Transform Your Teaching

In this coffee drop, Rob and Jared answer an email on ChatGPT and intellectual property. If you have questions or comments, contact us at [email protected]. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

In this coffee drop, Rob and Jared discuss the power of ChatGPT in all aspects...including chicken recipes. If you have questions or comments, contact us at [email protected]. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. 

In this episode, Rob and Jared start a new series titled “Back to the Basics.” They begin this series by talking about objectives, providing an acronym to help instructors identify areas for improvement.  Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. We would love to get your feedback! Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better.

Objectives are the targets for every course. Jared and Rob provide an easy-to-remember acronym (DRIVE) to help instructors create or refine their course objectives.  

Objectives must be:  

• Defined. The objectives of a course should provide students with a clear destination.  
• Results-oriented.  Objectives must be focused on the results, not the process that students go through to get there.  
• Inspiring.  Objectives paint a picture for students of the goals for the course which gives them a clear vision of what the course aims to achieve.  
• Valid.  Objectives  and course content must be aligned, and objectives must be assessable.  
• Evidence-supported. At the end of the course, all objectives have been achieved.  

Designing courses with these steps helps instructors identify areas that need refinement and provide students with resources to ensure success in reaching their end goal.

Resources

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy

How to Write Learning Objectives
EasyGenerator (Objective Generator) 

Start with the End in Mind (Building SMART Objectives)

In this episode, Rob and Jared talk with Professor Jeff Simon, Associate Professor and Assistant Chair of the Department of Communication at Cedarville University. Professor Simon, Rob, and Jared discuss student learning, creative assessments, and tech integration. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. We would love to get your feedback!  Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better. 

Professor Simon shares how he has adjusted his teaching practice over his 13 years in higher education to match the learning needs of his students. He creates more open-ended assignments focused on concepts and processes so students obtain a set of tools that will aid them to be creative problem solvers. In this process, he assesses students based on their proposed solution so he can provide feedback along the way. The ultimate desire for his assignments is that students will develop unique skill sets so they will be successful in their careers.

Student success is important to Professor Simon, so he includes a plethora of resources and tools. To aid learning, he provides exemplars to show the range of submissions from acceptable to excellent. Professor Simon also makes quick tip videos for students so they can have immediate help for completing assignments anytime, anywhere. In addition to those resources, he recently used  Simternship—created by Stukent—which allows students to simulate an internship experience during the course. Students responded well to the use of this tool, so he plans to keep including it. In his opinion, if a tech tool will make a student’s life easier, he is willing to give it a try.

Resources 

Stukent Simternships 

How to Use OBS for Screen Recording 

In this episode, Rob and Jared discuss options for implementing ChatGPT into instruction. They share some questions educators can ask to help them make their own decision. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. 

We would love to get your feedback! Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better. 

Rob and Jared propose three options for using ChatGPT in instruction: 

1. Adopt - Wholesale usage of ChatGPT. There is no limit to its implementation in your instruction. ChatGPT has a part to play in grading, planning, instruction, and learning. 
2. Adapt – Using ChatGPT for specific needs, such as tailoring to certain subjects or supplementing--rather than replacing--traditional teaching methods.  
3. Abandon – Not using ChatGPT. This could be because of a fear of tech dependence, loss of personal interaction, or concerns about data privacy. All are valid reasons not to use ChatGPT. 

Jared and Rob agree that “Adapt” fits best for how they would use ChatGPT in instruction. For educators considering how they will use ChatGPT, Rob and Jared recommend considering teaching style, needs of students, resources available (accessibility), and their personal comfort level with technology.  

In this episode, Rob continues his conversation with Jared Pyles, Dr. Chris Miller, and Dr. Dan Sterkenburg about ChatGPT and OpenAI. The panelists discuss challenges with student usage of ChatGPT, resources the tool can provide, and potential policies that can be implemented into courses to set clear expectations for the students. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. We would love to get your feedback! Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better.

The panelists discuss some of the challenges associated with student usage of ChatGPT as well as appropriate uses. Every course has different learning objectives, so instructors should be careful to match ChatGPT usage with their objectives for the course.

