Inquiry in action: Using AI to reimagine learning and teaching: Case studies from the frontline of Higher Education practice

 This open access book, collates a series of case studies from the University of Queensland on 'Using AI to reimagine learning and teaching: case studies from the frontline of higher education practice.

It is edited by Rachel Fitzgerald. 

The book begins with an introduction from the editor, followed by 12 chapters. There are 11 'case studies' with a final collation of themes chapter. 

There are chapters on AI literacy (chapter 1); ethics (chapters 2 and 3); inclusiveness (chapter 4); subject-specific chapters (1 - health, 4 - dentistry, 5 - dietetics, 8,10 -economics/business); inquiry-based learning (chapter 6); Critical thinking (chapter 7); web/mobile development (chapter 9); with application of relevant pedagogy across most of the chapters.

Useful for providing examples of the may ways in which Gen AI can be integrated into learning activities. Discipline/subject examples help our teachers visualise possibilities. 

AI in education: The intersection of pedagogy and technology

 This book published 2024 by Springer is edited by P. Ilic, I. Casbourne and R. Wegerif.

It is an open access book which brings together educators, engineers and experts to explore the implications and affordances provisioned through the arrival of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI).

There are 13 chapters, detailing studies in the higher education context.

The first introductory chapter, by the editors, calls for 'a constructive dialogue' between technology and pedagogy. In doing, the two may contribute more towards enhancing human potential. 

Following on, an interesting selection of chapters:

- AI enhanced ecological learning spaces by P. Ilic, and M. Sato-Ilic.

- reimagining learning experiences with the use of AI with D. Guralnick

- Gen AI integration in education: challenges and approaches by S. Watson and S. Shi.

- Navigating AI in education - towards a system approach for design of educational changes by L. Yuan, T. Hoel, and S. Powell.

-AI in the assessment ecosystem: A human-centered AI perspective by A. A. von Davier and J. Burnstein.

- The role of AI language assistants in dialogic education for collective intelligence by I. Casebourne and R. Wegerif.

- AI powered adaptive formative assessment: validity and reliability evaluation by Y. Bimpeh.

- Decimal point: a decade of learning science findings with a digital learning game with B. M. McLaren.

- Leveraging AI to advance science and computing education across Africa: challenges, progress and opportunities with G. Boateng

- Educating manufacturing operators by extending reality with AI by  P-D. Zuercher, M. Schimpf, S. Tadeja and T. Bohne.

- Pedagogical restructuring of business communication courses: AI-enhanced prompt engineering in an EFL teaching context by D. Roy.

- AI in language education: The impact of machine translation and ChatGPT by L. Ohashi.

Overall a good collection of case studies, providing some good examples of integrating AI into specific disciplines. The discussions are congruent to our current work, in that although Gen AI is a tool for all, there is still a need to match Gen tools to the learning outcomes to be achieved. Most importantly to maintain the human element and contribution towards AI responses and to remember that AI is a tool and it is the tool user who much always take responsibility for the outputs. 

Gen AI strategies for Australian higher education - emerging practice

 The Australian Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TESQA) published a practice toolkit for Gen AI in November 2023. 

The guide covers three dimensions of tertiary education - Process, People and Practice. Each dimension is introduced and the implications of Gen AI are detailed, discussed and evaluated. Examples from Australian tertiary institutions are provided to provide case studies. These provide good templates from which individual institutional processes, policies and procedures can be contextualised and synthesised. 

All in a good resource to mine for relevant concepts as Gen AI takes hold across the tertiary landscape. 

Higher education for good - impressions of the book

 Here is an open access book - Higher Education for Good - with a few relevant chapters. The book takes an optimistic look at higher education and its potential to contribute to the common good of society and humanity.

The current economic and political climates. have been challenging for tertiary education as a whole, across many countries. The book has a series of essays, discussing the challenges and future for higher education. Sections include - finding fortitude and hope; making sense of the unknown and emergent; considering alternative futures; making change through teaching, assessment and learning design; and (re)making higher education systems and structures. 

Several chapters are of interest to those beyond higher education. Including: 

- Artificial intelligence for good? Challenges and possibilities of AI in HE from a data justice perspective.

by E.  Pechekina, The focus of the chapter is on how AI can be used to support students and learning but also undertakes an discussion on the ethical use of AI, especially in the 'prediction' of outcomes based on learner demographics, performance and other data. The issue of equity is also presented.

- Humanising learning design with digital pragmatism - by K. Malloy and C. Thomson. This chapter provides a learner designer view, with the practitioners located in a 'third space' of being neither management or academics. It argues for the need to champion the needs of learners, as one way to navigate the power structures in higher education.

