So this used to be a weekly newsletter! It's been a few weeks since I sent one of these out, but I have a good excuse. My August is always busy, but this August was especially busy since my wife and I moved into a new house and prepped our old house to sell. That made for a lot of work, and I'm glad that we're past the bulk of it. We have a lot of unpacking and settling in to do, but all our stuff is at the new house and the old house is on the market. If you're looking for a four-bedroom in...
9 days ago • 5 min read
Study Hall: AI and Learning Edition I'm excited to try out a new format on the Intentional Teaching podcast this week. Once again, I’ve been inspired by the American Birding Association podcast. The ABA podcast uses a format they call "This Month in Birding" where host Nate Swick invites three great guests to discuss recent studies or news articles from the world of ornithology. I learn a lot listening to these episodes, and I thought I would try the format out here on my podcast. Doing...
26 days ago • 3 min read
It's August, always the busiest month of the year in my world. I just spent a few days "on Grounds" at the University of Virginia last week leading or co-leading several workshops on teaching and generative AI, including an all-day institute for UVA's new cohort of Faculty AI Guides. That's why there was no newsletter last week! How do you like the new logo? I thought after almost three years, it was time for a fresh coat of paint. This week I'm giving three presentations at other...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Developing AI Literacy This week on the podcast, I talk with Alex Ambrose, professor of the practice and director of the Lab for AI in Teaching and Learning at the Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence at Notre Dame. I heard Alex on the Kaneb Center's podcast, Designed for Learning hosted by Jim Lang, a few months ago, and I was very interested in what Alex had to say about the evolving state of generative AI in education at Notre Dame. I was thrilled when Alex agreed to come on Intentional...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
High Structure Course Design Justin Shaffer has a new book out on high structure course design! I met Justin a few years ago through a Macmillan Learning webinar on teaching with classroom response systems. I learned that not only did he use that particular technology very effectively in his teaching, but he also had a wealth of experience in active learning and course design more generally. When I wanted to put together a podcast episode on "studio" approaches to biology (in which lab and...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
Defending Higher Education with Kevin McClure If you've listened to the recent "Take It or Leave It" episodes of the Intentional Teaching podcast, you'll be familiar with Kevin McClure's essay "Higher Ed Is Adrift." In the essay, Kevin outlines some of the many attacks the current U.S. presidential administration is leveraging against higher ed, and he notes that many faculty and staff are finding their institutional leaders' responses lacking. We talked about the essay on the "Take It or...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Podcasting in Higher Ed Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend HigherEd PodCon, the first conference devoted to podcasting across higher ed. Thanks to UPCEA, which sponsors my Intentional Teaching podcast, for sending me to Chicago for this very engaging conference! On my blog this week I shared some highlights from the conference in a post I called "Higher Ed Podcasting Is Having a Moment." If you're interested in higher ed podcasting, either as an avid listener or as a (potential)...
2 months ago • 3 min read
On the Sensibility of Cognitive Outsourcing You may have seen a headline or two about that new MIT Media Lab study "Your Brain on ChatGPT." This is the study in which more than 50 participants wrote SAT essays either with ChatGPT or with Google search (but no AI assistance) or with just their brains. The researchers took electroencephalography (EEG) measures of the participants and concluded that the ChatGPT cohort didn't have the same brain connectivity seen in the other two groups. The...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Take It or Leave It with Stacey Johnson, Liz Norell, and Viji Sathy We're back with another "Take It or Leave It" panel on the podcast this week. I know it's only been a couple of episodes since the last one, but there's a lot happening in U.S. higher ed right now, and I find these panels helpful for making sense of it all. Once again I’ve invited three smart colleagues on the show to discuss recent op-eds that address the challenges that colleges and universities and their teaching missions...
3 months ago • 4 min read