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| 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. |
Teaching Tips
Articles and resources to empower your teaching experience.
AI and Cognitive Deficits: An Activity
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| 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
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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
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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:
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Align AI Policies with Learning Goals
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| As we approach the new semester, it’s important to reflect on how your course documents (syllabus, assignment sheets, etc.) communicate clearly to students the rules around AI use in your classes as well as the relationship between those rules and the course learning goals. Here’s my advice:
AI Policy: Articulate a clear AI policy in your syllabus, and if it makes sense to do so, articulate an AI policy in each assignment sheet. |
An AI Vocabulary Update
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| Are you anxious about having AI conversations with your classes when you don’t feel up to snuff on terminology? No idea of what’s the difference between a Chatbot and a GenAI agent?
Or is all of this lingo old news to you, but you’d like some quick and easy ways to explain it to students and colleagues? |
We are Not in an AI Apocalypse
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This is my final dispatch for the semester, and I’m pleased to offer this concluding observation: We are not (yet) in an AI apocalypse!
Here’s what I mean by that:
- The more I use AI, the better I understand the amount of work it takes to transform AI-generated content into a high quality, college-level essay. I am, therefore, less worried about students offloading cognitive labor if and when they integrate AI into their writing process.
The Final Stretch
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| In this last week of classes, it’s easy to just focus on getting to the end. But the last days of class can also be a recognition of the semester’s learning and positive sendoff for your students. As Amena Shahid writes, “The last day of class should not feel like a transaction—it should feel like a moment of celebration. |