Online Learning in the Second Half
In this podcast, John Nash and Jason Johnston take public their two-year long conversation about online education and their aspirations for its future. They acknowledge that while some online learning has been great, there is still a lot of room for improvement. While technology and innovation will be a topic of discussion, the conversation will focus on how to get online learning to the next stage, the second half of life.
Episodes
Monday Sep 09, 2024
EP 30 - Dr. Omid Fotuhi and the Sense of Belonging in Online Learning
Monday Sep 09, 2024
Monday Sep 09, 2024
In this episode, John and Jason talk with Dr. Omid Fotuhi, a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh and the Director of Learning Innovation at WGU Labs, about the notion of belonging in the evolving landscape of online learning. They discuss the WGU model and how it breaks traditional barriers through competency-based, self-paced education, the critical role of fostering a sense of belonging for student success, the need for institutions to move beyond temporary interventions to address deeper structural issues, and the future of education where learning becomes more independent. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)
Links and Resources:
Inscribe - Community-based educational software application
"Where and with whom does a brief social-belonging intervention promote progress in college?”
Article https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade4420
Dr. Omid Fotuhi Contact Information
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omidfotuhi/
Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License.
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections!
[00:00:00] Omid Fotuhi: The notion and the assumption that learning happens best, as measured by seat time, the number of hours you spend.
<Phone goes off>
[00:00:07] Omid Fotuhi: Ha.
[00:00:08] John Nash: So
[00:00:09] Jason Johnston: rookie mistake, John. Come on. We haven't quite been at this a year yet, Omid. so…
[00:00:15] John Nash: My phone is off, but my Macintosh rang
[00:00:18] Omid Fotuhi: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
<Theme Music>
[00:00:21] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:25] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey everyone. And this is online learning in the second half, the online learning podcast.
[00:00:31] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last two years about online education. Look, online learning has had its chance to be great and some of it is, but still, a lot of it really isn't. And so Jason, how are we going to get to the next stage?
[00:00:47] Jason Johnston: That's a great question, John. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?
[00:00:51] John Nash: I think that's a great idea. What do you want to talk about today?
[00:00:55] Jason Johnston: Today we are joined by Dr. Omid Fatouhi. Omid, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:01] Omid Fotuhi: Thank you. It's great to be here.
[00:01:03] Jason Johnston: Can we call you Omid?
[00:01:05] Omid Fotuhi: That sounds great.
[00:01:06] Jason Johnston: Okay. Omid is a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh and director of learning innovation at WGU labs. So great to have you here to talk with us today.
[00:01:17] Omid Fotuhi: I look forward to it.
[00:01:19] Jason Johnston: You and I, we met over dinner through the company Inscribe at a conference. And one of the things that, of course, immediately, just made me realize that you were just a great guy is our common love of Canada We talked about living in Canada and talked a little bit about longing to live in Canada again.
And so I appreciated that. And then we connected, of course, over the topic of online and the panel that this company Inscribe, which I can put a link in, great people, cool product. Not paid by them. But I'll put a link to our show notes. But they connected us over this idea of belonging, student belonging online, which is a huge topic.
And we'll get into that because you've done some research. in this area. But first, we wanted to get to know you a little bit and just to chat about that. Tell us a little bit about your current roles and where you are living right now.
[00:02:17] Omid Fotuhi: Yeah, I think the best way to describe my current role is as a fish trying to climb a tree. If you've heard the expression that you shouldn't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, nonetheless, that's what I am. It's akin to what's also known as the Peter Principle, which is to say that if you're trying skilled and competent, you'll eventually be promoted into incompetence, often into management.
And that's not too far from the truth with where I am, except that I've been able to create a pretty unique situation for myself. So I am a trained social psychologist by training. That's where a lot of my thinking and a lot of the way that I look at things comes from. And currently, I'm working for WG Labs which is a R& D arm of Western Governors University, which does focus on how it is that we can create the technological tools and the research base to understand how to optimize learning for students, both in traditional but also online student populations. So that's what I'm doing right now. And the great thing is that throughout my position with WGU labs, I've still been able to engage in conversations like this And invest in ongoing research on the topic of belonging and our conversations with inscribers, just an example of that.
[00:03:35] Jason Johnston: Yeah. And for those listening, you may or may not know WGU huge university, interesting backstory, some interesting Even in the news the last few years in terms of its funding from the government and the back and forth on that, which sparked a huge conversation about regular and substantive interaction.
And anyway, we could go into so many directions with one of the unique things I think about WGU is that it's competency-based. If I understand this, basically, every course that they put out is more competency-based. Talk to us a little bit about that. And like, how do you intersect with that kind of way to deliver online content?
[00:04:19] Omid Fotuhi: mean, I think what I'll mention is the fact that WGU offers an alternative to the traditional design of education. And it's one in which the WGU is able to challenge the prescriptive norms and standards of how it is that learning and assessment take place. And back in 1995, they said, hey, let's do this crazy thing of putting learning online and see what happens.
Fast forward to today, with over 150,000 currently enrolled and over 300, 000 graduates, there is something to that recipe that seems to be successful, that resonates and offers a value proposition to individuals who may not have seen themselves as being viable into the pathway of the traditional online or the traditional higher educational opportunities that many other students would themselves into. Now, when you look at some of the components of WGU, it is a competency-based, fully online, and self-paced learning model, which means that it challenges some of the common barriers to accessing higher education. Those include things like a model of learning that challenges the standard assumptions of what learning ought to be, one of which is that this moderated learning, which is measured by seat time, the number of hours a student spends in the classroom, is the primary metric of how it is that learning should be captured.
And instead, it offers some freedom to some of those constraints. Specifically, it challenges the time-paced, place-based, and standardized testing approach to learning by having this online where you can learn at your own pace, it is competency-based, which importantly is able to capture learning in a way that's much more dynamic.
It allows the inclusion of experiences and learning that you may have acquired in other domains so that testing is a better reflection of the learning in itself as such, as I mentioned, with over 300, 000 graduates and over 150,000 currently enrolled, many of whom are seen as the non-traditional student populations it, it's a strong testament that this model, which is an alternative to the traditional higher educational model, seems to be resonating and working for many students.
[00:06:50] Jason Johnston: Could I ask one more question about WGU? Are you so far down the road now that like you're not even talking about Carnegie hours or about time in your seat or about those kinds of things or how it works there?
[00:07:02] Omid Fotuhi: What I'll say is it's important to unpack what we mean when we talk about students. For me, what comes to mind is a recognition that students are not a monolith group, that they are comprised of many diverse individuals with diverse characteristics diverse needs, and diverse preferences for learning. And if you take that insight and combine it with the understanding that we've all been exposed to recently, given the disruptions of the pandemic, given the advent of AI, given some of the increasing Awareness of the conditions of the more traditional higher ed institutions with their legacy admissions and other admission criteria that, that do selectively benefit some groups over others, but there is this, appetite in this atmosphere of exploring alternative models.
And so I think having schools like WGU that have an alternative model which appeals to a group of individuals who again, in the traditional view would not have seen themselves as being part of the educational process now becomes a reality. And I think As we're at this precipice of the, at this nexus of technology having a greater and greater role on how it is that we take, think about learning that more and more of these alternative models will have value for different subgroups of individuals.
So I think that's the way to think of it. And I also would maybe mention that being on the inside, WGU is also recognizing that it too needs to change and it too needs to adapt very quickly because the model that's worked for 25 years is not going to continue to work unless we want to fall, sort of categorize ourselves in the same way that the traditional higher ed institutions have had, which is to continue a legacy of traditions simply because that's what we started off with.
So that's what I'll say. I think it's an interesting time and I think what works today may not be relevant for tomorrow, but the ability and the willingness to adapt is really what's necessary given that there will be more and more inclusion of diverse groups. into the educational pathways.
[00:09:20] John Nash: That's really good. And it reminds me of the article that you co-authored last year entitled, "Where and With Whom Does a Brief Social Belonging Intervention Promote Progress in College?" This was published in Science over 8,000 downloads in less than a year. Maybe this struck a nerve with folks.
[00:09:53] Omid Fotuhi: I think everyone knows that education is important, and everyone's got a critical eye around what it is, that can optimize the learning experience.
Now, maybe take it 50 years ago, there was this observation that individuals who had high self-esteem also had correlations with better life outcomes, like better success, better academic performance, and better happiness in their relationships. And so there was this movement, the self-esteem movement, that actually encouraged people to now tell students and children that you're great, you're wonderful, and you can do anything.
Turns out that did not work out so well. Because telling someone that you can do anything without the training and the work that has to go into being able to do that might fall short. A remedy to that was what then came on the scene as known as the growth mindset insight. This is a recognition that how you view intelligence has a pretty powerful role in how it is that you stay engaged with difficult things and how it is that you respond to failure and setbacks.
It too had its moment in the limelight, if you will. And unfortunately, it also suffered and struggled from what I would call is an overuse or a sort of, It's superficial application of mindset. Today, it's so ubiquitous in education that the most common rendering of a growth mindset lesson is a teacher saying, "Hey, we know from research that having a growth mindset is good, so you should have one."
Turns out it's not the best way, and the reason why is because now the onus is on the student to demonstrate that they have a growth mindset instead of the investment necessary to help them cultivate the appreciation for the effort. So as that growth mindset is starting to see a bit of a stall in terms of its poignancy.
There's now also a recognition that a similar correlation exists between a sense of belonging and optimal outcomes. And so you can see history starting to repeat itself. What's happening now is that because this observation is powerful and because it's compelling, relatively low cost, that schools and educators are saying, hey, what if we just foster belonging?
What if that's what we do and that will solve all of our problems? So as you're probably seeing and hearing, I'm sharing this with a bit of a caution, because to do any of these this work effectively, you have to be really committed to understanding the mechanisms that threaten a sense of growth mindset, a sense of genuine belonging, instead of unfortunately falling prey to the convenient articulation of the outcome, which is to say, belonging is good, so you should feel like you belong, which by the way, is not even an exaggeration.
I have seen schools who have paid for full size billboards with the word belong exclamation mark as you're driving into campus. So the science article that was published, which should be given credit to dozens of people, including the four primary researchers, Greg Walton David Yeager Mary Murphy, and Christine Lowell, and myself, who co-founded the project, was an attempt to see how and where you can try to scale which is really, again, at the heart of this tension.
When you see something that works, how do you scale it effectively? And so that science article that really, I think, is absolutely titled, "When For Whom Does Belonging Work?" is really the main insight and the main takeaway is that not that belonging interventions will work in any and every situation, but understanding the core requisites of when belonging fails, or what conditions threaten a sense of belonging, will then give you the pathway and the opportunity to try to explore what are those triggers that cause this belonging uncertainty, and then targeting those things.
And maybe having a belonging intervention is part of your repertoire, but it shouldn't be seen as this magic bullet that will solve all of your problems. And that's the framework I think that's important to as we're talking about these interventions.
[00:14:13] John Nash: I really appreciate your lead up to this, because what it helps us remember is that, and as it's structured in the article that the social belonging is the intervention that then hopefully leads to the real outcome, which is students completing the first year increasing that rate at which they complete versus what you were just saying as belonging with an exclamation point, as though we're being ordered to belong and then I can wash my hands of this and we're done.
[00:14:44] Omid Fotuhi: Yeah. And the other note, and again this is a, might seem like a bit of a tangent and might even seem like I'm working against myself because as I mentioned, I spent about 15 years of my life thinking and investing in understanding how these interventions work. Now, what I'll also say is I would suggest that the optimal endpoint for any psychological intervention is that it no longer works.
That might seem surprising, but if you think of it, any intervention, the word intervention means to intervene to stop something from not harming is actually a band aid solution that is intended to mend any underlying root causes temporarily. And so as you think about our interventions, like a growth mindset, like a belonging intervention, our hope is that they stop working because in the process of understanding when belonging becomes relevant and when it no longer works, opens up the conversation to understanding what are the contingencies in the context that are causing belonging to be threatened and causing people to feel uncertain about the belonging.
So again, you shouldn't rely on these interventions as the solution. You should understand that these interventions will help begin an inquiry into the conditions by which these interventions are needed with the hope that you get to a point where you don't need them anymore because you've solved the underlying causes.
[00:16:18] John Nash: You've signaled, in essence, how we can always be creating a belonging environment.
[00:16:26] Omid Fotuhi: Yeah, and and what's interesting and I think what you all are really focused on with your podcast and your work is having a greater understanding of online learners. I think when you take this theoretical framework of belonging, first it's important to ask what is it? And that, depending on who you ask, you're going to get a different question.
But overall, I think most people will agree that a sense of belonging is a feeling that you are cared for and valued in a particular context. Generally, I've found that this is the one definition that most people can resonate with.
[00:17:01] Jason Johnston: Could you say that one more time for us?
[00:17:03] Omid Fotuhi: Belonging is the perception or the feeling, and I will underscore and bold feeling that you are cared for and valued in a particular context.
Now the reason why I underscore and bold feeling is that it is entirely subjective, which means that I can't give you a checklist of things that as an administrator to do that will ensure that you will create a sense of belonging in all your students. It also, I think, a broader level, highlights the fact that because it's such an individual experience, you also have to understand that context matters.
And much, if not most, of the theoretical foundations of belonging come from studying students in more on campus traditional universities. It's a really great theoretical question now of what is belonging for a student who's learning online? What are the touch points or the connections or the links that are associated with a sense of belonging?
And here's an even more ambitious question. And one that I think I'll leave you with is does belonging even need to happen for learning to be effective? And so that's a really, I think a first principles question for us to think about. Must there be belonging? And if you unpack that for a second, and this is my own little thesis on belonging, which is to say that we have created our society and our organizations to necessarily have these contingencies, these identity contingencies, which is a term that Claude Steele uses, where individuals have to navigate the norms, whether implicit or explicit, and feel as though they can either live up to those norms or whether they are excluded from being included in those norms. So if you look around and you're underrepresented, then you might start to wonder, maybe I'm not part of this group. If you look around and the way that you dress, the way that you carry your hair and your appearance is different.
You start to question if you are performing poorly compared to your peers, you start to question these things. And all of these are contingencies. that make you question whether you do or don't belong. And I think a really interesting opportunity for us is could there be a model in which there is a learning environment in which there aren't as many of these contingencies, in which learning can happen independent of your sense that you are adequate, sufficient, worthy.
That's the next frontier. And I think that's what the incredible promise of online learning carries is that we could potentially envision a world in which we don't need to invest so much in trying to foster a sense of belonging because a sense of belonging comes from your social network at home, your own sense of individual growth and progress, your own self awareness, and you're able to invest in your learning in a way in which your identity is not contingent on how you do or whether you were included within the in group or that culture that is the institution. That's where I would hope to see the future of learning happening, and that's where I think the promise of online learning is one step ahead of more traditional institutions.
[00:20:29] John Nash: I'm interested because I've been either guilty of oversimplifying belonging, or maybe I'm in support of your thesis. because people, and myself included, have talked about Maslow's notions of belongingness, as a sort of this love need, second only to physiological and safety security needs.
When you ask, is belonging necessary for learning, are you thinking about it only as an aspect of the learning cycle for the learner? Or is, because if I feel belonging in general in other places, then have I satisfied that need?
[00:21:04] Omid Fotuhi: Yeah, that's a great question, and it's actually incredibly critical to understand that framework of needs and optimal functioning. Like any basic need, imagine if you're hungry, right? If you're really hungry, then you and I can't have this conversation, because you're focused on your hunger, you're distracted, you're depleted.
And that's exactly the way to think about these needs, is that it's only when they are absent or frustrated that their predictive effects emerge. It's more of the absence of these needs that becomes critical and important, as opposed to their presence. And I think all too often, we've been a part of a culture where we're like, we just need to, nourish this and have more of it.
And maybe that's a good thing. But that's a distinct question from its absence. It's if you go to a party, If you don't know anybody, you're not going to stay there. But if you know that one person, then that's all you need. You just need that one person that will introduce you and you feel like, alright, I have someone to talk to.
But if you have nobody, that's when it matters, and that's when you're not going to be able to focus, have conversations, even step into that party. And the same is true for belonging. The same is true for psychological safety. The same is true for physiological safety. that these needs only matter when they are threatened.
And again, I think this is where I go back to the conversation we're having is, why is it that we've created Institutions that, that question a sense of belonging, and rather than accepting those as, things that students have to learn how to navigate, maybe the question is, how do we redesign the institution in such a way that it doesn't threaten your sense of belonging?
How do we do that?
[00:22:56] John Nash: How might we have institutions that ensure there's no absence of these needs?
[00:23:02] Omid Fotuhi: Exactly. How do we, yeah, exactly.
[00:23:05] John Nash: Can I take your party analogy to an online learning class?
[00:23:08] Omid Fotuhi: Sure.
[00:23:11] John Nash: Yeah Yeah good. That's all I wanted to know. It was a yes or no question.
[00:23:16] Jason Johnston: I think you could start in something like, "Say you're the DJ of this party."
[00:23:21] Omid Fotuhi: There's being I love psychology for many reasons. I actually began in psychology for what a lot of graduate students or early researchers use as the reason for doing research, which is more me search than research, right? Psychology gave me a pathway to understand myself.
And through that, I was able to really better navigate how I'm feeling, how I'm thinking, how I'm behaving, and a better understanding of the world. There's a wealth of understanding and frameworks within psychology that help us understand a lot of complex issues. One of the foundational theories of human behavior and motivation is called self determination theory.
And essentially, that theory is, as far as I can tell, one of the best comprehensive models of why it is that we invest effort in a voluntary way. And there are three components of why it is that we would do this. One is that we have a sense of competence by doing something new and hard, but that the acquisition and the mastery of that skill helps to reinforce our self view as being capable and able to do something.
The second is that we have a sense of autonomy, independence, and choice in what we're doing and why we're doing it. If we strip that away, then all you have is conformity, and that's not conducive to optimal learning or optimal performance. And the third is relatedness. We are social beings at the end of the day, and it's hard to undo that hard wiring.
And so this is the one that I want to just maybe unpack for a second, because I think. It's one of those unspoken tensions, right? There's a prospect in which you can imagine online learning or maybe even AI driven learning where it's entirely independent and individual. You just imagine the world in which you don't need teachers, you don't need classes, you can just learn on your own.
And a lot of the critics will say does that mean that's the beginning of the end of society, that we just don't need each other anymore? I will posit that based on the foundations of psychology that's not likely to happen because at the end of the day we will also only invest in the acquisition of learning if it helps us better relate to other people.
That ultimately we're gaining this learning to exchange with others in a way that it's beneficial. Maybe I want to get your thoughts and you want to get my thoughts and collectively we create new thoughts together. Maybe it's part of a commercial agreement that I am employed because of the skill set that I have, but it's still related to this notion and this need of relatedness.
And one of the pushbacks that I have around this you know, fear mongering that if we just pursue online technology driven learning that we're going to get to a place where everybody's entirely independent and society will fall apart. I think there's some, boundaries to that notion. And honestly, I don't see that happening because of these fundamental needs that we have in the fact that we do care about these exchanges with other people really critically.
[00:26:22] Jason Johnston: One thing in addition to that as well, we've been doing asynchronous, independent learning since humans were around, really, and certainly since Gutenberg, right? This is all of us have learned asynchronously, independently from books. And I think this is always going to be part of what we do.
I think that there is a, maybe some layers to this as well, that we'll find ourselves in various domains of learning. Some of them will be more social, some of them will be less social. But I love what you're saying and I love what you bring to this as well. And I think I failed to mention, or we failed to mention before that you have a PhD in social psychology and I love what you bring to this, not just, I know a PhD is not the end all of your learning that you've learned a lot since I'm sure.
But it, I love that you bring that perspective to online learning that you're looking at it, not just from a education standpoint. Mine's more, my learning is much more from an educational end of things, but it falls in line with a lot of what we're learning as well about andragogy, these things fall in line, or even some of our more recent talks about liberatory practices inside of the classroom, thinking about the students.
Agency and what it is that will allow them to pursue their own their own learning and guide the knowledge that they're acquiring.
[00:27:50] Omid Fotuhi: Yeah, these are the foundation blocks of understanding motivation and learning. And so I love that you're thinking about all of this. I will mention that given the current popularity of belonging, which I think is worth noting, that almost every institution will have some component of belonging or equity within their vision statement or their mandate.
We are at an interesting juncture where online institutions are also interested around how do we foster and create the conditions and the interventions that are able to create the sense of belonging. And so I've been pulled in, my team has been pulled into this question a lot, and we're starting to do the foundational research of doing exactly that, is to identify the triggers and the conditions by which belonging is put into question.
Because once you understand those levers, then you can start to create a program that targets those levers and having access to WGU and their student populations, we have had an incredibly accelerated rate of learning already but there's still a lot to learn, right? We mentioned earlier, what is the nature of belonging?
What is belonging really if the contingencies are removed or minimized like it is for WGU? In which case, what is the utility of belonging, if any? So these are the questions that we're wrestling with and gaining a lot of insights. And it's great to see that there are a lot of institutions who are coming to the table with these kinds of questions.
We've had partnerships with ASU, with SNHU, trying to tap into these same questions. But I imagine there's still a lot of organizations that are grappling with these same issues. And I love that you all are doing this work too.
[00:29:28] Jason Johnston: Yeah, and you mentioned that big billboard that was great, that said belonging, exclamation mark. It made me think of a research colleague at University of Kentucky Dr. Lanisha Connor, who I learned a lot from, and she said one time, "you can't declare a safe space. You just can't, just by saying the first day of your classroom, this is a safe space." It's and it also reminds me of the office, where, one day Michael Scott declares bankruptcy, and so he just steps out into the office and says, "I declare bankruptcy."
It's " Michael, that's not the way it works." And you can't declare a safe space. I like what you said about thinking about the conditions and interventions. Could you speak to each of those a little bit more, either what you learned from this study or from your own learning there at WGU?
[00:30:20] Omid Fotuhi: Yeah. And again, if you'll indulge me, I'll go on a little bit of a historical review. Much of this work is founded on some of those seminal and pioneering work of Claude Steele. Back in, I think, the 80s and even some into the 90s there was an observation known as underperformance. And specifically what that was is, There is an observation that as students begin a new phase of their learning, so they transition either from high school to college, for instance, or some transitional period, that given that those students from wherever they came from had almost identical credentials and grades, and yet they started in this new environment and consistently and predictably along the way.
Some of the underrepresented demographic variables that we know would now demonstrate poor performance compared to their peers. Now again, I want to emphasize that based on their past metrics, this shouldn't have happened. And yet there's something that's happening that as they transition to this environment is leading to this underperformance.
And this began the question of what are the forces? What are the factors that are leading to this underperformance? Because based on past. performance, we wouldn't predict this. And so Claude Steele and some of his colleagues, Joshua Aronson in particular designed an experiment in which they invited men and women into the lab.
And they told these these participants that they would be doing a relatively hard Math test, which was pulled out of the GRE and the participants, both men and women, were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the one condition, they were just told, you're going to do a math test, it's pulled out of the GRE, so go ahead and do your best.
And again, even though these participants were selected because they had identical scores in college, and they had identical levels of interest in mathematics, When they were brought into the testing environment and told to do this test, women underperformed compared to men, replicating that underperformance effect.
Now, in the other condition the participants were told you're going to do this math test, but in addition they were told, although we know that in standardized testing sometimes women underperform compared to men, but guess what? Our team has devised this test in such a way that this does not happen with this particular test.
And so given that same test this time the difference between the genders did not appear. The men and women performed exactly the same way. So this was one of the first examples and demonstrations that there are forces, invisible forces within the context that individuals contend with, that lead to performance differences.
So these term, again, identity contingencies, the conditions in a situation that one must navigate based on one's social identity. can have a pretty powerful effect. In particular, one of those identity contingencies is known as stereotype threats. That is, if you perceive that there is a negative stereotype about you or your group that you become worried or at risk of confirming, then that places an additional level of tax and cognitive burden that you have to contend with in addition to the task at hand.
While you're sitting down and doing this test, you might start to hear your internal thoughts going, hey, this is a test, you're here with your peers, it's a math test, and maybe women are not supposed to do as well. And as you're starting to start focused on the test, you hear this internal chatter, and maybe you might even Retort and say, Hey, stop thinking about this.
It doesn't matter what these notions are. It doesn't matter that John next to you might judge you negatively. You're still engaging in that chatter. And your emotional system is also activated. You're also anxious. And you're also more vigilant to see if people are going to look at you if you do more poorly.
All these things are robbing you of the cognitive resources necessary to do the task ahead. And of course, that becomes the mechanism by which you underperform, and not a reflection of the fact that you are not as skilled or as prepared to do the test. These are what are known as identity contingencies, or the conditions in an environment that predictably impacts certain groups in predictable ways.
And so that's important to note, that there are these conditional factors that systematically impact individuals in different ways. And I forgot the second part of your question. You said there was a conditions and the intervention, is
[00:35:07] Jason Johnston: And then the interventions, yeah.
[00:35:09] Omid Fotuhi: In the example by Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson, they also learned that if they reframe the meaning of the situation, that they lighten the weight of the identity contingencies, the conditions of the environment, then that can free you up.
That can free up the cognitive resources that otherwise would have been available to you. So if you calm the anxiety, if you calm the worry in your mind, then you can perform better. Now I've been doing this work in psychology with a specialization on mindsets, motivation, and performance for over a decade.
And over the years I actually get a question a lot that, that where people and usually students will say, "Hey, knowing what you know and understanding the research like you do, what is the optimal psychological state of learning? Is it one of an intense focus? Is it one of being in flow? One of deep curiosity?"
And I'll respond that based on my understanding and reading of the literature is that the optimal psychological state of learning is actually one of simply being okay. One of just having your cognitive resources and your thinking be calm so that you can engage in processed learning in an optimal way.
So you can be critical about the information that does make sense or it doesn't make sense. You're not bogged down by all of this chatter in your mind about what other people might be thinking. That is the optimal condition of learning. And so as we think about the conditions that tax your cognitive load, that's where we focus on.
Now, as it relates to interventions, The process of identifying when these contingencies have a negative effect is also a pretty robust process. So my colleagues and I realized that although the theory is sound, one theoretical framework may not be relevant for all groups in all conditions, which is to say that any intervention won't necessarily be effective for any group in any condition. And so there's a lot of customization and tailoring that has to happen. Like my colleagues, Jeff Cohen and Julio Garcia, who's passed away unfortunately did did articulate a framework called the three T's framework that an intervention needs to be tailored timed and and timely.
Which is to say that you have to understand who it is that you're serving. when, and for what underlying cause. And that's why these interventions are relevant. You're probably hearing me talk about interventions in a very tentative way, a very careful way, much like you would expect an academic to speak about things, but it is important because while I could stand here and say, "Hey, belonging interventions have been shown to be effective, just scale them. Growth mindset works. Tell everyone to have a growth mindset."
That's not the lens or the position I'm coming from. But what I, where I am coming from is if you are able to identify those contingencies within the environments that put into question your adaptive mindsets, then that becomes the foundation of exploring how that manifests for different groups in different environments, which can then lead to the design of an intervention. And it might be one of these psychological interventions, it might be a structural intervention, it might be a financial intervention, based on where the evidence leads you.
[00:38:35] John Nash: It's almost as if you're saying, if I was catching correctly your previous comments, that the interventions should be tailored, but also carefully thought of in such a way that they don't themselves become a program. Is that fair?
[00:38:52] Omid Fotuhi: Yes, I think to use the interventions as a crutch can be problematic because what you're not doing is solving the underlying conditional root cause.
If, There is a resulting program. Hopefully it's focused on the environment. I'll share with you that we've done some work in a number of contexts, but one of the projects I'm working on right now is with the Pitt Law School at the University of Pittsburgh and that's a beautiful demonstration of the evolution of how these things play out.
We began by first identifying that students who transition into the graduate program of the law school contend with a lot of these these forces that make them question whether they can do it that put a layer of stress on them that is chronic and constant. Unfortunately, it disproportionately impacts those who are contending with negative stereotypes.
So we began the process of having conversations with students, understanding when and how these factors impact them, which led to an intervention that demonstrated positive effects. So one might actually want to just stop there and say, "Hey we've uncovered the root causes. We now have an intervention. So let's just roll this out in perpetuity."
But that's not the end goal, I would say, because what you would hope to do is once you have the intervention, that becomes also a point, a data point of insight that helps you have conversations with your administration and your faculty about why students are having these experiences and why they might be benefiting from the intervention in such a way that the program becomes the faculty training, the administrative support, the structures that might put into question whether it's, whether or not students feel comfortable.
And as an example, through this work, we were actually able to eliminate a grading policy that was causing a great deal of stress for students at the Pitt Law Program. So that's the program. The program should be a policy or a structural reform that the intervention and the customization process inform.
[00:41:03] John Nash: Yes, you've made me wonder a lot about these things from an organizational standpoint. And I'm in a department of educational leadership studies. So we're constantly thinking about how is the organization, how is the organization set up and how our leaders are articulating change inside that. And so at large universities, we see, very big at times, student success programs. And I wonder now after talking to you, this has been really enlightening, to what extent some of those programs inside those student success initiatives really are actually just interventions working against the behemoth of the organization that has things in place so that if it thought about fixing those things, then some of those student success programs wouldn't be necessary.
[00:41:50] Omid Fotuhi: Yeah, and I would I would encourage that line of inquiry is to constantly be vigilant for. Is this a temporary remedy or is this a structural reform that hits at the root cause of what's happening? The caveat here is that, again, different programs and models will work for different groups in different contexts.
If you think of the more prototypical student journey, one who's just finished high school, is moving out of their hometown and their home, and moving into a new campus where their identity is forced to make a very rapid transition into a new place, into a new environment, into a new role, into a new social context, then actually having a pretty heavy handed support system can be really helpful, right?
There's a lot of learning in addition to the academic content that is required and beneficial. And so in that case, it may not be a a band aid remedy. It might actually be part of core foundational needs that sustain the student's development across their journey of learning. Also, but I love how you're framing it is, how do we disentangle that?
How do we understand when it's just a patch versus a core need that we're serving?
[00:43:07] John Nash: Yes, exactly.
[00:43:08] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I really like your, I really like your approach to environment versus program that help support belonging for those that need it. I think people just love to grab onto silver bullet solutions, and I'm sorry, Omid, but you may not get a lot of keynotes if you're a little more open handed about solutions.
You know what I mean? Like the keynote people are the ones that come up with this grand idea that these are the five things that are going to absolutely change without question in every environment that you are in or, take this to your school and you'll see, these incredible results in a year kind of thing. But, and I say that jokingly because I think I really like your approach, and I think that is actually a more effective approach as we look into different educational environments, and we think about different kinds of students and being responsive to them, thinking about the environment, what would help, and then being responsive to them within those environments, it may not be the same thing at WGU that it is at University of Tennessee, that it is at University of Kentucky, and then it's not going to be the same, In the College of Education, as it is in the College of Psychology, that is for first year undeclared folks, and so I, I really appreciate your approach there.
[00:44:30] Omid Fotuhi: And I also appreciate your comment. I realize I'm not going to retire based on the number of keynotes I'm invited to based on my or tentative approach. That being said, having thought about belonging and having had conversations with hundreds of institutions, there are some common recommendations that I can offer for any institution that might want to think about how do we foster a greater sense of belonging?
Or as I've been framing it more recently, how do we ensure that we're not threatening a sense of belonging? One of those has to do with an organizational vision or approach that at its core does one thing really well. Which is to say that you are able to take a position of interested inquiry for the students that you're serving..
How do you understand the individual experiences of the students that you're serving, and what are the mechanisms to ensure that you continue to have that understanding? I think making assumptions can lead you astray, but ensuring that you have a pathway and a channel to the student voice on a continual basis is a really good starting place.
In many of my partnerships, we've either instituted surveys that are standard, they go out once a year and analyze. We incorporate focus group conversations that keep us updated into the qualitative narratives that students experience. But also, from a systemic perspective, how do you empower your faculty, your administration to prioritize that perspective taking?
As you mentioned, quite beautifully, that you can't declare a safe space, you also can't declare a sense of belonging, but if you recognize, based on the definition that I shared, that the best definition is that belonging is the feeling that you are cared for and valued, then you are valued. The best way to actually nourish that feeling is by feeling like you are appreciated, by feeling like you are understood, by feeling like your input is valued in this community.
And how that happens is not by telling someone that you're valued and you're appreciated. Instead, it's this sort of positioning of interested inquiry. How do you ask questions that convey to students that, "Hey, what you think and what you do matters. We want to learn from you. What are the things that you're thinking about? What are the things that you're investing? We want to support those things."
So there's a lot of structural and programmatic effort that can go into authentically conveying to students that they matter in this place. And so I think that's the one thing that I would suggest is A, understand and take that position of interested inquiry to really have that connection with their voice and their experiences.
And in so doing, ironically, that becomes one of the best vehicles of fostering that same sense of belonging that you're trying to understand. Because when you do invest in authentically listening and understanding, that's what conveys to someone that you care. Claude Steele reports of his first experiences in graduate school, where he actually was the only African American Black student in the program.
And so he was contending with a lot of stereotype threat. And what he noticed after a while was that his office was down the hall and his advisor was on the other side of the hall. That his advisor would frequently walk across the hallway, come into his office, and ask him questions about the research that they were doing.
" Hey, what do you think of this? How's that going? What can we learn about this? What would you recommend about this particular thing?" And that constant questioning that was conveying, hey, I care and I believe in the value of your input is exactly what helped Claude Steele manage the stereotypes that maybe he shouldn't be there.
Maybe he can't cut it there. He was able to see genuinely that someone valued his perspective. And so that was a powerful intervention or component of what it is that fostered the sense of belonging. The other thing that I'll say, so the first is a mechanism to understand the student voice.
The second is messaging. and an intentional approach and understanding of the language that we use. I think in institution or any aspirational environment, we want to motivate aspiration, we want to motivate progress, we even want to motivate excellence. But what do we mean by these things? So excellence, if you don't really define it, might be implied as the singular pathway towards a singular outcome. As opposed to, but it could mean, which is a diverse set of experimentations, of failures and successes through the inclusion of diverse perspectives that leads you incrementally to one step further. So when we talk about this is an institution of excellence, what do we mean? So being intentional about the language that we use.
What is the vision and mission statements that we are articulate to our students, but what matters to us? Do we matter that we have the highest number of Nobel laureates in within our graduates, or does it matter that we're committed to an ongoing pursuit of truth and growth? So these kinds of articulations and messaging matters.
There's a lot of research also in the importance of messaging during critical feedback. When you give feedback. Are you articulating that what matters is that you perform well or not, or that what matters is a demonstration of effort and that I'm committed to you in this journey of learning and growth that the faculty can do? As you think about the curriculum, who designs that? Is it solely the faculty or could there be a co creation experience with a student? As you think about even something as simple as office hours, there was an intervention where we had faculty rename office hours from office hours to drop in hours. And that had a profound effect because now it doesn't feel like I'm walking to this space where there's a structured set of expectations where I have to have well crafted thought out questions for the faculty to demonstrate that I'm able to be able to be in this class or can I just drop in and have a conversation? So there's a lot that goes into language.
And then the third thing that I'd recommend is an appetite and a culture for experimentation and evaluation. Despite the best of intentions, you could target having mechanisms for understanding your students, for designing interventions, for crafting your messaging, but what are the metrics that you can actually look at to objectively tell you whether you're incrementally making progress or not?
So there's a researcher practitioner model that you can think about employing. There could be some mechanisms that you could incorporate. So I would recommend those three general guidelines or recommendations for how any institution can incrementally get closer to fostering greater belonging.
[00:51:24] Jason Johnston: Can I just say, I take back what I said about the keynote. I'm so sorry. You just nailed the Online Learning Podcast Keynote. You just nailed it. So thank you for that. And I recognize as well that by even making that joke, I, I may have not fostered a sense of belonging.
I might have added to the negative chatter in your head that you could do a keynote. You absolutely can do a keynote. We're going to put your LinkedIn in the notes. Anybody that's listening, you hear the kind of quality that Omid could bring to a keynote, please reach out to him. Okay, John, go ahead.
[00:51:58] John Nash: Omid, I like in the second point you made talking about messaging, I'm recalling George Lakoff's work around framing, except in this case, what you're discussing is not trying to shift political thinking, but rather being thoughtful about what goes into people's minds when you use certain messages and whether it's playing against you when you want to have a certain outcome.
[00:52:22] Omid Fotuhi: Yeah, and again, I think With any language, with any kind of communication, I could have one meaning that is what I intend to convey, but message intended is not message received. And so again, I go back to that first strategy of how do you have access to the student voice to understand from their perspective what they are hearing?
You could have the best designers, the best psychologists, best interventionists help you craft what you think ought to be the best vision statement for your institution. And yet, if you don't ask the students how they're experiencing that, you're missing the critical gap there. So I think having an intentional Commitment to thinking critically about messaging is great, but also calibrating with the student voice throughout the design process. But that's right, I think, again, the core message here is that oftentimes, even despite the best of intentions, message intended is not message received. And what matters is message received.
[00:53:28] Jason Johnston: Omid, this has been a great conversation. I think that could be a good place to land. For those listening, John and I have been furiously taking notes in our Notion, our shared Notion partly because we're learning so much and this is really helpful information. And we really appreciate you bringing your expertise to the table today.
We'll, our notes and links and, things that you've heard along the way here into our show notes, onlinelearningpodcast.com.
And so just to close off though, Omid, do you have any kind of final words for those listening?
As part of our conversation today about belonging online, we have a variety of listeners tend to be instructional designers, administrators that are working in in online learning. I talked to somebody this last week who's in a writing center that works with faculty and students in a writing center.
And so what kind of would be some of your final words to, to our listeners and moving forward?
[00:54:27] Omid Fotuhi: Yeah, and I appreciate you all inviting me to have this conversation. If anything, you've really motivated me to invite more people to what I'm currently trying to make more explicit. And it's been part of the theme we've been discussing here, which is this notion of a sense of belonging being chained to some of the contingencies in our environment, that my sense of worthiness and self regard might at times feel dependent on how I'm doing in work or in my career or in my education or based on which groups I'm a part of. And what I'd like to start doing is may be championing is that there's a possibility in which we can take greater ownership of our own sense of belonging with the equipment of the proper tools that I think can take us there.
And I'll quote Maya Angelou for this because it was her quote that, that really got me to realize the possibility. And she says that you're only free when you realize you belong in no place. You belong every place, no place at all. The price is high, the reward is great. And with that line, she's saying that you can essentially find a way to connect with your own sense of worth in a way that is internally driven that doesn't rely so heavily on these contingencies.
Now, my work is both understanding the situational contingencies that threaten or put into question an individual's sense of belonging, but it's also the pursuit of empowering individuals to understand their own agency and also navigating this internal dynamic. that to a certain extent we have some say into how it is that we perceive ourselves or we let others perceive us.
So that's probably what I'll say as something that I'd love your listeners to connect with me on and obviously any keynote invitation would be welcome. But it's been great to be part of this conversation. I love what you all are doing. I think the online learning is a wonderful frontier of how we can robustly test a lot of the assumptions about the core conditions of learning and I love that you all are part of this.
[00:56:55] John Nash: Fascinating. I love the way you stated that. That inspires me to think about it that way as well. Thank you.
[00:57:00] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I think that's so empowering across multiple Layers of administration and for students themselves and for those even instructional designers able to put together courses to think about. So thank you so much. So great to have you. Good to see you again and get to talk with you.
[00:57:17] Omid Fotuhi: likewise. Good to see you both.
Monday Jul 29, 2024
Monday Jul 29, 2024
In this episode, John and Jason talk to Ericka Hollis, PhD, about silence as liberatory practice, student backchannels, belonging in the online classroom, and leadership challenges with professional development. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
Great list of foundational articles on the Community of Inquiry
ACUE's Effective Teaching Framework for Higher Education
John’s paper on online discussions: “A Tale of Two Forums: One Professor's Path to Improve Learning through a Common Online Teaching Tool”
Dr. Ericka Hollis Contact Information
ACUE Page
Email: ehollis@acue.org
LinkedIn
Twiiter / X
Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License.
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections!
Mic Check
[00:00:00] Jason Johnston: Hey, John, could I ask you will you tilt your mic back a little bit?
I'm sorry to be so mic-picky these days.
[00:00:09] John Nash: Should I talk while I do that? Here's where it was and now I'm still talking and here's where it's going and now it's here.
[00:00:17] Jason Johnston: Yeah, that's pretty good.
[00:00:19] John Nash: I do appreciate your pickiness. I do.
Silence as Liberatory Practice
[00:00:21] Jason Johnston: All right. As you can see, this is pretty pretty tight operation we run here. The Online Learning Podcast. Heh. We basically When we started it, we decided that we would just do what we could do. You know what I mean? And we're having a good time. And I think that, I, we're getting some good responses from it.
I think people that listen and we produce it up to the level that we can manage. And yeah. And this is it.
[00:00:50] John Nash: I especially like the silences. It's a solace, not soul less. It's a SOLACE.
[00:00:57] Jason Johnston: Solace. The silences. Yeah.
[00:01:00] John Nash: Yes.
[00:01:00] Ericka Hollis: One of the effective teaching practices is wait time. Most of the time in education, we don't wait long enough. So for someone to actually think and respond, right? There's research behind that when you jump right in. And so I love awkward silence. I'm really an introvert. Although most of my career, I do things that are very extroverted.
So I'm okay with the pause and the solace, if you will, John. Yeah,
[00:01:30] John Nash: we'll just do Erica Hollis episode and we'll just have it be 40 minutes of no talking.