A book that will have chapters that will be of interest to all tertiary educators, interested in how their work impacts on social justice and how each is able to play a part in making the world a better place.

 

Scoop - collection of AI related articles

 Here is a Scoop site, curated by Peter Mellow. It archives various blogs / magazine articles etc. on the implications, challenges etc. of AI on education - mostly higher education and the formal school sector.

With the plethora of media on AI at the moment, it is handy to have access to a range of perspectives. Peter works in the health sector as a Director of learning and teaching and learning design. Therefore, his interest are partly vocational but slanted towards health higher education. 

Something to dip into to keep up with how AI impacts education and how various sectors deal with the challenges.

UNESCO report - AI, ChatGPT and higher education

 A general introduction to AI and ChatGPT released in April by UNESCO.

Provides  'start up' instructions and then progresses into suggestions on how to leverage ChatGPT to encourage critical thinking, along with implications. Table in page 9 and some suggestions for its use to support research are useful.

Innovative approaches to Technology-enhanced learning for workplace and higher education

 This is a compilation of papers from the 'Learning ideass' conference held in 2022. The proceedings are edited by D, Guralnick, M. A. Auer, and A. Poce ad published as a book by Springer. 

There are 56 papers. The bulk of the papers come from the conference's main stream with 4 - 5 papers in two special tracks - emotional approaches and inclusive learning. 

Abstracts and references are available for all the papers. Several papers of interest to dip in and out of. 

Developing online teaching in higher education - book overview

 This book is the most recent in the Springer Professional and practice-based series. It is edited by Dianne Forbes and Richard Walker. 

The book has 16 chapters, organised into 4 sections.

The book begins with an introductory chapter, written by the editors "A continuous professional learning and development (CPLD) framework for online teaching'. The focus of the book is to present many approaches undertaken, especially through the COVID-19 pandemic, to support CPLD in a time of rapid change. They argue for the importance of CPLD in ensuring integrity and appropriateness of how online teaching is enacted. 

The first section - Inter-institutional/societal CPLD has 4 chapters.

First up is 'Professional learning for open online educators: The #Openteach story" by O. Farrell, J. Brunton, C. Ni Shē, and  E. Costello. The authors present their experiences in developing a flexible and evidence-based approach to supporting online teachers. The key principles were: social presence, facilitating discussion, collaboration online, live online teaching and supporting online students.

Then, D. Dell, M, Cleveland -Innes, N. Ostashewski and D, Wilton, write on 'Inquiry MOOCs: Privileging constructive collaborative learning for continuing professional development'. Records the experiences of faculty and instructional designers from Athabasca University, working on a MOOC to support blended learning practice.The MOOC is evaluated in terms of professional development quality and participant responses.

The next chapter by E. Kennedy, S. Sherman, N. Weitz, S. Crabbe, V. Devaney, H. Tariq et al. details and discusses the project 'Get interactive: the value of a MOOC for CPLD'. The MOOC models social and collaborative learning with technology, has run since 2017 and has engaged 21,000 participants. The pedagogy draws on Diana Laurillard's 'teaching as design science'. The chapter reports on evaluation and continual work on the MOOC as it developed and matures.

Then a chapter on 'cross-cultural mentoring in tertiary education: Enhancing self-efficacy in online teaching through collaboration and openness in professional learning' by H. DeWaard and R. Chavhan. The experiences gained through the UNESCO Open education for a better world mentoring project are shared and evaluated. 

T. Cochrane and M. Jenkins contribute the last chapter in this section on 'professional accreditation pathways in higher education: enabler or block to technology-enhanced learning professional development?'. The chapter brings up a key CPL issue. Two professional accreditation frameworks - the Advanced HE Fellowship and the Certified Member of the Association for Learning Technology (CMALT) are compared. The Advanced HE Fellowship, a traditional framework requires updating to reflect the contemporary PD of HE educators. CMALT is proposed as a means to support the process of remapping.

The next section -Institutional CPLD - has 3 chapters.

L. May and J. Denton write on 'emergency designs: lessons from the rapid implementation of online teaching'. This chapter evaluates, through autoethnographic inquiry, the efficacy of ADDIE for responding to rapid developing of courses. An adapted version of ADDIE is proposed along with structured CPLD  to support the need for agile movement of courses into the online learning environment.

