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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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Teaching Tips
Articles and resources to empower your teaching experience.
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. |
Policies and Practices That Make a Difference
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| Our December 4th Teaching Matters session was full of laughter, nods of appreciation, and thoughtful conversation. The group shared effective approaches to attendance, late work, engagement/contribution, and technology policies. We talked about the purpose behind various policies and the importance of communicating that purpose clearly to students.
One participant described evaluating each policy from three vantage points: how it facilitates their work as the professor, how it supports an individual student’s learning, and how it shapes the classroom community. |
The Value of the Liberal Arts in our AI Era
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| Do you need a post-Thanksgiving energy boost and reminder of the crucial value of our work as educators moving into an AI-infused future? Nazrul Islam, of the University of East London, makes the case that if we are to ensure that AI lives up to its beneficial potential, it’s more important than ever for human workers to have the kinds of liberal arts skills that are core to Denison’s mission. |
AI Anxieties and Trust in Our Classrooms
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| Way back before Thanksgiving, after an academic integrity board hearing, I chatted with the student board members about their sense of AI issues in daily student life. They said it feels like there is a growing gulf between classes that use AI regularly and don’t identify any significant limits to AI use vs. classes where AI use is strictly prohibited across the board. |
What Have We Learned?
Calvin and Hobbes sum up what the week before Thanksgiving can feel like, both for us and for our students. There is too much to do in too little time, in a world that feels too chaotic. Even simple tasks can feel overwhelming and complicated. If we’re being honest, who out there doesn’t just want to take a nap and hope that things seem better when we wake up?
4 Better Ways to Grade Team Projects
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| As we head into the final weeks of the semester, many of our classes are busy with group presentations and team projects. If you find yourself getting preemptively frustrated with the challenge of grading a team project, take a minute to read Lauren Vicker and Tim Franz’s suggestions about transparent rubrics, mid-project feedback, and opportunities for peer evaluation. |