[00:01:36] Jason Johnston: Yeah. Like John Cage, if you're familiar with his pieces. He sits at the piano and he's got sheet music and it's all blank. After four minutes and thirty three seconds, packs up the sheet music and then goes.
But I feel you on that. I'm an introvert as well. And I'm also, I feel like I'm slower, sometimes slower to respond, especially in a classroom where I'm taking in a lot of stimulus. And so I always found in the face to face classrooms, I would think of really like good things to say, like later two hours later, or good questions to ask, but it was rarely like right in the moment.
It was like, it was always later which is one of the things I liked about online learning is that it was the asynchronous gave some simmer time for me and some time to think about things and to be able to respond some.
[00:02:29] Ericka Hollis: I think that's a fair point. That's one of the reasons I have one of my youngest sister is she has extreme social anxiety, and she has just done so much better in asynchronous online courses, even as an undergraduate student. Just because that works better for her, instead of being like called on in the class, like cold calling, we cold call on people.
And some people are like, yeah, they jump right in. And some people you can see like terror in their face when you call on them. And so I think it's a very good point in thinking about who's in your classroom and what actually works for them. And are you giving everyone like the same level playing field where I feel like in a face to face class, even in a synchronous Zoom class, it favors an extrovert, right?
One that wants to put their hand up. It doesn't really favor those who are still thinking, still processing, in that kind of way. So that's one of the things I do enjoy about it the most from a like, pedagogical, andragogical standpoint, like the process time, the wait time.
[00:03:36] Jason Johnston: So like silence as a liberatory practice.
[00:03:42] John Nash: Oh, I like that.
[00:03:44] Jason Johnston: I think that makes a lot of sense, and even the way that Zoom is made, those , that feel comfortable being seen, and they have their video on, are going to pop to the top, right?
[00:03:57] Ericka Hollis: Yeah,
[00:03:57] Jason Johnston: So those that don't say as much, and don't feel comfortable having the video on, they're going to be at the bottom, or even on the second page, if you have a very large class, or
[00:04:07] John Nash: Or the third page or the fourth page, I've noticed that. Yeah. You have to go way in to find all the students.
[00:04:14] Ericka Hollis: exactly.
[00:04:15] Jason Johnston: That's good. So, we've started already. Thank you. That's a good conversation.
Intro
[00:04:22] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:04:26] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the Online Learning Podcast.
[00:04:31] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last couple of years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but a lot of it still isn't. How are we going to get there, Jason?
[00:04:45] Jason Johnston: That is a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?
[00:04:50] John Nash: That's a great idea. What do you want to talk about today?
Start
[00:04:53] Jason Johnston: In addition to that, how about we do a podcast and invite really cool, wonderful people from our past to talk to as well. Wouldn't that be cool
[00:05:02] John Nash: That would be cool. Let's get some good old friends on here and have a good yarn about. "What is up in online?"
[00:05:09] Jason Johnston: That sounds good. Today we have with us Dr. Erica Hollis, a good friend of ours from way back at the University of Kentucky. I can say that you're still there, John, but the rest of us have moved on, no, I'm just joking. Erica, welcome.
[00:05:25] Ericka Hollis: Thank you so much. I'm enjoying this already.
[00:05:28] John Nash: it's so wonderful to have you here. It feels like old home week.
[00:05:32] Ericka Hollis: It does. It feels very, I feel very comfortable, and I can't wait to have this conversation with you both. I haven't seen either of you in probably a decade. So, I'm really happy to catch up.
[00:05:46] Jason Johnston: Yeah, all of a sudden, we start talking in decades. This is what happened. Now you're younger than both of us, Erica, but this is what happens as you start to, get up there. You start talking and measure your years and in decades.
Online PhD Backchannels and Support
[00:05:57] John Nash: Yeah, so, Erica, it's wonderful to have you here and we do have a bit of a backstory. We first met when you were a doctoral student at the University of Kentucky. Was that 2012, 2013?
[00:06:12] Ericka Hollis: That was 2012, my friend.
[00:06:15] John Nash: Yeah. And I, among all the things I remember from your time in the program I I recall that because we were the first online PhD at the University of Kentucky, we hoped that the students would start a back channel and you all were inside of Google chat. I think subsequent cohorts have chosen everything from Voxer to Signal. And But you and Todd Hurst, I think, wrote a paper, did an analysis of all the chat that went on in the back channel and what makes community in an online, and I thought, we're onto something now here.
I think that was, but I remember that from your time in the program, and now you've gone on to apply that in so many new ways. It's cool. I can't wait to talk about that, but that, that sticks out.
[00:06:59] Ericka Hollis: I definitely remember that. Our backchannel came, you should both know this, came out of necessity. We were in a synchronous class and one of our professors, who I will not name, was talking and someone started the backchannel and said, what is he talking about? Does anyone know what he's talking about?
And people started laughing on screen, right? And then everyone started chiming in the professor is talking about this is what we're doing. And the back channel stayed, it's still intact. Like years later, we've graduated, we still use that back channel. I'm not kidding. Like when someone gets promoted or someone has a question or you want someone to look at something, we still use that back channel.
And it was Google Hangouts now I think it's called Google Meet or whatever Google has changed to. But yeah, it the back channel was amazing. Um, I have four life colleagues I believe. And I would say the community that we built is, it was just so special. Like I haven't seen. anything like that.
And I've tried to figure out how to recreate that in other avenues. And sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't. But giving people the opportunity to figure out how they want to connect and not tell them how to do it, I think is the most important thing, but suggesting that they do.
[00:08:23] John Nash: Yeah, that's carried on. And so in the program, we've done just that. We said, we don't care what you create here or how you create it. Just make one and pick a platform. And then, yeah, it's stuck. It's become a necessity. I think. Yeah.
[00:08:38] Ericka Hollis: Yeah, I would say what's also interesting, too, is we had our own back channel, and then when the next cohort came in, we started another back channel and included them, but we still kept our separate one. So that one's still intact, and the idea was that it would keep building and building upon each other.
[00:08:59] Jason Johnston: Yeah, and I was in a subsequent cohort and we used the back channel approach mostly because of You're going ahead of us and I would say as a PhD student particularly in those early years of building in that coursework and trying to figure out what you're doing.
It was really important and nothing against the program. But I think that the program got more organized as things went along and, even I think as I was leaving, John, you guys were pulling together like materials that were very clearly we want everybody to know,
[00:09:35] John Nash: Yeah, we have three metrics when we know things are going right in the program is that students say that the faculty have their back, that they are not alone, and they know what to do next.
[00:09:47] Jason Johnston: yes. And I think there are ways in which the first two, because. The faculty were great, very personable, and very approachable. I think none of us had question about the first two. I think a lot of times we didn't know what was going on with the third one. Even if it was really clear to faculty and the teachers, we weren't really sure what to do next.
And I think that was one of the great strengths of having that back channel as well as just that support. We were all working adults trying to make this happen, and it was crazy, really, to try to think about working full time and getting this stuff done.
And it was the support of that back channel was really helpful. So, Erica, you and I, we met at University of Kentucky as well
for me and a person that really helped ease my concerns about going to the program as well as just on the front end really helped me know how to guide myself into it because, and I think about this when anybody is going into a new, level of education, right?
I didn't have anybody in my family that had ever gotten a PhD before and I was fairly well educated even at that point and been around higher ed, but I still didn't really understand the inside word a little bit. And that's where it was so important to talk to you because like I was looking at this coursework and I was trying to figure out if I could really learn what I wanted to with all this.
And you were like, don't worry about that. Yeah. Just find somebody to connect with that can be your chair and just tell them what you want and it's going to be fine. You'll figure it out kind of thing. And it felt like on the front end that maybe that wasn't possible just by looking at the web pages.
And then you really were a huge mentor for me and encourager. So thank you for that. First of all. You're probably one of the reasons and meeting John and some of the other faculty, of course, but you're one of the reasons why I actually took the plunge to do my PhD And then the other thing was already your work in online learning.
I learned so much from you at University of Kentucky. You're already doing boot camps with people. You were the first that I found at University of Kentucky that was doing more of a standardized kind of templating with people and trying to help people with canvas, try to think about quality matters approach to online learning.
And yeah, you're just a super super helpful for me in those back in the day, back in those University of Kentucky days.
[00:12:25] Ericka Hollis: Thank you so much, Jason. That, that's a lot done back there, but I really appreciate it. And I love mentoring you. Anyone that is thinking about this program, I'll talk to them and tell them the truth. And the truth was, Jason, that, You are a doctoral student, but this is your program.
You need to get out of it what you need, and the faculty are there to help you figure that out, but if you have a somewhat of an idea of what you wanted to study, so some of , our colleagues in our cohorts were K 12 focused. And some of us were higher ed focus. So think about who do you need in your circle and thinking about what you want to do in terms of if you want to study online education and higher ed for me, I wanted to look at online higher education leadership.
So then who do I go to for that? Who can help me with that? And the faculty's job is to guide you along, but you're so right that you do need that support. Because we all struggle with imposter syndrome, imposter phenomenon. And so, am I really on the right track? Am I doing this the right way?
And, like all of those things that happen. When you're in a learning space, it really doesn't matter if you're getting a PhD or working on an undergraduate degree. Everyone goes through, those challenges. And so, I'm so glad that I had that conversation with you and that you reached out to talk to me.
And I'm so glad, even happier, that you decided to do the program. And I think you were a valuable asset to the University of Kentucky. I think the work that you were doing there was so vastly important for the institution. And so I'm just grateful for your work and You as a colleague, because I've been able to send people, after I transition, I was able to send people to you that still were, you know, asking me questions that I could send them over to Jason and I know that you would take care of them and that they would be in good hands, particularly faculty who sometimes don't necessarily want to ask for help.
There's a delicate balance there. For those of us who do faculty development, right? Because all faculty wanna put their hand up and say, I don't really know what I'm doing. But if they come to you, they you wanna make sure that you are approaching them and what they're trying, figure out what they're trying to do and so that you can help them get there.
Most of the times that requires a very good active listening. Which I would say is one of the most important things any of us can really focus on is like listening to what the person is saying. And so in that conversation with you, that's what I was trying to do. What are your real concerns here?
It's a great program. I'm in it. It's a great program. I wouldn't be in it if it wasn't great. So what are you really concerned about here?
[00:15:10] Jason Johnston: That's good. And it's, it's interesting to think about those kind of moments. It doesn't feel like it was that long ago, of course now, but I just, so picture, where your office is and talking with you and having that, that face to face conversation and yeah, so, so pivotal.
And it's been a good reminder to me, as people come along. Just to be Just to be open in whatever I tend to talk to more about because I'm not in a college. I'm more in a centralized academic unit.
I find myself, talking with a lot of instructional designers and people talking about, their futures and people connect with me on LinkedIn. And I try to always be available for people as much as I can, just, for that very thing, just to try to tell them the truth and I appreciate you modeling that.
Ericka Background
[00:15:53] Jason Johnston: So what so where have you been since the University of Kentucky and talk about that a little bit. We'd like to both maybe catch us up a little bit if there's anything we don't know, but a little bit for our listeners so they understand who you are and then get to what you're doing currently.
[00:16:10] Ericka Hollis: Sure. So, I left the University of Kentucky not really wanting to move, so everyone should know that. I really had a hard time leaving, but my spouse had a wonderful opportunity and we moved to Massachusetts, and lo and behold, I landed a job at Harvard. And in the Graduate School of Education, aka HUGSES, like how we refer to it.
So I landed a job there as the Assistant Director in the Teaching and Learning Lab. And I'm thinking, lab, this is going to be exciting, I was thinking like maybe it's going to be like the dLab at the University of Kentucky. And what I really found out is that my role and what I was doing was basically, I had a team of instructional designers, video people, and all of those types of people, and they were wonderful and so very good at what they did, but what we produced quality wise, it was really glossy, it looked great, but it was for the entity that actually made money. So a profit making part of the organization, and it really wasn't competency based. So, let's just say I'm going through these online learning modules, they're really well done, to your point earlier, Jason, they meet the quality matters standard, the courses look great, but have they really learned anything?
Did I really move the needle in terms of their actual thinking and what they need to do to be better superintendents, to be better principals, to be better educational professionals? And I couldn't say yes that my team was doing that, but that's also not what we were tasked to do. We were tasked to create these things and put them out there basically so we could make money, they were branded with the Harvard brand.
And it's not, I'm not knocking them. This is just once I entered into the job, that's what it was. And there was a disconnect between what I thought the job was and what was really happening. And so that didn't really align with who I am and why I decided to get a PhD, right? I care about teaching and learning and moving the needle.
Like, I care about that vastly. And so it really didn't align with what I was doing. And so I walked away and kid you not, I walked away with no job. I just left and people were like, "Are you crazy? You left your job at Harvard?" I was like, it was driving me crazy. So I don't want to be in a work environment where it doesn't really align with who I am and what I care about, but also am I putting out high quality learning for people?
And so I walked away, no job. I was out of work for a while, like almost eight months, which is very uncomfortable. If you have been a person like me, who's been working since they were 15 and sometimes multiple jobs. So I didn't have, a job. I was doing some things on the side, but not really a day to day. I came across a job ad at Regis College looking for someone to help with faculty development, but in the job description, it said that you needed a nursing degree.
And I was like, they really need my, they're, they desperately need my help. They don't even realize that they need someone like me. You don't need a degree in the subject matter to be able to do these things that are on them. So I wrote a very convincing letter, had a great interview process.
I think the job started off as a, like a director. By the time I actually started, it was like an associate dean. I had met with so many people over and over. And so the job grew, my responsibilities grew the more and more that they were talking about me. And I had a wonderful experience at Regis. Regis is a private Catholic college located in Western Mass.
Had a wonderful time. Working with the faculty there. They're so special. They love their students. If you think about where Regis is in, in higher education, particularly geography, thinking about Massachusetts, right? So Regis is in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is like the higher education Mecca.
You throw a stone, there's a university, right? So the students that were going to Regis are not students that were going to Harvard, MIT, BC, BU, right? They're very special students that want to be at a smaller institution that's faith based. And so I had a wonderful time working with the faculty there being really mindful of who their student body was and how do we help them achieve their goals, both online and in the classroom and hybrid. So we had over 1000 online students, which was crazy for a school our size that had about a little over 3000 students total. So about a third of our students were online.
And so online grew so quickly that a lot needed to happen in terms of leadership, but in terms of standardization, but in terms of faculty development and actually getting faculty to teach those classes. So it was a very exciting time at Regis. And while I was there, I was promoted to assistant provost.
And so I was in charge of the Center for Instructional Innovation and also I was responsible for all faculty development across modalities, and regardless if you were an adjunct or a tenured professor. So that was my responsibilities at that institution.
While I was at Regis, I discovered ACUE. So ACUE is the Association of College and University Educators. And while I was there, I was able to use some Title III funding to be able to do some professional development for some faculty. And when I looked at the product and I saw what we actually had, what their offerings were, I was blown away because I know solid design, right?
I've been doing online learning for years. I've been creating them. I've had teams to create them. And I was really impressed with what they were doing. So I was able to launch a small group of faculty to do a professional development course around fostering a cultural belonging. And it was a beautiful experience for those faculty.
From there, we had a faculty learning community that kind of spun off from there. And so it was very well done. And the magic sauce in ACUE is unlike any other professional development that you do, they make you implement the practices while you're doing them. You implement while you're learning. So over a 10 week, 8 or 10 week time, you implement 8 or 10 new practices.
In real time, don't walk off and then come back and say, Oh, yeah, I decided to do that. And so you see if it's working or not. And of course, all the practices are evidence based. And so, I learned all about ACUE and I was like, I drunk the ACUE Kool Aid, right? So I was into and I was like, this is great.
So we did a micro credential on fostering a cultural belonging, but then we also did a comprehensive credential called Effective Teaching Practices. And so I was able to co facilitate that program with one of my instructional designers who was new. So it was a great experience for her to get to know the faculty and also for us, the faculty to become familiar with ACUE.
So we did that and it was pretty good and I loved it so much and I was so good at it. I had a hundred percent completion rate. Can you believe that? For faculty for something that lasted 10 weeks, they couldn't believe it. And so they invited me to go to conferences and speak with them and tell them like,
how did I get the faculty to be able to do this and all of that? And so when they had a job opening for the senior director of academics, I applied. And so I started that job on December 1st. And I've been doing that since. And so I have I lead a team of seven academic directors over the nation that essentially make sure that the faculty course takers implement those practices that are in the courses. I felt like I talked a lot. So let me know what follow up questions that you all might have about that. But that's like my story.
[00:24:39] Jason Johnston: Yeah, that's great. So just to put in context, so you've been at ACUE for just a little over two months now at the recording of this. And what do you do in this role now? Sounds like your first connection with them was utilizing some of their professional development at Regis , and now what you'd currently do in your role?
[00:25:01] Ericka Hollis: Yeah, that's a great question. So what I do now is I lead the team of academic directors and that team is an esteemed group of higher education professionals, all of which have been either teaching or in higher education for at least 15 years. So our team is responsible for the actual implementation of those practices that are in each one of our courses.
We have multiple courses and, certification and all of those things. So our group ensures that the course takers have the best possible experience that they can have. But also that they're implementing those practices so you can think of us as the implementation team almost so, like in online learning, there's like an art. They're the people that build the courses. They're the people that recruit someone to take the courses. We're the team that ensures that the courses are taken. We have the right people in the course, the people are getting what they need in the course. And then, someone does evaluation.
So my team just, we implement and we implement well. So we have metrics around that. So I'm responsible for those metrics and, all the individuals on my team.
[00:26:17] Jason Johnston: So you're almost like a separate teaching and learning institution in some ways. I don't want to say this to say that it's competition with others that have teaching and learning institution, because you probably collaborate with a lot of teaching and learning departments within universities to provide training as my guess.
But you're really, you operate it as this kind of almost like a third party. Entity like that. Does that sound about right? The delivery end of the professional development?
[00:26:45] Ericka Hollis: You're spot on Jason, you're spot on. So we meet a lot with CETL directors, centers for teaching and learning. And what we do with them is think about how our programming runs parallel or how it can work with what you're already doing. So, if your faculty are going through this national certification, and by the way, our certification has been endorsed by ACE, the American Council on Education, it's been vetted, right?
And we have. A lot of research around it that we do annually. So if you think about it from a teaching and learning center, if you use this as a base or part of what you're already doing, part of your framework that you're doing in your center, we can then partner with you on those things.
So some of the things that spin off or maybe a faculty learning community, or, out of the five modules, maybe of those five modules, you do lunch and learns around those five topics or other things like that. So I don't see us as necessarily in competition with them. I see this as like a foundation for which those teaching and learning centers, especially those that are small.
So I don't know if those of your listeners, but some of us are in teaching and learning centers. They're like two people. Or it's one person or it's one staff and a faculty member that gets a course release. It's not a comprehensive center where you have tons and tons of staff, so think about what you can actually build, what you can actually produce that's of quality, that's been research based.
So that's how I see it, as us partnering with them and using us as part of that, not as a competition. But we do get that question a lot so, if we use ACUE, then what do you need me for? That, that type of thing. But that's not how I view it.
Belonging and Humanizing Online Learning
[00:28:32] John Nash: Erica, you were talking a minute ago about belonging and that's almost become a synonym for Jason and I and a lot of work we've been doing the last year, some people we've been hanging out with this notion of humanizing online learning. It's hard now to talk about humanizing online learning without the word belonging coming up.
And so I'm wondering where your head is at on this with regard to how you think we can make online classes feel more like a place where students feel belonging and less of an information dump.
[00:29:02] Ericka Hollis: That's a beautiful question, John. Thank you for asking that question. I think there are a couple of things that I want to just put out here. The first one is, good teaching is good teaching regardless of the modality, right? So if you think about the things that you, that we do that are in a face to face class that we consider good teaching and making our students belong, how then do you do the same thing in an online environment?
Or how can you do that in an online environment? Or Can something in the online environment connect you to your student, making them feel even more like they belong in a situation? I think that's the first thing we should think about okay. And then the second is, do you really know who your students are? How can you create an environment? Where people feel like they belong if you don't know them, if you're only thinking of them as an avatar on a screen or an icon, there's a real person behind that name, right? a faculty member and I'm teaching the course, if you say really mean things to me in a discussion board I feel that because I'm a real human being behind that.
So I would think about how can we as educators. really get a sense of who's in the course. Do you really know the learners in the course? And like, how do you do that? There are tons of ways to be able to do that. You can have questionnaires, you can have a synchronous meeting.
You can do a like wish wonder. John. I've been using like, wish, wonder for years in terms of feedback is something that I learned at the University of Kentucky.
[00:30:48] Jason Johnston: I wondered if you would say one sentence about the like wish wonder it feels like something I should know, and it sounds intuitive, but if you, even a sentence just to explain what that is
[00:30:59] Ericka Hollis: So what do you like about what's happening? What do you wish was maybe a bit different? And then sometimes we would do wonder, what are you still wondering about?
And so I use this all the time. I use it in terms of give feedback to people that I lead. I use it to give feedback to even to my partner on like wonderings, like you said that, but I'm still, I still have wonderings about this thing. So it's become a part of my vernacular and just how I function in terms of giving people feedback.
But I also think it's a wonderful tool for learners when we're trying to get them to give others feedback and critical, actual critical, feedback on something like a critique, instead of just saying, Oh, yeah, I like, I really like what you did there. Like, why did you like it? So give me two likes. And what do you wish maybe was different.
So that wish requires them to give some kind of substantial feedback, not just I like it, and I thought it was great. And then if you push the envelope a little bit more wondering, so what questions do you still have?
did I learned that technique at Stanford from Bernie Roth, Doug Wild and the late Rolf Faste, who were old guard in the mechanical engineering design division and, that's the standard feedback mechanism for getting feedback in a design thinking cycle and
[00:32:14] John Nash: and it's, you're right, Erica. The lovely thing about the wish is that it allows you to provide a criticism, but it's. always phrased as a wish that I have for the situation, not something I don't like about what you did. And so, and the backside of this that those guys taught was the only answer you're allowed to give to the like, wish, and wonder is "thank you."
But "thank you" is a coded term, which means I caught it, I got it, and if I decide to do something with your feedback later, I will. So now all the agency on taking the feedback and doing something with it is still on me as the receiver of the feedback. I don't have to do what you say. And the person giving the feedback's been taught to phrase it in a way that it's usable, but also it's a way that they own it, not put upon the recipient.
So, yeah, it's lovely all around.
[00:33:08] Jason Johnston: That's great. That's a great tool.
[00:33:10] Ericka Hollis: I love it. And I'm reminded of a quote that I remember from that time, too, is feedback is a gift. You don't return it. Thank you for pointing that part out, John, about the, you get to decide what to do with the feedback once you get it.
[00:33:26] John Nash: it's, that's very empowering. And then you don't feel bad about what you're hearing. It's always still with you to decide. You have all the agency.
[00:33:35] Ericka Hollis: There's a ton of different ways that you can connect with your students. to make sure that they feel like I see you and you're a part of this learning environment, because that's what we're trying to create when we get people to feel like they belong, this learning community. We want them to participate as learners. So there's that piece. So good teaching is good teaching.
Who are you? And then once you're in the course, how are we providing opportunities for the learners to relate to each other. Like learning is social, right? And so if I'm in an online learning environment and all I do is create papers and I don't do discussion boards, I just write, and there's only an interaction to me and the instructor.
That's not making, really making me feel like I belong. So if we think about the community of inquiry framework this is a great example of one way to show belonging. How do I use all of those circles to really produce this environment where the students feel like they belong? Are they getting an opportunity to like have their voice heard?
Are we giving them choice on what their options are? So, let's just say it's a final project. Is it just a paper? Could I do a paper or a podcast or a presentation or something else? I think those, giving them a variety of choice, also makes them feel like they belong and like their voices are heard.
So, these are the things that I think about when I think of how do we make sure our learning environments make the learners feel like they belong? There are a number of things that we can do, and I would say some of them are small, right? So it's not like you have to go off and change everything that you're doing, but I think about James Lane, small teaching, right?
I think about Flower Derby, small teaching online. There are certain things that we can do to help produce this, but we have to be intentional. with creating that space and not just think that it'll magically happen. It makes me think of you, John, that article that you wrote many years ago about the discussion boards like build it and they will come.
That's not how a discussion board works, right? If you don't have a really good effective prompt that people are just going to chime in, right? You have to create a prompt. What are they responding to that gives them the opportunity? So, those are just some of my thoughts on that. What do you all think?
[00:36:10] John Nash: I think you bring up a good point. Two things that come to mind. First of all, go back to the discussion boards. You're right. If you build it, they will not come. So many of them were built for decades. And I wrote that article in 2012, it got published in 2012, I wrote it in 2011, and so discussion boards were happening inside Moodle or other places, and it was basically like, okay y'all post once, reply twice, and then, but then that was the grade.
But why, what were we talking about, and why were we talking about it? And so, and then the other thing is you said at the top of this, which is that, I think it's interesting that the push to bring good teaching online has really rekindled conversation around what is good instructional design and you're right back to your teaching point right but so good instructional design is just good instructional design, no matter what I want to hear Jason's thoughts and I want to come back to the discussion boards and when we talk about AI, but yeah, what are you thinking?
Community of Inquiry
[00:37:16] Jason Johnston: Erika, you talked about the community of inquiry model, which I think is a really strong way to think about online learning Garrison , is the one, fellow Canadian, of course was the one who brought this to mind for me, and it's for those listeners that maybe haven't really heard a lot about this.
It's the one where it shows these three overlapping circles that talk about different presences. So you have, depending on who you're reading, talks about the teacher presence, the student presence and the content presence in the, those circles overlapping into this educational experience in the middle.
Or they talk about it as social presence, that's a student, cognitive presence and teaching presence. You mentioned that. , just in short, , what's so great about the community of inquiry and in terms of the work that you do?
[00:38:08] Ericka Hollis: That's a really good question. I think what's so important about the community of inquiry is it really shows us that learning does not happen in a vacuum. Multiple factors in any educational learning experience, right? There's the actual content. We're learning something. To your point, Jason, we're learning something about something like cognitively where we need to be dialed in.
We need to be tapped in. But at the same time. Of that where we're learning, there's this social atmosphere that's also happening. So social in terms of me and the instructor, if I'm a learner, the me and the instructor, it could be me and the other learners, it could be me in the content, the things that I'm thinking about, right?
So all of these things are happening at the same time. And then. Where do you as the instructor, where do you fall into that? So if the learners are learning something, they're interacting, they have some goals, and then they're also socially connected to what is happening in some kind of way, we're tapping into that. they're exchanging, then you have the faculty member who is actually leading and providing the space for those. So the faculty actually sets the tone with how they might think about how to set up the social presence, how to set up the cognitive presence, like What are you teaching them? And then how are they getting there?
Are they doing it by themselves? Are they working in small groups? Are they doing a think pair share? Are they doing these types of things? So that's why I think it's so critical, specifically to learning in general, but to John's point earlier about belonging. This is how we get to belonging by doing these things and doing them well, thinking about what's happening in those three circles, because the magic is when they all overlap.
That's the educational experience that we want them to have, which is the best possible educational experience that they can have. So that would be how I would think about that and challenge others to think about that.
[00:40:17] Jason Johnston: I like that so that belonging doesn't just become some sort of expressed desire in your class. Oh, I want everybody to belong. Everybody should belong. Everybody, please belong. It actually becomes a framework or like almost a rubric.
You can think about these different aspects, how you might improve that within your online class that would contribute to students really belonging and feeling really connected in there.
[00:40:41] Ericka Hollis: Exactly. Jason, I mean, do you think we have educators that are really out there saying, thinking about their students, looking at them saying, you don't belong here? That's normally not the approach that we're taking. Like, when students are coming to an online program or coming to any program, we, as the instructors, think, yeah, you do belong.
Let me just get you to your goal. To your point earlier in our conversation about what you wanted to do. The faculty, their job is to help you get there, right? So you do belong to that particular program. And so I think that's something that we need to be more aware of. I would say explicit. I don't think we do that in higher education to tell people that they belong.
I see you, you belong here and we need your voice because we learn better when there are a variety of different perspectives. We know that there's so much research out there on that. And so if we are doing that, Thinking about the best possible learning experience. It's for everyone to be able to bring their voice to that.
And so that they do belong.
[00:41:48] John Nash: To Jason's point a minute ago, it's not that we're putting out there saying, I want you all to feel like you belong, but rather as an instructor, and as someone who's articulating some kind of design of instruction, if I'm cognizant of bringing about social presence, teaching presidents and cognitive presence, belonging should follow.
[00:42:07] Ericka Hollis: that is fair.
[00:42:11] Jason Johnston: Yeah. And to your point I have yet to meet a teacher that didn't care, which is amazing. Like you would, honestly, like I, you would think along the way that you would just meet this kind of maybe a typified, terrible teacher that doesn't really care about their students. I have yet to actually meet one that I've worked one with in higher education, but I've, I have met a lot of teachers that aren't as intentional as they probably should be or haven't as, as thoughtful about how they put all everything together for the sake of their students.
And so I think that's where a lot of this comes in. Yeah, that's good.
Leadership Challenges
[00:42:55] Jason Johnston: So taking it up the next level, I was curious as we're wrapping up here you have occupied multiple spaces that move the needle when it comes to learning online, right? Working directly with students, doing a lot of professional development, working as an instructional designer and developer, working directly with faculty applying quality matters, all the different things, and you have Found yourself in now more of a leadership position of managing and organizing and leading the folks that do a lot of the groundwork and the development and the reaching out and the teaching and so on.
, what are some of the challenges for you in this leadership space that you're in right now when you're like a step removed from the things that you're very good at, the very, the technical things that you are good at, but now you are helping to lead other people to do the more technical things.
[00:43:50] Jason Johnston: What are some of the challenges for you right now?
[00:43:53] Ericka Hollis: I love, I could talk to you all for, love these questions. There are a couple of challenges for sure. The first one that comes to mind is financial. challenges, right? Higher education is just in a different space than it's been before. And so getting people to understand how important effective teaching practices are
And spending money on that, as opposed to spending money on other factors that we think impact student success.
We know from tons of research that one of the most important critical factors in student success is the faculty member.
[00:44:32] Jason Johnston: right.
[00:44:33] Ericka Hollis: of the modality, right? We know that there's there's no no one needs to keep trying to vet that. We know that for sure. So then my biggest challenge is, so why aren't we investing in the faculty to be able to teach better, to create these learning environments where the students feel like they belong?
We should be focusing on that. So that's a huge challenge. I think, and then the other bigger challenge is I don't think that higher education sees the value, we don't put the same metrics on effective teaching practices like we do other things, for example research or writing papers, like we don't quantify effective teaching in the same way as we value those other things.
So when it comes time for tenure and promotion or time for something else, we're looking at all those other things in addition your distribution of effort, right? teaching on that? Because we already know, I just said, that the most important factor is you as the faculty member. So my biggest challenge is how do I get this message out so that people focus on effective teaching practices?
In that they value it in such a way that they spend time. And money on helping their faculty become better,
[00:46:01] Jason Johnston: Yeah. We know we only get better at things when we spend time on them, time and effort , practicing those things and learning about those things, right? It doesn't just happen in a vacuum. And it may over time, as you do things, you trial and error, but yeah, how powerful professional development can be.
And yeah, and you're speaking right into a lot of conversations I'm having right now, part of an online pedagogy group for the University of Tennessee. Of course, it's an R1. John's at an R1. It falls down the list of priorities, the end of the day is like I would do this professional development, but It's not going to be as impactful on my promotion and tenure as putting out this paper.
And so I'm going to put out the paper instead, and I wish that faculty, particularly the ones that really want to be getting better at teaching didn't have to make that choice. It didn't have to be an either or, and I think that a lot of that does come back to some of those resources, but also focus and emphasis and priority given by the upper leadership, it does need to change as well.
[00:47:02] Ericka Hollis: Right. So that's where we need to move the needle in higher education, right? So beyond just the classroom, right? We need to challenge the higher education leaders to show the value in effective teaching, if we can move the needle there. Then faculty will focus on it, but until we do, then they're going to focus on what they're getting rewarded for
[00:47:28] John Nash: It doesn't help either that end of course evaluations are broken. And the level of rigor around which those metrics really play a role in making decisions is problematic.
[00:47:41] Ericka Hollis: in 100%. But we shouldn't even be just waiting until the end of a course to get feedback from students, right? We should be getting feedback from students throughout and then iterating on what's working and what's not working for them. But how many faculty do we know actually do that? not part of their thinking
[00:48:01] John Nash: no it isn't. It's not part of the thinking because also, yeah, teaching has become a little bit mechanistic across the higher ed enterprise. And so, so many traditional practices stay in place because it's just the way we've always done things, like the end of course evaluation.
[00:48:16] Ericka Hollis: But think about like how learning has to evolve and change. If I just want to learn something or think about some content, I can Google that or I can get AI to create me a lesson on that. I don't need necessarily a faculty member to do that. So then what is the role of the faculty? What are they actually doing?
They're doing those things that we talked about earlier in those circles. They're providing the content and putting something around that and providing the space with the social interaction to be able to do that. And I think if faculty aren't doing that, then what are they doing?
[00:48:55] John Nash: yeah. Fair question.
[00:48:58] Jason Johnston: Yeah, that's great. I think we're going to have to wrap it up there. That's a really great final focus around the leadership of faculty development moving towards higher excellence in, in teaching online. And thank you for all you do from your end. We'll put links in to ACUE and how can people connect with you if they want to.
[00:49:22] Ericka Hollis: sure. So if you would like to reach me you can find me at ehollis@acue.org or my Twitter handle is @ethollis and connect with me on LinkedIn.
[00:49:42] Jason Johnston: That's great. We'll put all those links in there. And our website, of course, is www.onlinelearningpodcast.com . And we'll put all the show notes, everything we've talked about today, transcript, but also some of these themes with and some resources. John and I, when we're looking through and editing, we always backfill it with resources.
So please check out the the website with these contact connections and resources as well. Thank you so much. It's been so good. We're gonna have to do this again. I feel like we just touched, just barely dove down on so many topics. And this felt like only the first course of a of a buffet. Like I went, I did my first lap to find out what there is. But I'd like to go back and dig into, some of my favorites here. So we're gonna have to do it again, okay?
Attempted Stop – Some Talk about AI
[00:50:28] Ericka Hollis: Oh, sure. We didn't even talk about AI,
[00:50:30] John Nash: didn't even talk about
[00:50:31] Jason Johnston: know. Here we are at the end, and we didn't even get talking about it. Maybe it'll be a relief for some people though to have a podcast.
[00:50:39] Ericka Hollis: you all been talking about AI a lot?
[00:50:42] Jason Johnston: Yeah, we started this podcast just about a year ago, where all of this was taking off.
And it was, we kept talking about how we weren't going to talk about it every episode. And then we kept talking about it.
[00:50:53] John Nash: So actually we thought that this is probably the last episode. We're really gonna talk about this.
[00:50:58] Jason Johnston: Yeah.
[00:50:59] Ericka Hollis: So this is something that I like to tell people about online learning in a lot of cases. Think about this. People in developing countries. Do not have running water. Okay, some of them, but they may have a mobile device where they can learn. So online learning is a game changer. I may not have a toilet that I can flush, but I can learn something with this.
And so I think we've just scratched the surface on what online learning can do. I feel like there'll be so much more to come, like we've just now gotten the basics down to your point, Jason now I know what's available. I need to go back and then I feel like AI is just gonna it to the next level.
So that's where my thinking is on that. But online learning, we've barely scratched the surface on its potential.
[00:51:55] John Nash: Looking forward to talking about this more.
[00:51:57] Jason Johnston: Okay. We'll do it.
[00:51:59] Ericka Hollis: We'll do it. I love it.
[00:52:01] Jason Johnston: This is so good, Erica. Thank you so much for taking your time. It's so good to see you and talk with you.
[00:52:06] Ericka Hollis: Talk to both of you anytime. We'll talk to both of you.
[00:52:10] John Nash: Wonderful. Thanks.
[00:52:11] Jason Johnston: Bye.
[00:52:12] Ericka Hollis: Bye bye.
Monday Jun 17, 2024
Monday Jun 17, 2024
In this Spring 2024 check-in, John and Jason talk about AI-created voices, the importance of human presence in online education, the challenges of AI detection like Turnitin, and insights from their spring conferences and presentations. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
Eleven labs AI voice generation (on OpenAI)
John's deck from his presentation at ASBMB - AI as an instructional designer and a tutor.
The Ezra Klein Show - Interviewing Dario Amodei
Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License.
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections!
False Start:
John Nash: Okay, we'll get AI to fix that.
Jason Johnston: You can maybe get AI to fix that.
Intro:
AI Speaker 1: Hi, I’m not John Nash and I’m not here with Jason Johnston.
AI Speaker 2: Hey, not-John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the online learning podcast.
AI Speaker 1: Yeah, and we are doing this podcast to let you all in on a conversation we’ve been having about online education for the last few years.
Look, online learning has had its chance to be great and some of it is, but some of it isn’t. What are we going to do to get to the next stage, not-Jason?
AI Speaker 2: That’s a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?
AI Speaker 1: That sounds great. What do you want to talk about today?
AI Speaker 2: I’ve got a big question for you not-John. Are you ready?
AI Speaker 1: Okay, shoot.
AI Speaker 2: If we carefully and lovingly create a script for an online learning video (or podcast) but then have AI-created voices read that script. Are we humanizing or de-humanizing online learning?
AI Speaker 1: I’m just a text-based large language model chat-bot and I don’t think I’m equipped to answer that question. Maybe we should bring in the real John and Jason? John? Jason? What do you think?
John Nash: I think it's a great question, real Jason.
Jason Johnston: Yeah, real John. It's it's good to see you in real Zoom. and that is a great question that this our chatbots pose for us today. And I think that yeah, I'm not, what do you have any initial responses to the question if we use AI tools to lovingly create our scripts for online videos or for podcasts, are we dehumanizing or are we, humanizing these experiences
John Nash: Well, it's a classic academic answer, isn't it? It depends.
Jason Johnston: Depends.
John Nash: But I think used exclusively, I think it does dehumanize. I think used judiciously and with an agenda to humanize, I think they could be helpful, but the jury's probably out because it's all context, isn't it?
Jason Johnston: Yeah, definitely context and it gets into some philosophical questions as well, when we talk about humanizing. There is the act, there is the perception, right? And so, this goes back to some of the things that are going on even with AI telehealth, and so on. Or AI therapy.
If the people don't know, does it matter? Does it feel human? Have they had the experience of being with a human, even though it wasn't a human? And then does it matter? I guess there's a ethical question about, It matters because we want to be transparent and we want to be honest with people and so on.
But if at the end of the day they feel like that they've been in a humanized situation and it gives them maybe a positive outcome for them.
John Nash: Yes. Yes. Yes. I think we discussed that last year a little bit. Yes. So essentially what we're saying is that if we fake them into feeling belonging, then that's okay.
Jason Johnston: yeah. As long as maybe we're not being dishonest with them. Or maybe not, I shouldn't say maybe. As long as we're not being dishonest with them. I think that would be the cutoff for me. If people knew what was going on.
John Nash: Okay. Fair. I think so. You say you're about to engage in a scenario that we've created that is designed to help you feel more belonging with regard to the activities we're doing as a group, maybe in our class. We used artificial intelligence, generative AI to create some of that, and we'd like you to engage in it, and then let us know.
I think that would,
Jason: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So, we started with
this.
This was a, there was a moment which you could invoke Eleven Labs this company through Chat GPT, you could invoke their GPT to create voices for you. And I was just playing around with it and came up with these, this intro script because I thought it would be fun just
Jason Johnston: to, Just to
Jason: start off, I'm not planning to replace you, John, just so you know.
There's, I have no intention on replacing you. I'm, I enjoy our conversation too much to and respect you too much as a scholar and as a friend to replace you with just so you know, in case any concern or question.
John Nash: I have been trying to get fired from this podcast and I thought this was my chance, but labeled redundant. Isn't that what they say?
Jason Johnston: Well, I know you wanted to take the summer off, so maybe, maybe it could be just be like a, maybe a temporary replacement. We could get your voice. Yeah. Summer John, we could do summer John with yeah, that'd be all right. Yeah.
John Nash: Well, your new dog, Kevin could take over the podcast for the summer. Yes.
Jason Johnston: Yeah. Yeah. He would have some great things to add. I'm sure. The the really interesting thing about this, I'm not saying that this intro is perfect by any means, but, and we've talked about this a couple times, but just how quickly things are moving right now with AI and how even a year ago, that the emotions maybe weren't there with a AI created voices that are starting to come into itself.
I think some of the early pushback for AI voices that I have found from an education standpoint is like, well, students aren't going to like it. It sounds too fake. And and so in that way, it's just not going to be a great experience for them. Well, we may be moving past that now in terms of those kind of arguments against AI voices in, in online education.
But now we're moving towards, well, maybe it's fine for things. It doesn't matter. Like with, obviously we need to think about teaching presence, right? Community of inquiry. creating a great educational experience for students, having a teaching presence within the online class is super important, makes a difference for students and for teachers. I'm in a hundred percent on all of that. However, still within that, we pay voiceover people to do some slides that are going to be evergreen for us that maybe last beyond a teacher, or maybe are shared among a number of teachers teaching different sections or whatever. And so I think that we're probably just moving to a place where we're going to see more and more of this and online teaching.
And I think maybe it's going to be okay. What do you think?
John Nash: It reminds me of our conversation in the middle or end of our ethics episode this calendar year where we were discussing I'll call it scope creep or it will job creep.
