 |
| Software updates are like oil changes for your car: critical maintenance to keep your digital systems running in an optimal state. We all know how easy it can be to put off system updates–they take up valuable computer time and can be snoozed with a single click. However, it’s important to keep up with updates for Google Chrome, your downloaded apps and software, and your operating system as updates often include bug fixes, performance and stability improvements, and patches that fix security vulnerabilities. |
CfLT Newsletter
The posts below are from the CfLT newsletter which includes curated, research-based digital resources to support ongoing faculty development and pedagogical engagement. As of August 2025, CfLT Director Karen Spierling oversees the content. Posts from July 2020-May 2025 were compiled by previous Director Lew Ludwig.
AI is Good at Form, Bad at Content
 |
| Learning how to write involves learning how form and content work together in a piece of writing. Below is an activity that is good for helping students analyze the relationship between form and content and has the added benefit of demonstrating some limitations and possibilities of using LLMs as a writing aid.
LLMs are very good at producing the formal aspects of a writing task. |
Back to Basics
 |
| Last week, during Tea with Techs time, I had a great conversation with Trent Edmunds and Robert Butts about podcasts–podcasts as student projects, and podcasts more generally in the world. I didn’t go into the conversation with any particular question in mind–I didn’t have a podcast problem to fix this semester, and I wasn’t requesting immediate ETS support. |
Being Authentic Learners with our Students (and Each Other)
 |
| In this brief essay, Donald A. Saucier and Tareque Nasser provide a useful framework for creating a welcoming and effective learning environment by intentionally sharing our own learning processes and human fallibility with our students. For these authors, the authenticity that we need to bring to the classroom as teachers involves four steps: 1. Creating a Space for Vulnerability, 2. |
Clarity: An Important Pedagogical Tool
 |
| Do you ever catch yourself thinking, “I don’t have time to explain, they’ll just figure it out”? As we dive into the “now it’s getting real” part of the semester, Regan A.R. Gurung offers a concise reflection on why clearly explained expectations and assignments (with or without the editing assistance of AI) are a crucial foundation to student learning and to faculty success in the classroom. |
AI and Cognitive Deficits: An Activity
|
| Part of our job now is to help students make better decisions about how and when to use AI in their learning. I use this slide deck in week 2 of my W101 to talk with students about how AI use affects their ability to learn. It works best if you use it in the context of a specific writing assignment you have already introduced to students. |
Breaking Things Down
 |
| I would venture to guess that many of us find ourselves uttering the word “breakdown”—in a variety of negative senses—regularly these days.
But when we’re talking about teaching, breaking things down is a fundamental and positive practice. Breaking down learning goals, reading analyses, word problems, research processes—all of these forms of academic work require working through a set of steps that we have learned over time but that may not be obvious to our students. |
I’m an AI Power User. It Has No Place in the Classroom.
 |
| As we travel the current phase of this new AI journey with our students, we are facing an old and ongoing problem: How do we preserve our classrooms and liberal arts education as spaces for deep thinking at the same time that we are helping our students to prepare for their post-college professional lives?
Working toward an answer (or answers) requires considering a wide variety of perspectives and possibilities. |
Word of the Day: Expectations
 |
| A week later, my head is still abuzz (does anyone use that word anymore?) with all the ideas, questions, challenges, and connections that emerged from the CfLT gatherings and RAISE (Readiness and Inclusion in Science Education) workshop led by guest speaker Leonard Geddes. I’m going to use my next few columns to highlight some ideas that stood out across these discussions, in the interest of promoting further reflection and conversation and, I hope, providing food for your teaching thought as the semester begins. |
If You Care About It, Do It in Class
 |
Ensuring that our students feel competent in the skills required to succeed in our classes is more important than ever if we want them to understand the value of their own learning and make intentional decisions about AI usage. James Lang offers some clear and concise advice as you finish crafting your spring syllabi:
|