Podcasts

Gender Bias and Timing of SETs – Tea for Teaching (32 min) | A number of studies demonstrate gender bias in course evaluations. In this episode Whitney Buser, Jill Hayter, and Cassondra Batz-Barbarich join us to discuss their research that looks at the timing of when these gender differences emerge and theories for why they exist. Transcript available.

Connections Are Everything – Teaching in Higher Ed (37 min) | “The relationship that you have with someone does not have to be this long sustained, always impactful kind of relationship. That one short conversation with a student may be the words or the sentence that they need to hear that day.” Isis Artze-Vega and Oscar Miranda Tapia discuss the book Connections Are Everything: A College Student’s Guide to Relationship Rich Education on episode 482 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Transcript available.

Short(er) Reads

Six Approaches for Sharing Assignment Due Dates – Faculty Focus (4 min read) | “Gather a group of faculty and mention the perennial problem of students turning in assigned work late, and you will often encounter a range of emotional responses, recitations of policies and, perhaps, even blame-placing.  Yet, some faculty experience the late work phenomenon to a lesser extent. While there is nothing that we can do to mitigate the significant life events that happen to students each semester (e.g. death in the family, significant illness, car accidents), we can take steps to ensure that students stay on track with assigned course work and progress through the development of our content in a meaningful manner by taking actions to be a student success-supporting instructor.”

A Growth-Focused Icebreaker – Grading for Growth (6 min read) | “So I’m not a fan of icebreakers. Therefore, when I say that I’ve finally found an icebreaker activity that really works, and one that I can live with, it’s a big deal. I’d like to describe it to you today. I use it on the first day of every class, as well as in the talks and workshops I give. You can run this activity with students at any time of the semester and get good results. In fact, it benefits from being given repeatedly throughout the semester.”

Free Your Content! A Guide To Creating Sustainable Open Licensed Media – THE Campus (3 min read) | A guide to creating teaching and learning materials as open educational resources that can be shared and reused by all.

Using Content Disclosures in Our Courses – Faculty Focus (3 min read) | The college classroom is a unique space where students are empowered to think critically about the world around them. However, sometimes the content of our courses involves information that is sensitive, disturbing, or even traumatic. While we should challenge students to think about topics outside their comfort zones, this challenge should be met with appropriate support on behalf of the instructor. To provide this support to your students, you may want to consider using content disclosures in your classes.

AI Corner

AI Means Professors Need to Raise Their Grading Standards – Chronicle of Higher Education (8 min read) | ChatGPT has transformed the problem of grade inflation from a minor corruption to an enterprise-destroying blight.

How can generative AI intersect with Bloom’s taxonomy? – THE Campus (4 min read) | Like in a video game, AI allows us to jump multiple levels, but that doesn’t mean the much-used framework becomes obsolete – we might just need a new approach

What Will Determine AI’s Impact on College Teaching? 5 Signs to Watch. – Chronicle of Higher Education (11 min read) | “Generative AI, which has been trained on reams of human writing, had become a good enough mimic that it could create acceptable, and sometimes pretty good, prose. And its easy-to-use interface led professors to fear that students would happily outsource much of the difficult and time-consuming work of reading, thinking, and writing to a chatbot. But recent news reports and analyses present a more complicated picture, making it harder to predict what its impact on college teaching will be.”

Resources from Columbia University’s Center for Teaching and Learning

• Considerations for AI Tools in the Classroom – Given the rapid pace of technological innovation and development, higher education, like nearly all industries, is continuously called upon to consider creative approaches to teaching and learning. The following resource offers instructors a brief introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools, specifically ChatGPT, along with several strategies they might consider for navigating or engaging with these tools in their courses.
• Learner Perspectives on AI Tools: Digital Literacy, Academic Integrity, and Student Engagement – In Spring 2023, with the rising attention surrounding the use of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence (AI) tools in higher education, we asked our four undergraduate student consultants from the CTL’s Students as Pedagogical Partners Initiative for their perspectives. In the following, they share their thoughts on AI tools in relation to digital literacy skills, instructor-student dialogue on academic integrity, pedagogical use of AI tools, and assignment design.

Calls for Proposals

National Higher Education Teaching Conference 2024: Accelerating Student Success And Belonging – Minneapolis, June 13-14, 2024 | We are thrilled to announce the Call for Proposals for the National Higher Education Teaching Conference 2024, powered by the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE). This event is a unique opportunity for campus leaders, educators, and policymakers in higher education to come together, share innovative ideas, and transform the future of teaching and learning. ACUE invites you to submit an engaging and thought-provoking proposal, as we aim to create an enriching program that grows the great teaching movement across higher education, campus wide, and in the classroom.