Intentional Teaching Derek Bruff

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework for improving learning for all learners based on the science of how humans learn. It involves providing learners with multiple means of engagement, representation, action, and expression. We’ve mentioned the framework on the show from time to time, and I thought it was time to dig in a little deeper. 
Naturally, I thought of inviting Thomas J. Tobin on the podcast. Tom helped found the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Teaching, Learning, & Mentoring, and he is an internationally recognized scholar, author, and speaker on technology-mediated education—especially copyright, evaluation of teaching practices, academic integrity, accessibility, and universal design for learning.

Tom is the co-author (with Kirsten Behling) of the 2018 book Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education, one of the best introductions to UDL around. And then I saw a social media post of Tom’s mentioning that he was working on a new book about UDL at scale. I had to talk to him to about that! 
In our conversation, we talk about the “Plus One Principle” as a way to understand and get started with UDL, the relationship between UDL and the myth of learning styles, the value that UDL can have on student retention and student success, strategics that academic leaders (or would-be leaders!) can use to help their campuses adopt UDL practices, and more!

Episode Resources
·       Thomas Tobin’s website, https://thomasjtobin.com/ 
·       CAST, https://www.cast.org/ 
·       UDL on Campus, http://udloncampus.cast.org/home 
·       Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone, https://wvupressonline.com/node/757 
·       Derek’s sketchnotes of Tom’s 2015 POD Network keynote, https://www.flickr.com/photos/derekbruff/22911027632

·       "Understanding and Evaluating Online Course Accessibility," Limed: Teaching with a Twist [podcast], https://open.spotify.com/episode/2EFmNWWG0JetSaV6uiRyH7 
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Mastodon, among other places.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

I talked recently with Pary Fassihi, senior lecturer in the College of Arts and Sciences Writing Program at Boston University, about her use of generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Adobe Firefly in her writing and research courses. I’ve known Pary a long time… She’s in my first book, Teaching with Classroom Response Systems, about using clickers in the language instruction courses she was teaching back around 2007. These days, she still teaches some language courses, but most of her teaching is for the writing program at Boston. And she’s been sharing some very interesting things on LinkedIn about the ways she has integrated generative AI in her courses! In the interview, she talks about using AI-generated images with her students, having ChatGPT play the role of peer reviewer for student work, getting AI to help students with course readings, and much more.

Episode Resources
Pary Fassihi on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/pary-fassihi/ 
Pary’s Human vs. AI-Generated Summary and Response assignment, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NxkqM8yrLJAPLwYdEB8gcng8qqJZP9AzCEpkj8fTfZQ/edit 
Pary’s Peer Review Papers with ChatGPT assignment, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1db1_LtM2d5ijGx25unLFcxHbfpPjCl2iOB1DoL_gqT0/edit

Pary's AI-Inspired Art Creation activity, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SkVtwGKwqF0M4rzlOYo-xyesseTotkNfZy4uNi2MVN8/edit

Boston's AI-Intensive Writing, Research, and Inquiry Courses, https://www.bu.edu/dli/projects/ai-intensive-writing-research-inquiry-courses/

Adobe Firefly, https://www.adobe.com/products/firefly.html 
Claire Silver, AI collaborative artist, https://www.clairesilver.com/
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Mastodon, among other places.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

We know that having students go to the free version of ChatGPT and ask it questions about course content can lead to some… inaccurate answers. But what if we could send students to an AI chatbot that was actually trained on our course content? Might that be a useful tool for learning?
These are no longer hypothetical questions. Top Hat has rolled out a new AI tool called Ace, an AI chatbot that reads your own course materials and answers student questions using those materials. How well does Top Hat Ace work? I reached out to Top Hat super-user Sravanti Kantheti to find out.

Sravanti is the program director for anatomy and physiology at Lanier Technical College in Georgia, as well as an adjunct biology professor at Georgia State University. She recently introduced Ace to her students. In our conversation, Sravanti shares how her students have been using Ace and what they think of it and we talk about how a tool like Ace can help students succeed in a challenging course like anatomy and physiology.