Jason Johnston: Yeah
John Nash: I think it depends. Is this going to be a replacement technology, or If there are professionals in your circles who are already doing this work and then a new person comes along who's not it's not their station to do that work, but the technology will allow them to do it.
Will they be stepping on toes? That's what the first thing that comes to mind.
Yeah, I think there's questions to be answered at every level, as we've talked about before in terms of contextual ethics on this within your departments. And I was thinking about that this last week. I have the advantage at University of Tennessee of having people, we have humans that can do these things, right?
Jason Johnston: So it is more of that kind of question about, well, I shouldn't be using AI when we already have humans to do things. But this last week I was at a conference and talked to a lot of people that are a team of one, right? They're expected to produce multiple courses and expected to be high quality.
And they're maybe working at a community college or other colleges that are just not as well funded. And I think it maybe is another different answer to the question, maybe in some of those areas. What do you think?
John Nash: do. And I think you're right. I think and again, we're in that world where we say it depends. Many professors are teams of one who are managing course loads. they don't have ready access to a center for teaching and learning or a set of instructional designers or production level tools.
And so they want to create some evergreen material. Maybe they think their voice isn't up to lecturing for 15 minutes on video and staying stable. So these tools could be useful.
Jason Johnston: Yeah. You have a hard time saying completely no across the board for everybody in every place on these kind of things. However, that being said, I think that I'm feeling more confidence, saying no in my particular context on a lot of these things where I prefer for humans to do the human things when it comes to graphics and music and voice and so on.
And certainly We don't want to replace professors and have no intention on that, because I do think that those connections, I do believe that you there needs to be trust in a in a real teaching relationship, and I think you build that through that teaching presence and connection with the students, so.
John Nash: Yes. And so I think that's probably the framework that we should be talking about all the time is connection and presence. And then if the affordances of these tools, let us advance that. I think we're in a better place.
Jason Johnston: Yeah, that's good. Well, we got right into it, didn't we? With the AI voices spurred a conversation, but we did want to do this little kind of spring check in just to see what's going on. So what have you been up to this spring of 2024,
John Nash: Spring has been busy, not only with teaching to two courses both in person on campus, but April and May sort of AI related and teaching related. I was I was out and about in different places. I was in, in April, I was at the Lamar Institute of Technology in Beaumont, Texas.
Jason Johnston: Okay,
John Nash: their professional development day. Really impressive what they do there. Once a year they close-- no classes are held and all employees from classified staff and even, janitorial and buildings and grounds to the provost and president come together for one day of learning on this professional development day.
And they decided to focus a little bit on AI and I was invited to give the keynote address.
Jason Johnston: nice.
John Nash: On AI and the role and future in higher ed. And then I did some workshops. I did a workshop on prompt writing, and I did a workshop on ethics of AI and talking about crafting an ethic of care like we have
Jason Johnston: Nice.
John Nash: Gave some worksheets for them to think through how teachers could be thoughtful about integrating AI into their work. So that was great. A big shout out to Dr. Angela Hill, who's the provost at Lamar Institute of Tech, and also Beth Knapp, she's the executive director of human resources. They put on a great program.
Gosh, and then I was in San Antonio, sort of Texas focused. I was on a panel on AI in the classroom at the annual meeting of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. And so this is a gigantic annual meeting held in the convention center in San Antonio, filled with biochemists and molecular biologists.
But this was with Craig Streu from Albion College, John Tansey from Otterbein University. Emily Ruff from Winona University, and Susan Holacek from Arizona State. Have you run across Dr. Holacek's work before? I know you've been running around ASU a bit. But, this was a session on AI in the classroom, and so, in that one, I talked about large language models as two things, as instructional design partner, and as a teaching partner.
And so, I talked about the John Hattie bot prompt that Darren Coxon has shared out and how that could be used for instructional design. And then I played up Ethan Mollick's work to do deliberate practice and using turning LLMs into tutors. And so, in fact, I've got a deck that I put on Gamma that we can put in the show notes and everybody can see this live web page I've got with all the links on to a whole bevy of scripts and prompts and stuff that I've got there on that.
And then the last one, I added another one too. It was in Nashville. This one was a lot of fun. I was in front of about a thousand folks on a panel at the Healthcare Compliance Association's Compliance Institute in Nashville.
Now it was with Brett Short, who's the University of Kentucky's Health Care's Chief Compliance Officer and Chief Privacy Officer. No simple job. I'll tell you Betsy Wade, who's the with Signature Healthcare. She's the VP of Compliance and then an attorney from New York, Christine Mondos, with Ropes Gray.
Fascinating discussion about what healthcare compliance officers should be worried about in the presence of AI. And it's not just about, worrying about LLMs and the use of chatbots, but also where AI has penetrated a whole host of medical related software devices and where also healthcare folks may be in compliance or not compliance where they're using AI for patient use that is not licensed for patient use, for instance.
It really opened my eyes to the way we've been talking about AI, Jason, about mostly around chatbots and ChatGPT and how LLMs are infiltrating work. But on this other side, in a lot of universities and also across hospitals that have, or universities with medical centers, hospitals there is people may not understand what de-identified data necessarily is.
They think things are de-identified when they're not. 26 states are considering laws for use of AI in medical situations and how patients will be informed about their use. It's fascinating. So I think that was a lot of fun, to be able to talk about that. So yeah busy spring around talking about AI.
Jason Johnston: that does make for a busy spring. So, yeah, if if you guys noticed that our podcast dropped off a little bit there, you'll know why for a little bit, but we're back at it. I'm curious. So it was really interesting that you're pulled out this Institute of Technology, I think, and then you're with Biochemists, and then you're with healthcare folks.
What is the general feeling? Optimistic or pessimistic, would you say out there in the world beyond education with folks?
John Nash: it's I think it's a balance. So the my new friends at the Lamar Institute of Tech, they were optimistic. In fact, I was in many ways. I appreciated the provost perspective that a community college where half their graduates go on to four year institutions to, of academics and the other half are going into the workplace because with workforce development.
And in that light, they see themselves as needing to compete. And so how might AI make them more competitive in the way they think about their work, what they do day to day, And so let's be sober and forthright about what its possibilities are. I talked to a lot of instructors who are worried about their students using it in academically dishonest ways.
And so we talked about ways in which those could be teachable moments, the way they could think through their own assessments. So I think it's a balance, but I think the overall the administration is optimistic.
The panel on use in the classroom with the biochemists and molecular biologists was pretty optimistic and all the other panels were talking about ways in which they thought about how it could be used. Some who was it? It was Emily Ruff from Winona did some, has done some empirical work looking at students reactions to it and where it's been helpful and not helpful.
So I think it's overall optimistic. The healthcare compliance officers, that is a balance of just I think mostly awareness and being careful that you're not breaking the law or violating patient confidentiality because if you make that mistake, then the federal government comes in. And this is the other big difference between what's happening in that sector, Jason, and what we do day to day, in the academic side of the house is the federal compliance spanking is severe and so you have to be very thoughtful there.
Jason Johnston: Yeah, we've got FERPA, of course, but it feels that very rarely the FERPA police come in and actually do much of anything.
John Nash: not like the HIPAA police.
Jason Johnston: Not like the HIPAA police, which is, makes sense in many ways, because we're dealing with people's health care and yeah, exactly.
John Nash: One of the common challenges across all three of these groups is this understanding of whether, the systems that you're using are opened or closed. So for instance, are you inside your institution's walled garden? And is the, is that information that you're feeding into, it's staying there and not feeding the models or is it going outside?
That's a big concern in healthcare at any rate, because the tools are so opaque in terms of whether they're AI is baked into almost everything now. I don't know if you use WhatsApp, if you notice, but WhatsApp started to put AI right inside the the app itself at the top. And so, forget the the age 13 gateway is gone now because of all Generative AI is being stuck in all the apps without really being told.
So I think that's one thing that everyone had in common there is like, what do we understand about how data gets shared?
Jason Johnston: Yeah, it's fascinating. It's again, one of those situations, as you said, with health care and everything else, where AI is just being rolled out. WhatsApp, who's same company as Instagram, same company as Facebook, right? And so you now see it everywhere. You can you can chat with AI. And so it's here.
There's no stopping it, really, when it comes to academic dishonesty. I asked my kids a little while ago, where did, did our kids log on to chat GPT and so on? And they're like, Oh, no, mostly they're just like asking Snapchat.
John Nash: Yes.
Jason Johnston: Yeah. Okay. So what do you do to stop that kind of thing when it's just baked into all the technology that we're using?
John Nash: Yes. That's right. And so it makes me think about where this is going is it starts to get not only simple air quotes, simple GPT style chat gets embedded into apps, but then when it all becomes more sophisticated and embedded across other tools, that will be another. I want to talk more about that, but I want to hear what you've been up to.
Jason Johnston: it's been a busy semester, on top of all the day to day things that I do. Yeah, lots of hiring. We're growing at University of Tennessee. There's a strong push towards online learning and I think for good reason. We're. we're really trying to reach out to mostly a lot of undergrad folks who have started a degree.
They have some college credits. We have almost a million in Tennessee who started undergrad and never finished. And so we're trying to build out those courses. And so we're building up, hired some great new instructional designers. I work with some fantastic people. Very thankful for all that. On top of all that, I, did help lead an AI workshop in April called Thoughtful Teaching with AI.
And one of the cool things about this that I really enjoyed is that I was able to partner as part of, we're digital learning, so we're the centralized, like, online learning department. We were able to partner with our teaching and learning office, and shout out to a colleague, Chris Kilgore, there, and then also our writing center.
And shout out to Matt Bryant Cheney there. To be able to connect with them and develop basically a and then in some connection with our office of information technology as well and be able to create a workshop together using all of our perspectives and we're able to bring in our different kind of angles and perspectives on this two day basically workshop working with faculty focused around teaching with AI, thinking about creating assignments with AI and how to be thoughtful about that and build it into the curriculum in a way that is human, but a way that is impactful as well. So that was a lot of fun to do and I think interesting. I, as a reminder to those out there that are in similar spaces trying to help professional development and education is that there's still a lot of basic questions out there around dishonesty, as you were talking about around just usage, like, where does my information go?
How is it used? What's a good prompt look like? What is a chatbot versus an LLM? And those kind of things. And so we still need to be teaching and talking about these basic kind of things when it comes to AI. So.
John Nash: Yeah. So much of what I thought would be solved by now is
Jason Johnston: Right. Right. Yeah. And then I just came back, like, yesterday from the Digital Universities Conference in St. Louis. This is a conference that's put on by Times Higher Education, which I was not as familiar with, but I'm very familiar with Inside Higher Ed, and many of our listeners and yourself probably Familiar as well.
And I was on a panel with Rachel Brooks from Quality Matters, Flower Darby, Brian Beatty, and with a great moderator from Inside Higher Ed
Jamie
Ramacciotti
and we're talking about achieving access through equitable course design.
Had a great conversation and some good feedback from people in the audience. I think it was really interesting just to hear the different kind of approaches about even defining what equitable course design looks like. We've got some things that we all kind of land on in terms of UDL and making things accessible, but beyond that, really, what is the definition and some varied kind of approaches from, Brian And Rachel, we're less likely to really want to land on a definition.
Flower Darby, who's done lots of writing in this area, was, had a little clearer kind of idea of how to move ahead. So
John Nash: Nice. Nice. And you you mentioned to me, I think that there was also some presentations from some vendors and things, particularly Turnitin was there.
Jason Johnston: yeah, it was really interesting. Yeah.
John Nash: talk about that?
Jason Johnston: Yeah. And, without throwing anybody under the bus at all, but, we do talk about ed tech and we're at UT is a Turnitin university. We have Turnitin on. But it was really clear to me. That they were there on a really strong PR push to I think they've probably gotten a little bit of backlash on some of their AI detection that they turned on and then they turned off.
And it was really clear that they were there to, to strongly let people know that they're, Their purpose is student learning and good outcomes for students. It's not for catching cheaters. That's not their focus. I'm not sure if that is It may be that they're doing a little bit of a, not just a rebranding, but a change in terms of their organization itself.
I had a hard time, I think, not hearing some of those words without some skepticism um, and without kind of feeling like, That it's easy for them to say that now that maybe they're losing some of their market spot that they had before. And so they're trying to reinvent themselves into something else.
I'm not sure. I don't want to, I'm not judging anybody's motivations here for being there. I'm just on face value I think we need to continue to have a a digital critical approach when it comes to working with our ed tech partners.
John Nash: Certainly. Does it feel like they still want to try to detect AI written work?
Jason Johnston: What was interesting is that they seem to present it as if they could very clearly detect AI written work. There is not time for questions for this person. And so that they the main kind of operating guy, I don't know who it was that was doing a kind of a bit of a keynote talk. There's not time for questions, he just gave a spiel and then left.
But yeah, he very clearly kind of demon put on the slides that they're, they're able to detect AI. And this is what it looks like right now.
John Nash: Ah.
Jason Johnston: There's no chance for me to stand up and I guess I could have stood up and just dissented while he was talking, but I guess I have a little more,
John Nash: Yes.
Jason Johnston: maybe social
John Nash: More decorum?"
Jason Johnston: Decorum than that.
John Nash: not like, in a British parliament where you stand up and just yell "rubbish."
Jason Johnston: exactly and start pounding the desks and so on. Yeah, if I knew this was coming, I could have worn my AI Detectors Don't Work shirt or something like that, and it had more of a silent protest than I, could have just had it on without having to interrupt him.
John Nash: Well, fascinating. I don't know what to think of that. I want to believe that we're moving beyond that, but I guess what does a company that's called Turnitin, who's made their way through detecting plagiarism and plain old written essays back when we used to do that, right?
What do they do now? Yeah,
Jason Johnston: Yeah. Well, you had an experience recently, right? At your school. Are you able to share about that a
John Nash: yeah, well, yeah, just a little story from a colleague that I was contrasting in light of a great interview with Dario Amadei, the CEO of Anthropic, which is the company that makes Claude, the LLM, and he recently shared some, pretty mind-bending insights on the Ezra Klein show about how AI is evolving and where it will go this exponential growth in AI tech and that in the next, 18 months to three years, we could see things like AI like planning our trips or it's already writing code.
It's going to be integrated into our tools even more so. And this conversation struck a chord with me when I thought about a situation that a fellow professor shared. She had caught a student using AI to write a paper and they turned that paper in and she thought it was written by AI, felt AI.
But this same student had sneakily passed it on to another student who submitted it also as their own work. So we have not only academic dishonesty in terms of use of, say, chat GPT, but then full on plagiarizing and cheating in the old traditional sense by this other student. And so I thought, just, but so how she handled that is really not the point of this, but she was throwing up her arms a little bit saying, well, what do we do about this sort of thing? And it was a kind of a snapshot of the massive ethical puzzles we're now facing thanks to the presence of AI now, but also, what Amadei is talking about is AI getting so good at handling complicated stuff that soon chatting with AI is going to feel as natural as talking to, you and me and here we are now today trying to figure out how to keep AI from turning our students into these copy and paste wizards.
And so it was a bit of a reality check for me about where we need to be. So my story is really ends with a question. What's the game plan now for us as educators? We're all, we're still stuck trying to figure out what to do about how to assess well in the presence of AI and courses that have AIable assignments.
So what will we do? How do we push this conversation next? I think we still have to think about AI as a force for good in education, but that has to come with more conversation. It makes me realize I'm not having enough conversations with my colleagues about ethics of the use of the tool, transparency of the use of the tool and where it can benefit them.
Jason Johnston: Yeah, and I think that benefits, ethics, and transparency are things that we can continue to look at, and I think what we can't do is make policies based on where AI is today, right? As Sam Altman, I think, said even just this last week, what you're using right now is the worst AI that you will ever use.
It was something like that.
John Nash: Did he say that? I know Mollick has been saying that too for, yeah.
Jason Johnston: this is it. This is the worst version of ChatGPT that you will ever use. I've heard to the grapevine that, ChatGPT 5 is coming out this fall and it's going to be like a 100x what we've experienced. I don't know what that means exactly but, I just think that we cannot, we can't look at it today and say we've got to make policies based on the quality that we see right now.
I think that we can think about some of these other ways that we can approach it that, that should stand the test of time. Transparency. I think whether it's 100x in six months, when we start the fall break or fall semester, whether it's 100x or not, I think transparency will still be a thing we want on the table.
Right?
John Nash: Yes. Yeah, definitely. I was reading I get a little newsletter every morning called the Bay Area Times. They were noting that OpenAI showed off an unlaunched deepfake voice tool recently. It only requires 15 seconds of reference audio to clone a voice. Now we were talking earlier about, well, it wouldn't be nice if we could have some voice generated material for instruction, but we weren't talking about cloning or deepfaking voices.
But if you only need 15 seconds, I think that's that's pretty amazing and frightening.
Jason Johnston: Yeah. Yeah. There's a Hard Fork podcast, both you and I are fond of. They just did one, and we can put a link in the notes, where they were talking about a situation where a principal, was was put on suspension because somebody had used a deep fake of his voice that sounded really realistic. And not just realistic, but sounded like the environment that somebody might have just recorded somebody, in a hallway through their phone kind of thing, saying things that he didn't say.
John Nash: Yes. And another example in a school in Southern California, I think of students who were suspended for doing deep fake images of female
Jason Johnston: Right.
John Nash: that were that were pornographic. Really terrible stuff. And I think it shows how important it is for school leaders, both in, P 12 and in higher ed to be thinking about how we'll get in front of the stuff.
Do the existing policies you have really get at it?
Jason Johnston: Yeah. One of the sessions I was at this last week at Digital Universities conference was by Dr. Robbie Melton, who is the Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Technology Innovations at the Tennessee State University. And she was talking about the impact of AI on minority-serving institutions, which hers is one. One of the things that, that she was talking about in this was just that she was stressing, if you do not understand what AI is doing, then you need to.
Like, not everybody has to be an expert, but everybody needs to understand the capabilities. And she's like, "This is why, if I'm showing a demonstration, I don't show them, ChatGPT 3. 5. We go for 4, this is why I keep up on all these things so I know exactly where it's at, because people need to understand where it's at and where it's going in terms of its capabilities because people underestimate what's going on."
And I think it's the same thing in our schools for really understanding where all of this is at. I think that as leaders, we do need to have at least some sense of where the technology is at today and then where it's going tomorrow.
John Nash: So if people are interested in listening to that episode, that was the Ezra Klein show where he interviews Dario Amadei, D A R I O, A M O D E I. And it's a really interesting picture into where one leader of one of the frontier models of generative AI is thinking this will all go.
Jason Johnston: Yeah. Those are some great series with Ezra Klein. Again, just for all of us to expand our understanding of where things are at and where they're going. Yeah.
Well, it's great to catch up, John. It's nice to see you. And I'm glad to see you after all the busyness of the semester. We've got a couple more podcasts coming up with some amazing guests.
And then we'll do a a summer kind of break and wrap up, but yeah, as always our podcast can be found at onlinelearningpodcast.com. Please, wherever you listen to this podcast, if you can do a review. That would help us know how things are going, as well as help the algorithm get it in front of other people that like similar podcasts.
And find us on LinkedIn, of course, and we've got the links in our show notes as well. Love to hear back from you about what you think about this podcast and others and and everything that we're saying here. So,
John Nash: Please like, comment and subscribe. We, yeah, we have three more episodes in the hopper that are going to come out with some amazing guests. And so I'm excited for those and excited to talk about summer plans after that.
Jason Johnston: sounds good. All
John Nash: Cool. Talk to you later.
Jason Johnston: Talk to you soon. Bye.
Monday May 20, 2024
Monday May 20, 2024
In this episode, John and Jason talk to Christelle Daceus of Johns Hopkins University chats about digital neo-colonialism and efforts to humanize online learning through training about AI and promoting inclusive practices. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
Christelle Daceus, M.Ed., is a Course Support Specialists at the Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, and the Founder and CEO of Excellence Within Reach
Watch for Christelle’s book chapter - Coming late 2024 on Springer Nature Press “Using Global Learning through the Collaborative Online International Learning Model to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals by Building Intercultural Competency Skills” coedited by Kelly Tzoumis and Elena Douvlou with a chapter titled “Combatting Virtual Exchange’s Predisposition to Digital Colonialism: Culturally Informed Digital Accessibility as a Tool for Achieving the UN SDGs”
Johns Hopkins Excellence in Online Teaching Symposium
John & Jason’s 6 Guideposts - Slide Deck (via Gamma.app)
Christelle’s symposium video
Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License.
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections!
[00:00:00] Jason Johnston: What'd you have for breakfast?
[00:00:01] Christelle Daceus: I did not have breakfast. I was thinking here that I have two dogs, so that my mornings consist of a lot of making sure they get their walk in and getting my nice kind of walk in the morning and things like that. It helps me start my day. And I spend a lot of time just hydrating, tea, I like, because I think I have a full plate, I would call it.
I like to have a really quiet morning, just like the simplest morning that I can have, depending on what my first thing is to do that day. This is my first meeting today, I was like, okay, I'm just gonna chill with the dogs, get into my emails and things like that.
[00:00:40] John Nash: Nice. We've been getting more into tea lately. There's wonderful woman-owned emporium near our house called White Willow and they've got a new herbalist and, we picked up a lavender earl gray tea there last night.
[00:00:53] Christelle Daceus: Ooh, that sounds good.
[00:00:54] John Nash: The little things.
I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:01:00] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the online learning podcast.
[00:01:05] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last two years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but there's still quite a bit that isn't. And Jason, how are we going to get to the next stage?
[00:01:20] Jason Johnston: That's a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?
[00:01:24] John Nash: That's perfect. What do you want to talk about today?
[00:01:27] Jason Johnston: Well, today we're probably going to hit some pretty big themes, John, and it's partly because we have connected with somebody that we first connected with at the Johns Hopkins Online Teaching Excellence Symposium.
So we have with us today, Christelle Dacius. Thank you so much for joining us. And we're really just looking forward to talking to you today.
[00:01:51] Christelle Daceus: too. Thank you so much.
[00:01:54] Jason Johnston: Well, we wanted to get started by just talking a little bit about what is it you do currently? You're connected in with JHU maybe talk about that first, but I also know that you're an entrepreneur. They have other pursuits outside of JHU as well.
[00:02:07] Christelle Daceus: Yeah, I am a long time educator. I've had my hands in all things education at various levels. And yeah, now I'm at J. H. U. Working for the School of Engineering, working for the Center for Learning Design and Technology. I work as a course support specialist with the instructional designers and technologists, creating Materials for courses at the School of Engineering at Helmwood making sure that they're accessible and those materials are accessible, like videos have captions and are able to be, process and materials are able to be read by screen readers. And then we also have the faculty forward Academy where we provide professional development for faculty and I have some awesome opportunities to collaborate with the school of education in their international student work group and I'll be working in some workshops for them in April, providing some work with the faculty on AI and different tools and AI and how they can incorporate into learning and a no fear approach to AI because there's a lot of anxiety there. I think for faculty. And that's my goal with that workshop is to meet them in the middle and show them that AI is here. We can't quite get rid of it, but. We can, elevate our learning and how we, work with students. And so I'm super excited for that. I also work in some research with Global Learning, so I have some international partners I'm doing like exciting things with.
And we have a book coming out in May or June with Springer Nature Press. And so that book is about global learning and how sustainability in education can be affected by the United Nations sustainable development goals. And so we just launched our book recently again at the world environmental education Congress in Abu Dhabi, just a few weeks ago, and we talked about our book and had a panel there and that was super exciting.
Very excited for that work. Obviously it was again like that natural opportunity. I was talking about earlier where it's just I'm meeting good people talking about the good work. And then we started creating some great work together, I'm really excited about that. And then, yeah, like I said, I'm an entrepreneur.
So I have a business in Baltimore City, which is an academic center that's really starting to really connect with the community and start starting to grow into a very. Well rounded program which is exciting because I'm just in maybe a few months. But, it's one of those moments where hard work is paying off even in the new pursuit, where a lot of the relationships that I've valued and forged within Baltimore and within education systems and Baltimore City schools are starting to just grow and I'm able to like really reach students.
Because just moving here, I'm actually from New Jersey, and I moved here maybe five years ago, and I've had an opportunity to contract in schools and things like that. And, Baltimore City Schools is constantly in the news for their educational needs and things like that. And because my career started in K 12, I really wanted to connect kind of the work that I do at this higher level, right?
Accessibility, advocacy, inclusive education, but bring it to a community level. And I think one of the things you guys asked me was about affecting the individual, like, how can we do that work and reach the individual and not just put out the research and all these kinds of things, which is amazing and important to have those conversations and keep pushing forward with.
Workshops and conferences and getting those ideas out there. But then I have an opportunity to not only give opportunities to other educators to bring those opportunities to students, but also really, impact the community, a community that needs it, Yeah. I also am a mom and I have a son he's four.
His name is Malcolm. He's the greatest. And yeah, I'm just a busy bee. I'm all over the place. But I love everything I do. And I think I have a good balance right now. So I'm lucky to do the things that I love.
[00:06:16] Jason Johnston: so we sent you some questions, but like you just. You just landed us with four pretty big things that you do. We could probably spend the entire time talking about any one of those things. So I'm going to have to show some restraint, because there's some things we would like to get to, and why we connected over this, that I think are really important.
I don't want to derail anything here, but I was really curious, and I'm sorry to our listeners, because we keep saying that we're going to stop talking about AI, and then it just keeps coming back.
[00:06:44] Christelle Daceus: You can, that's what I'm saying. That's the workshop. You cannot run away from AI. I'm so
sorry.
[00:06:51] Jason Johnston: And we love it. We like, it's really interesting to us. And all the time are like texting each other things. I actually texted my wife yesterday by accident, something I meant to text to John, and it made no sense to her whatsoever.
[00:07:05] John Nash: Does that make us work spouses right?
[00:07:08] Jason Johnston: I I think so or at least AI spouses. but because every time something comes up, I'm like, Oh, John, did you see this? Did you see that? And he's like sending me stuff back as well. Anyways, tell us a little bit about your approach with the "no fear AI."
Cause I really, I haven't heard that particular kind of phrase, but I'm interested because I think we're all in the same space in, in education.
[00:07:32] Christelle Daceus: Like I said, with the School of Education, they have a work group that works towards just how do we work with international students and within their own faculty groups they make sure that their programming and professional development includes that kind of work, and so they approached me because, a lot of faculty just don't know what to do. Right? The biggest issue is the plagiarism. Like, how do we keep up with this? How do we know that students are submitting authentic work? And that's the idea behind how , I'm planning for the workshop is, that we're talking about first, what really is AI, right? It's not this solve everything.
Like, there's so much more we need to know. There's so much kinks that need to be figured out. And it's so exciting when you see ChatGPT create a menu for you, create a business plan and all these kinds of things. But, people like us who work in online and work with technology, we know that there's like limitation to the authenticity of it to the like humanization of the technology, because there are people who create these technologies.
And these people are often in an industry that is dominated by people who look a specific way, right? And so those people have specific ideologies. And so when they're creating their work, they're using their specific values and ideologies and biases to create that work. And it's amazing work, but it's not something that is, Full spectrum hitting the complexity of humanism.
And I won't scare the faculty by phrasing it that way. But, that's really the conversation of just, letting them know that there is limitations and as much as it looks like it can do, we are still, we still have the power in our hands, right? Because we have this thing that AI or any kind of technology would never have, which is the human brain.
And it's capable of so many things that no matter what we create and no matter how exciting and shiny and new it is it's just never going to be more meaningful than that. And we, the important thing is not allowing it to, right? Not allowing to ourselves to give AI and VR and XR and all these kinds of things.
The power to take our human interactions or communication or connections and make them artificial. Right? So yeah, so that's the idea behind the workshop is that we are going to now give them the tools, right? Okay. So what does that look like? You're telling me don't be scared. Don't be nervous and just. Embrace it. Okay. What does that look like when embracing it? Right? And so I want to talk about some faculty that are already doing that. How can we use ChatGPT is what everybody knows to review work that students are turning and tell them, sure, use it, get it out of their system, and they're going to start to recognize if you show them, okay, the reason we're concerned about this is because you're not getting the accurate information, right? So let's have the students sit down and compare some of their own research to ChatGPT's research and on a similar topic and, compare those things and analyze the technology itself, and it's gonna, teach them some things, which is exciting, right?
It's going to give us some new things, but at the same time, it's going to help them question. They're learning in an authentic way that it's not just I'm answering the question and that's it. But I'm having this moment where I'm like, I'm thinking about my thinking, right? It's something that is in something that we created within the engineering school.
But this metacognition of Remembering that it is a technology, right? It's not our reality. It's just something, a tool that can be applied to the courses, especially online.
[00:11:11] John Nash: Wonderful. Really cool. I think, I have a million questions. I, I've been worried about the the historical bias inside the large data sets that these LLMs get built on, even as actors inside universities like mine who are doing sub projects, they can go out and get the, I guess I'm learning about these, but there's the common crawl data set.
There's BookCorpus, Wikipedia, these things where the data comes from. And then on top of that, as you just noted, the developers values and ideologies get put on top of that. And so I'm thinking about ways to help others, particularly teachers, see their evolving role , as an actor inside this network of flow of information from the large language model to a learner, whether they're over 13 years old and it's okay for them to use them or whether they're in post secondary.
And I'm wondering how you're feeling about that too. I see now teachers are needed more than ever as the mediator between the screen and the learner in helping set up critical conversations. And I'm thinking about these guideposts that we talked about Jason and I did at the symposium at Johns Hopkins and being human to your students and yourself, treat humans as individuals, and you helped us expand on a point which was to recognize that not all humans are present. And so I'm thinking about that. And are you still feeling that way that there's a place for teachers to help learners remember that not all humans have been present in this AI flow of information.
[00:12:53] Christelle Daceus: I think the difficult part is having the time for those conversations in the classroom, I think that's where immediately teachers are like, this is just another thing, right? On our plate for us to, have to deliver, but that's where I'm hoping to encourage authentic, interactions and opportunities to have those conversations, right?
And so I really try to encourage faculty to. Talk about their own process, their approach to a assignment, right? So let's say we have this AI assignment or whatever assessment that we have in a course and they can talk for a moment, whether that's in the overview of the assignment or in the overview of the module, where they're saying, Okay, here's what's assigned this week.
Here's some things that I would keep in mind when I'm approaching this and here's how I would approach, an assessment like this or an assignment like this. And just, remind them that they're not on their own, right? It's not just especially online. It's so easy to just be on the other side of the screen and not really connect.
But if you remind them that, hey, I'm still here and, I try to do these things too. I found my way, I think a really good habit that I'd love to see is, that faculty in their course introductions or syllabus can talk about how they got to their role, as a professor like, yes, we have the bios and, tell them a little background, but really what courses that they take, what, how did they approach their learning in those courses?
A lot of program, if you think about the school of engineering these are common courses a lot of engineers have to take to reach their programming so a lot of these, more senior engineers and people in the industry, they've had those experience. They've had to approach the learning and it might, the learning might look differently right now, but there's things that work when you're, gaining retention or learning new things that just work, right?
And no matter how the learning is approached. And so what I realized is there's an assumption that because you're at a certain level, you just know those things and you should just know how to, you know, um, really organize yourself well enough and organize your course materials, prioritize your learning in an independent way when in actuality, online learning is so new, there's no real approach to it, right?
Right. There's no real guideline to, okay, well, this is how the norm of learning online is for the student, right? I think we spend a lot of time making sure that teaching is accurate and like we're putting out good materials and we're accessible and all these things, but then students, they're just told, log in, learn, even though it's different than anything you've ever done for the majority of your academic experience.
And. But, do it and do it well. And so yeah, those are the things I think about that technology moves so fast that we forget to step back and make sure that everyone has the steps to apply it and be a part of it and participate. And I think that's what true accessibility is not. Pinpointing the people who are most in need all the time, but sometimes it's if everyone can reach this most likely, that's the best products, right?
That's the best experience. And so that's how I approach accessibility and online learning and the design of those courses.
[00:16:14] John Nash: I don't want to oversimplify something you just said, but it, did it seem like I was hearing you say that there are too many instructors who take on an online teaching team? Thank you. endeavor, inadvertently throw the students to the wolves a little bit. There's not enough thought going in there to everything.
[00:16:32] Christelle Daceus: I'd even say it's at an institutional level because half the time, the faculty or teachers are also being thrown into new technology and they, start the school year and they say, Hey, these are the things we're using our courses. This is the LMS that we're using, teachers don't really have an opportunity to decide on those things, so I think that's really what it is that yes, there's.
The aspect that teachers could, step in the ways that I talked about, right? And helping them adjust to the technology. We have to make sure that as an institution, we're reaching them. And me working in K 12, that's the, that's where I see that the most, right? They put these laptops in classrooms and they have all these kinds of very amazing educational technology, but, Half the time, it's just, this is what we're using now.
This is how we're, looking at the data, how we're tracking our students progress, and all these kinds of things. And you just have to adapt and what happens to the teachers that can't, right? Which is what happened in higher ed with COVID. Hundreds, thousands of classes all around the country were placed online and everyone said, figure it out
[00:17:39] John Nash: Yep.
[00:17:40] Christelle Daceus: and not only in higher ed, but then there's all these K 12 kids logging into zoom with no idea what they're doing.
And that's the example I would use of just technology moving a touch too fast. Right? We saw an emergency which is the pandemic, and we're shutting down. We're locked down. We're in our house. And someone said, Oh, but we have the technology. We've created this. We've got it, but didn't think, okay, but schools are safe places for students.
Right? And especially at the K 12 level, are we making sure that this is safe, right? Are they logging into secure servers and all these kinds of things? That's where you saw Zoom immediately change its entire kind of interface. Very quickly, they were like, oh, we can't allow these Zoom links to be shared all over the place and people are popping into different rooms and things like that.
And so you started the more of the enterprise model and for schools and things like that and yeah, which is important. It's important for us to learn, but we don't want to put our most vulnerable people, our most vulnerable stakeholders at risk, which are our students, right? At any level. They are the stakeholders investing, if not their time, with younger students, but also financial investments when you're at the higher ed level, they invested into this product, which is their higher education experience, and they want to make sure that it's high quality and it's reaching them in a meaningful way, right? And they're walking away from that experience. And so when I always say I am so happy I didn't graduate around that time or I wasn't trying to go to college because, that experience of, oh, I'm having my first, second year of college and. All of a sudden, they're like, get off campus and go on your laptop.
You still have to, pay that ticket price. You still have to pay, to be there and be present and reach all the same goals, but it's a completely different environment. And we don't even know if you're going to be able to succeed in that environment, but we all just have to. Because we want to, well, this is the colonialist piece, so I won't get too much into that. Um, but yeah, it's just the continuation of capitalism. That's, that was the priority, right? That we needed to keep doors open, we needed to keep institutions pushing and we're literally dealing with a global health pandemic, people's lives are at risk, people are dying And instead of taking a second to make sure we're delivering this essential need, right, of education in the best possible way.
It was a little rush and we were, we put kids in danger. We put, institutions in danger in that way. So
[00:20:21] Jason Johnston: I feel like whether it's a, global pandemic pushing us in this direction, or maybe a school is pivoting to online or even down to a teacher who's been, asked to move their classes online. I feel like our default is to try to continue the same things that we've been doing, but just stick them online.
So if a teacher is very comfortable and this is the way they've always done it with specific kind of assessments or a very lecture based approach that everything just online and all of a sudden becomes just this kind of like same stuff, different package.
[00:20:58] Christelle Daceus: it's a folder, right? It's just like holding all the things and we hop online. We do our little lecture or recording and that's learning and the, we try to do interaction through discussion boards and things like that, but I think even the creation of discussion boards and the, is that why did we need to look like replicate discussion?
Why did we not instead create moments of authentic discussion, which is harder to, of course, analyze quantitatively , but I understand we have to find a balance, it's not easy, but this is why I say, my approach to, thinking about the professional development of educators is to show them the way, right?
Am I making sure that my materials are reaching every student in the room, right? And that means taking a moment to check in on if there's translating opportunities, right? What is the demographic in my room? Am I making sure that the content is culturally relevant to them? Okay. Am I sure that the words that I'm using are sensitive to the kinds of like cultural mindsets that are in my classroom.
And sometimes as educators, you're not in a room with people who look like you. I hope most of the time that's not how that looks, and you don't wanna miss opportunities for a student to grow and to reach the really good content that you're trying to deliver because they couldn't access it online, right?
Let's think about international students who are checking in online and we have links to sites that in their country are banned. So then we have a student that's okay, but I really want to go to this school, so I'm going to get a VPN. And I'm going to do what I need to do so I can get this degree.
And maybe it's normed, but is that really what we want as institutions or as educators that students are risking themselves in a, I guess legal way or judicial way where they have to go this extra mile versus the educator creating unique materials in such a way that they don't have to click on a link, right?
The learning is in the LMS. There's interaction there with their peers. They're really having an authentic experience instead of going into another space. Maybe you send that information in a different way. Maybe you have alternatives and you can still have your link, but making sure that they can reach that in some way, right?
I've, through this work, found out there's YouTube alternatives and all these kinds of things in places like China and the UAE, getting familiar with that, or at least, in the education, if you know that's a demographic that you serve, that should be a part of your own professional development, right?
That you're pursuing how to adjust your teaching for those students. But I think as institutions and as educators, we have to norm those conversations, norm it in a way that I think once you start saying inclusion and diversity and people get, "Oh, but I am, like I am, I'm doing the right thing.
I'm doing my best" and everyone's doing their best. But, once you start to put practical steps to it, okay, well, there's things I can just. Add to what I'm already doing and we just enhance overall, just the quality of education. And everybody would ideally.
[00:24:24] Jason Johnston: Yeah. Yeah, that theme of intentionality was something that came up over and over again in that J. H. U. symposium and what I hear you saying is part of that intentionality is being able to, is taking the time to do professional development so that you can take a step back, you can think about maybe where some practices need to change, and ideally as part of the professional development.
Here are some practical things that you could do today. Maybe some small steps or maybe some individual individual examples of things that, that could be done.
[00:24:58] Christelle Daceus: Yeah, and I would say it doesn't have to be the big conference or all these things can be reading, a really good book, a really good author who's familiar with the work
[00:25:06] Jason Johnston: Yeah.
[00:25:07] Christelle Daceus: If that's, of concern to you relating yourself to the other voices that, Are matching your values of that you want to bring into your classroom.
And I would say even at conferences you get to sign up for different sessions and my favorite session to sign up for the small ones that they put in the room that's all the way down the hall. And there's only a couple of attendees because we sit in there, we have amazing conversations, because everyone's being heard.
And it's not just anybody talking at you. It's real educators and they're having real conversations and then putting in some action steps. "Okay. How can I help you with this at your institution?" And how can we, collaborate in that way? And even actually, at the conference I went to recently, we had field trips, I think, on the last day of the conference we were on one of the charter buses and a colleague from London, they're working on some environmental work there.
We just connected immediately, and he starts talking about how he" is looking for how to elevate the design and meet the community and be inclusive and all these things. I was like, Oh, I love that's what I love. I love to do all those things," and that didn't happen because I sat in his session and, heard all his bullet points and stuff like that.
But it's because we came together as educators. We're trying to have an authentic experience where we get to, Abu Dhabi is very sustainable and environmentally aware. And so we were going to a mangrove where they plant trees and expand foliage there. And it was great to have this authentic moment where we were like, "this is just something that I love."
And, at conferences is almost like a safe place to nerd out about the things that you really love in education. And so you get into these conversations. "Oh, what do you do?" And then all of a sudden. You found, your match that somewhere in another institution, but doing similar work and seeing that, it works the things that you're doing, but maybe in a different way somewhere else.
And you're getting new ideas and we're building education in those ways. So that's what I'd like to see, I think, in the future of professional development and conferences, like having those more authentic, just conversations, open discussion on these real things. Like, how are we really holding back our students by allowing colonialist practices to seep into education where there's one voice, there's one identity that kind of leads the way, right? There's one version of what the the most what is the word? Something that has, I don't know, you're more important because you went to a certain institution, you're from a certain part of the world, or from a certain culture there's a better word for it, but my point is that, we hold our students to a lesser standard when we stop short replicating in person online.
When we have educators, creatives, to really come together and are like, "This is an opportunity to create a whole different educational environment that can just reach students in a different way, it doesn't have to be end all be all we don't have to get rid of, schools or anything like that".
But there's a lot, especially at the case level where schools are fully online and they're interacting with students like that. But I would hate to think that a student. Spend 12, 14, 15, 16 years of their education, and they're just, staring at the same thing year after year, and they're just reading things online and they're missing opportunities to interact with their peers and grow their ideas and hear.
Validation and feedback like we did sitting in the classroom. Yeah,
[00:28:52] John Nash: You brought up the notion of colonialism and you've talked a little in the past about digital neo colonialism. Could you give our listeners the digital neo colonialism 101?
[00:29:05] Christelle Daceus: Yeah. So, this idea that um, I think I just mentioned colonialist practices are replicated through education. Right? And if we're thinking about imperialism. It's this pursuit of resources, right? In the past, it was the pursuit of humans, right? And the institution of slavery was the exploitation of human labor and human bodies and cultures and the eradication of culture so that other cultures could be elevated and given power socially, economically that stands to this day, right?
And. When you don't have the massive institution of slavery, it continues in different ways. And we saw things like the black codes and all the limitations that freed black persons had to deal with after emancipation that kind of limited and how people of color could be successful.
And that's just an example at, the domestic level. But then when you really think of it globally, there's just a continued, repression of so many cultures, whether that's in the Caribbean, whether that's in Africa and Asia, these cultures that were impacted by colonialism and intruded upon and some of these places, their Colonizers are still there, right?
