Take It or Leave It" panel here, or you can search for "Intentional Teaching" in your favorite podcast app. Feedback and Error CorrectionDuring the panel's discussion of generative AI's role in teaching, all three panelists had a lot to say about the notion that instructors might use AI to handle the "routine" tasks of teaching so as to free up time for more important, relational tasks, an argument put forward in this essay by Jose Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson. Emily listed a few of the "routine" tasks mentioned in that essay and argued that they were, in fact, relational tasks: "If I'm writing syllabus policies, I want my students to hear my voice and like know who I am in my syllabus policies. If I'm responding to their work, if I'm giving them feedback on their writing, they need to know that that's me on the other end, right? It's not a thing that I could automate, especially because, you know, the most effective and durable forms of learning happened in the context of a relationship." This led to a discussion of the use of generative AI to give students feedback on their work. Might students use AI to get some useful feedback on their writing before they turn it in for feedback from an instructor? I noted, echoing Marc Watkins in a previous podcast episode, that AI will always find something to improve in a piece of writing if you ask it to, and will do so endlessly in response to revision after revision. At that point in the conversation, Stacey introduced a term often used in language instruction: error correction. She said that there's very little evidence that error correction of the kind an AI would likely provide has any long-term impact on student learning. Error correction can produce short-term behavior change, but hasn't been shown to be useful over longer time periods. Moreover, error correction can also lower students' confidence in learning, making it particularly problematic as an instructional method. Like many faculty, I see error correction as an important tool in my instructional toolbox, so after the podcast recording, I reached out to Stacey to find out more about the research on error correction she mentioned. Stacey then remembered she had an almost-done blog post on that topic from months ago, so she polished up that draft and published it! It's a fascinating read and useful for both language instructors and others. See her new post, "Feedback, Error Correction, and Language Teaching," for a deep dive into error correction and other forms of feedback. This Summer in AI ConsternationLast summer there seemed to be two key questions occupying the minds of faculty and other instructors as they pondered the impact of generative AI on teaching learning. Question 1: What changes should I make to my assignments this fall to either mitigate the impact of AI on learning and assessment or leverage AI for student learning? Question 2: How can I talk with my students about their use of generative AI, particularly through syllabus statements and first-day-of-class conversations? Answering the first question led to a series of resources from me and others on the idea of "assignment makeovers" in an age of AI, while the second question led to many institutions rolling out suggested syllabus statements on AI, like these from the University of Mississippi. What are the big questions facing the higher education teaching community this summer as we prepare for fall classes in a world awash with AI? Based on some recent conversations and workshops I've been involved in, I'd like to offer these two candidates: Question 3: How can I help students avoid using AI to shortcut their learning outside of the assignment context, particularly in reading, listening, notetaking, and studying? Question 4: How can I help students develop understanding of the ethical and effective use of AI as well as knowledge of its limitations and problems? That is, how can I build AI literacy into my courses? I might even expand that last question to consider the integration of AI literacy into whole programs, not just courses, but I suspect that very few departments or schools are tackling that challenge right now. What do you think? Are questions 3 and 4 as I've framed them top of mind for you and your faculty colleagues this summer? Do you have any ideas or resources for answering these questions? 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. Or consider supporting Intentional Teaching through Patreon. For just $3 US per month, you can help defray production costs for the podcast and newsletter and you get access to Patreon-only interviews and bonus clips. |
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...