I was on the fence about reading John Warner’s new book, More Than Words: How to Think about Writing in an Age of AI. It wasn’t that I didn’t respect Warner’s work. No, I had been following his work for years, especially his Just Visiting blog on Inside Higher Ed where he writes about teaching. His was an essential voice for me after ChatGPT launched in late 2022. He had already argued in his book Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities that writing...
13 days ago • 7 min read
Take It or Leave It with Liz Norell, Betsy Barre, and Bryan Dewsbury This week on the podcast I once again borrow a format from one of my favorite podcasts and host a Take It or Leave It panel. I invited three colleagues whose work and thinking I admire very much to come on the show and weigh in on several "hot take" essays on teaching and learning in higher ed. For each essay, each panelist had to Take It (that is, agree with the central thesis of the essay) or Leave It (that is, disagree)....
27 days ago • 1 min read
One of the most frequent requests I get from faculty is to see examples of actual assignments that thoughtfully integrate generative AI. I am very happy to share a new collection of such assignments on the University of Virginia Teaching Hub: "Integrating AI into Assignments to Support Student Learning." In my day job at the University of Virginia, I'm helping to support about 50 faculty fellows who are part of UVA's Faculty AI Guides program. These faculty are exploring the use of generative...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
The Intentional Teaching podcast has hit a milestone: 25,000 total episode downloads! That represents a lot of people across higher education developing foundational teaching skills and exploring new ideas in teaching. Or maybe a handful of super-fans. Either way, I'm proud of building up this podcast! Now on to the next 25,000 downloads... Learning at Play with Greg Loring-Albright Speaking of the podcast, this week's episode features another interview in my occasional series exploring the...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
I've had the good fortune to be a part of a lot of conversations on teaching and learning in the last week. Instead of a longer essay in this week's newsletter, here are some highlights from some of those conversations. Hopefully, you'll find at least one that connects with your teaching context! Also below you'll find a few photos from my outing to the Circle B Bar Reserve near Orlando, Florida, last week. The birdwatching at this nature preserve was top notch. Course Contributors An anhinga...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Writing, Editing, and Generative AI Back in August, I had the opportunity to hear a short presentation from Heidi Nobles, assistant professor in writing and rhetoric and director of Writing Across the Curriculum at the University of Virginia. The presentation was part of a two-day institute on teaching and generative AI, and Heidi leveraged her background as an editor (as in one who edits books) to provide a different way of thinking about working with generative AI. When I hear editing, I...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
It's been a week. There's been a lot of news here in the U.S. related to the new presidential administration. Most of the attention in higher education has been focused on M-25-13, the memorandum issued Monday by the Office of Management and Budget freezing disbursement of "all Federal financial assistance." No one seemed entirely sure what that might include, but it certainly seemed to include grants and other funding that colleges and universities depend on and were in fact promised by the...
2 months ago • 4 min read
Generative AI as a Design Accelerator Back in April 2023, I had the chance to visit Pennsylvania State University and to stop by Penn State’s Teaching and Learning with Technology group. I got a tour of the Dreamery, a flexible and innovative learning space named after Penn State’s famous creamery. The tour was led by Ryan Wetzel, manager of creative learning initiatives, and I was impressed by how Ryan and his colleagues were helping faculty and students at Penn State explore emerging...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Educational Technology Advice for Academic Leaders Frequently in this newsletter, I let readers know about a new podcast episode featuring a guest with something interesting to share about teaching in higher education. Almost always, that guest is not me. But this week, I had the pleasure of being a guest on the EdUp Provost podcast hosted by Gregor Thuswaldner. Gregor had read my Intentional Tech book and invited me to offer advice on educational technology to the provosts and other academic...
3 months ago • 4 min read