They have embassies there and offices and, and we just made these laws and all these things. Right? And it's the same thing in education where just like the for profit prison system, right? That's a continuation of enslavement of control over the population is a way to control, consequence to what the larger they decide as what is criminal behavior, what is dangerous to the society that we are trying to uphold? And of course, that's important, but when it's designed based on stereotype and race and, these false ideologies of inferiority due to differences of, skin color or being an immigrant or different economic class, that's when those things get spread further and further, right?
And so in education, this looks having international students come to American schools to become more legitimate. That's the word I was looking for earlier, where these institutions legitimize you, right? Whereas you don't have American students going to some of the other institutions because in certain places, like the global south is what they'll call it, right? Those third world countries or whatever you want to call it you don't see American students or British students or Asian students going to those countries because the legitimacy is not there, right? There's the social legitimacy of that degree would not have the same weight, right? Even though I'm sure there's plenty of institutions with great work and they're like, I have partners all over the world.
And so what does that do? That brings more economic growth to certain institutions, certain regions, certain countries, brings more influence because this education is legitimate. So the research they're putting out from this institution is more legitimate than those other ones. And so those perspectives from the people who can afford to go to those institutions are then pushed forward, it's this kind of continued.
Elevation of a certain voice, right? Of a certain pedagogy, even, right? Again, we're going back to replicating what's in person online. That doesn't work, because, It was already barely working in person, right? We're still figuring that part out. So, you know, We to, to, to replicate something that's not even that doesn't as strong as a foundation is we wanted to online, which is something.
We don't even know as much as we can about it becomes just this loose experience, right? Where people aren't getting as much as they're investing into it. I think we're all spending a lot of time getting familiar with technology, investing into it, incorporating into our lives and we want to make sure that what we're getting back is not just a regurgitation of.
Colonialist thought of, making sure that the majority is elevated, that the global north is stays in its position. It's an opportunity for the global north to move out of the way and say, yes, because we have this technology that allows us to talk to people from all over the world. This is an opportunity for us to just give them that platform, right?
We want to give them the opportunity to speak for themselves. Like we don't need to advocate or save or, any of those things we need to. Just not bombard the industry, right? We don't need to dominate in a way that doesn't leave space for the global south or different institutions or different voices to actually be heard which is something I talk about in my chapter as well.
[00:33:59] Jason Johnston: Yeah, this idea, and please correct me if this is not part of what you're talking about here. One of the practical ways of moving forward is this idea of allyship. Does that resonate with you or is that is that different than what you're saying here?
[00:34:16] Christelle Daceus: Yeah, I think that's a really good word to put to it, so that I love it when big ideas can be consumable, right? And yeah, it's this authentic allyship. Right, that we remember that, yes, there's pursuits of greater things. However, we don't want to perpetuate competition and capitalism and just growth for the sake of, being bigger than the guy next to you kind of thing, but rather than, if you think about the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals, the goal is to really elevate our earth, right?
And to expand the longevity of our earth and our climate and making sure that in all aspects, industry and education and health and economic, we're all growing and we all have the same opportunities. To be, players on the world market. And yeah, so the allyship comes from first accepting that, the end all be all is not being the person that's most on top, and even if you are the person that's most on top, there's no problem with helping those that come behind you, right?
Or who are in a different position than you are, and bringing them to where you are, right? I think we have to get out of this illusion that technology creates and being online creates that, this is just a person on the screen. It's no, the world is still, if we're connecting the world and we're having these international conversations or conversations with people all over the country, or even in your community, we're not even meeting.
I could be in Baltimore still having my Zoom meeting with someone that's a couple blocks down. We don't do that anymore, right? It's oh, I don't want to meet you at your office. I'm just going to hop on Zoom, and that's it. And not forgetting that when we do have in person interactions to make them meaningful, I think, in a new way, because they're becoming less apparent and less available to us and enjoying life in that way, I think.
And as professionals, just really, like I said, just recognizing, one where you're coming from and what your strengths, privileges, whatever you want to call it, are. And when you are thinking about enhancing that work or growing that work, making sure that it's not just one voice that you're hearing in your head, right?
That you're trying to elevate those other voices that are available to us and trying to learn from us, right? They deserve that.
[00:36:51] Jason Johnston: You wonder about what this disembodiment of meeting together will do to our psyches over time, the fact that we're just floating heads here in zoom looking at each other versus being in body with one another.
Anyways, that's a whole nother topic . But I but I think I recognize what you're saying there in terms of our meeting together, how, the digital, although can span, because it'd be some amazing affordances to Zoom and we can span distances.
We would not be connecting again. I don't know the next time I'm going to be in Baltimore, might be a while. And so this is a wonderful way that we're using digital technology to span a distance that couldn't be spanned otherwise,
which is amazing and has expanded even in our conversation today, all the things you're talking about has expanded my way of thinking about things, hopefully have helped to move me towards more humanizing of people that are online and as we were talking about this, but also recognizing some of the dangers in the affordances that we're using.
That's good.
[00:37:57] John Nash: Yeah I appreciate you helping me remember, I think I was a little bit harsh on my own ilk, , the, of the instructor. I think that there I don't know if is victim the wrong word, but I see systems. rolling in place and then instructors are not victims of the system, but they are, they're caught in the system and don't know opportunities to change.
And then in turn, learners don't get to see the opportunities for change. But I appreciate that. I think I'm too hard on my fellow instructors thinking that it's all at their feet to make the difference. There is some there, we have some agency and we should be bringing our thoughts to that.
But yeah, I appreciate that.
[00:38:37] Christelle Daceus: Yeah. Even in my chapter, I go through things that kind of every level, right? And what we can do policy wise, right? What is the government giving us to even work with? Right? And what are we doing with vendors, right? The people who are creating this technology and how we're connecting them to the actual institutions and the leadership of that institution and the staff and the faculty and then the students, right?
After all that is said and done that's where I think the biggest missing pieces and where I always go back to, I really want people to just give students the path, right? Give them the steps to succeed. You know that education doesn't need to be this, you just have to figure it out.
You have to find the answers yourself. Right? And I think when we are more empathetic, like you said to our faculty, where it's like, they're learning too, right? And we're all just okay, we're on this new kind of adventure together. Let's do this. Approach it as a community, right? And see how instead of replicating the kind of like logistics of education, how can we replicate community online?
Right? How can we bring that experience where you see your favorite teacher? Or you knock on them on their door during lunchtime, but, nobody else is in there and you finally get to talk to them and share your favorite TV show from the weekend or whatever it is, those little experience.
How can we bring that online and the rest of the learning? But it's because we have the teachers already, right? We already have good learning and we have people like myself and my team who are working on accessibility, making sure that people with different abilities can reach the material, people like my partners who are doing global learning and VR but making sure that students who are blind can still participate in that, right?
Going that extra mile for them because the students are saying I don't care that I, Have different abilities. I want the experience. I invested into this the same way that my classmates did. And just because I have a different ability doesn't mean that I get part of the experience. And so it's our job to meet them, meet those students where they are and make sure that they're having that experience.
Right. And they're having Equilibrium experiences across the board.
[00:40:53] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I think meeting students where there are, that's a great place to land. And unfortunately we're going to have to land this. I have a thousand more questions for you. And I think John probably does too. I think we could talk for a long time and I just just put a pin in that to say, let's do this again.
Okay.
[00:41:07] Christelle Daceus: Absolutely. Happy
[00:41:09] Jason Johnston: been really good. Also your chapter of your book it's yet to come out. Is that correct? When do you expect it to be published that people
[00:41:17] Christelle Daceus: Springer Nature Press we're working for June, I believe, end of May, beginning of June. Not the editor, so I don't show any of the logistics of those things, but I will send that information to you, and then you can share it with the people when that is ready.
[00:41:31] Jason Johnston: Okay, we'll put that in the show notes as well as our slides from the JHU. Again, we'll put in the show notes and you can see some of these quotes as well as your session from JHU is now up on video. It's great. I've sent it on to quite a number of people. So many good things. So if you want to hear more from Christelle check out our show notes and she did a great session at JHU that you can watch as well.
Thank you so much for being with us. This has been great talking to you. I really appreciate you. We really appreciate you taking the time to share.
[00:42:00] Christelle Daceus: Thank you. I am happy to do this again anytime and talk with you guys. So thank you so much for, giving me some time with you guys.
[00:42:09] John Nash: Yeah and hey Christelle, I'll send you an email, but we have a It's not a parting gift because we're going to see each other again, but anyway, we send a, Jason doesn't know this. It's a new policy. We send a mug, one of our online learning in the second half podcast mugs as a thank you gift.
[00:42:25] Christelle Daceus: Oh, thank I'll send you an email. You can let me know an appropriate mailing address. Something real and physical will arrive for you. And so you can drink your tea out of it if you want,
thank you so much. for thinking of my teeth.
[00:42:38] John Nash: All right. Thanks you all.
[00:42:40] Christelle Daceus: Have a
[00:42:41] Jason Johnston: Thank you so much. Yeah. Have a great day. Bye.
[00:42:43] John Nash: Bye.
Monday Apr 01, 2024
Monday Apr 01, 2024
In this episode, John and Jason talk IN PERSON, reflecting on year one of their podcast. Keeping with the theme, they also find a few rabbit holes to chase, consider developments in AI, and talk about educational and ethical considerations around AI-generated music and video. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
Hard Fork Podcast
SORA OpenAI Video
Alibaba EMO Video Demo (Jason’s LinkedIn post)
Suno.ai
Support Human Artists! Gangstagrass
Mr. Beast on Youtube (not that he needs any more clicks)
The makeup brush holder John keeps his pens in
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!
1 Year Anniversary Special
[00:00:00] Jason: Would you happen to have a pen I could borrow? Yeah.
[00:00:02] John: Felt blue, black.
[00:00:04] Jason: That is amazing. I've just this moment, I just noticed your incredible, your - you've got like a pen store.
[00:00:10] John: These are makeup brush holders.
[00:00:12] Jason: Oh really? Okay. Black, please.
[00:00:15] John: ballpoint, flare
[00:00:17] Jason: pen, Flare. Perfect.
[00:00:19] John: yeah
[00:00:19] Jason: And would you happen to have any sticky notes? That's incredible. You are really set up here. That is something else.
[00:00:24] John: I dream that someone, no one visits me. I'm set up for a full-on brainstorming session with a gigantic. Five feet by three-foot whiteboard and 500 colored sticky notes.
[00:00:34] Jason: Sticky notes galore.
[00:00:35] John: Yeah, I'm ready to change things if anybody wants to come over.
[00:00:38] John: I'm John Nash here in the same room with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:43] Jason: Hey John, hey everyone, and this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the Online Learning Podcast.
[00:00:48] John: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last couple of years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but there's still a lot that quite isn't there. How are we going to get to the next stage, Jason?
[00:01:02] Jason: How about we create a podcast and talk about it?
[00:01:06] John: How about we do that? How about we create a podcast, do it for a year, and then talk about what that year was like?
[00:01:11] Jason: that sounds great! Happy anniversary, John!
[00:01:13] John: Happy anniversary, Jason.
[00:01:15] Jason: I should have brought you something.
I didn't. I'm sorry. How about we go out to lunch and we and we celebrate?
[00:01:20] John: yeah, and maybe we can get a demo of the Apple Vision.
[00:01:23] Jason: Oh, that'd be cool. Yeah. There's a little place right there where we can grab some lunch and maybe go over to the Apple store. See what's going on.
[00:01:30] John: Yeah,
[00:01:31] Jason: That would be thematic. A lot of this podcast has been a number of things. One, talking about online learning, but also talking about the new tech and how it might affect online learning in the last year.
[00:01:41] John: Yeah. We are EdTech nerds also.
[00:01:43] Jason: We are, we tend to nerd out on a few of these things.
Today on my way over here, because I had to drive to this podcast today.
I didn't do this podcast in my pajamas.
[00:01:54] John: Horrors. And you drove yourself.
You had to operate a machine to get here.
[00:01:59] Jason: But it gave me, afforded me a little bit of time in the car to listen to a podcast. I listened to our first episode. It was kind of nostalgic,
[00:02:06] John: you weren't tuning in to our first episode just out of some kind of vanity thing Oh, I love listening to me.
[00:02:12] Jason: No, it was not because I like the sound of my own voice. Although after doing a podcast for a year, you get used to it.
[00:02:18] John: you don't even know what you sound like. You're just like,
[00:02:20] Jason: I listened in because I was curious about what we talked about in our first podcast. Whether or not, what we talked about then rang true in our first year of podcasting and maybe looking ahead to see what's going to be different.
And what I found was, we basically talked about. What we were going to talk about, which was online learning, the second half, check. We've been talking about this last year. How technology affects online learning, check. We've definitely had a lot of that. We also had thought our big theme was going to be humanizing online learning.
Check. We've had a bunch of that. And also, however, one thing we had slightly wrong. What our topic of the month was, which was AI.
[00:03:03] John: Yes.
[00:03:04] Jason: It's become the topic of the year, probably.
[00:03:07] John: The topic of the Year .5 Yeah. So
[00:03:12] Jason: that's the one thing that we probably got wrong. The other thing that I would say that we didn't know about, as we couldn't quite see into the future with this, but one of the big things that you and I have talked about is how much we've enjoyed having guests.
We started this as a conversation between you and me. But how great it's been to bring other voices in this year.
[00:03:34] John: It has been remarkable to have other voices in. It's been amazing having guests because I feel as though it's a privilege that we get to have this kind of professional development that we create, I guess is how I look at it. And I think we do something for our guests too.
They feel good about being able to talk about their work, but the breadth and depth of the things we've talked about with some amazingly smart people has been just a privilege from me.
[00:04:01] Jason: Yeah, a privilege. That is a great way to put it. And just to be able to talk with some of these experts the last year to get a completely different for some of them anyways take on the things that we've been talking about has been challenging, informing, guiding for me so that we're not just talking in a vacuum here.
Really, our first guest was when we did the podcast Super Friends episode a little less than a year ago at OLC and we did another one just a few episodes ago to wrap up the year and then we had some amazing guests Dr. Michelle Miller Dr.
Enilda Romero Hall. Then we were able to talk to Dr Kristen DeCerbo from Khan Academy. And that continues to be a big thing out there. We made a great connection to OLC keynote speaker, Dr. Brandeis
Marshall.
Michelle Ament, Dr. Alicia Magruder at Johns Hopkins, which actually then led into a podcast recording at their symposium, which was so much fun as
[00:05:01] John: That was so fun and so innovative to be able to have a, almost a simulcast of the podcast as the concluding session of an online teaching symposium.
It has been good in that regard. And also, a chance to connect these ideas over time with of other things that come across our desk as it were. So, I think about Michelle Miller, and we keep talking about same side pedagogy.
that
keeps coming up as a relevant thing. Brandeis Marshall's notions of what's un AIable. I continue to talk about that even this morning with a provost from a two-year college in Texas was talking about this.
[00:05:41] Jason: You know what's cool? I was talking to somebody at UT the other day who has been listening to our podcast and he quoted Brandeis Marshall from our podcast about
[00:05:51] John: that That's fabulous. Yeah. And then. You know what I think surprised me the most over time is how certain things are emerging now, I think that are more important than anything else that's happened with AI in the last 12, 13 months, which is still the topic of ethics. And it's not about the technology. It's not about the advancements.
We're coming up in March of 2024. So, it's one year into the old March madness when GPT 4 came out and then I guess Anthropic came out, BARD, all of them were releasing and it was an arms race in March of 2023 to see what these models would look like. And now. We haven't seen in the last 12 months a massive boost in the model capabilities and a bigger discussion, I think that's happened over ethical use and the creation of guidelines, particularly in the education space.
[00:06:46] Jason: Yeah. When we recorded, we didn't even know of the existence of chat GPT four at that point when we recorded our first episode a year.
[00:06:54] John: ago.
No,
we did not.
[00:06:56] Jason: And so that just started that whole year of recognizing first that AI is a thing.
And then all of a sudden people realize, oh, wait, it's actually pretty significant thing. When that next model came out and realized that the real capabilities of AI were Much deeper, much better than what we expected, even on the front.
end.
[00:07:18] John: but the two guys that run the hard fork. podcast, were talking about how Sidney at the time, now all these name changes, but Sidney was Bing chat, which was Microsoft thing. It, it had told, it was a Kevin Roos or
was it Kevin Roos was advised by Sidney to break up with his wife and start dating Sidney.
You, similarly, dad your heart broken by Bing.
[00:07:43] Jason: Right. I'm being chat and had some very strange conversations with Sidney right in that same time. So, it was just the wild west in some ways that some of the initial concerns of AI kind of were tamed, I would say about those chatbots.
[00:08:00] John: Yeah. Yeah, they were.
But we were so amazed by the Model 3. 5 we couldn't stop talking about it. We thought we'd be done in a month.
[00:08:08] Jason: I would agree After that initial surge I think what we seen is a lot of third-party companies starting to leverage this power and I would say as we predicted A lot of edtech companies that were starting to add to it. And so, we talked about that. We predicted that back last year in March. And then as we were walking the floor and if you look back at our episode number nine, how are ed tech vendors humanizing online education? When we were walking the floor of O.L.C. Nashville at that point, that was March of last year. It was very different even as we were walking the floor in the fall.
Conference in terms of who, at least I found, who was already talking about.
[00:08:59] John: at
that
[00:09:00] Jason: point.
At that point, they were talking about it, not really implementing it, and we had some interesting kind of responses. And then by the fall they were really advertising ai,
[00:09:09] John: AI. In fact, the vendors, I think, that were concerned about having AI be part of their models were the ones that were trying to catch kids cheating.
Using AI, not thinking about how AI might be embedded into their tool to advance some feature that they wanted.
[00:09:24] Jason: Yeah, it was much more that concern. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, I think in the other part that I feel like what we're seeing more of lately in the arms race, and this is why some of our ethical conversations have taken this turn is the capabilities of AI beyond just the chatbot language model into the areas of media when it comes to video. One of the things we've seen in the last few weeks is OpenAI's Sora, S O R A, even just like yesterday, I saw that Alibaba, you know, which I don't even know what it, I've never bought anything from it, but it looks like a place that you can buy, cheap stuff on a wholesale kind of level.
They have a model that they're working on for lip syncing that's quite impressive. We can put a link to that model in the chat, but I feel like what we're seeing are these kind of video lipsyncing kind of ideas as well as if you think about what has happened in the last year in terms of image creation, how much better it's gotten.
And then even audio. I was doing a a few of these audio demos that are out there right now, one that's actually built into CoPilot that you can ask for it to make a song for you. it's, oh it's cool. It's pretty wild. And maybe we'll make a little clip in here.
Okay. Let's. I'll I'll quickly make something and then we'll take a listen to it and and maybe close out the show or something with it at the end. But yeah, you could just put in a prompt saying for it to make a theme song in this style using these lyrics if you want to, and then you can actually edit it edited it afterwards.
[00:11:06] John: Are you noticing the same thing I'm noticing too about the sort of seamless integration of generative AI into almost, I don't want to sound hyperbolic, but almost every app now that has been popular, has now decided to seamlessly integrate AI into itself, making its presence in operations that are not very transparent to the user. Or Notion, Copilot you name it, well Canva, they're all putting AI. Operations in Zoom. And I'm wondering if this sort of invisible AI is going to lull users into thinking that this is just part of the app, and it may not actually be AI.
I think about Zoom and it's a meeting summary feature. We were talking about this at our university in our policy group because I think a lot of people think, if zoom has this feature, then it must be okay to use. And then It's part of our acceptable use. Maybe it's inside our privacy guidelines, so I'm going to turn it on and we're going to use it, but that's not necessarily the case.
And so, if you're recording meetings or you're putting in student data or you're having, I don't know it's interesting to think about because I think it can enhance user experience, but I think you can also lull people into thinking that this is safe AI.
[00:12:19] Jason: Yeah, I guess using their brand acceptance, so we work at institutions that there's quite a vetting process to get something inside of our doors. So, we know that we're obviously working with Google, microsoft, and and zoom would probably for us and canvas all four of those. We're both of our institutions.
That's, those are the four biggies.
[00:12:40] John: Yes.
[00:12:41] Jason: And so, you're saying that it is almost like. It feels like if something comes in alongside of those packages or with those packages then it becomes all of a sudden to just accept it. It doesn't have to go through a, yeah, it doesn't have to go through a new vetting process.
If all of a sudden, a new, say there's a new video product and this is how we would get AI video summaries. This would have to go through a whole new vetting process, but we're not doing that. It's just just happening.
[00:13:08] John: Yeah. And so, if the underlying models are suspect at times, even, if we look at Gemini, Google's Gemini, and as we record this on March 1st, 2024, in the past seven to nine days, they had a major generative AI failure on their imaging model.
If those are the underlying engines, if you will, that are, adopted and licensed by these brands accepted tools. Yeah, how safe are things going to be? How do they, can Zoom stop OpenAI if they're using that engine? Can they can't really put new guardrails on top of what it does with the data because the model's the model, I'm not technical enough to know the answer to that, if I'm making sense.
[00:13:50] Jason: Yeah, you're making sense. I don't even know if Zoom is using OpenAI, and it, because it just appears, and I think we get a lot of wrappers around things as well, that are really OpenAI.
And then we get this new wrap around it and other things that are more like companies that are doing their own thing. So, it's hard to, yeah, it's really hard to track down.
[00:14:10] John: and, the question for me becomes even more important to discuss when we think about all the wrappers that have been created for P 12 teachers like Magic School, Diffit, a couple of others come to mind but I don't remember the names, but they're all also running on top of these models that are only as safe as they're made by those developers. so yeah, I think it's, I think it's something to talk about
[00:14:34] Jason: You know what's funny?
This this audio creation program. So, we got SORA by OpenAI, which is this brand new video. And then we got Suno, S U N O, with this audio that's coming in with copilot anyways.
[00:14:51] John: I didn't know it was inside Copilot. So what app are you using in Microsoft to get, to invoke Suno?
[00:14:57] Jason: of Copilot. So what app are you using in Microsoft to get, to invoke Suno?. What kind of style should we do today?
[00:15:20] John: We're sitting together in a room in Lexington, Kentucky. Can we do some bluegrass?
[00:15:25] Jason: Yeah. In a bluegrass style. Any other parameters we want to put on it? Maybe what do we want to have in the, what's really important to us? What do we our year in reflection song here, what do we want in the chorus to really hit home for the listener?
[00:15:42] John: That let's see. Human centeredness is the key. and ethics is important and learner outcomes are paramount.
[00:15:57] Jason: Okay.
Say in the course, make sure to include something about human centered online learning. And then I, I got caught.
[00:16:07] John: in your,
[00:16:07] Jason: your superlatives. What was the, what were the, what was the second one?
[00:16:10] John: Ethical use of AI.
[00:16:14] Jason: It should be, maybe we
[00:16:16] John: And belonging. Oh, I rented a Okay. Let's see.
You shorten your prompt to fit belonging in there?
[00:16:24] Jason: Yeah, I'll try to. Nice.
[00:16:25] John: Nice.
[00:16:27] Jason: Yep, okay, it's creating it. It's going to give me two versions and we can take a listen to both of these.
[00:16:32] John: Okay, excellent.
[00:16:33] Jason: We can talk about other things.
[00:16:34] John: Yeah, while it's cooking, yeah.
[00:16:35] Jason: to it. here's what's amazing. The first version is already ready. I thought it was going to take longer.
Now the second version is ready.
[00:16:45] John: Oh, okay.
[00:16:45] Jason: I'm not sure how we're gonna be able to listen to this just because of the current setup here.
[00:16:53] John: Let's see what happens.
[00:16:54] Jason: But we can put it.
Song “Keep on Learnin’ plays in a bluegrass style:
[Verse] Gather 'round, folks, and lend an ear There's a podcast here that we hold dear (oh-yeah) It's all about learnin', in an online way Discoverin' new knowledge every single day (ooh)
[Chorus] Human centered, always yearnin' For that ethically tech and belonging learnin' (learnin') Tune in and listen, don't you ever stray Online Learning Podcast, we're here to stay (heyy) (Join us now, keep on learnin') (Oh-yeah, yeah-yeah) Keep on learnin' (Oh-yeah, yeah-yeah) Keep on learnin' (Oh-yeah, yeah-yeah) Keep on learnin'
[00:17:00] John: ha ha ha…
[00:17:08] John: oh, a little Cher. What? You're the audio guy. What is that?
[00:17:12] Jason: it's like a little new, yeah, it's a, like a new bluegrass. it's
[00:17:17] John: it's a little country though. I think it's not quite.
[00:17:20] Jason: quite bluegrass, Yeah, it's not quite.
[00:17:21] John: but.
[00:17:22] Jason: Okay, that was a, so that was the first one. It's called keep on learning with a little apostrophe. Keep on learnin'.
[00:17:28] John: There's two people singing apparently in this, and there's someone who goes, "oh yeah."
[00:17:33] Jason: the things that impress me are a year ago, since this is a podcast and review a little bit, a year ago. Not even close, the things that were out there that you could create music and it sounded like a mishmash, like something that you would hear on like a Star Wars film that they're trying to make it sound different and spacey and non-human.
[00:17:56] John: Or it was the third or fourth duplication on your Maxell tape. Yes. Yeah. And it just degradated and degradated.
[00:18:06] Jason: So, first thing that impressed me is just where we've come in a year, the quality the second, the kind of the clever turnarounds on the lyrics. And then the third, adding pop elements that are very catchy for the listener, these kinds of echoes, as you said, and so on.
[00:18:26] John: Yeah, for The TikTok nation.
[00:18:28] Jason: The TikTok Nation.
[00:18:29] John: Yeah,
[00:18:30] Jason: Yeah, which is basically all of our listeners, right? TikTok nation.
[00:18:32] John: Basically, yes, that's right.
[00:18:34] Jason: Listen up, TikTok Nation. Is that how we should start our podcast?
[00:18:37] John: Maybe our podcast should be 60 seconds long if we want to, if we want to capture them.
[00:18:43] Jason: Okay, here's the second one. That was Keep on Learnin'. This is this is called Learning in Harmony. Uplifting folksy bluegrass.
[Verse] Well, gather 'round folks, I've got a story to tell 'Bout a podcast that's got a lot to propel Online Learning Podcast, it's the name Where knowledge and wisdom come together like a flame
[Chorus] In the world of bytes and screens, we find our way Human-centered online learning, come what may From the hills to the valleys, we all belong Ethical tech use, we'll sing this song
[00:18:50] Jason: not sure about the chord progressions in that one.
[00:18:53] John: More than I would about that. I would. And this is I put these out here with full understanding that part of my brain and heart is, " wow, this is so cool that technology can do this."
[00:19:05] Jason: Another part of me who, I've written a few songs in my life, and I enjoy playing guitar and there was probably even a moment that if the winds of success had taken me in direction, I would have done full time music. And it's both scary and a little offensive when I think on that side of it.
[00:19:22] John: Yeah. So, let's go to the offensive part because I think we're both having conversations with colleagues and I'm also seeing reports online of research on where instructional design is going with AI and how these tools SORA and others are putting.
Making graphic designers drone operators who do B roll feel a little at risk. And I think, I bet there's some offensive feelings there too about their art.
[00:19:48] Jason: Yeah. Actually, it's not completely true that I make 0 a year from my music. John, I've I'm raking in some Spotify money. I didn't know if you knew this or not. Yeah. It's I think I get like point zero. zero three cents per play and yeah, I think my last cash out was maybe around 2 or something. Yeah. So, I really am a professional musician, but I say that to say that This is not something I'm trying to make a livelihood from.
It also is not something that feeds my own sense of self worth at this point in my life.
[00:20:28] John: Yeah, but how would you feel if you were trying to make your livelihood from this?
[00:20:31] Jason: I think particularly I; I think it would depend on the person and what I was trying to do. But I would say almost every musician would feel. A little scathed by this because even if their livelihood is mostly playing live concerts, which this is not going.
[00:20:49] John: No.
[00:20:50] Jason: And developing a fan base, which this is not going to do part of your livelihood is getting yourself noticed in this enormous sea of other talent that's out there. And then also, I know people that are, they're singer songwriters is how they make their living. But it's great to get those what they call sync royalties when you get a song placed in a movie or a TV show.
[00:21:14] John: I was just thinking about that because I'm wondering what Hollywood will do with this capability. I think that Hollywood feels like they want to protect the rights and the livelihoods of artists writ large. So, they probably wouldn't do what I'm suggesting, but television production could decide to use Suno to do the theme songs for new TV shows.
I'm thinking about one of my favorite bands is Gangstagrass. They're a band.
[00:21:37] Jason: Oh yeah. I love them.
[00:21:38] John: Yeah, they blend, if folks don't know, they blend bluegrass and hip hop and they're amazing. They're amazing. I've seen them three times. They're coming to town here in Lexington soon. We're going to go see them. But my point here is that they became more famous because their music was used as the opening theme song for the television show Justified.
And if I wanted to do that again, if I were in production, could I just skip all that and just have a theme song written right off the bat from AI.
[00:22:06] Jason: Yeah, if you're looking for a particular kind of sound and that kind of mix, you wanted something a little gritty but Southern, but also urban, then that would do it.
And then, essentially, while I was talking, Suno was able to recreate our learning theme song in a bluegrass hip hop style, right? So, you think about how quickly this can happen at the capabilities that we have today. And this is, here's song number one.
Verse] Well, gather 'round folks, let me tell you a tale 'Bout a podcast that'll make you wanna prevail (oh yeah) With a blend of hip hop and old-time string We're gonna dive deep, learnin' ev'rything (ooh-yeah)
[Chorus] Human centered online learnin', take a seat on the track Ethical tech use, we ain't gonna lack Belongin' is the rhythm, that's our podcast groove Put your hands in the air, let the beat make you move
[00:22:34] Jason: And this is, song number two.
[Verse] Well, gather 'round now, y'all, let me tell you a tale 'Bout a podcast that's bridgin' the gap without fail It's online learnin', it's the way of the world With a touch of bluegrass and some beats that'll twirl
From the hills of Kentucky, to the streets of the city This podcast brings the vibes, all witty and gritty Talkin' 'bout human-centered online learning, y'all And ethical tech use, that's what we're all 'bout
[Chorus] Come on now, let's sing it loud and clear Human-centered learnin' and ethical tech use right here Belonging is the key, come join the crowd Discover new knowledge, sing it out proud (yeehaw)
[00:22:36] John: oh my.
[00:22:38] Jason: The second one particularly, I'm a fan of Gangstagrass. That second one particularly
[00:22:42] John: hit.
it, it approached it.
[00:22:44] Jason: Old school. Yes. Hip hpehop.
[00:22:45] John: but that first one, I don't wanna offend anybody. I don't know what that was. Was that some kind of Toby Keith kind of thing?
I'm. I'm out on that. That's but and that's funny how musical tastes run to also I'm not a big, like traditional country fan, like CMA style country, but I'll go to every Gangstagrass concert I can get my hands on. But you're right. The second one approached it, but still, and then I started thinking about cultural appropriation and what is this?
Yeah. This is AI's attempt at understanding culture, which is, that's risky. Yeah,
[00:23:16] Jason: Yeah, we got yes, tricky waters right there.
[00:23:19] John: Incredibly tricky.
[00:23:21] Jason: so, we've
Talked about just ethically doing this in light of the musicians themselves, but I'm watching I'm a big jazz fan as well. I like a lot of different kinds of music, but I'm a big jazz fan. So, I'm watching the Ken Burns series on jazz, which I highly recommend. It's slow. It's long, but it's beautiful. But how many times have we taken an art form as a dominant white race from another people group and then appropriated it because we figured out how we could monetize different way. Or in this kind of case, how can we non monetize it? So, we're maybe they're not even making money off of this song. So maybe these aren't going to show up on iTunes. Cause I know iTunes has made some rules about this.
YouTube has now made some rules about this, but maybe they'll show up in the next ad for whatever, and they've made it for free.
So basically, the Suno terms of agreements is that if you pay for it, you have full mechanical rights to these songs.
[00:24:25] John: So, if I make a Suno song, were you logged into your University of Tennessee controlled garden of this? So, if I make a Suno song inside my University of Kentucky controlled garden of Co Pilot, does the University of Kentucky own the, that song?
[00:24:40] Jason: That's getting into the whole intellectual property end of things.
That's a whole They They have the mechanical rights to this really crappy culturally appropriated piece of junk that I created.
[00:24:51] John: And you're right, but look, how much of advertising now... I'm shocked now I've cut the cord on my television and whenever I accidentally happen to go back onto watching network TV or watch my local news.
I'm shocked and also simultaneously not shocked that the insipid advertising that I grew up with in the 70s really hasn't changed much. So, your comment about Madison Avenue using tools like this to create jingles and other things to cut out artists for their clients. Absolutely.
I bet they'll do it. I'm very cynical about this. I think it'll, yeah, I think that's where this is going.
[00:25:26] Jason: And you talked about networks and maybe some of the big ones will, for the sake of their already large group of customers, perhaps they'll make some rules about this to please people, but the networks are not just competing with other networks.
They're competing with Mr. Beast.
[00:25:43] John: Yes, they are.
Yes,
[00:25:45] Jason: Like Mr. Beast is enormous. And he has a enormous viewership, and my guess is that he probably, his income per year probably rivals some of these smaller, if not networks, maybe some of these smaller production houses for sure.
And I only know about Mr. Beast because I have teenage kids who drive these whole things. One, one of my kids particularly. And also, Dude Perfect they're not utilizing traditional streams, and so they're not going to be beholden to these kinds of larger ethical kind of, restrictions.
[00:26:18] John: Now, Mr. Beast is for folks who don't know, what would you, how would you describe him? He's an internet creator. I'm logging on to Variety. com. His annual earnings hit 82 million dollars last year, more than double any other digital creator and, and it's also, it's funny, his name, Mr. Beast sounds for those who aren't in the know, like some kind of awful weird guy, but he's just this, it's just this young guy, right?
[00:26:44] Jason: Yep, he seems to be, like, who knows, I've listened to some other podcasts that talk about him and so on, and actually even the Hard Fork that we mentioned, I think they talk about him one time-- his kind of use of YouTube who knows what all his motivations are, regardless, he does give away a lot of things, and he seems to be fairly kind to people in
that
[00:27:00] John: in that way.
His real name is Jimmy Donaldson, for the
[00:27:03] Jason: Oh yeah, yeah, of course I know that I've, I follow him on LinkedIn,
[00:27:06] John: oh, you're going to be a gigantic creator on LinkedIn now with the beast.
[00:27:11] Jason: Our connection is pending, is pending, so yeah, remarkable. My kids watched Rhett and Link throughout, do your kids watch Rhett and Link?
[00:27:20] John: Okay they're at 35 million, second place, but but they're 50 million away from Mr. Beast.
[00:27:24] Jason: Yeah, that's wild. I think that points to the fact that ethics is a huge topic right now and our one of our last podcasts was about this We can't rely on the companies coming up with the ethics to guide.
[00:27:38] John: No.
[00:27:39] Jason: partly because it won't be Comprehensive enough, it's one thing if Apple comes up with some ethics or Microsoft.
But not everybody's gonna abide by these rules, and there's gonna be so many startups that would,
[00:27:54] John: just Mm hmm.
[00:27:55] Jason: do an end run around any of these kind of companies to get a few more views.
[00:28:00] John: Yeah. I think that as we talked about in that episode on ethics, I think we've got two sets of ethical books going one by the companies to be sure that they can sell as well as possible. So, I'm calling those the kind of less, less ethical set of books. And there's a public persona of wanting to be safe. And so, the, they put in enough guardrails through their red teaming and things like that. So, we can't get instructions to do awful things, but then they stop right there. After that you're on your
own.
[00:28:28] Jason: Yeah, and depending on what AI you use, and you can always find one that can do what you want it to do.
[00:28:33] John: that's right. Or you download your own LLM, you get a llama and run it on your own. And then you can, there's no guardrails, no red teaming.
[00:28:41] Jason: It's crazy. I had a little bit of space this week to go follow some rabbit trails and one of them was looking at Hugging Face, trying to understand a little bit about what this is all about. And it's a place where you can actually download models. So, you talked about this one model. But have you been on here? Should I ask the question?
[00:28:59] John: Should
I
quiz you on
this?
No do not quiz me on this.
[00:29:02] Jason: Those listening, I won't quiz John on this because, it's.
It's hard not to be in the know sometimes about, a Hugging Face. I didn't know, I had no idea that this was going on.
[00:29:14] John: I just want to say that I'm comfortable being in the dark around.
you. Because you're kind to me, in
[00:29:19] Jason: to me. Oh good, that's great. And I put this out here to say I'm oblivious and I don't really understand all the implications of this.
However, right now, on Hugging Face, which is more of an open-source AI model arbitrator almost, there are currently, and I'll take a pause here, podcast listeners, guess, podcast listeners, to yourself, or to somebody you're listening with, maybe say it out loud, how many models do you think there are right now to download on Hugging Face LLM models.
[00:29:49] John: Okay. And while people are thinking about that, and I will too. So, what you're saying is that how you Hugging Face is actually sounds like it's a kind of a marketplace for large language models that like, or you make your own sort of, I'm air quoting "GPTs" and then you can go get one and download it and run it yourself.
[00:30:06] Jason: Yes. I would call it more of a GitHub.
[00:30:09] John: a
[00:30:09] Jason: a marketplace. I didn't say anything for
sale.
No.
And so, you create, it feels like GitHub when you get there. Where you can do different forks of different
[00:30:17] John: LLMs
and on this LLM landscape inside Hugging Face Are they, do they have special purposes, some of these, so they're in that way. They're like like the GPTs that you could make for
[00:30:28] Jason: Exactly.
Okay.
So, all these would have different purposes. So, this isn't, aren't like the big models we're talking about. Many of them are leveraging these big models.
[00:30:36] John: Okay, cool.
[00:30:36] Jason: these are GPTs. Many of them that you can download and use. Most of them that you can use on your own computer. Your own home computer. Okay.
[00:30:45] John: All right. So how many are there out there.
[00:30:47] Jason: Right now, as of today March 1st, 2024, and this will change. Currently there are 531, 270 thousand that one could download.
[00:31:02] John: Little large language models, little AIs
Yep.
That I can then pull onto my hard drive and never have to get on the internet and ask it anything. I darn well, please.
[00:31:13] Jason: Exactly. Yeah. If we're gonna we were talking about our one-year retrospective. Some of our predictions about what we were going to talk about last year were true.
We thought, we didn't know we were going to be talking about AI for this long, and it would move this quickly, was one of the, one of the differences from last year of doing this podcast. Here's what I think with all these creative elements, that it's going to start by some professors thinking "I don't need a production company to help me do these things and they're going to create maybe just for fun at the beginning a theme song for the class or a video of them teaching the class in Mandarin or or the class being taught by some historical character with their voice to it, or, using some images in their slides, which is already happening, right?
And that are created. And at first, it's going to be a little gimmicky, and then we're going to cross a threshold where it, A, is no longer gimmicky, and B, it actually starts to affect workflow and the people that we use for doing this work, particularly at large institutions. What do you think of that kind of prediction?
[00:32:27] John: I don't know. We'll have to see. I think based upon some of the surveying I'm doing before I go talk with groups about whether or not they've ever even used a large language model, used chat GPT, for 50%. routinely state that they either have never used it in their lives or have used it once or twice ever in the time since it's come out.
[00:32:51] Jason: So that's over.a year.
[00:32:52] John: And so if half of our educators out there are in that space, then I don't think that they're going to be using these models in any way in a deliberate way to advance their teaching and learning goals, and they'll be using them however, the platforms like we talked about before, as platforms start to integrate these tools into them, that's how they'll get used.
[00:33:14] Jason: Yeah. I think you're right. Yeah. The average professor, I agree, is not going to be going into Hugging Face and probably downloading and creating.
[00:33:22] John: I was just going to say the same thing. I'm crazy enough to go do that. But no. Yes. No, but no one else is. Not no one else's, but I don't know anybody, but maybe you in my circle of friends and colleagues that would do that.
[00:33:35] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. And even I don't think I would use it. I would use it out of curiosity to see what's going on and so that I can understand it's actually, this may seem strange, but my tinkering is actually a leadership mechanism for myself.
I think part of my job is to be able to see down the road a little bit. And to be able to anticipate it and figure out how we're going to react and how we're going to guide this whole thing.
[00:34:04] John: I agree with you 100%. And actually, I coined a little term in the bootcamp that I'm doing now for AI, but "you have to try AI before you guide AI.
[00:34:14] Jason: That's good.
[00:34:15] John: Because how can you talk about the direction in your institution, organization, department, unless you've tried it out yourself and can talk about what you know of its ramifications or even how you feel about it.
[00:34:27] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Unless you understand where it's at, where the power of it is at right now then yeah, your ethical guidelines are going to be all over the place.
You're not going to really be able to hit, especially when, as we talked about in our previous episode especially when we're talking about contextual ethical guidelines. So that really have some teeth and examples to them.
[00:34:49] John: That's the key or the contextual guidelines because in our institutions, our universities have broad guidelines, but what happens once the classroom door is closed? Completely different matter.
[00:35:00] Jason: So, I agree with you about, Hugging Face. No, we're going to get a few crazy people like us poking around with this stuff. Now, Canva, though, think about how many teachers are using Canva. You can get an educational free license that gives you extra stuff and templates are there and it's, crazy what it can do.
