We found 66 results that contain "syllabus design"

AI Commons Bulletin 12/16/2024
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

💚 New CTLI Resource for Using AI in Courses
Very practical introduction to AI at MSU. Details for accessing MSU’s licensed Co-Pilot. Step-by-step instructions on using AI for:
1. Writing emails to students.
2. Summarizing your course videos.
3. Designing lesson rubrics.
4. Forming learning objectives.

Learn More: http://bit.ly/SLXD_07

🏹 Open AI targeting K-12 Educators
Can Higher Ed be far behind? At the very least, increased use in K-12 will shape our incoming students. Topics in the new Open AI free online course: What is ChatGPt and how does it work, ways to use ChatGPT in teaching, best practices for responsible AI in a school setting.

Learn More: https://www.commonsense.org/education/training/chatgpt-k12-foundations

💚 ChatGPT for Natural Course Design
MSU educators explore how using ChatGPT enhances course design by improving structure, aligning objectives, and generating engaging content. Key challenges include content inconsistencies and a steep learning curve, highlighting the need for AI literacy to maximize its potential while managing risks.

Learn More: Kumar, J. A., Zhuang, M., & Thomas, S. (2024). ChatGPT for natural sciences course design: Insights from a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis. Natural Sciences Education, 53, e70003. https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/nse2.70003

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”).

Good morning, MSU! I'm Julie Taylor, Publishing Services Coordinator at the Libraries, and today I'm hosting an Ask Me Anything on Incorporating technologies at the MSU Libraries from book design to 3D printing to laser and vinyl cutting to poster plotting. Please share your questions and ideas by commenting on this post.

A very interesting recent book on how to make our coursework with students more inclusive. A concise 200 pages on, not only the theoretical background and need for inclusivity, but loads of very practical advice for designing courses and running class meetings with inclusivity in mind. $30 well spent. Check out 'What Inclusive Instructors Do: Principles and Practices for Excellence in College Teaching' (Stylus Publishing, 2021) on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1642671932?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

In my ongoing quest to find how we might better motivate and engage our students, particularly within a general education context, I've come across a couple of interesting sources online.

Universal Design for Learning at a Glance -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1B6yQXsr0c
Provides an engaging, concise explanation of what UDL is and how it works in the (college) 'classroom.'

The Nora Project -- https://thenoraproject.ngo/mission
A fairly comprehensive website that addresses the intersection of disability and inclusivity. Geared more specifically toward teaching children, there are nevertheless various resources and approaches that might be tweaked a bit to fit the college 'classroom' in whatever form that takes right now.

Both are providing me with all sorts of ways that I can tailor (and expand the range of) student assessments moving toward and planning for AY2022-2023.

Religious Observance at MSU

All members of the MSU community, including educators and students, are eligible to observe their religious beliefs. Designing your course schedule to avoid conflicts with major days of religious observance will reduce the need to resolve individual conflicts and will better reflect and serve MSU's diverse and multicultural community.

The Office of the Provost website maintains a religious observance calendar and FAQ page (https://provost.msu.edu/academic-resources/religious-observance-calendar with dates through 2026) for educators and students. Educators are encouraged to consult this calendar before scheduling exams, tests, and major assignments.

The full policy on religious observance, including instructors' responsibilities to accommodate students' religious observance as well as students' responsibility to inform instructors about potential conflicts, can be found https://reg.msu.edu/roinfo/notices/religiouspolicy.aspx here.

AI Commons Bulletin 2/24/2025

🚫 No More Guidance from USDE
Beyond the AI guidance for schools and the toolkits for educators and developers, the entire Office of Educational Technology website is gone. tech.ed.gov now directs to the USDE website.

Learn More: https://www.ed.gov/

📽️ Try This: Create AI Video for YouTube
Short videos can be useful tools for teaching something, or that students can use to demonstrate something. YouTube now offers tools to use AI to generate video based on a text prompt.