They also discuss ChatGPT 4.0 and plugins. These powerful additions can lead to some creative applications in education. For example, with the help of plugins, Rob and Dr. Miller attempted to create a “Miller bot” by pulling information from YouTube closed captioning to simulate an interaction with a tutor. The potential applications of ChatGPT are numerous, but instructors should also think carefully about its potential pitfalls.

Each panelist shares some final advice for faculty members’ approach to ChatGPT. Dr. Sterkenburg suggests that instructors should get familiar with the tool so that they can adjust their courses as necessary. Dr. Miller believes it is an exciting time to be in education because it gives instructors greater opportunities to prepare students for the future of using AI. Jared sees using ChatGPT as an opportunity to teach responsibility and critical thinking.

In this episode, Rob talks with Jared Pyles, Dr. Chris Miller, and Dr. Dan Sterkenburg about ChatGPT and OpenAI. The panelists discuss their own experience with ChatGPT, their understanding of its capabilities, and advice for instructors for interacting with the tool in the future. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. We would love to get your feedback! Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better.

Each of the panelists has had varying experiences—both positive and negative—with ChatGPT over the past several months. Some encountered students using ChatGPT to complete their homework, while others had more personal negative experiences with the tool. Regardless of these, Jared Pyles, Dr. Miller, and Dr. Sterkenburg all can see situations where ChatGPT can be used in the classroom well.

Jared has asked his students to use ChatGPT in the research and writing process, and students have reported that they would be more likely to use it to brainstorm rather than create a final product. Similarly, Dr. Sterkenburg has his students use ChatGPT as a research tool, but he then asks them to interact with the results and submit their evaluation. On the other hand, Dr. Miller has not used ChatGPT because he tends to teach lower-level courses where students are not yet equipped to evaluate its results well.

Based on their experiences, each panelist does recommend instructors interact with ChatGPT to become familiar with it. They also recommend including a policy on ChatGPT in your syllabus as well as discussing the tool early in the semester to set expectations for how it should (or should not) be used.  

Transform Your Teaching is introducing Coffee Drops—spur-of-the-moment episodes when Jared and Rob feel the need to record. These shorter episodes could be random, scholarly, weird, off-topic, on-topic—who knows? All we know is that they'll be over coffee and perfect to listen to during your own coffee/tea break. In this inaugural coffee drop, Rob and Jared discuss an article from Dr. Vladimir Bratic on higher education and ChatGPT. Contact us at [email protected]. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources.

Resources
Teaching and Thinking with Technology

In this episode, Rob and Jared discuss the intersection of artificial intelligence and academic integrity. They confront the issues that educators (and students) will encounter as AI grows and evolves. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. 

While ChatGPT/AI does have many benefits for educators and students, it’s important not to dive head first into it. There are several issues that can surface (or have already surfaced) when incorporating it into teaching practices.

First, AI carries the risk of eroding trust between student and educator. Because ChatGPT exists and because plagiarism-catching tools are struggling to keep up, educators may feel a sense of doubt about students’ work.

Second, AI could potentially erode the learning process for students. ChatGPT can easily become a crutch for students. The inquiry and discovery that is so important in the learning process could easily be replaced with a quick conversation with ChatGPT.

This episode asks a lot more questions than it provides answers simply because the ChatGPT picture still hasn’t been fully painted. However, educators can prepare by developing policy and setting clear guidelines for the use of AI in their courses.

Rob and Jared would love to hear from you! Tell us about your experiences with ChatGPT or how you’re preparing your courses with ChatGPT in mind. Drop us an email at [email protected].

In this episode, Rob and Jared take a break from the series on ChatGPT and OpenAI to talk with Eric Mishne, Assistant Professor of Communication and Director of Forensics at Cedarville University. Prof Mishne, Rob, and Jared discuss making content more accessible to students and using different methods for instruction. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions. You can also visit our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog for additional resources. We would love to get your feedback!  Please fill out our survey to help improve our podcast and serve you better. 

Professor Mishne embraces a flexed learning model in his classroom. Prior to class, his students will read an article, listen to a podcast, or watch a video which “primes the pump” for student engagement in class. Students bring this new knowledge that they obtain outside of the classroom so that class time can be used for applying and interacting with the content. For example, the students might view different kinds of speeches outside of class and then when they arrive at class, they will take a survey that gets them to analyze the speeches that they viewed.