They have AI baked right into it, right? Zoom. It's baked right into it. If you have an Adobe license now, firefly is baked right into it. This week there, they have a music production thing that's starting, they're starting to demo these are the, I think those are the places that it's going to sneak up on us in ways that it's not going to go through a regulatory body of whether or not we can use this software.
It's going to be on our computers with the next update.
[00:35:43] John: Yeah, no that's my point entirely that this will just become embedded in the ways of working throughout. I was talking with some folks from a two-year college in Texas who have 94% of their graduates either go on to a four-year institution or go into the world of work.
And so, they've got an academic side, and they give an AA associate degree. But then they've got, the welding and the HVAC and all, and they're painfully aware that AI is going to be embedded across both those paths for their graduates. And how is that going to look? And how should they be thinking about preparing folks for the world of work?
[00:36:19] Jason: Yes. And I think that part of our jobs as educators, of course, as we've talked about is not just disseminated knowledge, right?
It is preparing students for, not just a vocational life, but a life ahead of them, right? I think this is part of our mandate is that we are forming students at significant times in their life, whether they're just coming to college for the first time and they're 18, 19 years old, or if they're adults and they're coming back to college and trying to re-equip themselves for the life ahead of them.
These are significant times in these people's lives. And we owe it to them to prepare them for the world that is out there right now and the world that is.
coming
[00:37:00] John: yeah. Agreed. Agreed. I can't do better than that.
[00:37:04] Jason: On that note, thank you for listening, everybody. And And John, thank you for for having me. This is a good thing about doing it face to face is that you know that there's a real person at the other end of the
[00:37:15] John: the other end. Yes. Yes. It is better than zoom in a lot of ways.
I can put my hand up and tell you to, I want to say something and then we can, yeah, it was pretty good.
[00:37:25] Jason: Yep. And you can pass me a pen out of your enormous collection.
[00:37:29] John: I have an enormous collection of pens inside makeup brush holders, Lucite. They're beautiful. Cool.
[00:37:36] Jason: thanks for listening to everybody. You can get the show notes and thank you everybody that has listened and commented and encouraged us since last year.
It's been exciting to be part of this and that excitement partly comes from you. If people weren't listening, actually, we might keep doing this,
[00:37:52] John: actually. we might
[00:37:55] Jason: about us
[00:37:56] John: thing about our lives. That is a,
[00:37:58] Jason: I don't know. What do you think, John? If nobody was listening, would we keep doing it?
[00:38:01] John: maybe Maybe. not. Yeah.
[00:38:04] Jason: Maybe.
Maybe for
[00:38:04] John: a little while. Maybe for a little
[00:38:06] Jason: we'd just get rid of the microphones and just have a conversation.
[00:38:07] John: yeah,
how do we even know if anybody's listening? What's our threshold for anybody's listening?
But if you get a chance, we would love it if you'd go out there and give us a rating and leave us a comment. We like to feed the algo as we say, but it helps us know that you're out there and it helps us get out to more people. So yeah, leave us a rating and a comment and we'll get back to you too.
[00:38:28] Jason: yeah, absolutely. We do get back to you. It won't be AI and join us on LinkedIn. We got a little community there as well as you can just find us there to message with and to see other posts. And I'm gonna say John, as John's a good one to follow on LinkedIn. He's creating some. incredible content these days.
A lot of it around these conversations. So, I would highly recommend at least to go on to LinkedIn and follow John. If you don't want to follow me, that's fine. But at least follow John because he's got some good stuff.
[00:38:55] John: I recommend you follow Jason as well because he goes into more rabbit holes than I do, so I think that, and they're illuminating.
[00:39:02] Jason: Yeah. I don't know about illuminating, but I definitely have some rabbit holes. Mine tend to be less structured and thought out. It's just like what I'm thinking about in that moment. And I post off of my phone something. and at that, Happy anniversary, John. This has been great.
John: Happy anniversary, Jason.
(bluegrass style AI created song outro)
Talkin' 'bout human-centered online learning, y'all And ethical tech use, that's what we're all 'bout
[Chorus] Come on now, let's sing it loud and clear Human-centered learnin' and ethical tech use right here Belonging is the key, come join the crowd Discover new knowledge, sing it out proud (yeehaw)
Wednesday Mar 20, 2024
EP 25 - AI Guidance from Oregon State University Ecampus with Karen Watté
Wednesday Mar 20, 2024
Wednesday Mar 20, 2024
In this episode, John and Jason talk to Karen Watté, the Senior Director of Course Development and Training at Oregon State University’s Ecampus about their free tools for AI guidance in higher education and how to humanize online education. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
Oregon State University - eCampus AI Tools: https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/faculty/artificial-intelligence-tools/ )
Michelle Miller’s Newsletter: Teaching from the Same Side https://michellemillerphd.substack.com/p/r3-117-september-15-2023-reflection
OSU eCampus Readiness Playbook https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/faculty/artificial-intelligence-tools/readiness-playbook/
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!
[00:00:01] Jason Johnston: I picture everyone in Oregon in Log cabins and so on. Is that correct?
[00:00:04] Karen Watté: no, not at all.
[00:00:06] Jason Johnston: What?
[00:00:07] Karen Watté: I always say tell our candidates who are coming, I say, we have the best of both worlds. You're an hour from some beautiful ski areas, you're an hour from the coast. And boy, if you wanna see the desert, you just head on a little bit further. And we've got the high desert. So, we've got something of every, for everyone here. I've lived other places too and I come back, and I say, oh, this is, this has got it all.
[00:00:31] Jason Johnston: I grew up in Canada, and sometimes we would talk to people about the igloos that we lived in and having to check our dog sleds at the border and those kinds of things. Sometimes they believed us, sometimes they didn't.
[00:00:44] Karen Watté: Yeah.
[00:00:45] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:48] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the online learning podcast.
[00:00:53] John Nash: we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation that we've been having for the last couple of years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great and some of it is, but there's still a lot that really isn't. So, Jason, how are we going to get to the next stage?
[00:01:08] Jason Johnston: That is a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?
[00:01:13] John Nash: I love that idea. What do you want to talk about today?
[00:01:16] Jason Johnston: I am really excited to be talking today with Karen Watté. She's the Senior Director of Course Development and Training at the Ecampus Oregon State University. Welcome, Karen. How are you?
[00:01:28] Karen Watté: I'm good. Thank you.
[00:01:29] Jason Johnston: We, connected at OLC, Online Learning Consortium conference as part of their leadership day that they do ahead of time, and it was very fortuitous, I think, because we had just come through this summer where everybody was scrambling around AI, trying to figure out what to do, and while we were, trying to come up with some ideas and so on all of a sudden Oregon State had a full-fledged website built out with resources and stuff like that.
And we're like, this is amazing. Over here at University of Tennessee and it was really well done. So, we got chatting about that at OLC and then we got chatting about being on the podcast. So, thanks for joining us. Cause I'm really excited about talking with you today.
[00:02:10] Karen Watté: Yeah. Thanks for inviting me. Glad to be here.
[00:02:12] Jason Johnston: Tell us a little bit about what you do at Oregon State and your role there.
[00:02:17] Karen Watté: Yeah, as you mentioned, I'm the Senior Director of Course Development and Training with eCampus, and at Oregon State, eCampus is a centralized distance education unit, so we're serving all of the colleges within OSU. We have about 13,000 fully online students that we serve, and that's about one third of all the students enrolled at Oregon State are fully distanced.
[00:02:42] John Nash: Wow, a third of them. Do you know what history is of deciding to do a centralized distance learning unit? I know some campuses do that, some campuses don't, and I'm curious a little bit about that.
[00:02:54] Karen Watté: We've been in online for quite a long time, 20 plus years, and we are, the Oregon State is the land grant institution in Oregon, and maybe 25 plus years ago, we were doing the television based learning, and sending it out to everyone in the state, and that unit, of course, was extremely small, and as online learning developed, it changed and morphed into what it is today.
And it, so it's always been that central support unit and the way that the funding was established at OSU to support that unit encouraged it to remain a centralized space.
[00:03:33] John Nash: I see.
[00:03:34] Karen Watté: It's been a really a nice advantage, I think, for OSU to have that, that centralized.
[00:03:38] John Nash: Yeah, I get the sense that there are advantages to it. my institution isn't so centralized. It still has a unit supports that, but it's not connected to tight instructional design support I'm sure that there's disadvantages to what you said, something that was interesting, which is, I think, we're the land grant institution here at the University of Kentucky, but it's something about funding from 50 years ago that seems to set these things in motion. And so, it sounds like, yeah, that was a centralized sort of ITV unit and sort of things like that.
And then it moved into that. Yeah. It's interesting. More decentralized here.
[00:04:13] Jason Johnston: Yeah, and we're, we are also the land grant here in Tennessee, so I think that we've got a common thread here. And I think as we've talked about, becoming really a modern land grant some of it is strategically thinking about how are we going to continue to serve everyone in Tennessee, right?
And in the olden days, it was setting up their outposts in every county. We've got 95 counties, I think, in Tennessee and setting up Outposts there. And in these days, we're talking a lot more about online learning and about trying to connect there's almost a million Tennesseans who started their undergrad degree and didn't finish it.
And how do we serve those students in 2024 to help them move forward? So that's good. I knew there was something else that probably connected us on a deeper level and it's that land grant, I think.
And you direct the course development and training. So, does that mean both like from a production standpoint developing the courses and then also professional development for teachers?
[00:05:16] Karen Watté: Yes. Yeah. So, my particular team, we have about 45 professionals. We're about half instructional designers, and then the other half is a media development unit. And we have a handful of folks that also focus just on faculty development. But our media unit does videography, animation. We have Quite a number of programmers. And so, we do a lot of work. We're basically the faculty facing side of our, of Ecampus.
[00:05:43] Jason Johnston: And so how many are dedicated then within your 40 some odd with professional development?
[00:05:49] Karen Watté: In terms of just doing faculty development and training, I would say we have about 3 individuals that really focus on that, but all of our instructional design staff as part of their duties, they also provide training, and support that could be one on one, but it could also be in assisting with specialized trainings that we're putting together for faculty as well.
[00:06:13] Jason Johnston: So, did you get to this role like through like a faculty pathway or instructional design or media or how'd you get here?
[00:06:21] Karen Watté: I have a unique background. Years ago in the early 2000s, I was actually, after I got my MBA, I was working in private industry as an operations manager for FedEx Logistics, which was embedded into Hewlett Packard, which If you are aware, we have a huge Hewlett Packard facility here in Corvallis, Oregon.
And then prior to coming to OSU for about seven years or so, I was actually faculty at a local community college in their business technology and computer systems department. And then I went to OSU about 15 years, and I started in faculty development and training with eCampus and really establishing the foundational trainings that we base a lot of our course developments on today.
And then I just moved up as eCampus has grown, because eCampus has grown quite dramatically, and I would say in the last 10 years especially.
[00:07:17] John Nash: What infrastructure was in place for you to come into your role at OSU and start to do that training? Or did you bring your experience from your past positions in and start to develop that?
[00:07:28] Karen Watté: Well, I brought in a lot of my previous experience, and then, when I started, my unit had, I was the fourth person to be hired into this unit. And so, then we hired on an instructional designer who actually is our, is my supervisor right now, Shannon Riggs, and she and I together crafted the foundational trainings that go into what we provide for faculty today.
And of course, there's been many improvements since we've brought on, very skilled people, and then they've added to this suite of trainings, but we started it about 15 years ago when we came in. She had come from a Quality Matters institution. I, of course, had, background in, in training, both in private industry and then at the community college as well.
And together we put this program in place.
[00:08:20] John Nash: Yeah. And then together you've grown it. What did you say? 40 folks?
[00:08:25] Karen Watté: We have on in our team, I have about 45 folks all Ecampus as a whole is about a slightly over 100 staff.
[00:08:35] Jason Johnston: And what's the online population these days at Oregon State? I know you talked about in terms of the number, the percentages of Oregon State, but how many online?
[00:08:46] Karen Watté: So, we have a little over 13,000 fully online students. And like I had mentioned, it's one in every three OSU students now is a fully distance student. But in terms of, how many students do we touch every year? I think our last report showed that we had 29,000 unique students who took an eCampus course because a lot of our campus-based students will also take an eCampus course here or there during the year.
It's, they find it very helpful and allows them to have a flexible schedule.
[00:09:20] John Nash: Yeah. Cool.
[00:09:21] Jason Johnston:
Going back to our earlier note about these AI resources, and we'll put the link for people that are listening into the chat. But I just thought there's a number of things on here and just so people can visualize even without seeing it. You've got some, ethics, and principled kind of statements.
But then you get into an AI decision tree, like when is the a guide to how to incorporate AI or if you should incorporate it into your work, as well as a reimagining of Bloom's taxonomy which is really like instructional design love language, Bloom's taxonomy, there's, we've got a few of them and that's one, it's up there.
And so I appreciated how you wrap that into things. So just to give people a little bit of a landscape of that, but I wanted to talk about, as we're all dealing with AI at our respective institutions, and we're, John and I are both involved with various conversations around that.
How did this come about? Was this in general, like where was the impetus for this? Is this something within eCampus or was this a kind of a provost said, you must do this, or we'd love for you to do this? Or were the faculty rising up and saying, give us AI guidance, or how did this all happen?
[00:10:33] Karen Watté: Yeah, that's a great question. I think back in winter of 23, we realized at that point that we were just really dealing with a situation that It was like none other we had ever seen before, this, here's this digital tool. It's just exploding in capability and faster than anything that we had seen before.
And like many institutions, I think we had. Sessions, talking sessions with faculty where we introduce them to this idea. We wanted to have discussions with them. And certainly there was a lot of curiosity out there, but there was also a lot of fear. And so I know that in the early spring, we had actually had at least one program leader who said, we're waiting for Ecampus to figure this out. And so there was some real pressure there. But I think I, I knew at that point and after having a number of conversations that we were going to have individual faculty coming to us very soon with a lot of questions about, what does this mean? What are the implications of these tools? Should I put them in my class? How can I avoid my students using them?
And so, I, at that point, I, I basically say we've got to, we've got two things we have to do "and we have to do it very quickly. Number one, we have to figure out what is the eCampus stance on these tools, because clearly, we were not getting a lot of guidance from any other tool.
Location. The university did have a small task force and I was on that task force, and we were, looking at what was happening, but there wasn't real action happening in terms of how to, how are we going to support our faculty going into the next year.
And so, number one, we had to figure that out. And then number two, we needed to get some resources in place because we were going to be providing training and support all through the summer and into the fall for faculty who are trying to grapple with this. And so that's really where that came from. And at that point, I said, okay, let's we've got a lot of really great thinkers here on this team. A lot of people have done a lot of innovative stuff. I know we have a lot of folks who were very interested in it on the eCampus team. And so, I handpicked 12 people based on their diverse backgrounds and what they were interested in.
And I said, you are our AI council, and these are the three things we're going to do. We're going to figure out what eCampus thinks about these tools. And we're going to make a stand on it or take a stand on it. And then we're going to secondly, we're going to figure out some kind of taxonomy that will allow us to identify what AI skills are needed. And I had through some other conversations been inspired to think about it in that way.
And then finally, third, I needed some practical. strategies. We needed like a library of strategies that our instructional designers could pull upon as they had questions from faculty. So that's really where it came from organically as we were having conversations and knowing that there was this sense of urgency that we needed to get our house in order so we could help faculty who are going to be coming at us all through this summer.
[00:13:45] John Nash: The, the tool Page and I'm looking at it now is number of reasons from my perspective and that is you start with an ethics statement, but then it follows with some principles, and principle number one of seven is be student-centered. Now, when Jason and I, and maybe you are hanging around having coffee, this seems obvious to us, I'm sure that this ought to be number one, but it's not actually for most people maybe. Maybe I'm stretching. It's not for many people, and at our institution, and as I work also with P 12 schools around how leaders are going to articulate guidelines for AI aren't always first thinking about student centered -that's more administrative, or it's a lockdown attitude, or it's a integrity issue.
Can you talk with us a little bit about the conversations you may have had and why being student centered is number one on the principles.
[00:14:38] Karen Watté: When we were trying to decide, what did we need to do first? And that was, establish this ethical foundation. What are we going to say we stand for and what's important to us? And, Forever, eCampus has always been student centered. So, when we've talked about what, what's important to us when we're evaluating these tools and whether we should use them, we went back to OSU values, but also our eCampus values, which articulate that, the student comes first.
We do things for the student. So that seemed like just a natural. A natural piece to bring over as one of the principles that we're going to abide by when we're looking at these tools. The other principle I think that is very important there on the list is that last one, which was accountability because I think that kind of wraps up the fact that, regardless of whether you're using AI, the human author is ultimately responsible. So, there's all these other issues that we have to, that we want to consider, but we also want to ensure accountability for everything that's being produced here.
[00:15:41] Jason Johnston: And just to read that one, it says, establish this number seven, establish accountability, regardless of how or whether AI is used, emphasize that the human author is accountable for all content produced.
[00:15:54] John Nash: Yeah, that's key. Involved with a generation of a document that's going to help our faculty have productive and developmental conversations about their distribution of effort. going to actually work on your teaching research and service and then relied a little bit on AI to help us brainstorm through some of these conversations that turn up very transactional document into something that's more of a developmental conversation. And yeah, we placed a statement at the, in the end notes about how it was used, but then also that we stand by the facts in the document as and contributors.
[00:16:28] Karen Watté: Yeah, so important.
[00:16:29] Jason Johnston: Yeah.
And your number two talks about demonstrating transparency again, along with that, if it's being used and integrated recommending that faculty are clear in the syllabus that such tools would be used and that's another place we've been talking a lot with our faculty.
Faculty about, which is that transparency, both on the faculty side, but also on the student side to creating a space in which things are transparent. And I think one of the outcomes of that is that you create a more trusting environment.
Along with that, I noticed you don't say anything about AI detectors here on your list. There's no number eight thou shalt use AI detectors or thou shalt not use AI detectors. Do you have any things that you would are willing to put on the record about AI detectors?
[00:17:15] Karen Watté: We haven't been impressed so far. I'll just say that. I think there is a lot of a lot of information out there pointing to the fact that they don't do the type of job that they should be doing, or that they claim to do. And the, often the bias that seems to come out in their results is very disturbing.
So, at OSU we have stayed away from that. That is not the direction we want to go this time,
[00:17:44] Jason Johnston: yeah, we've talked about just how Again, we're good. If you listen to this podcast This will be the fourth time you've heard this, maybe fifth, but about Michelle Miller talks about same side pedagogy and about within the classroom. What are we building together with an AI detector? Are we building a community of trust and co learning together or are we building a community of distrust, and separation between the student and the teacher. And I think the, it's a rhetorical question, the way I phrased it, but I think we know the answer to that, which is, AI detectors do not help with same side pedagogy, putting us on the same side as the students, right?
[00:18:27] Karen Watté: And I think really, I would emphasize just really the inaccuracy of these. And I was just reading some information and from some R1 institutions that have done a little bit of testing in house and they, these AI detectors just don't measure up to what they claim they can do. So just best to avoid them for now.
It's not something you want to get into.
[00:18:51] John Nash: For me, it's almost as though your first principle of being student centered suggests that the AI detectors aren't necessary. That if you're being student centered, doing as Dr. Miller at Northern Arizona says, having a same side pedagogy, not an adversarial for learning, then you're going to be okay.
[00:19:11] Karen Watté: Yes. Yeah.
[00:19:12] Jason Johnston: So, I had mentioned this before, we looked at your decision tree, here at UT, we as we were trying to work as a team to figure out when and when not to use it in our own work, and then when we recommend it as we were talking with faculty because I'm in kind of the same sort of position that you are in terms of working with course production, but also doing professional development with faculty.
[00:19:38] Jason Johnston: It seems like a lot of work to have gotten to this place in terms of decision tree. Did it come easily as you were going through things where did you base it on some other previous kind of work that you had been doing around, even just the implementation of technology, because I think there's some overlap here, or how did this specifically come about?
[00:20:01] Karen Watté: I think all of the hard work and conversation around what our values and principles will be really led naturally into the creation of that decision tree, because you can see each branch correlates very closely with many of the principles that we identified. So, in that respect, that piece of it was easy, but of course it was vetted numerous times among the small work group that created it.
And then with the larger council. And we added that very first question toward the end of creating that, which is, we must check with the department and the program first. That is always that the first step, does the department or the program have a policy in place? At the time that we were creating this, Okay.
Very few had any policies in place. They were still in, conversation, but I think that will be changing over time. So, we'll check there. And then the second one, of course, we're very student centered. So, the second question is how does this how would this impact your pedagogy? How does this lead to better outcomes?
What is the impact to students? And if you can articulate that well, and it makes sense, then you continue on down through that tree. But those first two questions are critical. If you can't get past that then you're not gonna, you should stop at that point, essentially.
[00:21:18] Jason Johnston: Yeah.
[00:21:19] John Nash: The decision tree. For those who are not looking at it right now, it's a guide that was developed by your unit to help decide when and how to incorporate You AI into your work. it's aimed at the teacher or the instructor. Is that fair? Or could it also be for an administrator, an associate dean, or someone who's thinking about using it for non-instructional purposes?
[00:21:44] Karen Watté: Yeah, that's a good question. I think it certainly could be repurposed. When we were creating it, of course, it was meant as a guide for our staff and for faculty who are working on course development, but certainly many of those questions are very applicable. If you're looking at AI to improve a business process at the university, you may want to review some of those kinds of questions.
So, I think it certainly could be applicable to other questions, other spaces.
[00:22:13] John Nash: Have you been approached as a unit, from folks who are looking to, as you advise here, when an answer is no, your recommendation is to pause and seek consultation, and then with an asterisk, you note that would be consulting a supervisor or other person who can provide expertise. When I think about, for instance, my department. We don't have a policy in the unit. I would consult my chair. They would shrug their shoulders. I might look inside my college. They would also likewise shrug their shoulders and say, and I think this might actually escalate up to maybe our center for learning and teaching or something like that.
Are you seeing similar things and how is this playing all the way down to the unit in terms of people's capacity to look at these questions?
[00:22:57] Karen Watté: Yeah, we've used it in a few different contexts. So, for example, a faculty came to us and wanted to create some AI supported materials for their course development. The first question was back to the department and the department at that moment said, absolutely not.
You're not going to do that. So that was the end of that. But then we've had another situation where we had a faculty who came, and they said we would like some graphics created to support this particular concept. And by the way, it's okay if we look at AI image generators to help support this piece.
And so, then we had a conversation. within our team and specifically with our videographer who is helping to pull some of this these images together around, okay, what are the concerns? And let's look at the limbs of this tree that are most applicable here, which of course would be copyright.
How are we, certain that there's not a copyright issue if you use this particular engine to develop a few images to support this particular learning object. And so, we were able to clear those hurdles, but this decision tree gave us that sort of framework for the conversation and to ask those kinds of questions.
And so, I think those are a couple examples of where I think it was useful.
[00:24:14] John Nash: Those are great examples, because I think that a tree like this, it really is less about being a dictatorial policy, but rather a driver to engender conversation around what people want to accomplish, Yeah.
[00:24:28] Jason Johnston: You'd mentioned your media team. Have you found some very, and you've got a pretty large team. Have you found a variety of opinions in terms of the use of AI within your own team? You don't have to name names on the podcast. Or have people tended to get behind the same horse on this one?
[00:24:49] Karen Watté: Generally, I think we have a pretty innovative group of people. So, they've been quite open to it and all of that. Although, I will say that we have a couple of instructional designers who are particularly concerned about privacy issues when it comes to using these and copyright and all of that, which rightfully, you know, rightfully and that's and so we've had conversations around that. That component. They're not quite as excited to start experimenting and putting things up into these systems, which totally makes sense. But otherwise, I would say we're probably a lot more willing to get out there and try things just because of the nature of what we do every day.
[00:25:32] Jason Johnston: That's impressive that you've been at this for a little while here at Oregon State and that you continue to be innovative. Only because it feels and please correct me if I'm wrong on this one, but it feels our institutions of higher learning our land grant established longstanding institutions don't tend to go that way all the time.
They tend to maybe favor the more traditional. And so how do you think that you've kept this going if you've been early adopters when it comes to online, and you continue to innovate forward?
[00:26:06] Karen Watté: I think it's just the culture of the unit. Essentially, it started out as this little skunk works area. We were trying things that no one else would try, and so the university continues to turn to us to do those kinds of experiments when it comes to teaching and learning and then we're hiring people that have that same mindset.
And we're telling them it's okay to take a risk. It's okay to try something. And if you fail, that's all right, because we're learning, I think it's just the culture and maintaining that momentum about innovative but innovating in a careful way. We are, Of course, research based. Much of what we do we experiment with it when we find that there's a research basis for it.
It's not just the Wild West, so in that regard, we, we value research just as much as the faculty, the rest of the faculty at the university, but we do try to push and experiment with new things when we think that there's a valid reason to do.
[00:27:05] Jason Johnston: so, it's been about maybe seven months at the, at this recording since you put these out which is like 20 years in AI years, I think, right? Is there a calculation for that yet, John?
[00:27:15] John Nash: but.
Could take a dog years times cat years and divided by Moore's law. I think we'll get somewhere in the ballpark of that.
[00:27:26] Jason Johnston: Yeah, exactly. I think that sounds, we'll work on that, and we'll get the we'll put the, like everything else, put the formula in the show notes.
[00:27:33] John Nash: Yes,
[00:27:33] Jason Johnston: John?
[00:27:33] John Nash: I was going to ask Bard, but I can't anymore because Bard is now called Gemini.
[00:27:38] Jason Johnston: Yes. We'll ask I've got the advance. Anyways, that's a whole other conversation. So, we'll talk later. Anyways, back to the question. Since the seven months has gone by, first, is there anything that you would change about what you put out there from before?
[00:27:54] Karen Watté: I think, we had made it very clear that what we put out there was really a snapshot in time, that this is what we see today, particularly around that, that Bloom's taxonomy one. This is AI capabilities as they are in the summer of 23. So, we pretty much knew that, We're going to have to revisit this, in a year or sooner, and I, and we will be reconvening our AI council in the spring, to start thinking about, what may need to change, but certainly that tool will have to be looked at again, the decision tree, I think, still probably stands as it is. I don't anticipate there will be a lot of change. But again, this is a conversation we're planning to have here very soon.
[00:28:38] Jason Johnston: Are there other ways that you think that you might expand? Like, what are some of the other gaps that that you're seeing that you would like to help with at your university?
[00:28:46] Karen Watté: Yeah. This fall we had some conversations around helping program leads, department chairs, anyone in a kind of leadership position facilitate conversations around AI. And one of my colleagues, Dr. Katherine McAlvich worked up a short guide, but she calls it a readiness playbook for department chairs.
That's actually posted out there on our website as well. It's about a five page document just to give some starting prompts. So, to encourage them to start speaking with faculty if they haven't already, started that conversation. Because I think we're getting to a point at, very soon that we're going to see some need for curriculum updates based around this. I'm starting to see case studies about industries and how they're integrating it into the, into work. And so that means that what we teach at the university or at any institution is going to soon have to reflect what the reality is out in the workforce. So, I think those conversations, trying to encourage that and get folks to talk about that is probably the next step.
[00:29:51] Jason Johnston: We look forward to more updates. Yeah, we'll be watching that. Thank you for being open handed. We're having conversations here about what goes on the web and what doesn't.
And we strongly advocate for sharing resources on the web for others to. To be able to see because they're helpful, and we've been helped by yours, so thank you for that.
[00:30:12] Karen Watté: You're welcome. And this is a topic that not one institution can answer, can manage alone. It is such a huge undertaking. We look to all of our colleagues too for help, guidance, and ideas around this topic because it's certainly a collaborative effort. It has to be. It's. It's just something that's so unusual at this time.
[00:30:35] John Nash: Can.
We, pivot away from AI a little bit and talk about learners?
[00:30:39] Jason Johnston: I guess so, John.
[00:30:41] John Nash: It turns out we didn't mean to, but about half our talk is about AI. Then the other half is actually about learners, I think...
But yeah.
You did an Interview in 2017 for the Oregon State Ecampus News, and you were asked what your best piece of advice for instructors was, and you said, "Be sure to let your personality come through in your online course. Communicate regularly with your students and provide them with timely feedback. Your interaction with your students is the most important part of the student's online experience." And it feels like that advice never gets old but feels fresh to some. Can you just say a little bit more about why this wisdom is so important?
[00:31:23] Karen Watté: Yeah, but we survey our Ecampus students every year, and it's interesting to note that even to this day, they continue to say that the number one indicator of their satisfaction in an online course is the interaction that they have with their instructor. So, I would say that our data continues to bear that out year after year.
So, instructor presence is just absolutely critical in an online class. And now you even see this reflected in, the Department of Ed's requirements around regular and substantive interaction, which a lot of folks have spent time thinking about as well.
[00:32:02] John Nash: that first part of your response, which was be sure to let your personality come through. What is some advice that you have for teachers who are thinking about upping their game in that area?
[00:32:14] Karen Watté: We of course love to try to get them on video if we can, at least an intro video in every course. We love to have them do, video overviews if they're willing to for each activity. But then, even if they're not able to do that or willing to do that, they can Just infusing their actual personality and their passion for the subject into the announcements that they make, into the content that they're delivering to the students.
So, we really try to work on helping each faculty bring out the best and put their personality into a course.
[00:32:48] John Nash: fantastic. we see That more and more. I know in a recent episode, we had the privilege to record a session with Johns Hopkins University's Symposium on Online and their speaker for that symposium was Flower Darby, and she was very clear about letting your personality come through in your course.
And so, it feels like yellow Volkswagen theory. Once you buy a yellow Volkswagen, then all you see on the road are yellow Volkswagens. And so, once you start talking about letting your personality come through in your course, you start picking up on it every time someone says something about it.
But yeah, that's it's really good advice.
[00:33:24] Jason Johnston: And that feels like a good Oregon thing, too, right? Yellow Volkswagens. You have a lot of yellow Volkswagens out there. Is that another stereotype that I have about Oregon?
[00:33:32] Karen Watté: We've got some on the road.
[00:33:33] Jason Johnston: I've got a few. Got a few. Yeah. Yeah. And along with that too, one of our themes here is talking about how do we humanize online learning, right? As John always eloquently introduces us, you know, we've done a lot of things great. And some of it, not so much. And I think one of our places that we want to grow in this next season of online life, now that we've, we've, we can get content to people, we figured that one out, right?
We figured that one out a long time ago. Now we're learning to maybe make it a little bit more interesting and interactive. But how do we humanize, you know, and I really like that about making sure that Personality comes through in your online course as part of that are there other ways that you as a group or in your professional development or in your course production process that you help faculty to really humanize their online courses?
[00:34:25] Karen Watté: Yeah, that's a great question. I, and I think a lot of that kind of comes down to just ensuring that you're explicitly designing in opportunities for engagement, because, unlike an on-campus course where it's a natural, you have that natural opportunity online. It has to be designed in.
And so, as you're designing that in, you're thinking about, is that channel easily accessible to students? Is it easy for the faculty to use? Is it easy to manage while you're teaching that course? The kind of communication that would allow you to connect easily with your students. What does the feedback look like in the class?
What's the pacing and how can you, do you have enough time to provide the kind of feedback that you'd like to provide so students feel like they're really having a good learning experience and connecting with you? So ultimately, it's, I think a lot of this is also just having to be built in into the course through the course development process in the conversations that the instructional designer is having with the faculty as they're talking about what is this course going to look like when it's actually being taught.
[00:35:34] Jason Johnston: Mmhmm. Yeah, this symposium that John had mentioned, there's a bit of a common thread. One of them was talking about intentionality, ..And that's one thing I really like about course design, instructional design, and the process, so that, we just don't expect faculty Just to arrive in their online course and just everything to be there and just to work We shouldn't know side note We shouldn't expect this in their face to face classes either, but there's not always a lot of concentration on that However, we're talking about online here. But I think that there's an intentionality about design that I love, and I think that if we can take a step back and think about what it is.
We're intentionally trying to do here. We can really move the needle.
[00:36:17] Karen Watté: Absolutely. Yeah, it's really thinking ahead And, the lovely thing is that we ask that online courses be entirely developed prior to the actual launch of the class. So, we're not developing them on the fly as the course is underway. And I think that really lends itself to some thoughtful kinds of activities, communications, and it, and I think it just makes for better, a better opportunity for the instructor to teach well, better opportunity for the students to learn well if you have everything ready to go, and then they're not worrying about, whether the content's up and ready and available.
[00:36:55] Jason Johnston: This has been a great conversation. I think that's a great place to land. What do you think,
[00:36:59] John Nash: I think,
It's, yeah, perfect place to land. Yeah, I think that was very intentional of you.
[00:37:04] Jason Johnston: It was not so much intentional of us as much as thank you for the yeah, for landing there. I think that's a that is a great a great place for us to think about this intentionality and the design and the students being student-centered, being humanized, and all that we do as we think forward.
Karen, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. We really appreciate it.
[00:37:25] Karen Watté: Thank you. I enjoyed this.
Monday Feb 19, 2024
Monday Feb 19, 2024
In this episode, John and Jason talk about the ethics of AI, including how ethics are formed and a few scenarios like if it’s ethical to use Midjourney. Listen in to find out who says no! See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
Article: Harvard Business Review Ethics in the Age of AI Series: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3
Article: It's Not Like a Calculator, so What Is the Relationship between Learners and Generative Artificial Intelligence?
Jason’s FAFSA Assistant GPT
”Right Choices: Ethics of AI in Education” - John hosts Jason in an episode of the School Leadership + Generative AI series
John’s School Leader AI Bootcamp
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!
Podcast Episode on AI Ethics - January 29, 2024
False Start
[00:00:00] John Nash: Should we do the intro?
[00:00:01] Jason Johnston: Yeah, let's do the intro.
[00:00:03] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:06] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning Podcast. The Online Learning Podcast. Let's try it again.
[00:00:12] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:14] Jason Johnston: That reminded me of do you ever watch The Office? My name is Kevin, because that's my name. My name is Kevin, because that's my name. So this is the Online Learning Podcast, the Online Learning Podcast.
Episode
[00:00:30] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:32] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the Online Learning Podcast.
[00:00:38] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last couple of years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but still a lot of it isn't. How are we going to get to the next stage, Jason?
[00:00:52] Jason Johnston: That is a great question. Why don't we do a podcast and talk about it?
[00:00:56] John Nash: That's perfect. What do you want to talk about today?
[00:00:59] Jason Johnston: John, I've got some ethical questions for you.
[00:01:02] John Nash: You do?
[00:01:03] Jason Johnston: I've been wondering about the ethics of using AI for certain tasks. And maybe we'll get back to some specifics later on.
But how do we form our ethics to begin with when it comes to AI and using AI these days when we think about education?
[00:01:19] John Nash: I'm stealing your line from the intro. That is a great question. How do we form our ethics? I think they're formed by the values and the beliefs we bring to anything we do. You've had a longer background and thinking and considering about ethics, both in your professional life and your education life.
What do you think about in terms of what sensibilities people bring to any task?
[00:01:45] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I think so. I like where you started there because sometimes people start externally. They think ethics are clear, right? We're not supposed to steal people's cars and we're not supposed to, kill people when we walk in front of them or whatever. And, but it's not that clear when it comes to certain things.
Certainly we can follow the ethics of a country or a city or institution, AI is something new. We haven't dealt with some of these questions before. And because of that, it does take some ethical reasoning. I happened to talk to a number of PhD students taking an instructional systems design course.
I was asked to come in by one of our previous guests, Dr. Anilda Romero Hall, and to talk about ethics in instructional design. And where I started with that was this question of what do we bring to the table? If we can understand what forms our ethics, our beliefs, our positionality to begin with, then we can start to understand why we might have some knee jerk reactions to certain things.
[00:02:49] Jason Johnston: And we might be more willing to concede on some things for the sake of the common good. And as we talk about ethics within a context or within a a group of people or a community or what have you.
[00:03:02] John Nash: Do you think the ethics of the companies that are creating these models drive how people feel ethically about using them, or is it the other way around? Did the companies decide they needed to sound ethical because they knew people were going to clamor about whether these models might be used in unethical ways?
[00:03:26] Jason Johnston: Yeah, this is a great question. Yeah, it feels like, to me they're aspects, if I'm reading down, like, and they've all got them, right? So you can look these up OpenAI, IBM, Anthropic. If you start to read down those ethics, typically you re, resonate with a lot of those ethics. They're good things, typically, about security And inclusivity and being non biased and private and so on, but then you've got to ask yourself what is really driving these companies to do what they do and what is not being said, right?
What's between the lines here and what are missing? And this is where I think we need to go beyond what the companies are saying and think ethically about our own context.
As educational institutions, I don't think we can just rely on these, do you think we can rely on these ethics to help guide our use of AI? Are they good enough, John?
[00:04:19] John Nash: we rely on them?
[00:04:21] Jason Johnston: Yes.
[00:04:22] John Nash: To what extent? I think, of course, they're a good start. They're a start. I think maybe even good gets left off of that last statement. They're a start. They're certainly not unethical, what's been put out there. I don't think that, But the companies are no fools.
They know that they're for profit companies and if they were to put out statements around ethics that didn't seem to meet with what general morally accepted principles look like, they would be derided in the marketplace.
[00:04:50] Jason Johnston: So do you think these ethical guidelines are crafted by philosophers within their midst or marketing people within their midst?
[00:04:58] John Nash: Certainly, I think it's more of the latter than the former. Many of them are Bay Area companies and there's ethos of the Bay Area and these guys and how they think.
I think they probably want to be ethical. Google once infamously now said, "do no evil." And then of course later got into many different kinds of arrangements that were not unevil.
[00:05:19] Jason Johnston: Yeah, you'd sent me an article a little while ago in the Harvard Business Review. They had a AI ethics series that I can put the links into the show notes here and where they looked at avoiding the ethical nightmares of emerging technology and questions about AI responsibility. And one of the questions was, what does the tech industry value? And it looked at some of the ideologies around the culture of speed.
And so I think my question with some of these, if you look at it, any of these big companies, Google, IBM, Anthropic with Claude, OpenAI, they have a list of ethics, but I think we always have to ask the question, what's not there, that's driving them. And I think this is one of those, is this culture of speed and the fact that it almost seems like their guiding point is that we need to do this as quickly as possible and get out there in front of other people. And, and that guides them ethically in terms of the choices that they make.
[00:06:22] John Nash: I agree with you. I think that they have two books of ethics, maybe, almost as though like a business that's got a second set of books. And so they've got the public ethics around keeping people safe and data safe and responses of our machines, that are very human like in their responses, the responses are safe. And then the other set of ethical books say we need to move on this like our board members want because shareholder value.
[00:06:52] Jason Johnston: Yeah. Yeah. And because of that, they may be willing to let some of those guardrails down a little bit to allow for the speed. And some of these post humanists or transhumanists kind of people that are running a lot of these companies think about the, from an ethical standpoint, , they're taking a more of a teleological approach, which is just looking at this ends justify the means. If in my mind, this is going to improve society so radically that we're willing to let a few things slide here along the way.
And I think that's where the speed comes in, is that if we can get there quicker, and we can improve society sooner, then we're willing to let a few, little ethical oversights go by while we're building whatever it is we're building.
[00:07:42] John Nash: Yes, because if you take what Mark Andreessen recently said, there is a belief amongst some of these founders that they are actually saving the world, that these are technologies that are going to save humans.
[00:07:56] Jason Johnston: I resonate with that idea of there being two books and we got to ask what the closed book, the secret book of ethics is, and what the open book of ethics is. The open book of ethics is almost always now talks about safety and inclusivity and privacy and these kind of things, whereas the closed book probably more things like like speed about having a perception of what the public needs in order to adopt it versus it actually being there.
So, managing basically your market and managing what the market perception is of a particular thing is more important in these cases than the actual thing itself.
[00:08:44] John Nash: Yeah, or what problem the thing is solving. We've not been privy to the real internal discussions at say Open AI when they said we will publicly release 3.5. I don't know what the problem was that they saw was being solved in the marketplace by releasing this.
[00:09:01] Jason Johnston: Right?
[00:09:01] John Nash: I don't know that there was one exactly, except that it's just, it's a fascinating technology and fun to play with and mind blowing.
But that's about it. And yet they were able to monetize that because people wanted to, play with it and actually do work with it. Yeah, I don't, I think this was all, these were all products with solutions in search of a problem.
[00:09:21] Jason Johnston: Yeah, it's strange. And this is what makes it really unlike a lot of other inventions. And I think because it's so open ended, it's so user driven,
[00:09:30] John Nash: Yes.
[00:09:31] Jason Johnston: And inquiry based that it doesn't need to be a solution to any one problem. That it's like an open ended potential solution,
[00:09:41] John Nash: Yeah, unlike the sundial, or the scientific calculator, or the phonograph, or the chalkboard, or go on. Yeah.
[00:10:05] Jason Johnston: On paper and in their heads, but you're right.
We continue to press math forward. However, again, here's a piece of technology, just like you mentioned there, with a very specific use in mind, right? And it has certain limitations to it. I think AI is more like the internet where it's wide open or as a recent article I read said : it's more like electricity somebody told me this about their about their grandfather that lived in Eastern Kentucky, didn't have electricity and they're asking do you want us to run the lines out to your home?
And he's like, why would I need lines? I don't have anything to run on the electricity. Which is true, right? It's an absolutely true statement. But electricity was almost like a, solution without a problem because as soon as you got it, then you figured out ways to use it.
