Thinking with Colleagues: AI in Education
A Q&A with Ellen Wagner
One of the most exciting things about the new generative AI tools is that we mere mortals now have the opportunity to experience some of what our best scientists have been doing for decades. —Ellen Wagner
We've all heard how AI is ushering in massive changes at our education institutions, in our teaching and learning practices, and with the student experience. It seems it's going to affect everyone. How will you make sense of it all, so you can move ahead with confidence?
Ellen Wagner, a partner at North Coast EduVisory and in her career a true veteran — she says survivor — of revolutionary technology change, reminds us that sharing thoughts with colleagues is one of the most powerful sense-making tools an educator has. Wagner herself recently relied on the power of collegial conversations to probe the question: What's on the minds of educators as they make ready for the growing influence of AI in higher education? CT asked her for some takeaways from the process.
Mary Grush: Recently you and a colleague convened a group of "educators who get things done" to think together about AI in education. Could you tell us a little about that meeting?
Ellen Wagner: This past June, I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Whitney Kilgore, the co-founder and chief academic officer of iDesign. We planned, co-hosted and wrote a summary report on a roundtable discussion — a "video summit", if you will — on the topic of AI in higher education. We had been talking about the wave of generative AI sweeping higher ed, and wondering how our higher education colleagues were doing related to ChatGPT, et al. We suddenly realized we could just ask them. And so we did.
We gathered a group of 18 individuals from a cross-section of U.S. universities and a couple of professional associations. These people included professional staff, research faculty, and university administrators.
It was an opportunity to leave title and position aside and engage as seasoned professional colleagues, puzzling through the same things. We were particularly interested in talking to people expected to pick up the "mantle of innovation" at their institutions, advising executive leadership as well as guiding their direct reports. We were also especially interested in hearing from people who, as we knew from their reputations and by direct experience, like to get things done.
It was an opportunity to leave title and position aside and engage as seasoned professional colleagues, puzzling through the same things.
AI is going to affect us all, whether we are dreaming of apps we want to create or trying to figure out how to write a new prompt or use a new recommendation engine. The important thing was not to jump in to the tendency to instruct others on what must be done, but rather to be more open to the potential of shared inquiry.
Grush: It sounds like you needed an organized but somewhat unstructured format for your meeting. How did you "unstructure" the meeting to engage everyone in this purpose?
Wagner: We developed a loose agenda that would take us through an orientation, a general brain dump of "important questions", and three targeted brainstorming sessions. When we started the meeting, we created a Google Drive document, shared the link with everyone, and asked all participants to take the meeting notes along with us.
Even though we met via Zoom, we didn't record the brainstorming sessions, out of concern it might "harden" those conversations. It was important that our participants felt safe talking about the things that were on their minds and not worry about having anything come back to bite.