Then, S. Houston, C. Milligan, A. Nimmo and A. Robertson contribute on ' providing CPLD through a toolkit design'. The ABC curriculum design framework is adapted into a 'toolkit' to aid the rapid shift of f2f courses into the online delivery mode. Also reports on a study, a year later, to evaluate the efficacy of the toolkit and the steps taken to enhancing the toolkit for better fit.

S. Ngai, R. Cheung, S. Nr, A. Wll, P. Chik,and H. Tsang on 'swift preparation for online teaching during the pandemic: the pandemic experience sharing from healthcare teaching in Hong Kong'. Has a focus on the challenges presented by 'hands-on' learning, when a shift to online learning is required. The TPACK framework was used to guide the CPLD offered to lecturers. Drawing on their learning through the pandemic, future planning of CPLD provision is presented and discussed.

The section - Middle-out programme driven CPLD - has 4 chapters.

Firstly, 'co-design as professional learning: pulling each other in different directions, pulling together' by C. Vallis, S. Wilson, J. Tyrrell, and V. Narayan. Reports on the co-design CPLD process used to support the designing, development, teaching and evaluation of a range of diverse business subjects.

Then a chapter on 'share sessions: a solution to cross-disciplinary academic professional learning and development in higher education' by S. Zeivots, D. Wardak, and E. Huber. Describes the 'share sessions' whereby innovative online teaching practices were shared via zoom. Draws on interviews with lecturers, to find out how the share sessions worked. It was found that it is important to have a planned approach, before, during and following the sessions, to maximise their effectiveness.

T. Harper and R. Holme write on 'informal, grassroots online professional learning: The experiences of teacher educators'. Overviews the specific challenges faced by teacher educators on their CPLD needs and how these may be addressed through 'grassroots' approaches.

Last chapter in this section is by J.R. Rothman, R. Lege, E. Bonner and M. Ishii who present a chapter on 'supporting emergency remote teaching via responsive professional support system'. This case study from Japan provides another perspective on the global 'emergency remote teaching (ERT) response. The CPLD approach drew on the work of Drago-Stevenson's learning-orientated mode of adult learning. 

The last section has 2 chapter around the topic - personal 'inside-out' experiences of CPLD.

R. Philip on 'pathways to creative learning and teaching online: An ecological model'. Shares the ecological model for designing creative online learning which was derived from Australian and international HE examples.

M. Lafferty and E. Roberts with 'from physical to virtual: reflections on the move from the lecture hall to the digital classroom. This UK case study studies perspectives on CPLD of lecturers in two disciplines - Law and Psychology, which have provided guidelines for the implementation of blended learning experiences.

A final chapter from the editors brings the book to a close. They write on 'CPLD for online teaching: diverse perspectives and common themes'.

Overall, a timely addition to the literature covering not only the importance of CPLD to help lecturers/teachers shift practice rapidly from the known to 'new' teaching and learning contexts, but also offers an insight into the many approaches used, across the HE sector, to support learners through online access. 

APODE presentation - reimagining flexible learning to build resilience post covid-19

 Presentation by Dr. Som Naidu on Reimagining Flexible Learning to Build Resilience in Education Systems Post COVID-19.

Sarah Stein from the Open Polytechnic oc NZ (TOPNZ) welcomes participants and moderates the session.

Dr. Naidu begins with a welcome and respect to the original people (welcome to country). 

Summarised the key takeaways from Covid-10 - impacts indiscriminate, best resourced institutions affected just as much as lesser resourced, least affected have more open, flexible and distance, and has shown how unprepared and ill-equipped education sector has been for the disruption!

Encouraged all to learn from their experiences so that we can move forward, with better ways to engage learners through reengineering activities and models to ensure they are more resilient.

Comtemporary Australian Universities are unprepared. Still 'bricks n mortar' institutions which are faculty centred rather than flexible, agile and learning centric. Vector consulting report and Cisco/Optus report concur that digitalisation of learning (Australian universities and TAFEs) is slow and patchy despite the need to change. Educational leaders agree that the future of educaiton requires re-think but perhaps the teaching workforce not supported to build the relevant capabilities :(

Recommended the need to set up value principles to inform the design of flexible learning - equity, diversity, equality need to have precedence, all learning can be flexible, there is no one size fits all, therefore need for different approaches. Flexibility build in through learning experience design, learner-content engagement, learner-teacher engagement, learner-learner engagement, learner engagement with learning environment, learning engagement with assessment activities, feedback and with the larger iinstitution.

Strategy needs to move from responding (robust platform) to reflecting, reimagining.and rebound (evaluative processes). Suggested looking qt 'space agnostic design' and unbundling the 'credit' programme.

