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The Office of the University Ombudsperson would like to invite faculty and staff to a special webinar about the ombuds office and its history in honor of Ombuds Day!

Ombuds Day was established in 2018 by the American Bar Association to “improve public awareness of ombuds, to connect ombuds in their respective communities, and to encourage greater use of ombuds programs and services”. Michigan State University has a rich history in ombuds practice as the longest continuously operating ombuds office at any college or university in the United States.

In this webinar, you will learn:

• A brief history of ombuds practice internationally
• The history of MSU’s Office of the University Ombudsperson and how it functions
• When and how you might engage with the staff of the ombuds office

When: Thursday, October 12th, 2023, at 1:00pm

To Register: https://msu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e2tcyYxEv0z9mOW

For more information about our office, you may also visit our website at https://ombud.msu.edu/ and for more information about the ABA’s Ombuds Day, please visit: https://abaombudsday.wordpress.com/about-ombuds-day/.

If you have questions about our office, the webinar, or Ombuds Day, please email us at ombud@msu.edu.

Best Wishes,
Shannon Lynn Burton, Ph.D.
University Ombudsperson

AI Commons Bulletin 1/27/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

🎭 AI Can Role Play with Students
Creating AI-powered personas is now easier, enabling students to practice communicating with specific individuals like a boss, client, or even an injured person requiring emergency medical assistance.
Learn More: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/message/19:mPsjLgF9cSWjMOuyq4MgyL7R3OZR2BetLpENn7G0N5k1@thread.tacv2/1737984638529?tenantId=22177130-642f-41d9-9211-74237ad5687d&groupId=518d739a-4a75-49d3-bff7-a0be2e362aab&parentMessageId=1737984638529&teamName=AI%20Commons&channelName=AI%20Commons%20Bulletin&createdTime=1737984638529&ngc=true&allowXTenantAccess=true

💬 Breaking Down AI Controversies
This resource explores the major debates surrounding AI, including its ethical implications, impact on creativity, and potential for misinformation. Use it to spark meaningful classroom discussions or build critical thinking assignments.
Learn More: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qesxRSOZSlECOWvFJX-XOBuXL3iTmMnTHKihz4-81TY/edit?tab=t.0

✔️ Try This: Use AI to Check Your Grading
Grading essays can raise consistency concerns. Upload papers and grades, and AI can check for consistency. Use MSU’s CoPilot for secure student record handling.
Learn More: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.06461

🗺️ A Custom AI Chatbot Can Help Incoming Students Navigate Student Services
The University of the South Pacific (Fiji) offers new students an AI chatbot for orientation, answering service questions and helping with literacy, numeracy, and digital skills for their courses.
Learn More: https://jehe.globethics.net/article/view/6867/6023

Bulletin items compiled by MJ Jackson and Sarah Freye with production assistance from Lisa Batchelder. Get the AI-Commons Bulletin on our Microsoft Teams channel, at aicommons.commons.msu.edu, or by email (send an email to aicommons@msu.edu with the word “subscribe”).

Hello and welcome all!

The 2024 Educator Developers Network (EDN) is shaking and baking, moving and quaking!

This is a collaborative space for anyone passionate about improving teaching through effective design, pedagogy, and technology, and anyone who provides training, consultation, instructional/learning experience design, or other learning and development support to instructors on campus. Here, anybody with an interest in enhancing education can come together, share their experiences, and mutually learn from one another. Our synchronous meetings are the 1st Tuesday of every month, were people share their department’s work, ask for advice, or celebrate success. We also communicate asynchronously in our Educator Developers Network channel.

The goals of the network are to provide a dedicated location for people to share ideas and ask questions around instructor support, learning and development, promoting useful practices and ideas to campus at large, foster community through regular meetings that highlight accomplishments and central services, and archiving and externalizing conversations. Our asynchronous discussions occur in Microsoft Teams, where we have an initial structure of channels for members to explore MSU’s Learning Management System (D2L - Brightspace), discuss course design, or seek out technology recommendations and tips. Ultimately, EDN is a place to source answers to your questions or ask for help, participate in the community, and share what you know with others!

Come share your work and ideas! Be part of a learning community with other professional in learning development, training, design, pedagogy, technology, and anyone who provides consultations and instructional/learning experience design. Come join the network!