[00:10:51] John Nash: I've been wrestling in my head whether or not this is like a utility. I don't think it's necessarily a public good. And, but it is, people are paying for it like it's a utility, they pay a monthly fee, they pay for their electricity, they pay for access to chat, GPT 4. 0. And so, but is it in doing so, is it just creating a situation where people need to get a bunch of stuff or do things that they didn't necessarily need?
[00:11:19] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I think my own use of it is probably a mixed bag. I sometimes come away and it feels like I've been on the internet and didn't get anywhere and then sometimes you go on the internet and you get some places, right?
[00:11:30] John Nash: Right.
[00:11:30] Jason Johnston: And you find the answers that you need or, sometimes you get lost and, a string of cat videos and you don't know how you got there.
And I feel like because it has such a lack of focus, There's a lot of experimenting still to be done with it that doesn't necessarily give you helpful results for your time investment.
[00:11:50] John Nash: What do you think about the ethics of all of the little GPTs that are getting built in the marketplace? Some of them are completely frivolous, some of them are a little malevolent, others could be useful. Do you think that the people who create a little GPT also need to have an ethical code?
[00:12:12] Jason Johnston: Yeah, that's a great question. I think, and this could lead into some other discussions about more contextual ethics. I do think that one can rely a lot on whatever the bigger ethics are in the system that you find yourself in, or the community, or the organization, or the country. So they can rely a lot on those larger ethics, but typically those larger ethics are general enough that they cannot always be helpful to guide what you should and shouldn't do in the specifics. Does that make sense?
[00:12:51] John Nash: think so.
[00:12:53] Jason Johnston: So like, maybe somebody running a little GPT might be generally guided by a care ethic, or ethic of how this might respond about certain races or stereotypes or people or whatever. I think it behooves the person who's making that to ensure that's true and do enough testing and to think about enough use cases that it might be used to get around these kind of general ethics to help guide it to keep it on track.
I really think a lot of people don't really start with ethics. When it comes to developing these things, I think it starts a lot with innovation, which is okay. I understand that, they're trying to, like you said, solve a problem. I've got a, this is a good time to plug my own GPTs, so people can ,use them.
And
I don't know, is this some sort of pyramid scheme? If I get people to use my GPTs or make GPTs, do I make money off of their GPTs?
[00:13:47] John Nash: Yeah yeah, no, I don't think so.
But I think you should, if you'd like, I would pose that to OpenAI to see if
[00:13:54] Jason Johnston: really I'm trying to find certain solutions, so I made a GPT because I've got questions, my kids are coming of age, and I've got FAFSA questions, and so I made a FAFSA GPT that is trained specifically on the information from the government so that it could answer questions from a reliable source.
And I think it was helpful for me personally. And so maybe it'd be helpful for other people, but honestly, I didn't really necessarily think of the ethics of that. It was just a utility.
[00:14:27] John Nash: You did think about the ethics tacitly because you wouldn't punk your kids on the FAFSA GPT.
[00:14:35] Jason Johnston: that's true. And I said things like, yeah, I think there would be maybe some specific ethics that we know, for instance, the, of the many qualities that GPT had, especially in the beginning, we still know that it can be very confidently wrong, right? And a lot of the other things it's grown away from, but it still can be very confidently wrong about certain things and it can hallucinate and so on.
And so I told it specifically to only give truthful answers. If it doesn't know, then say it doesn't know, and those kind of things. Whether or not that works, I don't know. Sometimes it does, I think, sometimes it doesn't. But by guiding it to, only use these resources, bang, then hopefully it will provide what I was hoping for was a truthful answering of my questions for myself and hopefully for other people, so people wouldn't get steered wrong. So I guess you're right, yeah.
[00:15:23] John Nash: Yeah. So what do you think our advice is for teachers as they think about how they might integrate ChatGPT, Claude, other large language models into their work routines, either as an instructional design assistant, which I use them for a lot. I use it more that way than I do as a tool for my students to solve a problem, for, students doing their work, or some hybrid of both, what if we're thinking about our notion of being human centered in our work, and encouraging others to be that way, what do you think we should say?
[00:16:06] Jason Johnston: Yeah, that's a great question. I would say on the front end that whatever institution or community that you're in that we should be at the place where people should have some pretty clear ethical guidelines to help guide as a community things that some principles that were agreed upon from a number of stakeholders across the community, institution, whatever that could be more general. Like, I was very thankful to be part of the a committee that developed some of these principles at UT, which can be really guiding principles. And so there are things like "we use AI intentionally, it's human centered, it's inclusive, it's open and transparent, we engage with it critically" and so on.
But then what I found when I'm working with my media team and my instructional designers, as we're talking about the use within our day to day work, I found that these guidelines were good, overarching guidelines for us that we could all agree upon. But then it came down to really specific kind of questions that we needed to talk about.
For instance, do we use AI image generators, right? And if we do which ones do we use? Do we open handedly use them? Do we just use specific ones? Are we concerned about things like copyright? Are we concerned beyond copyright? What other questions do we have in our smaller community? Questions that didn't even come up around faculty around creative works, not just about whether or not copyright is taken care of, but is there work creep happening when this person who's not a graphic designer uses AI to create graphics where another human would have typically done that, right? And so it starts to create much more of a specific kind of context for principles. And we were able to come up and we're still working on some more guiding principles , that can help inform our day to day work within our team.
[00:18:02] John Nash: Yeah, the graphic example is great because if you've got graphic designers, illustrators on your team, they take a brief from a client and they have to interpret that contextually and then they create an illustration, let's say. If they or someone else uses an image, generation model like DALI or MIDJOURNEY, they put in a prompt and it puts out something technically beautiful and maybe aesthetic, but does it hit the mark in terms of what the contextual interpretation was that was desired by the call?
That's very different. And if that can be created and say it does hit the mark and it's created by someone who's an 18-year-old intern, let's say that you hire, you have a new power dynamic problem. If we're, now we're back to my original problem, right?
[00:18:49] Jason Johnston: Yeah.
[00:18:49] John Nash: you are usurping traditional power dynamics about who's supposed to do what.
[00:18:55] Jason Johnston: And that's where it becomes so contextual, right? Because as you said, yeah there's a lot of ethical ways that you can talk about this, right? There's the copyright part of things. You can just lay it aside and say we're not gonna cross copyright laws and so we're just not gonna do it at this point or whatever.
But there are other ethical considerations beyond that someone's livelihood, potentially there could be some power dynamics, there could be some lack of care and respect for people who have done this job for a lifetime, and they're trained to do this, and they have the tools, and then all of a sudden some idiot with a Midjourney account
[00:19:28] John Nash: Yeah.
[00:19:30] Jason Johnston: that they can make graphics better than they do, and it's just not, it's not kind, and so I think that there are many ways to do that. Now, there could be another situation where somebody has a one person shop, and they're doing tech, they're doing instructional design, they're doing a little teaching and professional development, and they're expected to do graphics on top of this, and they don't have the budget. They've been told you can't hire anybody else. You don't have the budget, whatever. , it may be in those situations that that the ethical thing to do could, be to go ahead and use those,
um,
graphics .
[00:20:00] John Nash: you've hit the nail on the head. Context is everything. Because you're right. If you're a solopreneur who, say, makes logos for a living, then you are doing client development, you're doing billing, invoicing, and you're doing the creative work. I think you're probably using LLMs and image generation models all day long to help manage that process.
But that's different from a general ethic of care for just understanding how to deal with humans in the context of an organization, and whether you usurp their work without talking to them.
[00:20:32] Jason Johnston: Yeah. Yeah.
Let's do one other thought experiment here. What if two, I'll do two thought experiments.
[00:20:38] John Nash: A a 20 year old junior at university uses the LLM to critically examine the assignments given to them by a professor and writes back giving them a critique on how it doesn't really help them achieve the learning goals intended for the course.
Or a parent decides to write the lesson plans for an English composition, 10th grade teacher.
This sort of power still sits there. And so could a teacher's aide do the design work for a course instead of the teacher? Or should they? I think those are, leadership questions. Those are ethical questions. Those are organizational culture questions.
[00:21:18] Jason Johnston: Yeah. , I liked how your sentence changed there because this is a great indicator that we're doing some moral reasoning. A great indicator that we're doing some moral reasoning, is when your question shifts from could to should,
right?
And so could that parent do that?
Yeah, certainly can. Everything's there. Should they? That is the ethical question, and I think that takes some reflection. Probably takes some conversation, perhaps even to be able to work in empathy with other people. And so if we're trying to follow an ethic of care, then empathy is pretty high up there in terms of understanding.
And I'll be honest, and I, and this is also this completely contextual. I'm not saying anybody else should do this especially, present company, but I canceled my Midjourney subscription. I, hands down, it's making the best AI images out there, without question. It was worth it to me from that standpoint, and so on. But I canceled it because of some of these conversations I was having with creatives, and it didn't feel good anymore to have it,
[00:22:32] John Nash: Say more. In what context? Like, would you stop using DALL-E now? You could still make images with MidJourney without a subscription, right? And so, even if you can't, but I'm just curious, like, so you would never use it under any circumstances now?
I guess is what I'm trying to understand.
[00:22:51] Jason Johnston: in my current context the things that tipped me over, it was the, some of the copyright issues in terms of using artists work without their payment or their knowledge. Which didn't feel good to artists in general. The fact that I was paying for it as well, so somebody's making some bank off of this, right?
And so it's not experimental. This is a business. And then really thinking about this idea of why and should I be, right? Why am I doing this? Do I really need to be making images of this high quality? If it's important to somebody else that I am doing this, is it that important to me that I'm doing it?
So that's what was my reasoning around it. I'm not saying I would never for any circumstance but I, and partly a little bit of a statement, to be able to say, Oh, yeah, I just decided not to. It was an interesting experiment for a few months. And we have an Adobe Firefly subscription.
They have an ethic that includes paying artists and only using works that they have full license to. And. It's not as good, but I'm willing to do that for now if I need to use AI. And to be thinking about if there is anything that somebody should be doing that has the skills, then to be thinking about what place do they have in all this?
Should I be giving them opportunity and chance to do this?
[00:24:20] John Nash: Fantastic rationale. You've, yeah. You've convinced me I need to think about dropping mine.
[00:24:27] Jason Johnston: Again, I believe it's context. I think that people need to think about it for themselves. I'm not going to go around wagging my finger at people via LinkedIn about it. Although I have considered at least putting my thoughts out there. So maybe this will spur me to put my, some of my
[00:24:41] John Nash: Well, you know, there's, There's nothing worse than a reformed anybody.
[00:24:47] Jason Johnston: That's right. Nobody wants to talk to that person. Yeah.
This has been good John. I feel like we've covered a fair bit of ground. We partly started talking about this because we did a video, which we'll also put in there, where you and I broke some general ethics down in about 15 minutes.
You invited me to come talk to you, and this is part of a boot camp you're doing as well, tied in with that. Perfect.
[00:25:12] John Nash: yeah, you and I had a chat in a series I've launched called School Leadership and Generative AI, all in about 15 minutes where we cover pretty big topics on the top of mind of school leaders, but we get to it as quick as we can so they can gain some ground on some of these bigger issues. I did one with Dr.
Kurt Reese on data privacy with students. And then, yeah, with you on ethics and it's yeah, it's connected to my school leadership AI boot camp that I've got on Maven that people can enroll in, put a link to that in the show notes too. But yeah.
This was a good conversation today, I think. I think made me rethink some things.
Made me really think about context.
I was going to say earlier too, maybe this, maybe we fit this into the other part of the conversation. There were some articles six months ago or so, maybe about a firm in China that was going to have its CEO be a generative AI bot, and it was going to run the company.
And I don't know where that's landed since, but it made me think, could or should an AI bot run a school district? Could it even run a school? Could we have an AI LLM provost at a university? How difficult are those decisions anyway? That'll rankle some folks for me just even asking, but I think it's interesting to think about because this is the direction these are going.
Already with the terrible news of deep fakes that are coming out around Taylor Swift and others, and then with the election coming up with malevolent actors using this, these tools in bad ways. I think we're on the cusp of seeing the same sort of thing happening for leadership in organizations and maybe not malevolently, but it's going to be there.
We're going to have avatars that look very real, that'll get past the uncanny valley that will be driven by large language models that sound like they know what they're doing. So I think that we're another level of ethical discussions are coming around how badly do we need all these personnel?
[00:27:15] Jason Johnston: Yeah. All of those coming along. I'm convinced more than ever that we need to be thinking ethically about these. We need to be not just thinking about it for ourselves. We're talking about it in our communities, coming up with standards that we can support one another with, and that we bring people, all kinds of people into those circles so that we can think about not just ourselves and those ethics, but how it affects the people around us.
[00:27:39] John Nash: Yeah.
[00:27:40] Jason Johnston: Yeah, this is good. thank you, John, for this great conversation. And all of you, if you want these show notes, of course, we're at OnlineLearningPodcast. com. And you can check out all of our podcasts there as well as show notes. Yeah. Thanks for listening. And as well, if you have a chance, if you find us on Apple podcast, you can leave us a review, send us a note there.
You can always find us on LinkedIn as well. And connect with us there. We've got a community as well as you can just connect with us and we've got the links as well in the show notes for those.
[00:28:10] John Nash: Is it ethical for me to say that we found out that the algorithms like it when people go on Apple podcast and rate us and leave a comment?
Or is that just stating a fact? Am I just stating a fact without ethical considerations? It's okay to state
[00:28:28] Jason Johnston: I think that if it's true, it's ethical. And the fact that we're being transparent about this, we would like you to leave comments, not just for our own egos, but also to help the algorithm so other people can find this podcast. So, yeah, as long as we're being transparent, I think that's ethical, right? All about the algo. Talk to
[00:28:49] John Nash: Cool. Talk to you later.
[00:28:51] Jason Johnston: you soon. Bye..
[00:28:53] John Nash: Yeah, fun. I'll talk to you soon.
[00:28:55] Jason Johnston: Bye.
Monday Jan 29, 2024
Monday Jan 29, 2024
In this episode, John and Jason close off the 2023 Johns Hopkins University Excellence in Online Teaching Symposium with a live podcast recording, summarizing the day’s sessions and interacting with the audience around 6 Pillars of Humanizing Online Learning in the Second Half. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
6 Guideposts - Slide Deck (via Gamma.app)
Johns Hopkins Excellence in Online Teaching Symposium
Jana Lay-Hwa Bowden, Leonie Tickle & Kay Naumann (2021) The four pillars of tertiary student engagement and success: a holistic measurement approach, Studies in Higher Education, 46:6, 1207-1224, DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2019.1672647
Peabody Institute and their “Path to Funding” guide
Advancing Diversity in AI Education and Research Symposium - Stanford
Dr. Michelle Miller Substack - Teaching from the Same Side and the idea of “same-side pedagogy”
Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!
[00:00:00] Introducer: Welcome everyone. It's been a great day and we have. A very fun way that we're going to be ending today.
So this is our final session. I appreciate everyone greatly for attending our inaugural excellence and online teaching symposium and we're going to be ending our session with a live recorded podcast. We have Jason Johnston and John Nash, go ahead and take it away whenever you are ready.
[00:00:33] John Nash: Hi, I'm John Nash and I'm here with Jason Johnston
[00:00:36] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the online learning podcast.
[00:00:44] John Nash: Yeah, and we are doing this podcast to let you all in on a conversation we've been having and to let you be part of the conversation that we are having about online education.
Look, online learning has had its chance to be great and some of it is, but there's still quite a ways to go. What are we going to do to get to the next stage, Jason?
[00:01:05] Jason Johnston: That's a great question. How about we make a podcast and talk about it?
[00:01:10] John Nash: That sounds great. What do you want to talk about?
[00:01:13] Jason Johnston: Today I think it'd be great to continue our theme of how to humanize online learning in the second half and to do it with a number of our friends here.
So today we want to not only do a podcast, but do a session here at the Johns Hopkins Excellence in Online Teaching Symposium, the first ever. Is this right, Olysha? We're on the first ever.
[00:01:36] Olysha Magruder: That's correct. This is the inaugural symposium. So you're a part of the new wave.
[00:01:43] Jason Johnston: We're so glad to be here. Thank you for the invitation.
And this is exciting that we're here and we're doing a live session where we are recording. And we had the auspicious and difficult task of trying to bring a little summary to this day. It's been a good day, hasn't it, John?
[00:02:01] John Nash: Yeah, it's been amazing. We've been in every session that we could attend.
We split up and took some notes along the way about what the overarching themes were and where we see some opportunity, but we're so excited to see what you all think as well and what you took away.
[00:02:17] Jason Johnston: Yeah, so here's how we are planning to proceed in the next little bit here. Our ideal as we were looking at the day is to try to give us some guidelines to talk about. We tried to pull a few quotes. We have a A little bit of an outline that will guide us, but first we thought we should probably introduce ourselves.
John, you wanna go first?
[00:02:41] John Nash: Yeah, sure. I'm John Nash. I am an associate professor at the University of Kentucky in the Department of Educational Leadership Studies, where I'm also the Director of graduate studies. We are an all online. Department and a graduate program offering master's and the doctorate at the EDD and PhD level, and I'm also the director of the laboratory on design thinking at the University of Kentucky, where we look at human centered design and its application in organizations and leadership in schools.
[00:03:11] Jason Johnston: And I am Jason Johnston. I'm at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I'm the executive director of online learning and course production. So, my big thing here is helping to stand up online programs, and I do it with a fabulous team of instructional designers, some of which are here. That's not the only reason why I said that, but some of them.
And media personnel who help to stand up online learning here at the University of Tennessee and do an amazing job of that. That's who we are. We also would like to just keep in mind that this is a recorded session. We would like to, as we go along, talk to all of you and hear from you as we proceed.
Please feel free to, unmute your mic as you have something to say or questions. And to quote Dr. Olysha Magruder I'm not sure what's gonna happen. And this is this was her, this is her plug for our session today was that I'm not sure what's going to happen in that one.
[00:04:13] Jason Johnston: We're not either, because part of this session is actually hearing from all of you, but we do have a few guiding ideas and guideposts that will help guide our discussion. John, you want to show our slides?
[00:04:29] Jason: And those who want to follow along at home can find these slides in the show notes.
[00:04:32] John Nash: And if the link that you got in the chat should track with what we're doing here today. And this document is made with the gamma. app. And so this document is a presentation deck. It's also a living document. It's a webpage and it's a handout. And so it's the new shimmer, if you will, of media.
And if you get that, then I love you. So browse through it before and after the session, as we. grow in our conversation in this hour. Some of that material may show up in here and please reuse and remix because we want you to do that. And so yeah, we're not sure what's going to happen in this one, but I think it's going to go well.
And we want to start to talk about being human to each other. The focus of our, podcast is to think about the second half of life for online learning. And we know it probably has much more life than we have in ourselves. But as we noted in the beginning, we think it's had its chance to be good, but we think that there's another chance here to be even better.
This whole day has really been about that. And so as we go forward, we want to talk about what we picked up on today and also really hear from what you picked up on. So Jason, do you want to say a little bit about where to find our podcast after this is done and people can listen to this?
[00:05:52] Jason Johnston: Yeah, onlinelearningpodcast. com. That URL actually will take you to our entire podcast. Not only is this session going to be edited and probably put out there, Maybe January, John but we just released on Monday, hot off the digital press a conversation with Dr. Olysha Magruder.
And so you can go check it out and listen to that podcast. Had a great conversation. One of the reasons why we're here today is that connection. Please listen in, let us know what you want to hear about. Like this session, we want this podcast to be a conversation and to be talking with all of you.
Yeah. And around the topics and subjects that you are interested in.
And without further ado John and I were trying to think of some larger themes. We guessed at a number of them before this day begun by, by looking at some of the session titles, by thinking about some of the ways in which we're thinking about humanizing online learning. But we have these six guideposts, if you would, and I think I was thinking about guideposts because my home here in Knoxville.
Pretty much every side of the driveway is a drop off and so there's a little turnaround that you know if you're somebody like me that drives a really cool car like a long, minivan There's a fair bit there's a fair bit of maneuvering to be done where I have to go into this turnaround And move forward what I did when I first got this place is to put in guide posts for myself so that I did not want to end up with a minivan in the ditch.
My own ditch. of my own making and and so putting in guideposts, especially at these kind of key spots as I'm coming up over the top, coming onto the driveway and as I'm doing into this turnaround putting some that were lit, other ones that were just like those reflectors others that actually are barriers that don't permit me to go over some of the spots.
And so today, if you, will walk with us, these six guideposts for humanizing online learning. Some of what was drawn from today, some from our podcast of this year and our own thinking. And how we're going to proceed in these is that we're going to talk about the guideposts, give a, maybe a little summary.
Couple quotes that we found from today and then open it up for you for any other things that you heard, maybe particularly from today. So maybe a little bit of a focus on on today's session. My one request would be that we're now down to less than 10 minutes for each one of these guideposts. And just try to keep the comments fairly quick if you can, as we get there. Shall we go on to guidepost number one, John? Yeah, let's go
[00:08:33] John Nash: to guidepost number one. And that would be this notion of being human to your students and yourself. And the two gems that I picked up on. from this came from Flower Darby, and it was this idea of sharing a little of yourself. And this idea of connection doesn't happen by accident. This, what did you think of these And particularly, I think really not just sharing a little of yourself, sharing quite a bit of yourself if you're comfortable as a model for students to be able to do that back with you.
And the, that the connection doesn't happen by accident really feels like a a thread that went through almost all of the sessions today. If I. I remember I texted Jason in the middle of one of the sessions that the word intentionality is just coming up every time.
Everything is, must be intentional. Nothing really happens with hope or or luck. And back to you all. What struck you as Flower was talking about these things and this idea of really being human to your students? come off mic and and think with us.
[00:09:40] Jason Johnston: And if you would, when you come off mic, would you say your name and where you are right now, like institution? would be perfect. And then, whatever it is you have to say.
[00:09:49] Jody: Okay, I'll come in, John. Joe DeBonis Dublin City University, or DCU. Loved the way Flower shared pictures of her family.
It's something I would love to do, I just never thought it would be appropriate, but of course it's fine. So it's something I will do in future.
[00:10:11] John Nash: I agree, Jody. I had not been so apt to do that kind of sharing at a level. I bring a, try to bring a level of energy and enthusiasm for the topic, but had not thought to talk about how my wife is an important thought partner and everything I do and an important critic, but I don't honor her the way I might that she has.
And so I'm really going to think about doing that. And Austin is getting some love in the chat because I love this idea of that luck is the residue of design.
It's almost like this idea of that luck favors the prepared mind. I don't know if you want to say more about that on Mike Austin, but I really love that comment. it's very tweet worthy.
[00:10:49] Austin: Yeah, I appreciate that.
I'm Austin Tremblay and I work at Johns Hopkins University in the Center for Learning Design and Technology.
I just think it's one thing to think that results are purely contingent on luck, as if we have no agency in the matter, but. to think that we can, put plans in place and create our own results rather than relying on just, this passive act of being lucky.
I think that's a nice way to think about it.
[00:11:19] John Nash: Wonderful. And I just also want to give a shout out to Sarah Schunkweiler, if you want to say something, but this lovely idea of really going forward with an informal module that has intro videos with dogs in the background in real life.
Do you want to add anything to that?
[00:11:37] Sara: I'm Sarah Schunkweiler. I'm an instructional designer also in Olysha's group and I work with Austin, but I'm also a faculty member, so I record informal videos myself. So my engineering professors have started doing that also.
And since having their kids walk in, having the dog there, the dog is there during office hours. So why not be there during the informal videos as well? And students are highly amused by the dog trying to get out of the office behind the instructor.
[00:12:06] John Nash: That's great. Awesome. Jason, do you feel like you want to go on to number two?
[00:12:10] Participant 1: Sure. Yeah, those are great. Thank you. Thank you for being brave all to speak out on this live recording. Number two, encourage students to be human to one another. We can set the tone ourselves. As teachers as well As we are setting the pace and the culture, and as Austin was talking about the design of the course, we can encourage students to be human to one another Joe said, , do you have a way to In the course to meet other students so you can help them and they can help you stressing the social pillar of engagement and then Flower Darby had talked about adding emotional presence to the community of inquiry framework of social and cognitive and teaching if you guys were in that session or you remember the three kind of concentric circles that overlap, and in the middle you have a learning experience where there's typically social, cognitive, and teaching presences within an educational setting.
And Flower talked about how this emotional presence helps support the whole thing. And this is where it's not just encouraging student to student interaction. Help each other with your homework or student to student assignments, do this assignment together, but actual support, this emotional support where they can be human to one another, not just act like a, human.
Any other thoughts on this one? What what other ways can we encourage students to be human to one another in our online classes?
[00:13:39] Mike Reese: I can jump in if it helps out. This is Mike Reese from Johns Hopkins Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation. I was in Joe's session and this idea of social engagement came from a model that he was presenting on four pillars of student engagement that came from an article by Boden Tickle and Nauman in 2021.
And I think what was really helpful when he was discussing this was giving examples of how to engage both in synchronous and asynchronous environments and really stressing the importance of peer support, regardless of what the modality is and for students. to be able to support each other that requires them to have some sort of human connection.
[00:14:24] Jason Johnston: That's great. That's a great resource talking about those four pillars. , very helpful. Thank you.
[00:14:30] John Nash: That was good because the those pillars Mike, they, when he talked about the affect of emotional engagement, do you feel safe and welcome in class?
Do you have an opportunity to do your best? Do you have friends or teachers that recognize and praise you for doing good work among other things? Those almost have to be preconditions for the part where you're saying, " do I have a way to meet other students? I feel good about meeting other students.
And yeah, I really like that.
Any other comments on encouraging students to be human to one another?
[00:15:03] Andrea C: If I could, I've got two things. I'm Andrea Srevec, and I am the Director of the Office of Faculty Development and Advancement at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. One is setting ground rules for your class. So just that basic, you're going to respect each other.
If we do any discussion boards, try to keep your comments on topic. But also I taught an asynchronous class for the first time. And, in engineering, they don't necessarily like to use the discussion boards. It's just not something that they're like, let me run some numbers and don't make me talk.
But I told them before the class even started, you're going to have to be able to upload videos in this class. And you're going to have to upload videos of yourself in this class. So I had them do introduction videos. And they had to comment on each other's introduction videos. And it was just nice in a class where they were never pretty much going to be in the same room together or online together, to at least have them know who else was there, so that when they got back, because it was a summer class, when they got back on campus, they would know who was in their department.
And it seemed to work pretty well. They were really quite good about responding and, oh, I play an instrument too, kind of thing.
[00:16:13] John Nash: Beautiful. Thank you so much.
[00:16:16] Jason Johnston: I was going to say before you go on to the next one, thinking about, and this kind of ties into another one of our, one of our guideposts is just thinking about the different contexts, right? We're all. In different domains, in different contexts, teaching in different kinds of classes, and what might look like a really good human thing to do in one kind of class may not be the same thing for another program or another class, and there may be different ways to approach that.
That's great. John, number three? Sure.
[00:16:44] John Nash: Number three is we should endeavor to create content that is human centric. And we heard this across several of the topics today. Flower talked about how engagement precedes learning. This is an important notion to keep in mind. And not as much AI references today.
A lot of really just good ID stuff today. But Luke talked about how AI is a Kickstarter. I know you were in that session, jason I didn't go to that
[00:17:13] Participant 1: one. yeah. Can I just say that the idea behind that is that. rather than letting AI take front and center and removing some of the human centricness of our classes, we use AI to help us be more human in the classes by our design, to be more thoughtful and to help spur ideas that are more human.
I thought that was a great idea. Yeah,
[00:17:36] John Nash: that is a great idea. And it's a strategy I've been using in my own courses to use AI as this Kickstarter for instructional design to create active learning environments and activities for my students, but the students never, really interface with AI.
They just interface with the good learning that I've been able to create with the help of AI. And then Becky was talking about interface design impacting the learning experience. And so there's an aesthetic portion to this that really brings in learners. And then this idea of education happening in major and minor learning spaces where the interaction is taking place from learner to teacher, from learner to learner really good examples there. But how does this strike you all? We're talking about engagement, but we're also talking about AI. We're talking about aesthetic design and the importance of interface design to get us to a point where the content is really human centric.
Does this strike you all as worthy?
Great, please. Yeah, Caroline.
[00:18:38] Caroline: Yeah, it certainly does strike me as worthy.
My name is Caroline Egan and I am a program manager for the Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation at Hopkins.
And I think it's going to be an evergreen topic with digitally delivered content, whether that's asynchronous or synchronous. And, I think that having such concrete, such great concrete examples like Flower Darby's "show me a photo of yourself" is just an excellent way of taking small steps towards, encouraging that humanity and the digital interface.
[00:19:11] John Nash: Nice.
[00:19:12] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I think there are a lot of great examples today of that, like the flower derby example. One of the reasons why I thought that last quote was great, about education happening in major and minor learning spaces, is that it helped me rethink even the title that we put on this number three, which is creating content that is human centric.
It could be creating learning spaces in general that it's human centric. It could be fill in the blank that is human centric, in terms of our interactions or ways in which we we structure our courses, our grading or our assignments. I think what helped me here is to get me out of thinking about online courses.
And John and I we talk about this all the time, but there's such a knee jerk reaction to think about online courses as content. And I fully say that, yeah we were making these titles and we just didn't even really think about the fact that, our knee jerk reaction was to talk about, content that is human centric, but I would like to just offer that I think maybe we should move more into this idea of learning spaces So like the examples that was just given and so on it's about the interactions about the relationships about all of it that is human centered.
[00:20:29] John Nash: It seems
like the more we talk about this topic, the more we realize that, and I love your idea about content, that the online courses are not content. The online courses are experiences. And so in order to create a great experience, we have to thread in all of these other things with intentionality and that's aesthetics that is engagement that is authentic bringing our real selves and then having really great active experiences on the learning side as the learner goes through the journey.
John
[00:21:01] Mike Reese: and Jason, I, if I can jump in, this is Mike Reese again, there was a, you've got some great examples here. I heard them throughout all the sessions, but one of the best that I heard today. Was our colleagues at the Peabody Conservatory. They're leading a course that is essentially preparing artists to go out and take their talents into the world and teach them the business of being an artist.
And it's not just about making money. It's really to ensure that these artists know how can they be entrepreneurs to advocate for themselves. so that their talents will be seen and heard by other people. And what was so exciting to me about this, and it really speaks to this third principle here, is that it's not about just simply creating an environment where it's human centric.
But it is a curriculum that has been designed to allow them to go out and connect with others and really allow their talents to be shown by others. And one of the great things about this program that they've put together. is the course for the Peabody students has been so successful that they have gone on to share a open education resource, a book, that anybody can access to learn these same lessons.
I just threw a link to it in the chat that any artist now can benefit from what they've developed at the Peabody Conservatory.
[00:22:27] John Nash: That's fantastic. It's, what strikes me as you talk about what they're accomplishing there is that they're building agency within the learners to go out and tackle the world in real life ways with the skills they pick up in the course. That's wonderful.
We've got that link and we'll put it underneath this topic here. So it's everybody can have that.
Great. So let's go to four
[00:22:49] Jason Johnston: Jason. Yeah. And this one is treating humans as individuals. So rather than just thinking about humanity as a whole becoming increasingly aware that there's a lot of different humans and that there are ways in which we can respond to all of humanity in the more individualistic kind of ways within online learning if we take the extra effort one of the quotes that I found was talking about learning styles aren't real, but we can use AI to guide us for various learning preferences thinking about adapting online learning to help with individual Activities and to meet the diverse needs and interests and so on of your students.
So some of this is really about, adaptation as a instructor and thinking about that. We talk about here, some about, this idea that here, meaning University of Tennessee, the idea that, when you're talking to teachers about their online courses, having to remind them sometimes that this course isn't for them, right?
It's for the individuals that they're there to serve and figuring out ways that we can adapt it to serve even within sub pockets within their own courses. What are some ways that you've either heard today or that you can speak from experience about how we can adapt our online learning to treat humans more as individuals?
[00:24:20] Olysha Magruder: This is Olesha again, Johns Hopkins University. I wanted to mention. That Jodi from Dublin City University presented about the tool Flip, and I feel like this gives an opportunity for educators to have the students interact in a way that they prefer, so you can do a video, or you can do audio, you can comment with a video, you can do text, so it gives them an opportunity.
And I know there's a lot of other tools that do that as well, but she demonstrated a really awesome way to do that I think that connects to this idea.
[00:24:54] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I love it. Yeah, and almost a reverse in some ways of UDL thinking about multiple ways of representation. There's a Perhaps giving students multiple ways of responding, right?
And so if they feel more comfortable with this particular way or that way or whatever in the minute it can respond to them depending on How they're you know tuned in and where their comfort level is. That's good.
[00:25:18] John Nash: I think about taking a page from the p12 world where I've come out of a meeting last week here in the Commonwealth of Kentucky where all the superintendents of public schools were meeting talking about this idea of a portrait of a learner and in this effort, an attempt to individualize instruction on core topics that really can't change, so math, social studies, history, what have you, but the work that the student does is predicated on their own personal interests and what they want to do and what they are interested in.
And so they're able to work cross curricularly, if that's a term we can use with the personal interest of the student. We woven into the curriculum. And the outcomes that are necessary for them to be successful in school. So that's I think about is treating humans as individuals. We're also learning about their personal interests what they really are wanting to do, what they like to do, and then how the content can be adapted so that they can apply those interests within the content.
[00:26:27] Jason Johnston: Yeah, that's good. And we you and I, John, have talked about this concern about the industrialization of online learning, where it tends to mass market to the larger, swath. And I think that is a nice response to that thinking about , the more personalization. And yeah, that's good.
Other comments on that one?
[00:26:49] Mello: Hi. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Hi. I'm Mello. I'm coming also from the Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation at Johns Hopkins. And I really like number four. It reflects on one of the. Sessions that I went to, and I think I see some folks, it was the one about equity. I see Sarah Shankweiler was there, Chris Sett was there, but basically they're talking about decolonial ways.
Of engaging students and students with disabilities and basically the more, oh, and Rolando, thank you. The more we engage and allow people to embrace. Like their identities, the more this is like basically helping them live authentically. I feel like this is hitting at that core, just when you give students that space to be authentic and acknowledge like who they are and what their struggles are and what their joys are, then they would feel more human and they would share more of themselves.
[00:28:02] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I love it. Yeah, that was a great session. And I agree. And I would say treating humans as individuals is maybe a first step. And we've got a couple other points that maybe even point to that. a little bit or encourage us a little bit more to be actively creating spaces for for inclusivity.
And maybe John, you want to go on to number five and since that's a good lead into that
[00:28:25] John Nash: yeah, absolutely. Which is this notion of making space for all humans. And we picked up on on four different things that struck us as supporting this idea. And of course, back to Flower Darby and thinking about this idea of excellence in online teaching is an equity imperative.
And so when we think about people being their authentic selves and coming in with their own identity, then we can really create this culture of inclusion and really advocate, support, and empower faculty to as Sarah was noting. Nice thoughts around UDL and how do we make a meal for a lot of different people?
You've got this sort of buffet, and so you have to be thoughtful and intentional again. This idea of intentionality is always coming up. And then this notion here from Rolando, which is being focused on teaching accessibility and supporting efforts to teach accessibly. Yeah, really nice.
What do you all take from this this idea of making space for all humans? And I think Melo Really teed that up for us here thinking about that. What else strikes you as we try to make space for all humans?
[00:29:39] Jason Johnston: Melissa, go ahead.
[00:29:40] Mel R.: My name is Mel Rizzuto. I'm a instructional designer in the Center for Learning Design and Technology in the Whiting School at Hopkins. And I love this idea of making space for all humans. And in a session that I facilitated earlier with a few of my former colleagues, we talk about how we're going to how we developed a tool to assist faculty with evaluating their online teaching practices.
And we were very careful to include a standard about immediacy and inclusion in that tool that we developed because we really wanted faculty to reflect on their own practices and, their strategies for fostering belonging for students and then also modeling communication and positive messaging for students.
And so I think a lot of times we get caught up in just the design of the course itself. And we, I don't want to say we fail, but We neglect the professional development needed for faculty in the actual delivery of their instruction. And so I think we have to be mindful of that.
[00:30:47] John Nash: Really nice.
Mello, did you want to add something?
Oh, no,
[00:30:50] Mello: I totally agree. We're talking about students here, but faculty are also humans. Staff is also humans. We're thinking about training the students, but. We're also should train ourselves so that we can better train others.
[00:31:07] John Nash: Yeah, we have a long runway in front of us as as instructional designers, as supporters of those who want to do good instructional design.
There's a lot of faculty who want to do well, but don't have the tools. And I think that they should be considered part of our human set that we want to bring about here.
[00:31:25] Kim V: I just want to. Add in this is Kim Vars. I'm an instructional designer at the Center for Learning Design and Technology at Johns Hopkins. And in the session just before this one that I moderated Chris Ryder and Pankaj were perfectly paired in a way that Pankaj talked about and even showed this perfect image of these really uncomfortable chairs, That you remember from sitting in during your childhood and in school and talking about how you're not just putting content up on the screen to get the content across.
As if you were to hand off a textbook to someone, but instead Chris was talking about creating that space that is comfortable for students for all students to feel as though they have a place there that they can communicate. And I know as an instructional designer, I often think. Most about getting the space to exist and not necessarily ensuring that space truly is comfortable for everyone, which is like, everyone has been saying today, truly not an accident.
It has to be intentionally designed in a way that allows all folks like Dr. Hobson was saying anybody who has any kind of learning or eating preference to be offered this buffet that that they can pick and choose from and craft their own perfect meal in their comfortable course. A lot of work to be done for sure.
[00:33:02] John Nash: Yeah, definitely. Fantastic.
[00:33:05] Jason Johnston: It made me think of as well. What Sarah Schunkweiler, who is here, talked about the steep steps, both perceived and actual barriers she spoke about in her session there that was alongside of those the visual icon of the classic education building with these big steps that went up and the pillars in between and so on, and how those that, whether they can manage that or not, When they perceive that, it becomes this visual icon for spaces that they maybe are Not welcoming, or if they were welcome, they're not welcomed enough that they could actually go into and made me think of probably the first story we heard of the day, which was Flower Darby talking about her Pilates class and finding this person who was lost in the hallway because nobody was in there. The lights weren't on. It didn't feel like a welcoming place. And so they didn't think that this is where they belonged. And I think all of this fits together for creating this. Good space for all humans.
[00:34:10] John Nash: Good. Should we do number six then, Jason? Sure.
[00:34:14] Jason Johnston: Yeah, sounds good.
John and I were quickly Brainstorming and wrapping up right before this session, talking about today's wonderful symposium, and we had come up with a number of these before, but we wanted to create a space that was a bit of a wild card. What, what doesn't fit? And this was actually one that we just arrived on an hour ago, and we've talked about before, but it just fit well, in addition to creating inclusive space and treating individuals humans as individuals.
Number six, recognizing that not all humans are present. So whatever space that you are in, wherever you're making decisions, whether they're design decisions or teaching decisions, Not all humans are going to be represented there, and it's important to be thinking beyond beyond those spaces and what we see in front of us.
And John and I talk about this all the time. We're two, admittedly, middle aged. educated white guys, right? We have a very similar culture. We can talk about a lot of the same things, but one of the things we strive to do within our podcasts is bring other voices in because we recognize that we can't understand and we don't see all the corners and we need to be able to see outside of ourselves.
So this was a great session, really was a mini session talking about neocolonialism first earlier in the day, Luke Hobson talked about how it's not just DEI, it's also about JB, justice and belonging, moves on beyond that Christelle Dacius was talking about the idea of the Northern Hemisphere versus the Southern Hemisphere and how too often that we are essentially using up the resources from the Southern Hemisphere, speaking as somebody that originally was from Haiti.
And so she said, what is digital neocolonialism? Online education is another vessel of imperialist practice to gather human and biological resources through technological means.
And she also went on to say resources are digital human data. We haven't taken the time to realize the impact data that is most likely being sold back as product.
Anyways, I thought these were very heavy statements impactful for me because they were a different voice than than maybe we were hearing earlier in the day. And a voice that takes things a step further as, Represented in the title beyond beyond just thinking about the typical typical groups that perhaps that we're making these decisions in.
[00:36:49] John Nash: Yeah. Part of this reminds me the conversation that's going on in parallel around the fight to reclaim AI and other things from big techs control. And you look at the story of Timnit Gebru, and the work to think about. How content moderation is going on in other corners and this is really affecting the mental health of moderators and all in the name of trying to keep the machine going as it were and so how do we think about what we do day by day as online instructors, online designers of experiences and keep the recognition in mind that not the way it's been presented to us may not be the best way it's been presented to us.
I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if I put that so well, but I'm also appreciating Sarah Schunkweller's comment here that students who might be forced to use illegal means to access online education and that digital human data can be dangerous. How does this all strike you as we think about this last sixth point?
[00:37:51] Jason Johnston: Yeah, thoughts on this. How does that strike you? What other ways can we be more mindful of this?
[00:37:56] Austin: This is Austin Tremblay from Johns Hopkins University again, and I just thought this was fantastic to include because if you are establishing guideposts, but your vantage point doesn't include You know, the totality of the space you're designing around, and that's a dangerous way to design guideposts.
So I think that this informs that idea of, the design of the course itself.
[00:38:24] Jason Johnston: Yeah, you're getting a lot of head nods. We realize head nods don't really translate into podcasting, but yes. So we're giving you a, we got some amens here, Austin, on that one. Thank you for that.
[00:38:36] Mello: Can I just I put something on the chat, but I feel like everything that. We've all been talking about here since the beginning of the hour. It's really like considering this DEI and justice and belonging in terms of AI education and maybe research. And I feel like this is all really relevant to a symposium that I'm a part of that I'm organizing, that I'm helping organize.