Think through the key considerations - what will the institution look like and how will it be different from now? What are the key functions, role and responsibilities and appointment of academic staff. What professional development required? What kinds of policy frameworks support the new approach?? See resource from UNESCO 2020 and article by Peters et al (2020). 

Therefore, how prepared are we?? 

Provided and discussed example - Open University of Australia collates courses from other universities. Shifting to this model may work for some. For most institutes, technology-enhanced learning sits on the periphery, most willing to experiement with flexible/open etc. but NOT at the detriment of their normal programmes!

Interesting Q & A with some discussion on Te Pūkenga, its aspirations and suggestion for us to be proactive and to represent the realities/pedagogical challenges etc.

Good presentation with clear line of narrative and challenge to the sector, to up our game, and to use the learning from the challenges to make things better.

Transforming universities with digital distance education - book overview

Mark Nichols has written a timely book - Transforming universities with digital distance education: The future of formal learning, published by Routledge (2020).

Mark is the executive director of learning design and development at the NZ Open Polytechnic and a well recognised supporter and scholar in the distance education/elearning field.

The book is a 'must read' as it summarises the many challenges faced by higher education (and by inference and association, also the vocational education and training) currently and into the future. The pandemic has amplified the challenges and also reinforced the need to provide for alternatives to the majority direction of HE. That is HE is front-loading, with a full-time cohort of young people, seeking qualifications to obtain stable employment. The opposite is now required as the impacts of the future of work, likely now accelerated by the impact of the pandemic on world economies and societies, require quite a different way to provide for life-long education. Importantly, the book provides some suggestions for a way forward.

The book is relatively short (160 pages plus) with eight chapters. Therefore a quick read over the weekend :) Chapters 1 and 2 lay out the context, the current ways things have proceeded and the rationale for change.

Chapter 3 overviews a series of models possible for university education and chapter 4 sets out the Digital Distance Education (DDE) model. The next 4 chapters than go through the ways to operationalise the model for learners, teachers, learning design and organisational change.

The DDE model is premised on 5 precepts (page 5). These are accessibility, scalability, personalisation of learning, shaped by societal needs, and also driven by learners' interests and motivations. The first chapter rationalises these precepts providing a clear argument for why change is required and how this could be accomplished.

The DDE proposed is characterised by being consistent, data-analytics driven, digitally agile, evidence based, expert taught,(including lead academic, learning activity designer, teacher/tutor/facilitator and learner pastoral support team), flexible, learning activity orientated, part-automated/AI assisted, relational (as in sociocultural supported by teachers and peers), success driven and systematic.

The book summarises and provides details for putting into practice, constructivist and androgogical learning models. The needs of learners are supported with quantifiable evidence including the use of learning analytics and data from 'AI assisted' platforms to assist with providing learners with 'personal learning environments'. What is good about the book is that it provides examples, readily understood especially by the NZ audience due to the use of the NZ qualification frameworks etc., and pragmatically guides the processes of distance learning programmes.

Principles introduced and discussed through the book will require much work, on the part of educational institutes to operationalise. There is a clear need for strategic direction, resourcing and capability building across the sector before DDE fulfils its potentialities. Leadership is key to leveraing off some of the shifts, post-pandemic in NZ - to move forward. Of importance is the need to ensure the learning is 'placed at the heart of learning' but with sufficient support for learners to reap the benefits of personalisation of learning. There is still much work to be done! but hopefully, NZ is travelling along the right trajectory towards ensuring learning is led by the learners' motivations, capabilities and future direction. 

Podcast - Tony Bates on Future of online learning and higher education - post covid-19

Listened to the podcast from Mark Nichols podcast series - Leaders and Legends in online learning with Tony Bates. Tony spoke about the future of online learning and higher education. 

Tony has summarised key points in his blog.

Covered many points relevant to NZ, especially given the formation of NZIST (the NZ Institute for Skills and Technology tasked with providing vocational education) but much of the chat grounded in the Canadian and North American higher education context.

Firstly, he emphasise that leadership is required in strategising and making decision with regards to the future of learning. How much should online learning be supported and promoted requires planned approach rather than happen due to having to respond to 'forced change'.

To deal with the rapidly evvolving needs of work, learners need to learn the transversal or 'transferable' skills  required to cope with changes wrought by technological, social and economic changes. In NZ, the emphasis on graduate profile outcomes assist with this process but still needs to be supported and promoted more deeply within the sector. Critical thinking was identified as something all employers desire of graduates. Yet, critical thinking is difficult to pin down as it is a mixture of skills, application of knowledge and specific attributes and therefore difficult to be taught and measure. Online learning has a role to play

Thirdly, there is a need for better stucture to ensure lecturers have the skills to teach (f2f and online) and keep up to date as technology and pedagogy progress. 

