Much has been made of plagiarism concerns around the use of ChatGPT in education, and there's no doubt that generative AI technology will impact the role of writing both in higher education and in society in general. But as our guest Mark Warschauer points out, the use of AI for writing and communication presents an inherent contradiction: Those who can best write with AI will be those who can best write without it, because they'll need to be able to write good prompts, evaluate the AI output, and edit the resulting text into a usable final product. Warschauer is a professor of education and informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and founder of UCI's Digital Learning Lab. We talked about the potential of AI for teaching and learning, overcoming faculty skepticism about AI tools, research questions that should be asked about AI in education, and more.
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Music: Mixkit
Duration: 26 minutes
Transcript
ChatGPT is groundbreaking, but it's also merely the first in what will likely be a series of innovations built on foundational developments in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing that are going to change the world. Higher education is already feeling the impact of generative AI technology in terms of plagiarism and instructional design concerns, but these challenges also come with immense opportunities to personalize learning and streamline time-consuming tasks. We spoke with Mark Schneider, director of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences, about how AI is transforming education and the evolving role of humans in an AI-powered future.
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Music: Mixkit
Duration: 26 minutes
Transcript
Campus Technology recently published 14 technology predictions for the coming year, based on input from higher education and ed tech industry experts across the country. A key statement on that list was this: Digital accessibility will be central to an inclusive campus culture. As Brian Fodrey, assistant vice president for Business Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University, put it, "Campus leaders must be thinking about how we are preparing our respective communities to take a more proactive and comprehensive approach to removing barriers and promoting all aspects of digital equity…. Prioritizing digital accessibility practices in all aspects of campus operations and life creates a more supportive community and inclusive culture for all."
That focus on digital accessibility is central to instructional design practice at Colorado State University Global. As the nation's first fully online, accredited nonprofit state university, CSU Global strives to achieve universal design standards in all of its programs, and to make courses accessible to a wide range of learners. We spoke with Associate Vice President of Digital Learning Andrea Butler and Director of Instructional Design Diona Hartwig about the importance of designing for accessibility from the start, ways to engage students in the online environment, and how inclusive design ultimately serves all students.
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Music: Mixkit
Duration: 28 minutes
Transcript
Earlier this year, Lumen Learning announced a partnership with Howard University to help develop equity-centered learning solutions for a new statistics course and platform. The goal: to develop more effective and culturally relevant courseware for minority and low-income students and improve outcomes in gateway courses. Howard faculty and students are providing feedback throughout the courseware development process, such as how specific courseware features might be used and best practices for supporting faculty in their courseware implementation. For this episode of the podcast, we spoke with Dr. Morris Thomas, assistant provost for digital and online learning and director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning & Assessment at Howard, and Kim Thanos, founder and CEO of Lumen Learning, about developing courseware with an equity-first perspective, giving students multiple pathways to success, building in support for faculty, and more.
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Music: Mixkit
Duration: 38 minutes
Transcript
Ravi Pendse is passionate about data privacy. As vice president for information technology and chief information officer at the University of Michigan, he has worked to ensure that privacy is a part of every technology decision on campus. At the same time, he is committed to fostering a robust data culture that democratizes the use of data to inform decision-making. At the center of that culture is transparency: making sure students, faculty, and staff know exactly what types of data are collected, and how that data is stored, accessed, managed, and shared. In this episode of the podcast, we talk about creating a data-aware, privacy-aware ecosystem, data governance challenges, making data visible to students, and more.
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Music: Mixkit
Duration: 33 minutes
Transcript
As a predominately online institution geared toward serving adult students, University of Massachusetts Global is rethinking traditional models of education to embrace the flexibility and career relevance that working learners need. That means getting granular: unbundling courses or curricula into smaller modules that can be more accessible to busy students but also stack into credentials that will be meaningful to employers. We spoke with Dr. David Andrews, chancellor of UMass Global, about developing a new credentialing ecosystem, listening to student and industry needs, and the data infrastructure that can really support student success.
Resource links:
Music: Mixkit
Duration: 32 minutes
Transcript