Learn More: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/heres-how-you-can-create-ai-videos-in-youtube-shorts-thanks-to-google-veo/

🤔 AI Operator Can Take e-Learning Courses For You
OpenAI’s Operator tool can take an online course, which means it’s time to rethink asynchronous course design.

Learn More: https://benbetts.co.uk/the-fall-of-click-next-e-learning-what-operator-means-for-training/?ref=2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com

✍️ Should We Invent New Words to Talk to AI?
Want a fresh way to discuss AI literacy? These authors argue we need new words—not just human vocabulary—to grasp AI. Encourage students to create neologisms for human concepts AI should learn or machine ideas we must understand. What might they invent?

Learn More: Hewitt, Geirhos, & Kim, (2025). We Can’t Understand AI Using our Existing Vocabulary.

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”).

AI Commons Bulletin 1/24/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

😊 The New Study Buddy: AI is Becoming a Tutor for Some College of Natural Science Students
MSU students are increasingly using AI tools like ChatGPT and the Khanmigo tutoring program to enhance learning, offering instant, interactive assistance for homework and studies.
Learn More: https://natsci.msu.edu/news/2025-01-the-new-study-buddy.aspx

🧠 Students Might Off-Load Critical Thinking to AI
This study found that using AI didn’t change students’ intrinsic motivation to learn. However, they did find that AI tended to cause “metacognitive laziness”. In other words, to avoid te work of critical thinking that AI is supposed to free them up to do.
Learn More: https://doi-org.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/10.1111/bjet.13544

🏫 Perplexity Pays Students to Market For Them
At least on AI company is using stealth marketing on campuses. Perplexity’s “Campus Strategist” program gives students a budget to spread awareness of Perplexity among their classmates.
Learn More: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/perplexity-s-2024-campus-strategist-program

🦠 The Education Revolution Through AI
This open-access book offers a collection of chapters on AI’s impact on higher education. Key topics:
Potential: Personalized learning, automated tasks, and adaptive teaching
Challenges: Bias, ethics, and data privacy in education
Applications: Integrating AI into research, teaching, and course design
Learn More: https://octaedro.com/libro/the-education-revolution-through-artificial-intelligence/

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”).

Chapter 5: Notes and questions
1. Erasure: “We must engage in critical self-reflection about the conscious and unconscious ways higher education continues to participate in Native people’s erasure and develop decolonial engagement practices that foreground Native movements for cultural/political sovereignty and self-determination.”
2. Assimilation: “…the problematic goal of assimilation…”
3. Social Justice: “…scholars must work toward social change.”
4. Storying: “Stories are not separate from theory.”
5. Strategies offered:
a. Develop and Maintain Relationships with Indigenous Communities
i. Can a faculty member do this within their pedagogy? How?
ii. Can we encourage our students to do this in our classes/programs? How?
b. Honor Connections to Place
c. Build Community with Indigenous Students
d. Support and Protect Indigenous Student Cultural Practices
e. Foster Student Connections to Home Communities
f. Reframe Concepts of Student Engagement (WE, meaning the university community writ large, are the uninvited guests)

Chapter 6: Notes and Questions
1. “Whiteness is not a culture but a social concept”
2. “Critical White Studies”: ideas for how to use/introduce this to students? Will you? Why or why not? (“critically analyzing Whiteness and racial oppression from the habits and structures of the privileged group”)
3. In your current class design/structure, what ways could your own whiteness influence your students in invisible ways? Does it?
4. In your current class design/structure, what ways could your white students’ whiteness influence your POC, international students, etc… in invisible ways? Does it?
5. What aspects of “humanizing pedagogy” happen in your classes?
6. Have you ever shared your course design with a POC peer?
7. Thoughts of where “Nontraditional” white students (older students, part-time students, transfer students, commuter students, student-parents, veteran students (and I would argue other cross-sectional/intersectional identities of queerness, transgender students, religious minorities, disability, etc…)) and traditional white students INTERSECT or DIVERGE in terms of student success initiatives?