Then, the role of instructional designers need to be scaled up, not only having one on one relationships with lecturers/faculty but creating templates and working on courses/programmes with wider reach. Has implications for NZIST.

Warned about the need to take care in how online education is promoted as campus based/high costs programmes might become only attainable by the rich and online becomes the option for thoses unable to afford tertiary education. 

Unbundled university - webinar summary

Yesterday evening, listened to Prof. Laura Czerniewicz's presentation on unbundled learning - hosted by flexible learning NZ.

The blurb for the event indicated a micro level project on -  the intersection of increasingly disaggregated curricula and services, the affordances of digital technologies, the growing marketisation of the higher education sector itself and the deep inequalities which characterise both the sector and the contexts in which they are located.

Here are notes taken through the presentation, tidied up a little this morning:

Summarised the emergence of online provision over time especially dramatic growth of online education since the introduction of MOOCs.

Overview of the marketization of education including the competitive market as education is pushed into becoming a business rather than public service for greater good.

Universities moving into and soliciting for paid services. Students are viewed as clients and consumers. Language of business pervade institutions.

Increased income inequality means access is now difficult for many.

Unbundling the degree from all sectors occurring.

Shared landscape of course provision in the online space with traditional lectures / tutorials becoming blended / flipped and the increase in micro credentials. NZ being the only country at present to have a nationally agreed system for the accreditation of microcredentials.

Funding models have shifted towards fees for services and full service partnerships.

Online programmes require a whole new strand of support to be resourced, developed or extended and implemented.

Course design has to be more robust and course student support requires greater investment.

Provided overview ofstudy – researching emerging models of unbundling.

Unbundling relatively new and largely conceptual and theoretical with a focus on critical theory and little empirical work.

Digitisation and marketization have become more extensive in many countries.

Sample of 6 universities in South Africa and 7 in the UK plus 6 private companies (e.g. MOOC providers).

Data from publicly available information, interviews (policy makers and senior decision makers), focus groups (academics and professionals supporting online learning) and student surveys.

Findings mapped relationships across universities and private companies as to online learning networks.

Provided examples from interview data to report on themes:

Reasons for unbundling from senior decision makers included increase in access/reach and a 3^rd stream of income. Pragmatic approaches to working with private companies. Tension between core business and global competitiveness. SA more concerned about social justice than UK who supported marketization.

Private companies considered universities to be slow and inexperienced, saw themselves as pioneers and preferred universities that were entrepreneurial. Felt they understood students’ needs, profit making was couched in terms of new markets of students. Saw themselves as brokers between technology and student learning needs. Paid attention to the importance of university brand, rankings and reputation and building trust with university.

Academics were much more sceptical and concerned about their agency, top down decision making and serving the neoliberal agenda. Concerns about inequalities – digital and in general.

Alignments and tensions and issues of agency, control and negotiation were also themes coming through.

There were few incentives for exploiting the affordances of emerging models and there are continued risks in increasing digital inequalities.

Overall, provided an update on how marketisation has impacted on ways higher education responds to the outcomes of neo-liberalism, at the expense of learners - especially those who have been already marginalised.

Higher Education Learning Framework - report from Science of Learning research centre - Australia

Here is a report which is relevant to all forms of learning and should be required reading for all teachers. The report is put together by researchers from the Science of Learning research centre (SLRC) who are based at the University of Queensland and the University of Melbourne.

The report is titled 'Higher Education Learning Framework: An evidence-informed model for university learning'. Athough the context is higher education, there is much in the report which summarises the latest in educational research and neuroscience which are also relevant in other education sectors.

There is a summary of the matrix and an overview of the project as well.

The centre also edits a journal - Npj Science of Learning - which is worth a look through.

The report advocates seven themes that support learning. Each of the themes is then extended with an explanation. Then strategies for teachers and students are detailed to maximise the efficacy of these themes for each group. Strategies for assessment and the principle theories / literature review and a list of relevant references complete each theme.

The themes are:
- learning as becoming
- contextual learning
- emotions and learning
- interactive learning
- learning to learn and higher order thinking
- learninc challenge and difficulty
- deep and meaningful learning.

The report is particularly useful as each theme is summarised briefly and the strategies for teachers, students and for assessments, provide good pragmatic examples for follow through.It is not too long, and teachers can dip in and out of the report to mine the ideas for enhancing teaching practice.