And so I put the link in the chat, but basically it's a symposium with the AAI, and it's called Advancing Diversity in AI Education and Research. It's at Stanford in March, and I invite you all to submit something. It's due like in early January and even if you don't submit something, you just want to check it out you can also just attend for fun and education, obviously.
[00:39:31] Jason Johnston: That sounds great. Thank you for that. And we'll make sure that we get these. Links in this chat and that we get these into our show notes. So if anybody's listening to the show and they would like to either know about that symposium or the submission, then we'll put those into the show notes, as well as these slides with all the quotes and all the people so that make sure everybody gets referenced that way.
All those will be in the show notes. Thank you for that.
We had a final quote that also I wanted to get this right. She had, Christelle had said something about humanizing and I didn't get the full quote. And so I wanted to get it right. And so Olysha connected with her and I was able to get this quote so that we get this right. But she said as part of her session,
"humanizing happens when the instructor takes time to talk about how they got to the work and their personal influences. The intentional sharing creates a culture of genuine interaction. This empowers students to show up as their authentic selves. Share their own narratives and bring their funds of knowledge to the classroom to make learning more relevant and meaningful. And that's by Christelle Dosses.
And I just thought this was a great quote to land on because it just seemed to wrap up so many of the, so many of the themes from today, the themes that we were finding and the thoughts around humanizing online learning and what that looks like with these different guideposts. It just wraps so much in there.
John, other thoughts on that?
[00:41:04] John Nash: I regret that I wasn't in that session and you're right. This this passage really captures what we tried to think about today throughout all the sessions from beginning to end. This idea of intentional sharing genuine interaction and then this empowerment to bring all our authentic selves to the table to the conversation.
I think it's wonderful.
[00:41:29] Mello: I was in that session and yeah this also really resonated with me. Especially actually when I teach a class, the very first session for the very first day, I always talk about funds of knowledge especially I'm with students who maybe they've never heard of that before, or they've never taken a topic about the class that I'm teaching, but I always tell them you're not a blank slate you're coming here with Your funds of knowledge from basically living your life and you're bringing something to the table.
And I think that's really powerful, especially if you're suffering from like some kind of imposter syndrome, right? Just knowing that you're bringing something to the table. It's really powerful. And I don't know. I think I have Mike and Caroline took my class and I talked about funds of knowledge.
I don't know if they want to say something.
[00:42:22] Caroline: I can absolutely 100 percent reiterate that it was very helpful to me so that understanding that I brought a
fund of knowledge to a subject matter that I thought I knew really nothing about, which was educational research my own academic training is in a different field. And Mello said, Oh, no, Caroline, you have funds of knowledge.
And and it turns out that I did. So it's a great way of anticipating people's insecurities and reassuring them that they should be in the room with you.
[00:42:54] Mike Reese: Yeah, I'll just add that Mello, when she first pitched what was, we would typically call a workshop, she described as an experience and it truly was that because of the way she engaged us and set up the activities throughout the event. To really allow all of us to be able to learn from each other based on these different founts of knowledge that we have.
[00:43:21] Sara: Hello, I had a comment that went along with that. This is Sarah Strunkweiler again from Johns Hopkins. In Christelle of Rolando's of my presentation, we were talking about accessibility. So as an instructional Designer, I go to the 1st office hours for a lot of my engineering courses. And so we can talk about the accessibility features in the course.
And we can talk about things like student disability services and student advocacy and speaking up for yourself. So we're empowering students. To show up in class and ask for what they need and I had a student reach out to me earlier this year, this fall, who was an engineering student from another country.
She was new to the U. S. She was ran into some housing insecurity issues and because I had gone to that and we had normalized the conversation about asking for what you need, she reached out to me directly and the faculty and I and our support services work with her. And she told me later. That in her country where she came from, it wouldn't be normal.
It would be culturally unusual to reach out for that support. So she really appreciated us making that available and opening that up that conversation for her. So it supported her as a student and it's supporting her as a working professional in the field as well.
[00:44:43] Jason Johnston: That's great. This has been an amazing conversation. Thank you all for jumping in John This has been a great day of learning from all these different presenters as well as being able to wrap it up with These folks here. Thanks for jumping in. Thanks for being brave jumping into the arena and being willing to Speak up even if it's being recorded and we promise to, to hold all of you with respect and as we put this out just know that it's with our great thanks that you have jumped into this conversation with us.
John, anything else?
[00:45:20] John Nash: Yes, I think I've been struggling to think about how to put a point on all of this. And I'm reminded of Flower Darby invoked a quote from Michelle Miller today, and I thought of another one from Michelle Miller.
If I think about the entire day and everything we've talked about, it goes to something that, it's a, Dr. Miller said in her substack, and we can put a link to it in the notes about this idea of "same side pedagogy" and so much of what we're trying to undo around an us versus them kind of approach to learning and what she was saying in her article was that if we come to a same side pedagogy where we're co designing with learners and we're seeing each other as students, equal partners in the same goal, which is to reach this sort of this learning destination, then things will really come together.
And I think everything today were intentional pieces in this notion of us all being on the same side.
Do you mind if I close it out? Please do.
[00:46:22] Olysha Magruder: Just to go back to my the quote you quoted me on earlier, now I know what has happened, and it was all good. Very good. I want to thank everyone for participating in today's event.
This is our, as we mentioned at the top of this hour that it's our inaugural excellence on online teaching symposium. We plan to have this every year going forward. We will be sending out a link for you all to give us feedback on this event so we can take that into consideration as we plan for next year.
And yeah, I just really happy that we all came together today and it's pretty amazing. This final session you put together cause you. Really, we're able to connect all of the dots, which I feel like we don't get to do that much when we come together for things like this. I appreciate you all, and I appreciate everyone who participated and attended.
Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you
[00:47:14] John Nash: all. Goodbye, everyone.
Monday Jan 08, 2024
Monday Jan 08, 2024
In this episode, John and Jason have a “year in review” conversation with their podcast superfriends about why they podcast, the impact of artificial intelligence on education, the importance of human interaction in learning, and their collective efforts in forming a community of education podcasters. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)
Links and Resources:
Amanda Bickerstaff AI In Education Year 1 Timeline (on LinkedIn)
Course Stories, Season 4, Episode 2: The AI Whisperer: Faculty and Students on ChatGPT Dialogues
Planet Money Podcast: Can ChatGPT write a podcast episode? Can AI take our jobs?
Book Recommendation: A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas
Request to join the Network of Education Podcasters on LinkedIn (active education podcasters only please!)
ASU Academic Dishonesty Risk Reduction Guide
ASU Online Eventbrite Webinars
Here’s a link to our original Superfriends episode:
https://www.onlinelearningpodcast.com/e/ep-10-podcast-super-friends-crossover-episode-at-olc-innovate-23/
Our Podcast Superfriends:
Josh Reppun
What School Could be
https://whatschoolcouldbe.org/
Bio: ormer chef, hotel manager and history teacher, Josh Reppun is the founder of Plexus Education, LLC, dba as Most Likely to Succeed in Hawai’i, a “movement” founded by extraordinary people dedicated to developing global public, private and charter school conversations around Ted Dintersmith’s film, Most Likely to Succeed and his book, What School Could Be. Josh is also the founder of Josh Reppun Productions. He is the host of the What School Could Be Podcast and the producer of two films: Ka Helena Aʻo: The Learning Walk and The Innovation Playlist, both about creative, imaginative and innovative educators and education leaders. Josh’s podcast, edited by the talented Evan Kurohara, with music by Michael Sloan, has now reached nearly 80,000 downloads in over 100 countries.
Course Stories (from EdPlus at ASU)
https://teachonline.asu.edu/podcast/course-stories/
Mary Loder
Mary Loder is an Online Learning Manager at EdPlus, supporting Faculty professional development and training along with managing special projects in a variety of disciplines. She is also co-creator and co-host of Course Stories, a podcast where an array of course design stories are told alongside other designers and faculty from Arizona State University.
Ricardo Leon
Ricardo Leon is a Media Developer Sr for EdPlus and is a co-creator and co-host of Course Stories. He has developed a number of other podcasts and various other forms of instructional media.
Tom Pantazes
ODLI On Air
Tom Pantazes, Ed.D. is an Instructional Designer with the Teaching & Learning Center at West Chester University who loves helping instructors integrate technology and robust learning pedagogy. His research interests include digital instructional video, extended reality, content interactivity, and simulations. If he is not cheering on Philly sports teams, camping or building Legos, you can catch him as a cohost of the ODLI on Air podcast.
Specific Episodes:
Generative AI in teaching
Ram Poll gauging student opinions
Lee Skallerup Bessette on LinkedIn
All the Things ADHD Podcast
https://allthethingsadhd.com/
Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!
EP 22 - Podcast Super Friends II
Intro
[00:00:00] Jason Johnston: Questions? Anyone?
[00:00:02] John Nash: They're podcasters. They don't talk.
[00:00:06] Ricardo Leon: We listen.
[00:00:07] Mary Loder: That's right, intently.
[00:00:09] Jason Johnston: That's right. It's going to be all questions, actually. The whole podcast is people asking each other questions.
Start of Episode
[00:00:15] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:18] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And when I say everyone, everyone that I'm looking at as well. This is online learning in the second half, the online learning podcast.
[00:00:26] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you all in on a conversation we've been having for the last couple of years about online education. Look, online learning has had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but there's still a lot that isn't. So how are we going to get to the next stage, Jason?
[00:00:42] Jason Johnston: That is a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?
[00:00:46] John Nash: That sounds perfect. podcast and talk with a bunch of people about it?
[00:00:50] Jason Johnston: That sounds amazing. We're so excited today to have our next episode, our super friends, podcast, Super Friends II episode with a bunch of our friends. So, Let's get into it and meet some of our friends. How does that sound?
[00:01:04] John Nash: Yeah, let's do it.
[00:01:06] Jason Johnston: All right. Let's have each one of you introduce yourself and the podcast that you represent, and maybe just a little something about where, maybe where you're located, your podcast, what you currently do. Starting with Josh.
[00:01:21] Josh Reppun: Good morning, everybody. It's a little after 7 a. m. in Honolulu, where we are experiencing torrential rains here in at the end of November, the beginning of December. My name is Josh Rapun, and I'm the host of the What School Could Be podcast. And it's just an absolute blast to be on this episode today and to be with other podcasters as part of this conversation.
So glad to be here
[00:01:44] Jason Johnston: thank you. Lee?
[00:01:47] Lee Skallerup Bessette: Hey I am Leigh Skallerup Bessette. I'm coming at you just outside of D. C. I work at Georgetown University where I'm the Assistant Director for Digital Learning at our Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship, also known as CANDLES. And I have a little podcast with a colleague of mine, Amy Morrison, up in Canada, and it is called "All the Things ADHD"
it's called All the Things ADHD. Where we talk about neurodivergence in generally, but since we're both in higher education, more specifically in higher education.
[00:02:20] Jason Johnston: Amazing.
[00:02:22] Tom Pantazes: Hi everybody, I'm Tom Pantazis. Really excited to be here on the sequel of Super Friends and I am one of four co hosts of the "Oddly On Air" podcast that runs out of the Westchester University Teaching and Learning Center.
[00:02:36] Jason Johnston: Amazing. Ricardo.
[00:02:38] Ricardo Leon: I am Ricardo Leon. I am one of the hosts and producers of the "Course Stories" Podcast, which is produced through EdPlus at ASU, Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, where I am currently at right now. It's a little drizzly. Looks like the sun's coming out though. So we're doing good. But also in addition to the podcast, we also I'm part of a studio that runs quite a few things, including something that will be coming out in January of 2024 called "Space for Humans"
it's a YouTube program about how we design futures in space that are accessible and inclusive.
[00:03:10] Jason Johnston: Amazing. And Mary. Mary. Mary.
[00:03:12] Mary Loder: And I'm Mary Loader and I am with Ricardo on "Course Stories." We created this about two years ago. Is that right, Ricardo? I think
so.
[00:03:19] Ricardo Leon: I don't know. I have no idea.
[00:03:21] Mary Loder: That is a weird concept. But yeah, we're excited to be here. I'm the manager of professional development and training for Arizona State University's department called EdPlus on the team that Ricardo and I are on called Instructional Design and New Media.
So there's three layers to understanding where we are at our very large university, but we're really excited to have been invited back. Thanks guys.
[00:03:41] John Nash: I get say it, "And you guys work together."
[00:03:43] Mary Loder: to my gosh you said that perfect
[00:03:44] Ricardo Leon: yeah,
[00:03:46] Jason Johnston: That's good. That's great. And John, I guess maybe we should introduce ourselves in case this is the first podcast that people are listening to. I'm Jason Johnston . I'm the executive director of online learning and course production at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. And this is our podcast, online learning podcast, "Online Learning in the Second Half." John?
[00:04:06] John Nash: Yeah, I'm John Nash. I'm an associate professor of educational leadership studies at the University of Kentucky and the director of graduate studies in that department where 95 percent all online instruction department, and I'm also the director of the laboratory on design thinking at the University of Kentucky.
Yeah, this is fun.
[00:04:26] Jason Johnston: This is fun. I love the fact that we're spread all over the place and we're coming from different institutions. This is yeah, I'm just really excited about this conversation. Starting off, I'm just curious about other than the fame and the fortune and the notoriety of doing podcasts.
We all know, we all share in that. We all understand how all that works. But other than those, aspects why did you either start the podcast or why do you continue the podcast? What is your why in this situation? And just a few sentences for each of you.
[00:04:59] Lee Skallerup Bessette: I'll go first. My co host Amy and I, we, there wasn't a podcast like that out there, like what we were talking about. Particularly with our context of two middle aged women in academia who got late in life neurodivergence diagnoses. And we thought, surely we can't be the only ones, but even if we are, it gives us an excuse to talk to each other for an hour once every other week or month, depending on when we can get our act together.
And we keep doing it because it has resonated with so many people. And it is not just about our experiences, but our experiences as educators, how our diagnoses has shaped and reshaped our pedagogies and how we're thinking about these things. And just to help people feel less alone, less isolated, less weird in terms of the, maybe the experiences that they're having or the struggles that they're having, even if they're neurotypical and dealing with neurodivergent students or peers and those kinds of things.
So the reception has been so positive and gracious, and that, that's really what keeps us going even when our lives are turned upside down and we have trouble finding an hour once a month to get together, let alone once a week.
[00:06:10] Jason Johnston: That's great.
[00:06:12] Ricardo Leon: This is flashing me back to the one time that I definitely lied in the interview when I came to plus they said, they make thousands of videos a year and he said, that's, it's a kind of a factory kind of a process. Are you, what are you going to do about getting bored? And I said, Oh, I'll find something.
So I guess I didn't lie. Cause I did find something. And so there would have been some iteration of this, because I just can't help myself. I think podcasts are great. And I think that, it's a wonderful way to, to do that knowledge share that that what do they call it?
When you go out and you share that knowledge as a, mary, help me out. What do they encourage us to do when we go to conferences?
[00:06:50] Mary Loder: I don't know the term for it. I know
[00:06:52] Ricardo Leon: There's a term for it. Yeah, Justin has something for it. Our boss. But, just that we're making a name for our institutions by the work that we're doing.
And there's an easy way to associate us with those things.
[00:07:03] Mary Loder: And I would say Ricardo's like the king of podcasting. I've literally said that on our podcast after correcting myself and calling somebody else the king of podcasting. But Ricardo's literally the king of producing podcasts. He's so good at it. And so we're really lucky that he one has capacity to fit this in where he does.
Cause we have the same thing, Lee, like, where are we going to. Do this. We really want to do it, but when and where are we going to do it in our existing work? But the
[00:07:26] Ricardo Leon: Thought leadership. Thought leadership.
[00:07:28] Mary Loder: Yeah, thought leadership! Good callback good. Yes Yeah. Part of the reason we started this podcast was I was already having conversations with faculty on the things they were doing that were working.
And it was like, okay, so it's great that I'm having these conversations and I can share with others when I meet with them, but what's an intentional way that we can package this to have a larger reach and impact. So a lot of the reason "Course Stories" exist is because there are lots of faculty doing amazing things.
And a lot of instructional designers doing amazing things alongside them. And so being able to package that in a way that's funny, because again, Ricardo is really great at creating a podcast that's entertaining. But in a way that's actually meaningful to the work that we do was the reason that course stories continues and why we keep on trying to push it through.
And we're lucky now we have a producer, Liz Lee, who's like amazing and helps us do all the things that became heavily tasked. Weighted.
[00:08:23] Jason Johnston: great. I believe deeply in thought leadership. I believe I'm part of thought leadership. However, and I'm sorry if this offends anybody, if that is your second thing in your LinkedIn profile running your name, that you're a thought leader I may or may not accept that invite. I'm just putting it out there.
I have a little bit of a, a thing about that, but I think this is what podcasting is about thought leadership. I think in a sense, that's what John and I were certainly about when we wanted to do this. We didn't feel like doing a, another paper together, but we wanted to quickly be able to disseminate not only answers, but also questions out there into the real world as we're talking about things that are happening in the online space.
[00:09:04] John Nash: failed solo podcaster. And so I, I realized I needed a partner to work with. And that's where, because we each bring different strengths to the microphone, to the backend, to the production that are complimentary and don't really overlap too much. And then yeah, isn't it fair to say that you can't call yourself a thought leader?
People have to decide you're a thought leader. And then, so
[00:09:27] Ricardo Leon: you can have
you can perform thought leadership.
[00:09:30] Jason Johnston: Yes. Yes.
[00:09:31] John Nash: Say that one more time, Ricardo. I'm sorry.
[00:09:33] Ricardo Leon: Oh, I'm sorry. You can perform thought leadership.
[00:09:36] Jason Johnston: Just don't put it on your t shirt
[00:09:39] John Nash: I'm with thought leader.
[00:09:42] Ricardo Leon: Thought boss.
[00:09:43] Tom Pantazes: So for me, one of the reasons why I keep doing this, because we're in year two now, at this point is the joy that comes with being all in all the parts of the podcast. We started for the same reasons that Mary and Ricardo talked about in terms of trying to tell stories about the folks that work here at Westchester and the work that they're doing, that's cool and creative and different.
But I just, Every time we reach out to somebody to say, Hey, you want to be on the podcast? And they're just tickled to even be asked, there's joy in that. And then you have this hour long opportunity to just sit and listen to them, talk about something that they're passionate about or that they like to do, or that they're an expert in.
And there's joy that in getting to hear that story. And then as the producing side as well, the editing side of trying to take that. gift that they gave you and turn it around into less than 30 minute chunk of time to put it out into the world. There's joy in that part. And then the last part too, when it goes into the world and Derek Bruff likes and shares your social media posts about it, there's joy when you see that kind of thing going on.
Thank you, Derek. You can keep doing that. Every part of it for me brings joy.
[00:10:49] Josh Reppun: That's awesome, Tom. I agree. It is about the joy. It doesn't quite start out that way. It's very daunting in the very beginning, but for me, starting the What's Cool Could Be podcast, it, I actually work part time at Apple, which is where I get my health benefits from. And my podcast was launched in the back of the Apple store three years ago.
Right when we were closing the store a tech geek here in Hawaii, Ryan Ozawa was sitting in the back customer messing with his phone and he and I started a conversation about just technology and immediately discovered that we both wanted to start a podcast. I had the mission and vision. He had the technical expertise.
And we just went to a whiteboard space here in Honolulu and whiteboarded the thing out and launched it. So for me, very briefly, Ted Dintersmith produced the film Most Likely to Succeed in 2015. Then he went on his 50 state tour, which ended in Hawaii, and I was privileged to curate his visit here in May of 2016, and then he wrote his book, What School Could Be, and it was a real joy, Tom, to have a chapter at the back end of that book about his time in Hawaii.
It's going to be the only time in my life that I'm listed in the index of a book. And so the podcast was born because I wanted to figure out a way to make that chapter longer and longer. Because I knew that Ted wasn't going to write another version of the book. And so now about to do my 117th interview, it's just an absolute joy to do this work and I'm very privileged.
I sit in a privileged position because I'm underwritten by Ted. And that means that I can actually spend a tremendous amount of time researching my guests. And I know we're going to talk about this, Jason, a little bit later about the research process and all that but what a joy to do a two week deep dive into somebody's life and education and their life in general, and then to be able to craft that story and to, have an actual professional editor do the work.
Evan Kurohara, he's amazing, super creative guy, audio engineer. And then you get this episode and and it's amazing. People actually download the darn thing and listen to it. Go figure, right? So yeah, very much about joy, Tom, very much.
[00:13:06] John Nash: Josh was asking, did I see Amanda Bickerstaff's timeline that she put on LinkedIn the other day? Amanda Bickerstaff, if you don't know her, she's with AI for Education. She founded this group that does a lot of good work around thinking about applications of AI in mostly P 12 space.
But she put up a great year-in-ChatGPT graphic and I keep reminding folks that we're now we're 53 weeks in which is wild. And and so it would be good time to ask as we think about year in review. Yeah. What have been the impacts of AI from your perspective and what do you think is going to happen next?
Jason and I were talking about earlier we say, has anything changed? And I I surprised myself by saying no, I don't think much has changed, even though a ton has changed. But I'd love to, we'd love to hear what you all are thinking particularly from the, your perch of your podcast and your audience.
Lee, do you have thoughts on this?
[00:14:02] Lee Skallerup Bessette: In my job it's that same sort of thing. It's changed everything and also nothing in terms of just being able to say good pedagogy is good pedagogy. But been thinking about how that it could be an assistive technology. In particular, is thinking about it through the lens of disability and neurodivergence in terms of what students and even faculty and staff struggle with with ADHD, with autism, and, thinking through those sorts of possible applications for it.
What's it good at? What's it not good at? And how can it be used as an assistive technology and thinking through all the ways that also we throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater and a lot of times when it comes to new technological innovations for better or worse. Where it's horrific. And so we're in all of these kinds of ways. So we're just going to get rid of it, even though there is a definite benefit to certain subpopulations. In that sense, so there's, talking about the balancing act of like the horrific environmental destruction that goes through, but also could really help.
Someone with ADHD gets started on a paper because that's notoriously something that people with ADHD have difficulty with. But is it worth all of that? Really taking a step back and being able to think through those things and thinking about specific populations and how it can have an impact.
[00:15:28] John Nash: Yeah, I like that a lot. And this notion of take a step back. And of course, we're at the end of a calendar year now. And so everybody's doing kind of a year in the review or taking a step back. But I feel like even in the middle of this calendar year, say, in the summer, July, educators, people like ourselves were even saying, then how do we take a step back?
Because how is this, different. How is this the same? Josh, that's a theme that you've been talking about the last little bit. And I know we're going to talk more about it next week, but this idea of taking a step back, what do you feel about that?
[00:16:02] Josh Reppun: Yeah, Lee, I'm struck by first of all, I'm deliberately choosing not to get into the weeds with the folks that I'm interviewing, educators, education leaders around AI, because it feels almost a little bit too early. To do something like that, but I'm, I am conscious of our position as podcasters, as producers and hosts that we have an opportunity to, as John described, to lift ourselves up to that kind of hot air balloon level and be able to comment on what's happening.
And John, you and I have had a conversation at a different time about how when EdTech emerged for all of us, in the mid 2000s, everybody just went gaga over the devices. And I remember I went nuts over the iPad. I thought it was the second coming. And then slowly, but surely the whole EdTech world righted the ship and went back to the pedagogy again.
And I think it feels to me like AI is very similar. That we're all going. Bonkers about the bots and in indeed, even the individualized bots that can do things that are in the field of Neurodivergence. And this is what Amanda is doing at AI for Education, is that she's having these very specific conversations around AI and special ed, AI and this and that and the other.
So, slowly over time. I think that we're going to go back to just thinking, what is the most engaging teaching and learning? What is the most learner centered, the most student driven and real world? And then we're going to look at the tools that are coming out of AI and say, how can we use them? And that's what I'm looking forward to in 2024 with my guests is to have those conversations that are both at the meta level and then in the weeds about how the tools are actually being used.
Yeah, it's going to be an interesting year coming up for sure.
[00:17:54] John Nash: For sure. And I like what you said there about you alluded to it as well, Lee, this idea of getting back to first principles around pedagogy. I certainly noticed when the pandemic forced a lot of our colleagues to move their courses online. It laid bare a myriad of instructional design holes in their approaches.
And I think that to your point, Josh, it was a an awakening Oh, we just need to good instructional design turns out is just good instructional design back in early 2000s. I was hanging around people who were concerned about these horse race studies about whether online learning was better than in person learning.
And, I think that's been settled. It's just all about good instructional design. But that sort of takes us to the online learning space. Mary, what are you thinking as we come 52 weeks into our friend Chad and Claude and Bard? How are you feeling?
[00:18:48] Mary Loder: Probably overly confident, to be honest. So like you said, it exposed what was already there, right? So the fear laid within the framework of things that already really weren't working well. And it was probably a really hard shift for a lot of people. And so what we did at Arizona State University this summer is we created this course of teaching with generative AI, like really intentionally learning how to use it because that's the first step and then getting curious into what that means for your classroom and framing it around your learning objectives.
And then how can you leverage it in interesting ways that not only help you be intentional in the inclusion, but help create a space for your students to be literate in the technology, right? Because that's probably a primary responsibility that the fear's not gonna help us with.
So jumping in is a good thing and we've seen so many people jump in and we just celebrated over a thousand faculty registering for that course. So that's really good. We were at a place where people were intentionally avoiding generative AI last year to intentionally seeking out opportunities to improve their experiences to help improve their students experiences. So I'm feeling very confident because we have such good energy around it now in just one year. And it has been a journey for a lot of people, right? But some of them already were really excited too, because we're very lucky to work with some extremely innovative individuals who, like this summer, Andrew Maynard had a course where he taught students how to use ChatGPT, which is great, because if you're not taught how to use it, you might think it's not a great tool, but if you learn how to write a prompt properly, you've increased your efficiency in so many places.
Riccardo, I don't know if you know this, but I'm going to try to figure out our podcasting timestamp-like issues with so many people by feeding all of our transcripts into ChatGPT and then asking it to do some things for me. But I think there's some major efficiencies that can happen when you know how to write a proper prompt.
And by all the additional plus options, specifically in ChatGPT with being able to feed in websites or feed in PDFs or, whatever you need. And to what Lee was saying, like being able to reframe and redefine. education as a person who doesn't get it because of how it's being worded through a system like that, through a conversation.
What an amazing opportunity for access for someone to really better understand the environment that they're in and then be prepared to interact in that environment.
[00:21:15] Ricardo Leon: Oh, Mary, where can we hear more about this ChatGPT course?
[00:21:19] Mary Loder: Oh, It's funny you should ask. Season four, "Course Stories", episode two, one? I don't remember. It's on our Teach Online page. Yeah.
[00:21:29] Lee Skallerup Bessette: Put it in the show notes. Put it in
[00:21:31] Mary Loder: Yeah, we'll definitely
[00:21:32] Jason Johnston: It'll be in the show notes. It'll all be in the show notes, bit of it.
[00:21:36] John Nash: I can vouch for that episode. I listened to it and it was great. Yeah.
[00:21:41] Jason Johnston: Yeah,
me too. I was quite interested in that. It was yeah, really interesting to hear the approach and what you're doing. Yeah. I was curious about those podcasting this year, John and I started our podcast this year in February in some of the fervor of ChatGPT really hitting the people hard.
And so I think we had four podcasts where we said, "Oh, we'll move on to other topics next podcast." And then it kept getting stranger and more advanced. And we kept talking about it and talking about it. And then we dropped into kind of getting a little more organized about what we're doing.
And so we started talking to people still with. AI as part of the conversation. I'm just curious about other people that were doing podcasts. I know, Tom, that you had a couple of podcasts this year that were more around the theme. Did you find it it ebbed and flowed this year or what were you finding?
[00:22:32] Tom Pantazes: We actually stayed away from it for a little while, mostly because we were spending a lot of time trying to understand it. And it gets to what Mary was talking about. I found a great quote from Seth Godin. He said, "AI is a mystery to many, it's a threat. But it turns out that understanding a mystery not only makes it feel less like a threat, it gives us the confidence to make it into something better."
So we spent some time just trying to get our heads around it. One example of that is Planet Money did a great three part series on " Can AI take our jobs?" I highly recommend that three part listen if you haven't listened to it yet. They, in the way that they do a great job of telling that story and exploring like what it might look like for AI to take their jobs as podcasters.
And I'm not going to spoil the ending, you have to go listen to see what they ultimately settled on. But we did just recently, I think last week and the week before that, did our first episode with some of our local experts here about AI and got them to speak a little bit about how they've seen the impact happen in their, classes as folks who are going to be comfortable using it, and they found the students were mostly using it to ask questions about things that they weren't particularly clear about from class that they had experienced, which the instructor thought was pretty interesting, and he would love to get those chat logs as a way to better understand where his students were struggling.
So that's where we've been. We haven't stepped into it too hard yet somewhat intentionally in order to get our heads around it a little bit better than we had in the past.
[00:24:01] Mary Loder: I
will say, guys, I loved listening to you guys try to figure it out in your first episodes. They were really entertaining, Jason and John. It was fun to listen to you guys figure out things that were working or Jason, I think you got kicked out because you were having a mental health conversation.
There was just some really fun From parts of your episodes.
[00:24:19] Jason Johnston: Yeah, ChatGPT broke my heart at one point.
[00:24:23] John Nash: Yeah, it was fun working in that time period, particularly as Jason was noting. I couldn't believe we kept talking about AI. I thought we really thought we would move on. Surely there's more to online learning than this. And then it just kept pushing us into the breach as it were.
[00:24:40] Josh Reppun: John, can I just, I'd love to share a quick story. A couple of weeks ago I attended our 16th annual Honolulu based Schools of the Future conference. And there were about, I think, 1400 educators and education leaders who were there at our convention center. And on day two, Our lunchtime keynote was Kevin Roos, who's the co host of the hard fork podcast, which I'm completely obsessed with.
I, I listened to every episode. And lately, as with the whole business of Sam Altman going to Microsoft and coming back to open AI. Kevin was actually sitting at his table 10 minutes before his keynote and there were a bunch of us in a group chat iMessaging each other, and that's when the news broke that Altman was out, and Kevin was literally writing his column 10 minutes before he went up on stage to deliver this really broad and beautiful overview of the whole last year of AI to these, 13, 1400 educators. And it just really struck me that it must be bewildering for a lot of educators to look at the kind of national global landscape and wonder what the heck is going on here, right?
Because it just seems very chaotic. And I know that's something, John, that I would love to talk to you about in our upcoming event that we're going to have just about the design of AI and how it's unfolding for educators and how it must be traumatizing in some way because it's just upset their normal procedures in much in the way that iPads did as well.
Yeah.
[00:26:18] John Nash: Yeah I'm wondering how many how many of the stripes of educators that are in a system have been affected and at to what level? I'm going to talk to some superintendents next week at their statewide convention. And some of my early forays into talking to those participants suggests that a lot of superintendents still really aren't using AI or have used it once or twice, and so they're not really thinking about it. So I think there also is a conversation to be had about to Mary's point. I think there's opportunities for leaders to be thinking about what they're doing with it as a leader, but also how are superintendents and others thinking about managing this change at the teacher level?
I think it's, yeah, I think it's different. I think this is, this goes back to this point of so many things have changed, but yet some things are not changing at all.
[00:27:09] Jason Johnston: I don't know if we explain this or not, but we did a previous podcast episode like this at OLC. You can look it up. Those that are listening in the spring of 2023, that we called podcast super friends.
It's just a name that came about as we were talking about how this is like those crossover episodes where people are coming in. And so we're calling this Super Friends II. And these are definitely podcast super friends here. But one of the things I was thinking about was, how podcasting is a form of translatable research, as we're all dipping into these different fields and then coming together, and here we are coming together as this podcast, and I was thinking about getting divergent views.
We had a couple podcast interviews that were side by side that really had different views about AI. We talked to Kristen DeCirbo from Khan Academy. Obviously they're pushing out this whole Khanmigo chatbot and they basically scrapped all of their plans for the next year to put their development efforts behind that.
And then we had a great conversation with. With Brandice Marshall, who is much more of a, I don't know what you'd call it, maybe John have a word for this, but, or somebody else does, but we're almost like a-- even though she's deep, like she knows so much more about coding and about data and so on than we do, but she's almost like a reluctant technologist in some ways when it comes to AI, trying to take a slow approach to AI and being skeptical about its abilities and about what it is that we should be putting our hopes and dreams into here.
Have other people found with their podcasting that they're able find divergent views or views that maybe have challenged you in this regard over the last year?
[00:28:45] Ricardo Leon: I was going to keep quiet because I'm not a fan of those kinds of AI solutions. I think it's really not good enough yet to be using it as much as we're using it. Yeah, I just, I'm just not a fan of that. Mary's Oh, I'm going to use ChatGPT to do this or that. And I'm like cause already our transcripts are run through our editing software-- creates a really rough transcript. So Pedagogy is going to come up as "Purple Monkey Dishwasher." You know what I mean? And then we're going to use AI to, use that, to, to leverage that "purple monkey dishwasher" to create this or that. And, so that's, I think that there's there's been a lot more excitement or interest in AI rather than in human capital.
I think that, sometimes you just have to do the sifting through and I know it's painful and it's time consuming, but I do, we just had a hack day where we look to solve a problem and at the end of it, you have a presentation.
On my team, we had me and one of our designers, really great designer, Ron, and we were able to just put together a video with a, with an interface, aspect of it that was really well designed, and I was really happy with that, and I see some of the other teams, they didn't have that human capital they, and they're using AI to develop some of their slides, and I can see, the characters on the slides having multiple fingers, things just not-- so that's so distracting to me to see that, and maybe it's just in the creative stuff for me at least it just drives me crazy, it's not good enough, and I think that we rely on it way too much, and that, that really, of course we're gonna try to eliminate as much human capital as possible, but those are, I think, still really valuable things until we have these, perfect dream machines, I think it's great. It enables a lot to happen, it makes everybody a jack of all trades, but there's another half of that idiom that you're a master of none. And so I think that we're gonna lose out on a lot of that stuff if we rely on these technologies too much.
[00:30:39] Mary Loder: We are the divergent views on the podcast. I'm just kidding. Actually, we don't usually disagree, but we do disagree there. I can't wait to prove you wrong with my amazing prompt.
[00:30:48] Ricardo Leon: I can't wait for the "purple monkey dishwasher" podcast episode.
[00:30:52] John Nash: Ricardo, I appreciate what you're saying, and it goes back to what Brendice Marshall wrote in Medium, which I still gush about, which is there are these things that are un-AIable, and I think, I was hoping you'd also say, was it a hack day, or what was it? Yeah. Did you win?
Because I think those skills that you talked about are the ones that we still need in great measure to do great creative work that AI can't do.
[00:31:33] Mary Loder: we'll know what timestamps go where.
So he can quickly go timestamp to this one, timestamp to that one. Oh, that's the spot. That's the spot. And just like splice them all together. So I'm hopeful I prove you wrong, Ricardo, and we improve some of the experiences for you. Cause what you do is time consuming, although highly necessary and totally creative as well.
[00:31:50] Tom Pantazes: So I'm running a little experiment right now where we did the recording already. I grabbed the transcript, threw it into Claude and said, where would you cut this down? Like, how would you bring it down? And then it totally butchered the timestamps, but I held on to that and I'm going to do the edit myself.
I'm going to do the work I can normally do, but then I want to compare the two when I'm done to see if what it spit out actually would have helped me. And we'll see what we get. And I'll try to share back about that at some point.
[00:32:17] Mary Loder: Yeah, please email me and let me know if it works. Maybe I'll hold off on writing my prompt till I see her outcome.
[00:32:23] Lee Skallerup Bessette: But I think that this is where we have an opportunity, like I was saying, I've said this a lot that I think we not necessarily here in this podcast, but we within higher education and elsewhere having the wrong conversations.
In terms of how we're free, how the discussions are framed. I'm going to use that passive voice. And then one of the things that I've really enjoyed is in in podcasting and talking about it is getting to have that reframing. Getting to say, okay we're talking about it like this, but why aren't we talking about it like this?
Would it be more, would it be more beneficial? Would it be more generative and generous to talk about it in this kind of way, which is again, why I'm very. I've been very big on thinking about it as an assistive technology, because I think that's a way to reframe it in a way that it's it's not going to take over.
It's not going to Grammarly is an assistive technology, right? My alarm is an assistive technology. My calendar notifications are an assistive technology. In what ways can this be an assistive technology? and say, and thinking about what is it good at, what is it not good at, and then if we think about those affordances, like any digital tool, right? We go through this with any digital tool that comes out. What are its affordances? What is it good at? What is it not good at? Then how do we use it in our teaching and learning or in our lives? And so to be able to use these conversations as opportunities for reframing and rethinking and, having those moments of friction. I think that's the real power of it because, even, and I'm a writer, I love writing, but there's an immediacy to the podcast that, putting something out on the web now, particularly with, the, what formerly known as Twitter has gone downhill. tHere used to be an immediacy in those kinds of conversations that I think is being picked up again in podcasts when, as you're saying, people want to come on and have these conversations, and listen to them as well, because there's an immediacy to it that I think is really unique generally about podcasts.
[00:34:28] Josh Reppun: Ricardo, I, what you said really resonated with me. I, again, from a privileged position of having the time to do it, I spend two weeks getting ready for a guest, and I've developed a very kind of intricate Google Docs process of creating raw questions that come from information that's provided via an intake form.
And then I, once I have the big giant bank of raw questions. I start to move them over into a final script that I'm going to use in the interview. And last summer I find that process extremely humanizing for me. It's I'm like a huge fan of Warren Berger's "A More Beautiful Question," the book and it's just such a beautiful process to go through creating a beautiful question and last summer, just on a lark, I asked ChatGPT to create a dozen questions based on a short bio of a guest that I was about to do, and it just 20 seconds.
It suddenly did all the work that I would take two weeks to do. And I reared back from that like I just saw the devil. It was just horrible moment where I'm like, I'm not going there because it's going to take away from me my very human process of getting to know somebody. So what I think what you're saying is ,I writ large, I feel like we're in a moment where we have to have these conversations about where the humanity remains and where the technology becomes helpful to us.
And in podcasting, it's just a great medium to be able to have those kinds of conversations. So appreciate what you said.
[00:36:03] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I
appreciate that as well.
[00:36:06] Lee Skallerup Bessette: I think another thing that, that this also like in, in this moment that we're having is what are the systems in place that make it so We would want to use ChatGPT to save time,
[00:36:20] Josh Reppun: Yeah.
[00:36:21] Lee Skallerup Bessette: right? And that, like you were saying, the luxury of having two weeks to research and have those questions to be able to go forward.
But there is still this pressure of time, of efficiency, of whatever there is that, you know, that If I have a choice between two weeks and going through this very humane process and humanizing process versus five minutes with ChatGPT what are the systems that are informing my decision to pick one or the other?
This is pre tech, but when I was teaching at one point I got a TA and so the weekly quizzes that my students did, I could give that to my TA to grade. It was this huge class that was extraordinarily time consuming.
The trade off was, is I didn't get to know my students very well that semester because that was the way I did it. But , I was a PhD student. I had a dissertation to write. And so ChatGPT again is exposing a lot of these inequities and these pressures that have always been there and it's just really highlighting them and bringing them to the forefront and again, it's that thinking of reframing the conversation around generative AI to be able to say, okay what is this telling us more largely about our work practices, about work life balance, about our strategies about our values about all of these kinds of things.
And so that just to be able to blow that up and have again, those larger conversations about the society in which ChatGPT is growing and being adopted. And then also the nitty gritty of what is it good at? What can it do? Why is it doing what it does? And those kinds of things. So I think that there's that, that really great spectrum that we can hit on in this medium.
[00:38:00] Josh Reppun: Lee, I would add, there's I'm becoming aware now that there's a company called Magic School which is experiencing explosive growth. And basically Magic School is a tool that saves teachers time through generative AI. Awesome, glad there's explosive growth, but what are you doing with that time that you're now freed up to experiment with?
Like, how about you take, dip your toes into design thinking? How about if you dip your toes into real world assessments or deeper learning, assessments for deeper learning, right? That's the reframing of the conversation. If we give ourselves time, what do we do with that time? And that, that's what I think we can do as podcasters in 2024 is to start having those conversations with people about what they're going to do and how they're going to be more student focused.
[00:38:49] John Nash: The AI doesn't know what else you could do with your time because you decided to use AI and that's part of the problem. And I'm also appreciating all y'all's comments about the tireless and, generout list of questions that ChatGPT can give you -- it robs you of that Process by which you've decided to ask the question And it's that thing that we're always talking about is like how do we better humanize what we're doing in the presence of all this technology
[00:39:20] Ricardo Leon: And we're just this current generation of that too. I think about the students, the younger students who are coming along and this is just going to be. Ubiquitous. It's just, so that, that is really the, for me, the bummer is that the next generation of people where we're finding out ways to what are they going to be doing?
It's, what is work going to be in the future
[00:39:42] Jason Johnston: Yeah, my kids don't know a world without internet or even a world without cell phones. They will never experience what it is like to be wandering a country having to ask people for help.
[00:39:57] Lee Skallerup Bessette: Physical maps.
[00:39:59] Jason Johnston: or physical maps. It's interesting. It's...
