Articles and resources to empower your teaching experience.
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In my W101, I am using AI-generated writing to teach students two things: (1) the pitfalls of submitting unrefined AI output in their assignments and (2) how to evaluate and revise writing. For example, I developed this group activity to help students learn how to identify unsupported claims.
When prompted to write a college-level essay, AI tends to generate a lot of unsupported claims.
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| One of the themes emerging in my conversations with departments and programs across campus this semester (17 so far!) is our commitment, as teachers and scholars, to helping our students embrace the challenge, satisfaction, and necessity of thinking—deeply, creatively, productively.
Faculty across campus articulate this goal in a variety of ways: Teaching students to value slow thinking in untangling math and programming problems, rather than speed in getting to an answer. |
Below are some resources on learning objectives and course goals.
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| When it comes to learning and teaching, AI is not a standalone issue. It intersects with many of our longstanding topics of discussion and concern at Denison, from helping our students persist through challenging work to figuring out how to best teach and support students who come from a wide variety of high school experiences. |
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| Looking for something different at mid-semester to get your students thinking and your classroom energy flowing? “Two Truths and a Lie” may seem a little worn out as a first-day ice breaker, but Stephen L. Chew has a great idea for how to use the same game to engage students with key concepts in your course materials. |
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In my W101, in most class periods, students do a graded in-class writing (ICW) assignment. A few weeks ago, I did an experiment: I required students to use a large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT or Gemini to do the ICW.
I gave them the following instructions: “Use an LLM of your choice to write a response to the ICW prompt.
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As faculty, we are not generally in the habit of taking time to pause and appreciate our accomplishments. There is always the next class meeting to plan, the next set of grading to finish, the next book order to submit. And those are only the things on the “classes” section of our to-do lists.
So let me take a post-fall break minute to say congratulations and well done on making it halfway through the fall semester! On
When October fatigue hits us and our students at the same time, occasionally it is tempting, against all of our better Denison instincts, to take the path of least resistance and just provide information and hope that students are listening. For days when you feel yourself working to resist that impulse, “3 Ways to Liven Up Your Lectures” has some great tips and reminders for small changes to help keep your students (and yourself) engaged with the material and one another.
It’s easy to assume that on a small campus like Denison, our students are already well-socialized and highly connected with one another before they ever get to our classrooms. But in the wake of Covid-19 and other dynamics of the 2020s, even Denison students often need some coaching to connect with each other. “Why One Professor Fosters Friendship in her Courses” offers some specific reasons and strategies for encouraging student connections, and if you take a minute to ask around, your Denison colleagues probably have even more!
Students frequently ask AI for feedback on their writing, so we need to teach them how to interpret that feedback. This week I am sharing some materials I developed to do that. In my W101, when students peer review rough drafts, I am now integrating lessons on AI feedback. I teach an 80-minute class, and during the first half, students work in pairs on a traditional peer review exercise.
