Course Launch Announcement
I'm Releasing a Course About Generative AI in Education
In June, I helped develop an immersive in-person training program for faculty to explore how generative AI is impacting education at the University of Mississippi and our first AI Institute for Teachers was a great success. Many people contacted me and expressed interest in a virtual version of the training, so I’ve decided to build one geared toward training educators who teach middle school, high school, and higher education.
Generative AI in Education: The course launch date is July 11th.
The recent CCCC-MLA Taskforce on Writing and AI Working Paper calls for training on generative AI and a push for AI literacy. Indeed, the need for a structured training course for educators matters because generative AI will very soon move beyond ChatGPT as Microsoft and Google integrate the technology into their Office and Workspace tools. By the fall, many of the interfaces we use each day will simply be upgraded to include this technology as features, and we will need to decide how to put boundaries on it.
My course is built around community, one where educators, administrators, and instructional designers can explore how to teach students and themselves basic AI literacy and explore guardrails and policies to ensure the technology does not disrupt their teaching or their students’ learning. It also has deep-dive pathways to help folks develop AI Aptitude and further explore AI Assistance. There are over 20 videos, assignments, discussion activities, and games that you can use with your students to teach them about GenAI.
I’ve been a non-tenure track lecturer of writing for over a decade and the prospect of training folks/ becoming an instructional designer for an emerging technology is genuinely terrifying. Since August of 2022, I’ve given 32 talks, webinars, panels, etc. and I’m still learning within this field. There are no best practices, and the only way forward is to teach ourselves as quickly as we can.
One Course, Three Pathways, and a Philosophy
I’ve built the course so users can pop in and out of sections as they please, taking what they need for one area or another. But there’s an overall structured set of pathways to help guide folks.
AI Literacy: The Foundation-As educators, our first step into the world of generative AI is to arm ourselves with knowledge about the benefits and limitations of this technology.
AI Assistance: The Bridge-For those ready to delve deeper, the AI Assistance pathway offers a more exploratory approach. This route investigates how generative AI tools outside of ChatGPT can aid students in achieving specific learning outcomes, while still reinforcing the fundamental skills of AI literacy.
AI Aptitude: The Frontier-Once you're comfortable with AI Literacy and AI Assistance, it's time to venture into the advanced realm of AI Aptitude. This pathway explores using generative AI in instructional design, prompt engineering, and exploring use cases beyond generative text.
Digital Gardening: Developing Your Own AI Literacy-Since GenAI is an emergent practice, adopting a work-in-progress mentality where we learn in public is crucial. Digital gardeners understand that ideas often need time to flourish, revision and space to nurture, and sometimes need to be left to wither when a new, better idea replaces it.
Open Assignments
I’ll also be sharing videos and assignments from modules over the next few months through free posts on this blog. All assignments will be released under a CC-BY 4.0 license, so educators can use and remix them within their teaching. You can access the current assignments from the course below:
Generative AI in Education Assignments: Free Download
Scholarships, Fellowships, and Group Pricing
Like anyone, I want to be compensated for the time and labor involved in putting together something like this, but I also want the course to be affordable and accessible to people. If an educator cannot afford to access the course, I do have a limited number of scholarships available. I am also offering several OER fellowship applications. Fellowships are not need based but offer educators free course access in exchange for them agreeing to produce one assignment, activity, or course policy related to Generative AI in education and releasing it under a CC-BY SA 4.0 license.
Pricing plans are also available for groups, K-12 schools, departments, colleges, and universities.