[00:40:01] John Nash: hitchhike! Can I throw that in there? They're not going to know what it's-- man, I had to hitchhike in Ireland because they're like, how am I going to get back? I don't know. Put your thumb out. Oh,
[00:40:18] Jason Johnston: as we're seeing this kind of transition. And I think what intrigues me about AI is not. because I'm so enamored by it, but because I have a sense that this is a internet Gutenberg press kind of moment in time, there will be a before and afterwards and things are shifting in a way that we need to have our eyes open.
, one of the things about talking to different people with different perspectives, and even I appreciate what you're saying, Ricardo, and within my own team my media, more creative types, have a different approach and thoughts about this and then my instructional designers do. And I appreciate hearing all of those and it's giving me pause for both what I'm chasing after but also the way in which I speak about such things because it's helped me hopefully at the end of the day and I'm still growing and learning, but hopefully at the end of the day, it's not just about using the thing, but it is about me being more human and me being more empathetic and understanding about how all of this is affecting everyone around me and the people that are within my own touch.
[00:41:25] Mary Loder: I have one more gem to share from ASU. Sorry, Tom, I'm going to be fast. It's the Academic Risk Reduction Guide. So I'm going to give that to you to put in the show notes because we created that, and I don't say we, like me, I mean Deanna Soth, Tamara Mitchell, with the guidance of the Office of the Provost, created this awesome pedagogical guide.
And it's not focused on generative AI, but it helps to address generative AI through just good instructional design and pedagogy. So I just wanted to put that out there.
[00:41:54] Jason Johnston: Wonderful.
[00:41:55] Tom Pantazes: I was just going to point out that what I'm hearing is the not least the human aspects in it. As we move into these generative AI tools and their use, and I am reminded of those things that I've seen floating around. I may have even been from John, you may have posted one of these, but they're like AI writes the questions and then the AI answers the questions and there's no human work or understanding or labor that takes place in that scenario.
And I've seen lots of variations of that. So, how do we help folks, or at least in my role, how do we help folks create situations and scenarios where we're using AI as that? assist and not in a way that removes the humanity and the situations in the work that we do.
[00:42:35] Jason Johnston: That's good. Yeah. And how do we work at our own communities, whether it's our podcasting community or working community to help, as you were talking about, Mary, bringing together some guidelines to, to help that we can form together. So it's not just one segment of the population. And as you brought up, Lee, which I so appreciate, we're thinking about how this impacts multiple kinds of learners and And also, Ricardo, in terms of different workers and different aspects of what our work looks like I firmly believe that we can form ethics that are objective, meaning that there are ones that we.
We form together as groups of people and we can fiercely defend and fiercely move forward to help guide us during these times. And I think that if we can't do it in our educational circles, I don't know who's going to be able to do it really. So we can't depend on the ed tech folks to do it.
We can't depend on the AI companies are not going to bring up black box transparency and things like this, right? So I think that we are some of the people that need to be doing that and as well using our platforms to help move that forward. They're
[00:43:50] Josh Reppun: if I could add Mary to your comment I think one of the things that I've been thinking about partly as a result of all the work of doing these episodes over the course of 2023, which is a fantastic learning curve that any host would be on been thinking a lot about how maybe a little bit worried about the potential for uneven presentation of professional development around AI.
Very similar to what happened in EdTech, very similar to what happened with project based learning. When that became a word or a phrase for people, there were lots of entities that jumped into the arena to offer professional development around project based learning, but a lot of it was really uneven, and a lot of it really wasn't student focused, and I worry a little bit now, and I think, is that going to play out with AI, and who are the entities that we really trust in this space who are going to deliver the professional development that is student centered and is focused on learner centered pedagogy.
That's something that's been on my mind and something I'd like to keep on my mind as I go through episodes in the, in 2024.
[00:45:01] Tom Pantazes: I trust these guys on this podcast called "Online Learning in the Second Half."
[00:45:05] Josh Reppun: Good place, great resource. Absolutely.
[00:45:09] John Nash: I've met those guys. They're not thought leaders.
[00:45:12] Mary Loder: I
[00:45:13] Jason Johnston: More question leaders than anything else. I think those guys have. fewer things to say and more things to stir up. Yeah,
[00:45:20] John Nash: Yeah.
[00:45:20] Lee Skallerup Bessette: But it brings up a good point though. And I think you're I think you're really right on this is that this is a space where I think podcasts can really fill a gap in that sense where it, I know, I'm at Georgetown now we are very well resourced, we are, our center is very well staffed, we are doing all the things to support faculty in teaching and learning with AI and a myriad of other things.
I've also worked at regional comprehensive public institutions where there isn't a kind of robust support for faculty and staff around any of these things. I think project based learning again, I think that's a, that's an excellent example where, these podcasts like this become a way for.
the dissemination of knowledge and the dissemination of discussions. And that was, it was one of the things that being at a regional comprehensive, I found most difficult was this sense of isolation. Who else is thinking these things? Who else is having these conversations? Nobody, again, the time factor, everybody's on 4, 4 or 5, 4 course loads.
How are we, how can we deal with any of this stuff? And to be able to listen in on conversations, participate in these conversations know that other people are having these conversations and thoughtful ways that we'd hope to be having them on our own campus, being able to bring them to our colleagues and peers.
I think again, that's one of the strengths of having podcasts like these and having these conversations is again, providing. prOviding resources and hoping those resources get to places where they wouldn't have typically gotten in the past.
[00:47:00] Mary Loder: I mean, for instance, thank you for the ability to plug again. At ASU online, we have these webinars. They're open to anybody. They're free. So educators, please go to asuonline. eventbrite. com and join our instructional designers and our faculty in the conversations and presentations around learner centered pedagogy.
[00:47:18] Jason Johnston: great. Yeah. And I think we're all in agreement. A hundred percent of the those surveyed, I think, say yes to what you're saying there, Lee, about the, some of the strength and purpose of podcasting. And at that, why don't we, why don't we spend a minute to go around and just let us know how we can find your podcast as we are wrapping things up here.
Maybe starting with Lee, tell us how we can find you and listen.
[00:47:41] Lee Skallerup Bessette: It's all the things ADHD. It is available if you just search all the things ADHD on just about every podcast distribution service. Wow. I can't even think of the word for that right now. What is it? Platform. That's it. Syndicators. There we go. Or you can go to allthethingsadhd. com where we also have every single one of our episodes. That's where the RSS feed is generated for all of the other platforms. And you can find me online as ReadyWriting on literally all the socials. I just went through and claimed it on all of them. And I'll, I also share the podcast there when we do actually get around to recording it every once in a while.
[00:48:21] Jason Johnston: That's great. Mary and Ricardo?
[00:48:24] Ricardo Leon: We are "Course Stories". Or you can listen to us anywhere that you find podcasts. Also I, like I said earlier in the episode we, I am producing a program called "Space for Humans," which can be found on YouTube starting in January. And that is a weekly show. It's about us designing it's a partnership with the Interplanetary Initiative. And we are talking about how we design space futures and that are inclusive and accessible.
[00:48:51] Mary Loder: And if you want our show notes, which has like bios and all the links to all the things people share, that's at teach online forward slash podcasts forward slash course dash stories. We need a better website for that, but you can just go to teachonline. asu. com. And we're under podcasts.
[00:49:09] Jason Johnston: And we'll put all these in the show notes as well. Tom?
[00:49:13] Tom Pantazes: So oddly on air, oddly spelled O D L I when you're searching for it in your podcast provider of choice, but you can also catch our episodes and our links from our wcu -tlc. org website.
[00:49:28] Jason Johnston: wonderful.
[00:49:29] Josh Reppun: Yep. And so you can find the What School Could Be podcast and all of the podcast platforms, including Apple and and everything else. You can also go to whatschoolcouldbe. org and in the nav bar at the top, just tap on podcasts and that'll take you directly to my podcast website.
And Mary, just feedback on what you said in terms of learner centered, student driven learning at whatschoolcouldbe. org. If you go to the NavBar and tap on Innovation Playlist, that's another awesome resource for student driven learning.
It's really nice. That we're all working now a little bit more deliberately in these spaces where students are the center of the conversation.
And Jason, I guess this is the right moment to mention that you and John and I have been working on a project here. Which is something called the Network of Education Podcasters.
And when this episode goes live, there will be. An NEP group on LinkedIn, and we invite anyone who's podcasting, hosting, producing in the education space or related spaces to join us on LinkedIn, and we'll just keep this conversation going. Lee, I loved what you said about how, if we as podcasters are all talking to each other, there's no possible way that we can all listen to each other's episodes, there's not enough time in the day, right?
But when we have these kinds of conversations, we actually can. Move the thought leadership forward over the course of the next couple of years. And I love that idea and it puts fuel on my tank and makes me want to just keep right on going. Network of education, podcasters on LinkedIn, join us and we'll start working together.
[00:51:11] Jason Johnston: Sounds great. And we are found at onlinelearningpodcast. com. You can find all the show notes that will include all of these links, as well as information about each of these fine people that joined us today in our show notes. So please find us there or on LinkedIn. I think everybody's on LinkedIn.
You could probably find us and hit us up there as well and make some connections because it's not just about for us. And I think all of you. It's not just about the one way dissemination of information, but also about creating community and connections and getting your questions and your feedback. We'd love to hear what you think about this podcast and others.
So right.
[00:51:46] John Nash: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm grateful to you, Jason, for helping us put this all together. It's like you're the Gary Shandling and I'm your Hank. I think that's how.
[00:51:56] Jason Johnston: I have a vague idea of what that means, but not completely.
[00:52:02] John Nash: Yeah, that's right.
[00:52:03] Lee Skallerup Bessette: We lost anyone under the age of 40 just right now. That was it. Anyone under the age of 40 is I don't know what is going on at the moment.
[00:52:10] John Nash: We'll put a Hank "Hey now!" Gif in the show notes.
[00:52:14] Tom Pantazes: That would help me out.
[00:52:17] Jason Johnston: It's a positive thing though, John. That was a positive thing?
[00:52:20] John Nash: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you're, yeah, you're glib and interesting and I just go, "yeah, that." So
[00:52:25] Jason Johnston: Oh, I see. So it was a little self depreciating. That's not the case at all. But yeah, for sure. Oh, that's good. Thank you, everybody. It was great to talk. This was a great conversation. Appreciate all of you. And we'll see you out there in the In the podcasting world someplace.
[00:52:41] John Nash: Yeah,
[00:52:42] Josh Reppun: Thank you, Jason. Thank
you,
John.
[00:52:43] Ricardo Leon: Thank
[00:52:44] Lee Skallerup Bessette: you so
[00:52:44] Tom Pantazes: for having us.
[00:52:45] Jason Johnston: Yeah.
Outro
[00:52:48] Lee Skallerup Bessette: I love how even when we record podcasts, we all wave like
[00:52:51] Mary Loder: I literally, yeah, I couldn't even help myself. Yes, absolutely.
Tuesday Dec 19, 2023
Tuesday Dec 19, 2023
In this episode, John and Jason talk about dangers and opportunities in the second half of online life, from their Online Learning Consortium (OLC) 2023 presentation and “live off the OLC floor” interviews. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
See slides from the full presentation here
More about OLC here
Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!
False Start
[00:00:00] John Nash: I took a class from a professional in San Francisco for voice acting. I thought I wanted to be a voice actor. So yeah, that
[00:00:07] Jason Johnston: and here you are doing a podcast. You basically are a voice actor, except you happen to be acting like John
[00:00:13] John Nash: Like John Nash, not like Barney the dinosaur, or doing my Louis Armstrong imitation or something like that.
Start of Episode
[00:00:20] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:23] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is online learning in the second half, the online learning podcast.
[00:00:28] John Nash: Yeah. And we are doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last two and a half years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great. And some of it is, but, a lot still isn't. And so how are we going to get to the next stage?
[00:00:43] Jason Johnston: That is a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?
[00:00:47] John Nash: That's perfect. What do you want to talk about today?
[00:00:50] Jason Johnston: So John, would you call yourself a techno? optimist or a techno pessimist? Do you think we're, all of this is winding up into a better world? Or is technology taking us down this path of doomsday and destruction?
[00:01:06] John Nash: If the left side is doomsday and destruction and the right side is optimism and happiness, I'm a cautious optimist. I'm, I think I'm a little bit to the right of a cautious optimist. I'm no Mark Andreessen who's recently come out with a tech manifesto suggesting that anybody who doesn't believe the bros in Silicon Valley can fix everything is crazy. I'm not like that at all.
I do worry about my own critical thinking around technology and how it may be exacerbating environmental problems and social problems. Because I love playing with these tools so much, I think I'm clouded a little at times, but I'm, yeah , I'm right of center on if being right is optimistic I'm over there.
[00:01:55] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I think I'm, find myself in the same space, not because I necessarily have a lot of optimism around technology. I do think it's pretty consumer driven and profit driven. And so that doesn't build in me a lot of optimism for its final outcome. However, I have an optimistic view of humanity, one that we typically work together towards our own survival when it comes down to it, and that there are a lot more good people in this world than bad people. And I think that maybe I'm an idealist and that I think the good will win out over, but not because I believe technology is going to save us by any means, but because there are a Usually enough good people that are helping to drive technology that I think we'll get to a better place.
[00:02:46] John Nash: Yes. Yes, I think that's well put. I think I'm in the same space you are because we're both educators and we surround ourselves with other educators who are interested in applying the use of technology to help learners achieve their goals. I'm not on the side of thinking "the technology we need to have in place to save the world is that which puts billionaires in space."
I'm not thinking that's the way to go, but you're right. I think when we surround ourselves with people who are interested in applying technology, particularly the technology that allows us to have online learning, and create more equitable, lower cost, high impact activities, then I think we're in a good place.
[00:03:29] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I agree. . So you don't think you're going to climb into the next Mars shuttle to help expand us into a multi planet species?
[00:03:37] John Nash: Now, I'm not in line for that. I'll watch the rockets leave earth.
[00:03:40] Jason Johnston: Oh yeah. I will too. I would love to watch the rockets leave, but I don't have any interest in doing it nor do I think it's the best place. I think we have enough issues and good things to put our money towards here on this planet with these people that we have in front of us that I'm not really in line with that.
[00:03:57] John Nash: Yeah, I agree. So where does that put us? We're both on the optimistic side of center here. But that doesn't mean we're not without some dangers.
[00:04:08] Jason Johnston: That's right. And so today I would love to talk about our last OLC presentation, but around the theme of turning dangers into opportunities in online learning. Online learning in the second half. looking at the dangers, turning them into opportunities.
How does that sound?
[00:04:26] John Nash: Yeah, that sounds really good. And let's remind our listeners what OLC is. That's the Online Learning Consortium and they hold two major conferences every year, and this fall conference was in Washington, DC
[00:04:42] Jason Johnston: Fall of 2023. If you're listening to us in the future, it's fall 2023.
And also we're sorry. That's the other part. If you're listening to us in the future we really are trying our best, but I know we could have done more. That's all.
[00:04:55] John Nash: That's right. So we had a presentation where we were able to talk with participants at the conference about the potential challenges that we have in front of us with online learning and really disambiguating those from the dangers that we might face. Also have in front of us. Jason, I think the word danger might sound a little alarmist to some of our listeners.
Maybe we ought to put that into context. Also,
[00:05:22] Jason Johnston: Yeah, and we found that as we were talking to people, so we roamed the snack area, basically, and accosted people with our microphone, asking them this big question, and I think a lot of times, "dangers" took them back just a little bit and say, danger, could I talk about a concern or a problem?
And it was said, yes, but we're really looking for dangers. We're thinking about the big threats here, the big kind of more existential threats to online learning. What are the big things that come to mind? But we did talk a little bit about what "challenges" were versus "dangers," which challenges are more like the obstacles or difficulties, things that you could overcome with some effort and creativity and so on dangers, really these bigger challenges that potentially could pose significant risks or threats and have some harmful consequences if they're not addressed.
[00:06:13] John Nash: Let's also put some more context on the danger and the things that we're concerned about. The people that go to the Online Learning Consortium meetings, there are certainly some vendors who supply tools and packages and other technology for institutions of higher ed and P 12 to do online learning, but It's also significantly populated with instructional designers and people who are really interested in bringing about higher quality experiences for learners in online environments.
And so when we talk about dangers, we're really talking about what may be in front of us that could really threaten quality of learning experience. Is that fair?
[00:06:56] Jason Johnston: I think so. I think most of the people that we talked to are well versed in building online classes, not just from a theoretical stance, but a practical stance of getting in there and making them happen from a quality standpoint. And so that certainly puts a particular context on this. Nobody was talking to us about the enrollment cliff or things like that.
They tended to be around more of the issues that are apparent within the course and programs that are being delivered online.
[00:07:29] John Nash: Yeah.
[00:07:31] Jason Johnston: Shall we listen to a few quotes from the OLC floor?
[00:07:34] John Nash: Yeah, absolutely. Let's get on the floor interrupt some some snack time that people are having and hear what they were thinking was a potential danger to online learning in the future.
OLC FLOOR INTERVIEWS
Yeah. My name's John Ruzicka. I'm with learning Sandbox. I feel like the greatest danger to online learning is overreliance on what I would call the shiny new object. So a couple of years ago at this conference, you might've heard a lot of talk about the metaverse.
Today, it's all about generative AI, open AI. And so what will it be in the next couple of two or three years? It depends. I mean, of course, these are topical things we need to all think about and know about and experiment with, but I think the over reliance and over indexing on that new technology could be a distraction.
My name is Carrie Kennedy. I'm here with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and I would say the biggest danger or risk that I'd like to make sure that my university avoids is being too slow to consider workforce impact and mobile pathways between non credit to academic credit.
I think we're already a little bit behind in doing that and I think to, you know, keep up with demands of employers and skill gaps that we need to have those pathways in place.
I'm Ellen Rogers with Penn State University. Big concern might be, if the faculty get too good at all this online learning and instruction, what happens to the need for instructional designers?
Bill Egan, instructional designer of Penn State World Campus, one of the biggest threats play off.
of that, what if we get rid of faculty, because we're using things like AI and other certain content experts to generate the content, which is one of the biggest obstacles from an instructional design perspective, is working with faculty, getting content on time, etc. So I answered a question with a question.
I'm Cody House, I'm the Director of Academic Programs at George Washington University with the College of Professional Studies. I see the thing that most influences or should be challenging to higher education and online learning in the next few years is how slowly institutions are to accept change and to embrace innovations.
You know, obviously I feel like to this question, most people have probably said generative AI. But I think even that conversation shows you how slow institutions are to figure out what their stances on changing. They're coming up with committees about committees to figure out nomenclature for new terms and new credential terminology.
And so I think that institutions need to just figure out how to streamline processes and make decisions quicker to accept change and move on to the next thing.
Jamie Holcomb, and I'm with Unitech Learning, and I think one of the greatest challenges for online learning coming up will be the disparity between the consumer experience and the online learning experience.
And the expectations that consumers have for the quality of interactions that they have from other platforms where they engage with frequently. I think online learning is lagging there. So, to me, that's one of the greatest challenges we have coming up.
I'm Carrie Brown Parker from North Carolina State University, and I guess I think the danger in terms of student work or student productivity maybe is AI tools, although there's also a great inspiration there for instructors to get creative and do new work with students.
Caleb Hutchins instructional designer for the community colleges of Spokane. I think the greatest danger is probably commercialization, to be honest.
I perceive that a lot of different colleges are moving towards standardized publisher content as much as possible. And I think that I think that more and more it's taking away instructor agency and instructor interaction with students. I think publisher content has its place, but I think that when it starts to become a replacement for the teacher, then we have a problem.
My name is Dr. Sonja Dennis, I'm with Morehouse College. So I think the biggest threat would be the lack of in depth knowledge, or lack of in depth understanding where students have at their fingertip so much information, are they really having any deep learning occurring?
MY name is John Moraine LaSalle. I am with Montclair State University. Specifically, I'm an instructional designer, part of the team. And I think that what could potentially be one of the biggest dangers While I want to say it's potentially artificial intelligence, it's not specifically that, but I think it's more so the growing danger of feeling isolated in the online environment, and I feel that artificial intelligence poses the risk of making it even easier for students to disconnect from each other.
They're already struggling in the online environment sometimes with that. So that is what I think the bigger threat is from AI. Not so much, Oh, they could use it to try to get a solution or an answer, but how it could, it could basically almost like Pavlovian make them just immediately go, I'm going to go to chat GPT to figure out what is the best way to discuss the best way to find an answer or a solution than rather than your actual peers in this virtual environment with you.
My name is Yingjie Liu. I'm the leading instructional designer from San Jose State University. I Would say We might, we might be too slow to catch up what's going on in the, in the world, especially like with, with XR with AI. Like we, we are slowly to integrate those into our teaching and learning.
But I, uh, I'm wondering when the students are already using the technology like AI in their learning how we. Update our teaching, especially the, our pedagogy, best practice to catch up with what's going on and what students need, right? So the students might have different ways to learn, they might have different practices.
Preference which will be different and we are, we are exploring that direction. Just hope we catch the speed of things evolving.
My name is Vincent DelCassino and I'm at San Jose State University.
That's a really interesting question. I think the potential for it to become so diffuse that it loses its center point. In the sense that anyone thinks they could get into the game, and it has the potential to lose the kind of engaged pedagogical value. That you sometimes see when, and I think one of the areas is in corporate in particular.
Going out there and building courses and programs and thinking like, they've nailed what we haven't been able to deliver on. But some of the criticality, some of the other things like that can have a real impact on how people think and imagine what value higher ed brings. And we tend to move a little slower sometimes.
But I would argue with a little more thoughtfulness. But I think that could be a risk for us in the future.
END FLOOR INTERVIEWS
[00:14:52] John Nash: Yeah, wow, so what'd you think of those, Jason?
[00:14:56] Jason Johnston: Yeah, there were some parts that I was not surprised and some of the themes that were coming out, especially those around AI and institutional change quality and so on. But yeah, it was really interesting to talk to people just to get their initial reaction on the floor.
[00:15:13] John Nash: Yeah, you never know where people are heading with what their concerns are going to be. We hear them talking about over reliance on new technologies, maybe slow adaptation to workforce needs, to redundancy of instructional designers. It's a conference of instructional designers, of course. AI is on everybody's mind.
Will they be put out of a job? Will faculty be put out of a job? So I think that's, yeah, it's interesting. And then, of course the ever present institutional resistance to change.
[00:15:44] Jason Johnston: Yes. Yeah, which, we talked about a little bit is, and we'll go through and talk about these individually, but is both probably to our benefit and to our demise in some ways, our resistance to change, right? How quickly we move into things like this,
[00:15:59] John Nash: I think it's, yeah it's a risk to our demise. I think that the glacial pace of change in a lot of places is going to be a threat going forward. At the same time, I'm not advocating a move fast and break things approach, but I think we need to find a more middle ground. I think the institution's responsiveness to change through their leadership, to understand what expertise is need to be brought to bear to.
Fix the problems in front of us is just not, it's not responsive enough.
[00:16:31] Jason Johnston: But aren't you from San Francisco? Aren't you one of the bros?
[00:16:33] John Nash: I am not one of the bros because I don't know how to code. I can write rudimentary HTML, but that's about it.
[00:16:40] Jason Johnston: Okay. I thought everybody from San Francisco just believed in, in moving fast and breaking things and seeing what happens.
[00:16:47] John Nash: Yeah I like to prototype things. And and I grew up in Menlo Park where all the VCs are. But but I am not a VC myself, nor do I really know any.
[00:16:56] Jason Johnston: Huh. Interesting. As we were looking at this, we were looking at a pivot, listening to what people were saying from the floor, listening to what people were saying in our conference room, and thinking about how we could create this pivot of transforming dangers into opportunities. What are the top dangers?
And then how could we pivot to opportunities? And we came up with this three part response and approach, which is to assess the threat level. Is it a real danger? How likely will this danger destroy a fundamental part of academic life? And then two, how could we simply survive the danger?
What are the basic skills necessary? And then three, how could we then thrive within this danger or in response to this danger. Use it as an opportunity to create a better, in our case, in our theme, more humanized online Education.
[00:17:52] John Nash: sort of level of discussion where we were talking about the threat level and is it a real danger was really important for folks we were talking to because it, it helps us start to disentangle hyperbole from real concerns. I mean, you get into a room with enough people and there's always going to be some kind of complaint about something that's going on, but is it going to be a real threat?
Is what we're hearing in the rumor mill and the, in the world around AI. And right now we're, we are recording this at the time in which open AI's board has fired Sam Altman, their CEO. Is this a real threat to what we're going to do? No. So I think vetting those discussions in such a way that we think about what is the real danger, reframing it to something that's actually.
Then taking it to a discussion where are we going to survive this? And then how can we actually thrive it? How can we flip it on its head?
[00:18:46] Jason Johnston: And so that we could be specific, we tried to frame the dangers that we're going to present here as the danger of blank to the existence of blank so that we could actually be really specific. So it doesn't become just this just kind of nebulous danger that's out there, but what exactly, if it is a danger, what exactly is it a danger to?
So our first one that was coming up over and over again, obviously a big topic of conversation, was around AI, but specifically, danger number one, AI threatening our ability to assess student learning in online courses. What do you think the threat level is for this? AI threatening our ability to assess student learning in online courses.
What do you think the threat level is and why?
[00:19:36] John Nash: I think the threat level is is in the middle there. If we're going from like a one to a five we're about at a three. I think that AI's threat to our collective ability as instructors to assess student learning in online courses is as large as the instructor's capacity to understand their ability to pivot and change what they assign. I'm going to go back to an, it's not the old adage because AI has only been around 51 weeks, by the way, at this point in time, as we record.
And but it's an...
[00:20:10] Jason Johnston: Happy birthday,
[00:20:11] John Nash: you
[00:20:11] Jason Johnston: AI.
[00:20:12] John Nash: Happy birthday, GPT 3. 5. The adage is something as follows. If you're assigning work that can be done by AI, you need to rethink what you're assigning. And I think that's where the threat sits. So the question is then how do we survive across that but what do you think the threat level is there?
Do you think that AI threatens our ability to assess student learning in online courses?
[00:20:35] Jason Johnston: I think that, yeah, my answer is it's hard to give it a number because it depends, right? And so I think in short, I would say high for those that are inflexible to change and rethinking their assignments, but also high for people or programs where the typical assignment that is being assessed easily replicated by AI, meaning that it's not just about rethinking the process towards whatever it is that you're learning, but this final product is something that could be easily replicated by AI.
So I think it has a high threat to those kind of programs and people and a more challenging threat, I would say. So how do we survive this threat then if we've assessed it and then we're looking to survive it?
[00:21:24] John Nash: I think that one thing that instructors can think about to just merely survive is to start to communicate with their students the presence of AI and how they feel about it they meaning, how does the instructor feel about it and how do students feel about it themselves? And so there's this communication component that I think is going to be the lowest level threshold and highest impact thing at the surviving level.
If you're not prepared to think about your assignments in terms of redesigning them or thinking about the way you assess the assignments that you give at least you could be talking about what it is you believe about this and why you also believe the assignments you give are the ones that you want to do.
[00:22:07] Jason Johnston: Yeah. So taking an active communication stance, being transparent. We heard a lot of people talking about creating policies and principles, which I think are ways to survive, but not necessarily thrive, but they are ways to approach things. And that maybe comes in with some of your communication.
Being in a place where you can really test out, figure out what AI is doing and how it affects. So it's not just this unknown boogeyman threat in the closet. And I don't know what it looks like, but you have a clear sense of, I've heard of instructors basically putting their assignments into AI to see what it would spit out.
And that gives you a clear sense of really where this threat is at rather than this unknown nebulous kind of threat.
[00:22:49] John Nash: Yeah. So what about thriving? How do we flip this on its head?
[00:22:54] Jason Johnston: Yeah, one of the first things that we had talked about was our conversation with Dr. Brandeis Marshall on episode 18 about making assignments un-AIable. And I think that's one way to thrive is, as we've talked about beyond just the communication transparency, but actually reforming, re imagining our assignments under the influence of AI, in the age of AI, so that we could be thinking about how these assignments could not only help us really assess where the students are at, but actually prepare them for a future of work and life and scholarship within AI.
[00:23:30] John Nash: Yeah, that's right. When we talked to Dr. Marshall on episode 18 that was really inspirational and it made me think about ways in which assignments could be turned into more public demonstrations of learning, more about oral defense of ideas. And a polite pushback to that might be that, that takes more time. If I'm gonna do an oral defensive ideas with every student and I have 200 students, that's may not be scalable. So I think we also have to be thinking as a community how we can support instructors at scale.
[00:24:05] Jason Johnston: Yeah. All these ideas, not assuming that there's a one size fits all or a silver bullet. That's going to solve this for every single kind of program and class size and so on. We got to be thoughtful about this. That's right. Yeah,
[00:24:19] John Nash: One way we might think about scale that could work in larger classes and inside a learning management system is, for instance, letting students cheat on purpose with ChatGPT or Claude or Bard and then ask them to rate the quality of that response to a prompt that you might ordinarily just give to students on their own.
And so you start to get to this sort of metacognitive critical thinking lens going and you get ideas as instructor on what the AI can really do and also help students see the limitations of what AI can do.
[00:24:58] Jason Johnston: That's good. And we talked a little bit about scaling online classes and humanizing those classes with Dr. Enilda Romero-Hall in episode 13. And within that thinking too, about how we might focus on skills and maybe focus on grading in those situations as well. And those are things that could be scaled because it's just a shift in what it is we're assessing and also just a different process in terms of grading, which it could actually turn into, let's say on the surface level, less work, not more work for the instructor when it comes to assessing where their students are at.
[00:25:34] John Nash: Yes, and Dr. Romero Hall's presence in the classroom is really predicated on a community presence and with a feminist pedagogy lens bringing in student voice along the way. And so that could also be scaled to some extent through the LMS and through polling and questions and even discussion posts to say, how might we together consider how we want to address this learning goal in the presence of AI and with these kind of activities that we must get done? That could happen as a community.
[00:26:08] Jason Johnston: Yeah, it reminds me of a quote that I ran into this last week by Paulo Friere and the quote is this, "the answer does not lie in the rejection of the machine, but rather in the humanization of man (or people)." This is from "Education of Critical Consciousness."
And what reminds me of this idea of we, we just can't, we can't have large classes and actually humanize them. That may not be the case, right? We can think about our approaches even in the face of AI. We can think about our approaches in large classes that may be because of AI, it's forcing us to then think about the humanization of students within the context of these large classes in ways that we didn't have to think about before because we were just following what Paolo would also call "the massification of education."
We're just following this incremental enlargement of the class size and without really critically reflecting upon what it means to continue to humanize the students in these contexts.
[00:27:10] John Nash: And that's related to the webinar we did recently with the group from Inscribe, looking at the impact of AI on student connection and belonging. With AI,we are able to explore opportunities in large classes to help differentiate instruction, to help think about ways to advance belonging and large swaths of students. So I think that there's ways to get at this if you're thoughtful about it.
[00:27:35] Jason Johnston: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, there's so much there. I just read a great article about belonging from a research with 26, 000 students across 22 institutions. Anyways, that's a whole nother episode. We should go there. We should find somebody that can talk to us about that. And let's do a whole episode on belonging online.
Let's move on to danger to though. So this is what we saw from our group and from the floor of OLC, danger number two was institutional resistance to change in pedagogical approaches. So what do you think the threat level of this is?
[00:28:07] John Nash: I don't know, maybe I'm too close to the mothership, but I feel like it's a little high. I'll give it a four out of five.
[00:28:14] Jason Johnston: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it, for me, again I'm sorry for this big cop out, but it depends, right? I think there's certain units and certain programs that are embracing change. There are others that are quite resistant. And I think there's certainly ways in which a lot of people across units are wanting to hold on to the way we've always done things versus, versus adapting.
So for instance, they want to just have, TurnItIn 2.0 so that it can detect AI versus rethinking the way that we're interacting with students around plagiarism detection and our relationship with students.
[00:28:53] John Nash: Yeah, I mean, what I would hope for is that as institutions think they're responding to the need for change, it's not that they're bringing in new tools like the "TurnItIn 3.0," that's going to let us catch more cheaters, but rather they're thinking about ways to do capacity building that are akin to what we learned from Olysha McGruder's episode and what they do at Johns Hopkins in the School of Engineering, which is everybody who's teaching an online program has to go through the online instructional design process. And so my institution doesn't necessarily require that. I think that would be, that would raise the tide for all the quality across our institution if we did that and right now I think it's more akin to here are tools you can use and we hope you use them.
[00:29:41] Jason Johnston: Yeah, which is probably some of the survival part of it is like we, we have provided you with some tools to use and give you some guidance around that, maybe surviving this threat level right now in terms of this change that AI is bringing about, this disruption really, AI is a disruptor it's not a calculator, I don't think. I've decided that's an interesting analogy about AI being like the calculator.
It's not really like a calculator because it crosses so many boundaries of everything, it's a disrupter across every single discipline and so part of this survival is maybe giving people some ways to adapt and giving them guidance and so on. How would we thrive though in response to the danger of institutions resisting change?
So how do we turn this into something that, that could really take us into a second half of online life , that we're imagining?
[00:30:41] John Nash: I think that when institutions can become learning organizations and start to see the richness of the opportunity when they are able to build capacity amongst faculty, create environments where faculty want to learn, and also for Research-One institutions like you and I are at, incentive structures for faculty to be really interested in taking on that capacity building.
[00:31:08] Jason Johnston: Yeah, that's good. And I think along with that too, that learning organization, capacity building, creating systems and positions that help us adopt and adapt to innovations. So creating pockets to test and educate and try out new things and help us with this transition of new technologies, I think is really important.
I've heard more and more people getting assigned these kinds of roles, like a dean of AI and these kind of things to help move us in that direction, and I think that is really important because I think faculty are really busy, and they're just trying to make it through the semester and I think that they would welcome people who are taking the time to really dig into this and come from an institutional standpoint, guardrails up and think about how this change is affecting and should be affecting
[00:32:01] John Nash: Yeah, there's a quote that came across my desk. Have you heard of the app Readwise?
[00:32:07] Jason Johnston: Oh, yeah. Yep. Yep.
[00:32:08] John Nash: One of my doctoral students recommended Readwise, and its connection the app, Notion, and I get a little push of everything I've highlighted on my Kindle. There's a quote from Daniel Priestley in his book, "24 Assets." And he says, "Systems aren't there to replace people, they are there to make your life easier."
So I think thriving also means that institutions will put into place the resources to create systems that really work across the spectrum of services that we provide as faculty and that the staff do to make things go.
[00:32:41] Jason Johnston: Yeah, that's good. Could you say that quote one more time?
[00:32:44] John Nash: Yeah, "systems aren't there to replace people. They are there to make your life easier. Your teams, your customers, yours. Everybody's life."
[00:32:53] Jason Johnston: That's good. So danger number three, increasingly low quality of online education. So the threat, the danger is low, increasingly low quality of online education. I'll say just from the top that, this seemed to really resonate with the people that we were talking to. Of course, we were with a bunch of instructional designers who were concerned about online education getting watered down, about it becoming a much more mechanized, much more shovelware.
And I think I share that concern as well. That's probably a higher concern for me than a concern around AI taking over things. How about for you?
[00:33:29] John Nash: Yeah I am concerned about that. And I think I want to frame our danger a little bit. because the way we've stated it here, "increasingly low quality of online education," suggests that we are on a downward trend. I think that the threat really is that there's a chance that we will see an increase in low quality of online education doesn't that sound like we're saying it's, there is an increasingly low quality of online education?
[00:33:54] Jason Johnston: I think that is a danger is that online education will not get better. It's going to get worse. It's going to go lower and lower quality as we develop this out into this next next decade.
[00:34:06] John Nash: And that threat manifests itself because of potentially crowded vendor marketplace, a potential run to make money in the space what have you.
[00:34:16] Jason Johnston: Yeah. And tied in with the AI as well. I'm not a,
[00:34:19] John Nash: yes.
[00:34:20] Jason Johnston: I'm not a fortune teller, but I guarantee you a year from now, we're going to have thousands more online learning opportunities that have been created by AI as a subject matters expert. So we're not working with subject matter experts anymore on this.
There are people just cranking these things out because the access to the information is there and there's an opportunity to get it in front of people and maybe make a couple of bucks or not.
[00:34:47] John Nash: Yes, I think that's a part of that threat. And how do I feel about it? I was concerned that the level of quality of online learning that presented itself during the pandemic, which was horrid would bring people to a certain belief that this is what good online learning looks like, or I guess this is as good as it's going to get.
And a lot of new people came into the space with not a lot of experience-- good teachers who had never taught online before, but then did not so great online. teaching and learning. And so I wondered if that was going to, and I posed that question to Dr. Olysha McGruder on episode 20, and she actually turned me around a little bit on that and said yeah, but you know what?
Look at all the people who got exposed to teaching online and, that's more people than would have otherwise. And so at least we have those people knowing that you can teach online and that there is a, there's a light at the end of that tunnel where you can get better and better at it.
[00:35:42] Jason Johnston: Yeah, and there are interventions that can happen to help us get there. And I guess talking about the surviving, would that be surviving or that was really moving into that thriving. I think surviving would be things perhaps like applying quality rubrics and continuing to bang the drum of we've got to continue to have quality online, for all the reasons that we should be building quality online.
I think thriving into that, though, is really continuing to work heavily recognizing the importance of working with our instructors, not just to develop good online learning courses, but also have the right tools and approaches to, to make those courses good, to make them excellent, right?
[00:36:27] John Nash: Yeah. I think that one thing that going online lays bare for new instructors in the space is that good instructional design trumps everything. And so there's a lot of things that you can get around and avoid when you're teaching face to face. You have that sort of context, but when you start to move online, you've really got to have quality rubrics, good instructional design have some professional development under your belt on how to really have a presence online. So yeah, I think you're right.
[00:36:57] Jason Johnston: And of course, in our last episode we talked with Alicia Magruder about a Coursera course that she created about excellence. And teaching online. And the other cool thing is that on December 12th, we were invited to do a podcast wrap up session for their conference called the Excellence in Online Teaching Symposium.
And this is just a, this is just a plug, of course, but a, also just an excellent moment to stop and say, yeah, we can always learn more, and this is how we thrive. in the face of the potential of low quality is by continuing to connect with peers, continuing to work the professional development, look for these opportunities to continue to grow and to learn and get better.
[00:37:47] John Nash: Yeah, I learn best from concrete examples that I can copy and steal. And I think that, and I'm happy to do the same for others. I think that this opportunity with the Johns Hopkins School of Engineering showing excellent examples of online learning is a model for what we need to see more of.
[00:38:05] Jason Johnston: So as we think about wrapping up on this OLC discussion around the dangers of future dangers of online learning what are your overall thoughts about our approach or about your optimism for what we have in the years to come?
[00:38:22] John Nash: I think we don't want to come off as alarmist talking about danger, but I think we can take some time here like we did today to understand challenges versus dangers. Challenges are the hurdles that can be overcome with some effort and the dangers are significant threats that could have potentially harmful outcomes for the way we want to see online learning go forward.
And so, I think by identifying some of these and then pivoting to opportunities is a great way for us to keep optimism in the mix of our conversations. Because I think there's practical strategies that we can take for a lot of these things. And it's just a matter of us working as a community to find out where they are, share those out, and then be kind and empathetic to those that are coming along.
I think that there's a good opportunity here for online learning to be great. We just have to, be vigilant.
[00:39:14] Jason Johnston: Yes. I agree. And I think OLC was a excellent example, again, of connecting with a larger community around these questions as well, so that it means that we're sharing these dangers, we're coming up with solutions together, we're maybe validating some of these or invalidating some of these, as the case may be, in terms of talking us down on the ones that we feel like might be a really, a big danger, but by specifying, we realize that maybe it's not as big as other things.
And I also think like the ongoing community-- want to encourage people and welcome, have them to join us on LinkedIn as well. So they can connect with us there as well of our, as our community there as well.
[00:39:55] John Nash: Yeah.
[00:39:55] Jason Johnston: And we'd love to hear from you about, what you think about these top dangers, these top three that we talked about, but also if there's other ones that you want to talk about, or you have other solutions, just reach out and we'd love to hear more. And I think this will not be the last time we'd probably talk about this.
Do you think John?
[00:40:11] John Nash: No, we're never going to talk about AI again. We're never going to talk about online learning again. Actually we have to, that's the podcast, right? Okay.
I'm actually looking forward to the balance of 2023 and talking to you more. I think we've got some good stuff lined up. A potential year in review. And maybe even a second Super Friends episode.
[00:40:35] Jason Johnston: I think we might even try to combine those two maybe a year in review with our super friends. We'll see how that goes.
[00:40:41] John Nash: Yeah. I think that would be a great idea. Let's do that.
[00:40:44] Jason Johnston: Okay. That sounds good. This has been great, John. And again, as we said, connect with us on LinkedIn. Also, you can find all these podcasts at our website, OnlineLearningPodcast. com, as well as show notes. We'll put as many links as we can about the things we've talked about today in there. And anything else, John?
[00:41:02] John Nash: You can catch the transcript of the podcast episode as well on our website. And yeah, do join our LinkedIn group.
[00:41:10] Jason Johnston: Yeah. And we want to hear from you and the kinds of things that you want to talk about. And if you like what you hear, please review us on Apple podcasts. I understand that the AI likes that and will push us up to even more stardom and success. If real humans go in there.
and review our show.
[00:41:31] John Nash: So we have concerns about AI, but we still treat it with a cheerful tone, because one day when it does become sentient, it's going to remember that we were nice.
[00:41:40] Jason Johnston: That's right. I always say thank you.
[00:41:42] John Nash: Always say thank you. Thank you, Jason.