Ed/Tech must-reads 080425

Should college graduates be AI literate? From The Chronicle of Higher Education (free paywall)

This well-written article covers a lot of ground, looking beyond the academic integrity issues commonly addressed in our discussions of GenAI to explore both the impact it has or may have on learning ability and the kind of structures that need to be put into place to support genuine critical understanding of these tools. It is US focused but the points are pretty universal. The author points out that skepticism among academics is still high - how much this boils down to resistance to learning a new tool versus broader concerns is unclear - but we still clearly have a long path ahead of us as we work things out. McMurtrie’s points about the extent to which the use of these tools to offload ‘boring’ or ‘tedious’ learning work may atrophy necessary skills are particularly well made.

Building educational expertise in complex contexts from Timbocopia

Tim Fawns’ article tidily dovetails with the last one, considering exactly what expertise educators need with GenAI. He identifies (along with some prior colleagues at Uni Edinburgh) four key aspects of developing expertise - building a repertoire of skills and knowledge; broading one’s perspectives and understanding; putting knowledge into practice; and developing a big-picture contextual view of what is going on.

Academic Mean Girls from The Thesis Whisperer

This article may stretch the scope of this newsletter but it does relate to a higher ed institution and more broadly, key qualities of how they are run and who runs them. These things eventually impact learning and teaching practice. For those who haven’t been paying attention to the intricacies of Australian higher ed, the first female Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University in Canberra (and to a lesser extent the first female Chancellor as well) have been roundly criticised in the last year for poor leadership (putting it very simply). Much of the institutional response has been that this is just sexism. To which some anonymous feminist academics at the university published an article in the local newspaper stating emphatically that it wasn’t. But it has raised bigger questions about how/when/if women should support women in leadership, which the author of this post springboards off to discuss types of challenging women one can find in the academy. (I learned a lot, I think).

Digital Transformation in Learning Doctoral School from Interdisciplinary Transformation University Austria.

This is perhaps also a slightly unusual one - I came across this from a forum where someone was asking if it seemed like a good program. Having had some experience in digital transformation of learning and many more ideas about it - including from my own doctoral research - I took a look and at first glance was impressed with the breadth of disciplines involved and the opportunities presented to students to explore different paths to research making change in learning and teaching with technology. But what I realised was missing was the operational/implementation side in institutions. It is great to have grand plans to revolutionise the way students learn, but if it doesn’t get put into place and isn’t supported by a critical mass of educators, is it just a thought exercise? So I jotted my thoughts down and maybe some bemused Austrian academics have read them and are wondering who the hell I am. But I said my piece I guess. What do you think? Should there be more consideration given to how things will actually work in these instances?