Ed/Tech must-reads 150425

Never waste a good crisis: Why higher education needs a unified approach to curriculum transformation in the AI era from Needed now in learning and teaching

Naomi Klein (the good Naomi) wrote a startling book (The Shock Doctrine) in 2007 about the way that ‘disaster capitalists’ exploit social chaos to push through unpopular and harmful neoliberal policies. It seems that it might be time to adopt these tactics as we find ourselves in an age of educational chaos and argue for better approaches to learning and teaching. (Which are not socially harmful but which for various reasons we have been unable to get momentum for). Diana Saragi Turnip and Priya Khanna Pathak (UNSW) describe what some of these changes might look like in this thoughtful post in the always excellent What’s needed now in learning and teaching. The bulk of these proposals involve taking a programmatic approach to teaching, where the student experience and learning is considered across the entirety of their degree, not just in the silos of individual subjects. This includes consideration of what is taught and assessed and when and how assessment informs learning throughout their studies. There is nothing particularly new in this discussion but it may be our best shot at dealing with the tsunami of mechanistic and outsourced student work that is starting to break on our shores.

Increasing Video Lecture Playback Speed Can Impair Test Performance – a Meta-Analysis from Educational Psychology Review

Turning to something entirely different - while the discussion of the pros and cons of lecture recordings has somewhat faded from sight, the technology is still being used extensively. Among its virtues is the ability to control playback speed, enabling learners to review content faster than real-time. Does this impact their learning? Yes and no, according to researchers from several Nth American universities. They found that watching these recordings at 1.5x or less has nominal impact on test scores but going faster may prove an impediment. The hows and whys are explored in detail in the paper.

Schools trapped in AI limbo - LinkedIn discussion

Returning to GenAI, Patrick Hickey posted an article in the Irish Examiner decrying the fact that teachers in Irish schools are struggling with the AI Revolution in the absence of training and clear systemic guidelines. Danny Liu (USyd) picks this up, adding his own thoughts about the ‘we are teachers, not police’ discourse and Cath Ellis’ point that we need to look for the evidence of learning, not cheating. A lively discussion can be found expanding (and expounding) on many aspects of this from there. (I will say, the difference in tone between the GenAI fans and vendors and educators is always of interest)