Practical AI for instructors and students - A Wharton interactive crash course

 This series of five videos, from the Wharton School, provides good overviews of integrating AI into education. Each video is around 11 minutes. The contexts are for higher and compulsory education. 

The first video introduces the important concepts of AI. The second covers Gen AI and large language models.

The next three videos provide demonstrations, examples and discussion on prompt engineering, how to use AI as a teacher, and how AI can be used as a personal tutor by students. All emphasise the importance of prompt engineering which in turn relies on learners' foundational literacies and subject conceptual knowledge to be able to evaluate AI outputs and then work out the correct prompts to use, to improve the relevance and quality of outputs. The ability of 'personalised tutors' utilising AI will need to be examined with respect to the academic and foundational literacies required to access the power of AI to support personalised learning environments (PLEs). 

The two presenters Associate Professor Ethan Mollick (faculty director) and Dr. Lilach Mollick (Director of Pedagogy) provide quick overviews and encourage teachers to draw on their experience to make the most that Gen AI offers. 

Two recent papers summarise the work undertaken which are applied in the videos:

Mollick, Ethan R. and Mollick, Lilach, Using AI to Implement Effective Teaching Strategies in Classrooms: Five Strategies, Including Prompts (March 17, 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4391243 

Mollick, Ethan R. and Mollick, Lilach, Assigning AI: Seven Approaches for Students, with Prompts (June 12, 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4475995

Flipped learning - does it work?

 Edsurge summarises and comments on a meta-analysis of how well flipped learning works. 

The study discovered that there were many versions of 'flipped learning' and in the main, there was little shift in pedagogy. Instead, especially in higher education, students watched a videoed lecture and when in-class sessions occurred, were subjected to another lecture!! Even when 'active learning' was undertaken, the learning outcomes did not eventuate, mainly due lecturers not 'closing the loop' to ensure learners had engaged with and learnt the material.

The article's title, summarises recommendations "Fail, flip, fix and feed' that is, there is a need for 'flipped learning' to allow students to 'test their learning, obtain feedback and learn, before moving on to the next concept.

An important article to read, digest, understand and apply to learning design. 

Hybrid learning aka as mixed mode

 As Aotearoa New Zealand navigates through the very stormy sea of the Covid-19 pandemic, omicron has arrived and cases are increasing rapidly across the last few weeks. My institute has beed planning ahead for the onslaugth with plans for 'mixed mode' learning being initiated this week as student and staff cases are diagnosed.

Hybrid learning is the term often used and Derek Wenmoth has produced a guide for the schools sector. He proposes hybrid learning as the seamless delivery of learning, across both school (f2f) and virtual (online) spaces. The degree of learning in each 'space' varies as to the discipline and circumstances.

At my institute, we use blended/hybrid learning in a similar way, but to avoid confusion, have used the term 'mixed mode' to differentiate the current approach. That is, to support learners who are unable to attend f2f sessions if they have to self-isolate at home for a couple of weeks. It is tricky to balance the needs of f2f learners when a small number of learners are unable to attend physically, but require access to learning. Shifting everyone online is one solution but with a large segment of our programmes, hands-on practice-based learning is difficult to be continually offered online. Therefore, there needs to be a way to bring learners into the training workshop/studio/salon/kitchen, whilst they are stuck at home. 

Now the country has shifted to 'red phase 3' self-isolation is only required for very close contact. That is people living together in the same household. With this provision, there will be less need for learners to 'self-isolate'. However, cases will rise and affect many more people. Learners with mild symptoms will likely still need to be provided with access to learning, so mixed mode might be with us for a while (sigh). This week will be a watershed time as we see how the case numbers move and what effects these have on learner attendance. We may yet have to shift many programmes to fully online rather than try to rely on mixed mode. 

Ara Institute of Canterbury - Sharing Experiences of Educational Design - SEED #1

Lunch time session with two of our ARA institute of Canterbury excellence in teaching award winners.

SEED set up by ARA staff who have won internal institutional awards to Sharing Experiences of Educational Design. Short 15 minute sessions to facilitate the sharing of good teaching.

Engineering tutor, Steve Tomsett is the inaugural presenter and he presents his experiences on flipped learning – dots and line in a flip class. Provided brief introduction of his context, mainly focused on teaching engineering maths. Compared traditional classroom approach with passive theory learning followed by application with flipping, so passive theory is learnt before coming to class and classroom learning revolves around active learning. Advocated using a one-one, short recording focused on ensuring ‘added value’ occurs both before and during class. Dots are the HOW we do it – and the line is the WHY. Ensure dots are presented in short ‘bite sized’ bits and then in class, join the dots. Provided an example with screencast on Adobe Connect archived on Moodle. Quizzes are attached to each video to ensure understanding dots occurs before class. Activities in class include authentic problems, application to real world problem solving and extension of understanding of implications / consequences.

Jane Parker from Business presented in ‘building confidence in learners’. Provided a perspective as a ‘new’ tutor and empathy with learners lacking in confidence based on her initial experiences in picking up a class, ¾ through course, following 2 other tutors who had left! Talked about challenges with teaching a complex subject – law. Brought in student’ own experiences with ‘law’ and current topical issues as starters for classes rather than just cover the syllabus. Co-operative learning used as an approach to encourage communication skills and working through the issues.

Always good to hear from passionate teachers J