Virtual events are cheaper and I have much more availability. I can do any keynote or workshop virtually (the complete list is here), but these were my most popular virtual webinars in 2024:
Most Popular AI 2-PART SERIES (2x90m)
- Working with AI: Literacy, Tools & Techniques
AI Literacy begins with knowing which AI tool to use but then requires asking better questions and evaluating responses: extensions of the critical writing and thinking skills we already teach and value. AI prompts need to provide more human context and be more literal than the ones we tend to use with a search engine. Since AI uses natural human language, it also needs human-level communication precision: prompt as if you were talking to smart but naïve interns. Prompting is not at all like engineering. In this interactive workshop, you will get to practice lots of techniques on a wide variety of rapidly-evolving AI tools. Our goal is to get a realistic understanding of how AI is already changing human work and thinking and how you might begin to use it to improve your research and teaching.
2. Teaching with AI: From Cheating to Creative Assignments
This practical session will start with the implications of how AI is changing average and its implications for grading, cheating and policy. We will examine how we can design assignments that will motivate students to do the hard work only they can do and how AI tools can help us improve or create new assignments. We will discover how AI can create materials and will create design activities, simulations and a tutor bot that can support student learning without providing answers. Our goal is to use AI to improve teaching and student learning.
AI WEBINAR SERIES 4-PART (4x90m)
Here is a longer (4x90minute) webinar series: https://genai.calstate.edu/webinars Everyone will need a laptop or device to practice.
Thinking and Working with AI
AI is already changing human work and thinking. This workshop includes a general introduction into how AI works, what it can do, and some of the ethics, problems and costs. We will explore the AI ecosystem and practice using different frontier models to explore how AI is changing average. AI is a very different technology so it is critical to determine for which tasks it is useful and for which it is not. Equally, humans will need to understand where human expertise remains essential and where AI can do good enough. AI works best when we ask better questions and evaluate responses: extensions of the critical writing and thinking skills we already teach and value.
AI Literacy, Tools & Techniques
AI prompts need to provide more human context and be more literal than the ones we tend to use with a search engine. Since AI uses natural human language, it also needs human-level communication precision: prompt as if you were talking to smart but naïve interns. Prompting is not at all like engineering. In this interactive workshop, you will get to practice lots of techniques on a wide variety of rapidly-evolving AI and API tools.
AI Cheating, Detection, Policies and Writing
If an AI can produce consistent average work than we need to update our policies around grading: why would an employer hire a “C” student if AI can do that level of work? We will investigate how students are cheating and what detectors do. Together, we will design new rubrics for an AI era that articulate how human ‘quality’ goes beyond AI. We will discuss what policies and practices improve motivation and decrease cheating, and why. We will examine new tools that can support both writing and cheating (Grammarly and Lex) and explore new writing post-AI writing assignments.
–Please bring an existing rubric and any proposed or actual syllabus/campus statements about the use of AI.
AI Assignment and Assessments
All assignments are now AI Assignments. In the same way that the ease of finding information on the internet forced faculty to rethink what homework students did and how we wanted them to do it, we will all need an AI strategy for assignments and assessment.
Since most work will soon be AI-assisted work, we can help prepare students for the jobs of the future with assignments that require or suggest that students use AI to assist in completing them. Through a wide diversity of examples, we will also we how we can reducing cheating and raise standards.
–Bring a device, a couple of ready AI accounts and some assignments or assessment you want to revise.
Teaching Half Naked: Designing for Better Remote Instruction
A complete redesign of all your F2F courses into the best high technology online learning is more than you can do, but we have already learned a lot about what best teaching practices and what students need during Covid. We will discuss effective communication strategies, how to create the greater structure and flexibility students are craving, motivation, engagement and support, rethinking timing, size and discovering what students themselves will and can do together. Here are ways to lower stress and reframe rather than replace. We will use your current campus technology.
Inclusive Teaching: Reaching More Students
Even when we care deeply about equity and inclusion, we may not be reaching as many students as we think. Diverse students bring diverse and probably different assumptions about you, your material, themselves and our world. This talk will illuminate why taking the time to consider inclusion issues (especially, in STEM fields) can make you a better teacher for everyone, and can especially change the experience of under-represented students. Expect dozens of practical ideas you can start using tomorrow.
Lessons Learned: Improving Teaching as we Prepare for Uncertainty
Before COVID there were changing demographics, a need for greater equity, a problem with tuition and costs, and growing political and public sentiment that higher education needed reform. Now, after a forced reimagining of our pedagogy, campus experience, equity, use of technology, and costs, what did we learn? As we prepare for more uncertainty, what best practices from the last six months do we need to sustain? How can we capture the momentum of innovations to deliver transformative experiences, build community and reimagine our pedagogy for a new age? There will never be a better moment to improve the quality and equity of our teaching.
New Faculty Workshop: From Syllabus to Assessment (This is better longer and can be delivered in a single 4-8 hour workshop, or better in smaller chunks over the summer that allow new faculty to development material in between sessions)
You have spent a lot of time in classrooms and seen both good and bad teaching, but how do you design and prepare to be a great teacher? This is an introduction to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and the best practices that can guide you to create better learning outcomes, rubrics, syllabi, communication strategies, assignments and assessments. Inclusive teaching and reaching more students is central. This workshop will improve your teaching, increase equity and save you time.
Teaching as BIPOC Faculty
This is a new session I developed for a program to support and develop Black and Latino faculty in music at the Cleveland Institute for Music. It is a chance to discuss the unique pressures and problems of teaching as a BIPOC faculty member. Topics include managing the additional duties of supporting BIPOC students, dealing with student challenges, finding support, managing resources and committee assignments, and finding mentors and sponsors.
I have also converted some of my older workshops into virtual experiences (with a little bit of new Covid practice) in the last 8 months:
Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Workshop on Designing Better Classes
Nudging Student Success and Integrating Learning Experiences
I also did a lot of consulting about implementing hyflex and other transitions both to new teaching and strategic enrollment planning. See planning or abstracts for a complete list.
Customization and Timing
Virtual sessions combine 20-40 minutes of presentation with an equal amount of discussion, but they can be combined and extended as you need for your campus. I do not recommend Zoom sessions of longer than 120 minutes and the best strategy for more is to have a series of shorter meetings or workshops.
Technology
These are best done in your campus virtual meeting platform (although I know Zoom the best, I will work in whatever system you have.) It is also best when I know your campus LMS in advance and how you best want it used.
Size
There is no limit to size, especially for initial introductions, but we should discuss your needs. Often workshop facilitation in smaller groups can be done with your existing teaching and learning staff.