Join the Educator Developers Network

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3ae51cb2ed28a14bee8346fa507cff42ad%40thread.skype/conversations?groupId=13506591-8eca-4a14-a674-69a08dfd6020&tenantId=22177130-642f-41d9-9211-74237ad5687d

My background in Scandinavian languages and literature keeps rearing its head in various ways after many years. Specifically,when it comes to folklore, magical tales, and perilous journeys toward maturation. In a way, I have become a pedagogical Ashland, of sorts, since coming to MSU in 2015. My journey, an ongoing quest if you will, has been in trying to find that one magical key, which will unlock the enchanted door to greater student interest and involvement in their general education course requirements.

Those of us who teach these courses know that, too often, many students view gen. ed. requirements as hoops to jump through. Something they must satisfy to graduate. Subjects that, they feel, have little to do with the real world, their intended majors, or envisioned careers. Scheduling and convenience more than genuine interest seem to be the determining factor for many students when they choose to enroll in such courses. Put the head down, muddle through, and get it done with as little effort as possible.

But there might be another way.

In my own ongoing quest to motivate and engage the students in my various IAH courses more effectively, I have come back to Bloom's Taxonomy again and again since first learning about it in the 2016-2017 Walter and Pauline Adams Academy cohort. More specifically, it is Bloom's Digital Taxonomy, revised by various scholars for use with 21st century students who exist in an increasingly digital world, that has been especially useful when it comes to designing assessments for my students.

For those who are interested, there are all kinds of sources online -- journal article pdfs, infographics, Youtube explainer videos, etc. -- that will be informative and helpful for anyone who might be interested in learning more. Just search for 'Bloom's Digital Taxonomy' on Google. It's that easy.

For my specific IAH courses, I organize my students into permanent student learning teams early each semester and ask them to create three collaborative projects (including a team reflection). These are due at the end of Week Five, Week 10, and Week 14. Right now, the projects include:

1) A TV Newscast/Talkshow Article Review Video in which teams are ask to locate, report on, review, and evaluate two recent journal articles pertinent to material read or viewed during the first few weeks of the course.

2) A Readers' Guide Digital Flipbook (using Flipsnack) that reviews and evaluates the usefulness of two books, two more recent journal articles, and two blogs or websites on gender and sexuality OR race and ethnicity within the context of specific course materials read or viewed during roughly the middle third of the course.

3) An Academic Poster (due at the end of Week 14) in which student teams revisit course materials and themes related to gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and identity. In addition, students are asked to examine issues of power, marginalization, disparity, equity, etc. in those same sources and look at how these same issues affect our own societies/cultures of origin in the real world. Finally, student teams (in course as diverse as Film Noir of the 1940s and 50s, Horror Cinema, and the upcoming Contemporary Scandinavian and Nordic Authors) are asked to propose realistic, concrete solutions to the social problems facing us.


Anecdotally, student feedback has been largely very favorable so far. Based on remarks in their team reflections this semester (Fall 2021), students report that they enjoy these collaborative, creative projects and feel like they have considerable leeway to shape what their teams develop. Moreover, they also feel that they are learning quite a bit about the material presented as well as valuable 21st century employability skills in the process. Where their all important assignment grades are concerned, student learning teams in my courses are meeting or exceeding expectations with the work they have produced for the first two of three team projects this semester according to the grading rubrics currently in use.

Beginning in Spring 2022, I plan to give my student teams even more agency in choosing how they are assessed and will provide two possible options for each of the three collaborative projects. Right not, these will probably include:

Project #1 (Recent Journal Article Review and Evaluation)-- Powtoon Animated TV Newscast OR Infographic

Project #2 -- (Review and Evaluation of Digital Sources on Gender and Sexuality OR Race and Ethnicty in our specific course materials) a Digital Flipbook OR Podcast

Project #3 -- (Power, Marginality, Disparity, Equity in Course Materials and Real World of 21st Century Problem-Solving) an Interactive E-Poster OR Digital Scrapbook.

Through collaborative projects like these, I am attempting to motivate and engage the students in my IAH courses more effectively, help them to think more actively and critically about the material presented as well as the various social issues that continue to plague our world, and provide them with ample opportunity to cultivate essential skills that will enable their full participation in the globalized world and economy of the 21st century. Bloom's (Revised) Digital Taxonomy, among other resources, continues to facilitate my evolving thought about how best to reach late Gen Y and Gen Z students within a general education context.