Episode Resources

Sravanti Kantheti on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sravanti-kantheti-9874a261/

Top Hat Ace, https://tophat.com/features/ace-ai/

"The ChatGPT Effect and Transforming Nursing Education with Generative AI," Gosak, Pruinelli, Topaz, & Stiglic (2024), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1471595324000179
 
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Mastodon, among other places.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

David Hinson is the R. Hugh Daniel professor of architecture at Auburn University. David teaches a course in professional practice, a course that covers such things as running a business, marketing and communication, and professional ethics. When he realized that his lecture course needed an overhaul, he reached out to Auburn’s center for teaching and learning, the Biggio Center, for an instructional design consultation.

Shawndra Bowers is the associate director of learning experience design at the Biggio Center, where she manages a team of 40 people who support online education at Auburn. Shawndra has her hand in a variety of interesting teaching projects at Auburn. She started working with David to take his onsite lecture course and turn it into an active learning course that leverages the best of online teaching and learning.
In the interview with David and Shawndra, we talk about what motivated David to redesign his course, the big changes David and Shawndra made to the course, how the two have leveraged student feedback to continue to improve the course over time, and what its like to work with an online education unit to redesign an onsite course. 

Episode Resources

David Hinson's faculty page, https://cadc.auburn.edu/people/david-hinson/

Shawndra Bower's staff page, https://www.auburn.edu/academic/provost/bios/shawndra-bowers.php

Auburn Biggio Center, https://biggio.auburn.edu/

"Blurring the Lines for Faculty Development," Derek's recent UPCEA blog post, https://upcea.edu/blurring-the-lines-for-faculty-development/ 
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Mastodon, among other places.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

Students as Partners programs have been on my radar for years now. These are programs that pair faculty with thoughtful students who provide input and feedback into the faculty member’s teaching and course design. The programs seem to have incredible benefits to the student partners, to the faculty partners, and to the faculty partner’s students, but I never figured out a way to get one started while I was at Vanderbilt.

Thanks to a fireworks show during the 2023 POD Network conference, I learned that Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has a recently started a very popular Students as Partners Program. On the podcast, I talk with two people who know the program there well: Aimee Fleming, associate director for the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence, or CTLE, at Embry-Riddle, and Maren Rice, student partner for the CTLE. We had a great conversation about the Students as Partners program, how it started, how it works, and what benefits it brings to all involved.

Episode Resources
·       Students as Partners, Center for Engaged Learning, Elon University, https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/resources/students-as-partners/ 
·       Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, https://prescott.erau.edu/ctle 
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Mastodon, among other places.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.

The Inclusive STEM Teaching Project is a free, online, six-week course “designed to advance the awareness, self-efficacy, and ability of faculty, postdocs, and doctoral students to cultivate inclusive STEM learning environments for all their students and to develop themselves as reflective, inclusive practitioners.”
On the podcast today, I talk with two of the project team members. Tershia Pinder-Grover is director of the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching in Engineering at the University of Michigan, and Sarah Hokanson is assistant vice president and assistant provost for research development and PhD and postdoc affairs at Boston University. We talk about what makes this online course about inclusive teaching unique, including the use of local learning communities, affinity groups, and a troupe of actors, as well as the challenges of putting together such an impactful course.

And in case you don’t listen to the end of the interview, you should know that the course is being offered again this spring, starting on March 3rd, 2024. See below for a link to register.

Episode Resources
·       Inclusive STEM Teaching Project, https://www.inclusivestemteaching.org/
·       Spring 2024 course offering on edX, https://www.edx.org/learn/teacher-training/boston-university-the-inclusive-stem-teaching-project 
·       Evidence-Based Undergraduate STEM Teaching courses, https://www.stemteachingcourse.org/ 
·       “Ten Years of Preparing Future Faculty through STEM Teaching Courses,” Derek Bruff, https://derekbruff.org/?p=4162 
 
Podcast Links:
Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.

Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribe
Support Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteaching

Find me on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Mastodon, among other places.

See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.