Campus Technology Insider Podcast August 2024
Rhea Kelly 24:44
So in terms of faculty training, I know you've talked about what sounds like one-on-one help for faculty, but are you doing any other sort of more formal training, you know, events or things like that, for faculty too?
Shannon Brenner 25:00
Yes, absolutely. So we just finished up our convocation week where we had our first training of the year on AI, which was mandatory for all of our full-time faculty. So, so we at least got in front of everybody there and talked about some of these basics. But we have scheduled sessions on some individual AI topics all throughout the academic year. We do variety of sessions: Sometimes they're live over Zoom, sometimes they're recorded sessions that we put on our YouTube channel. Sometimes they are, you know, hands-on in-person support, if we do maybe a sort of a workshop, or where faculty can come in and start building their AI policy, or start playing with a tool, and we'll be there to kind of help them through it. So we offer trainings all the time, you know, and faculty are busy, so they come when they are able to. But we also have a professional development space where we can post recorded trainings, and then our faculty can go watch them on their own time and get continuing education credits for those. So, you know, it's sort of a number of different avenues, but we, we put a lot of trainings out there for them. We also do a monthly newsletter where we post tips and new tools and suggested resources and things like that on AI and other technology.
Jordan O'Connell 26:14
And for like, right now, we're trying to roll out Google Gemini to all of our faculty at the college, everyone at the college, and so that's a thing we'll continue to kind of roll out, make available through newsletters, updates. I think, you know, if anyone's listening in an instructional design capacity, or anyone, deans, anyone working with faculty wanting to make sure they get introduced or understand sort of the gravity of these tools, I think the smartest thing we did was last fall, getting on that calendar, and we've done it now three semesters in a row, where we have taken at least an hour with everyone there and said, like, this is the reality. This is what your students can do now, right? You've got to think through these questions. Who has good ideas? Roundtables, small group breakout rooms, but we, we forced everyone to look directly at the bright sun, right, and sort of wrestle with what that meant. And so we're going to keep doing that. We'll keep building on it, but we're also sort of assuming that, it's funny, I will, I will encounter sometimes students, sometimes faculty who just haven't encountered these tools or used them yet. So that's going to keep happening, and we still have to kind of keep going back to those basics and reminding everyone of what this means. Even if you haven't seen it personally, you've got to, you've got to account for it as an instructor.
Rhea Kelly 27:19
Those people must be living under a rock at this point I think.
Jordan O'Connell 27:22
I hear it every couple weeks like, oh, okay, you might wanna check that out. But okay.
Rhea Kelly 27:28
So one last question. What do you wish more faculty or administrators would understand about generative AI?
Shannon Brenner 27:38
Okay, so I think it would be useful if everyone understood that in a lot of ways generative AI is an equity tool and an accessibility tool. So for example, in a composition course, allowing students to use AI to help them with their sentence structure and grammar and the mechanics of writing levels of playing field, right? So students who may have weaker skills or who may have a learning disability, dyslexia, something like that, can produce writing that has consistent mechanics, the same as anyone else, and then we can dig more into the content and their critical thinking skills, right? So for things like that, and also in terms of accessibility, students being able to do things like have an AI tool record notes and take a transcript of a lecture or summarize lecture notes into practice questions to make a study guide, you know, there are all kinds of ways that students can use AI tools to help level their playing field, and that it's not just for students, of course, with it, with accessibility needs, but they are one of the groups that I think can really benefit from being able to use them. So, you know, it may be scary for some instructors in terms of student use, but the possibilities and the benefits, I think, far outweigh any of the any of the concerns.
Jordan O'Connell 28:59
I think, I think we tend to rest on our laurels, right, when we get in any role for too long. And I think this really lights a fire under all of us working in higher ed specifically, that's the only world I know, and it's a research tool, and it might be as significant as the printing press. It might be that significant to the learning, research, communication process. I would echo Shannon's point about, points about accessibility, access, incredibly powerful. If we sort of try to choose to ignore it, students might, that might become their teacher, right? That's kind of the future, potentially, unless we can be additive, unless we can, and I believe that we really can, right? I believe humans can do things that these AI tools can't do. So we should try to use them and bring all the benefits that these tools bring, and then bring that to our classrooms to the best of our ability. And we have to stay in it even when it's uncomfortable. Keep talking to people. I think that's the important part. Keep talking, thinking, talk to your colleagues about what they're doing, seek out others. I think one thing we did that made a lot of sense early and continues to, I sign up for every AI related session I possibly can and just listen, just to hear those ideas, right? Where is this going? So stay plugged in. I'm super optimistic about what this means for student learning outcomes and the ways in which we can teach our students better, and our students can learn better with these tools.
Rhea Kelly 30:11
Thank you for joining us. I'm Rhea Kelly, and this was the Campus Technology Insider podcast. You can find us on the major podcast platforms or visit us online at campustechnology.com/podcast. Let us know what you think of this episode and what you'd like to hear in the future. Until next time.