If anyone would like to talk more about all of this, offer constructive feedback, or anything else, just drop me a line. I am always looking for those magic beans that will increase student motivation and engagement, and eager to learn more along the way. Bloom's Digital Taxonomy has certainly been one of my three magical helpers in the quest to to do that.

Takk skal dere ha!

Hello again everyone! Here are some talking points to think about in the run up our 10am meeting tomorrow (Friday, November 05, 2021).

Recurring Zoom Link: 951 4830 7886
Passcode 432210


Student Engagement in Higher Education, ch. 2-3

Chapter 2: “Engaging Students of Color”Samuel D. Museus, Kimberly A. Griffin, Stephen John Quaye [MGQ - “Magic”]

1) How would you describe the campus racial climate and/or culture of the schools where you got your degrees and/or have previously taught? Do any institutions in your background for having been successful in instilling a positive racial culture? Do any notable failures or struggles stand out in your memory? It may be helpful to recall: climate is shaped by five internal dimensions: (1) an institution’s history and legacy of inclusion or exclusion, (2) compositional diversity, (3) psychological climate, (4) behavioral climate, and (5) organizational/structural diversity (Milem, Chang, & Antonio, 2005). [p. 19]

2) Museus, Griffin, and Quaye note that “two concepts provide a useful backdrop for the current discussion: campus racial climate and campus racial culture” (18). What knowledge or familiarity do you have of/with the racial climate or culture at MSU? How would you describe the local manifestation of the framing concepts Museus, Griffin, and Quaye provide?

3) What concrete steps could you take to alleviate cultural incongruence (21) and cultural dissonance (ibid) while boosting cultural engagement (22) for Students of Color in your courses?

4) The “proactive philosophies” indicator of the CECE model describes “Educators who use proactive philosophies [to] go above and beyond to actively reach out, encourage, and sometimes pressure students to take advantage of available information, opportunities, and support” (23). What does being such a faculty member/administrator look like? How does one responsibly and equitably pressure students to pursue opportunities?

5) Practical question: In several places, MGQ advocate for community-based opportunities, but also caution against the tendency towards siloing. Practically, what does/should it look like to provide opportunities for this type of contact among students that is supportive and culturally responsive, without siloing them, or making students of color serve as “ambassadors of their community”?


Chapter 3: “Engaging Multiracial Students”
C. Casey Ozaki, Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero, Kristen A. Renn [OJGR - “Jogger”]

1) It seems like today’s college students often have to enter the classroom already knowing who they are and who they will be. We can likely point to any number of institutional practices/requirements that reinforce that pressure. How can we create spaces for hybridity, ambiguity, uncertainty in our students’ perceptions of self?

2) OJGR note that “median age of the mixed race individuals is 19, compared to single-race individuals with a median age of 38” (39), which means that our students represent the age cohort closest to the “center,” so to speak, of multiracial identity discourse. What pressures might this present to college-aged students? What opportunities?

3) Studies show that “biracial students at HBCUs and non-HBCUs had poorer quality of interactions with faculty, staff, and students than Black and White students at both institutions” (40). What incentive/impetus/motivation does/should a finding like this make for us as educators? How could we productively address situations in which multi-racial students might approach us with complaints about feeling isolated and alienated from classmates in our courses?

4) The most provocative element of OJGR’s chapter comes in their final suggestion, which is to “Create a Campus Culture of Boundary Crossing.” What does this mean for you, and what would it look like at Michigan State?

Is Microsoft Copilot Worth Your Time? A Review for MSU Users
https://iteach.msu.edu/iteachmsu/groups/iteachmsu/stories/3379?param=post

The Zoom recording of today's workshop is available now on MSU Mediaspace!

https://mediaspace.msu.edu/media/From+Graduate+Assistant+to+Assistant+Professor+%2810+22+21%29/1_ji7v2a9y

Applications are now open for the AT&T Excellence in Teaching with Technology Awards, which recognize effective uses of instructional technology to support student success in credit-bearing courses at MSU. Faculty, instructors, and teaching assistants can submit applications starting Sept. 1 through Oct. 28.

More info: https://attawards.msu.edu/