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AI Commons Bulletin 2/19/2025

🧠 AI Tools Soon to Decide How Much They Need to “Think”
Expect the answers from AI tools to generally improve over the next few months, as more of them incorporate “reasoning” into their process. These are models that can discern when a prompt is more complex and would require a multi-step reasoning process. OpenAI is starting this with ChatGPT soon.

Learn More: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtwK3hBAjDY

📗 Five Generations of Intelligent Textbooks
Sosnovsky & Brusilovsky compile the literature on intelligent textbooks and organize five generations:
Engineered: AI-powered adaptive reading.
Integrated: Linked with external smart content.
Extracted: AI analyzes and structures knowledge.
Datamined: Tracks student engagement for insights.
Generated: AI creates content, questions, & chatbots
Learn More: Sosnovsky, S., Brusilovsky, P. & Lan, A. Intelligent Textbooks. Int J Artif Intell Educ (2025).

🚫 Guidance for Uses of AI Banned by EU’s AI Act
The EU regulates AI much more than the US does. When it adopted the AI Act, it banned “unacceptable risk” uses, but didn’t provide much explanation. A new report lays out examples, including manipulative, deceptive, and exploitative practices.

Learn More: https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redirection/document/112367

⏳ Waiting 5-10 Minutes for an AI to Answer?! What?!
Deep Research is a newer function of Google’s AI, Gemini. You can ask it an extended question and it will break it down into parts, research each part (including multiple web searches), and write up a report you can download. It’s available both on the web and on Android. Additional $ required.

Learn More: https://youtu.be/IBKRyI5m_Rk

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”).

Returning to the Classroom After a Tragedy: A 7-step Approach to Starting Class Again

This week, faculty, instructors, and graduate assistants will be returning to their classes for the first time after the tragic events of this week. There will be some classes where they have lost one of their classmates, which may add to the intensity of the experience of both students and instructors. Included in the resource attached (3-page PDF) are recommendations for how to structure the return to class for your students and yourselves, with trauma-informed considerations and practices.

This artifact is one of a collection of evidence-based resources for educators coming back to class after collective tragedy was compiled by Spartans:
Jason Moser (Professor of Clinical Science, Cognition, and Cognitive Neuroscience in MSU's Department of Psychology & PhD Psychology | Clinical Science)
Jon Novello (Director of MSU Employee Assistant Program & Licensed Clinical Social Worker)
Mark Patishnock (Director of MSU Counseling and Psychiatric Services [CAPS] & Licensed Psychologist)
Joshua Turchan (Assistant Director of Training, Assessment and Planning at MSU CAPS & Licensed Psychologist)
Karen Stanley-Kime (Assistant Director of Intensive Clinical Services at MSU CAPS & Licensed Psychologist)
and more throughout University Health and Wellness departments.

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?

"This study investigated the role of resilience and gratitude in the relationship between trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress (PTS), and posttraumatic growth (PTG) following the campus shooting at Seattle Pacific University. The prevalence of community traumatic events such as school shootings has increased dramatically in the last decade. However, a significant number of individuals report positive changes such as enhanced appreciation for life, suggesting that some people are able to convert adverse experiences into personal growth. The purpose of this study was to understand characteristics about trauma and protective characteristics that contribute to PTG."

Vieselmeyer, J., Holguin, J. & Mezulis, A (2017). The role of resilience and gratitude in posttraumatic stress and growth following a campus shooting, Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 9(1), 62-69.

This artifact is one of a collection of evidence-based resources for educators coming back to class after collective tragedy was compiled by Spartans:
Jason Moser (Professor of Clinical Science, Cognition, and Cognitive Neuroscience in MSU's Department of Psychology & PhD Psychology | Clinical Science)
Jon Novello (Director of MSU Employee Assistant Program & Licensed Clinical Social Worker)
Mark Patishnock (Director of MSU Counseling and Psychiatric Services [CAPS] & Licensed Psychologist)
Joshua Turchan (Assistant Director of Training, Assessment and Planning at MSU CAPS & Licensed Psychologist)
Karen Stanley-Kime (Assistant Director of Intensive Clinical Services at MSU CAPS & Licensed Psychologist)
and more throughout University Health and Wellness departments.

AI Commons Bulletin 1/8/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

💚 MSU IT Releases New Copilot and Generative AI Guidance
MSU IT claims that Copilot surpasses the safety standards MSU has been able to endorse for other programs, such as ChatGPT. Instructors, staff, and students can input any institutional data -- EXCEPT HIPAA data -- into Copilot.

Learn More: MSU IT. tech.msu.edu/news/2024/12/microsoft-copilot-and-generative-ai-guidance/

🆕 AI Commons article: AI as a Learning Partner: Offering Supports Through Generative AI
Dr. Kevin Haudek offers a constructivist approach to how GenAI agents can be developed to provide different types of support to learners in the classroom.

Learn More: AI Commons. https://aicommons.commons.msu.edu/2025/01/07/ai-learning-partner-haudek/

🥯 Try This: Make Teaching Materials More Concrete or Abstract
Concrete language helps bridge the communication gap between you and your students. By using specific, relatable examples, you can make complex concepts clearer and easier to understand. Conversely, abstract language can help students think critically and generalize principles across different contexts. Use AI to adjust your material based on your teaching goals.

Learn More: Case study by Garcia-Varela et al (2024) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2024.105182

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 1/6/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

💚 Try This: Create Examples for Critical Analysis
Students can use AI to create an example “in the style of” something, and then evaluate the result. For example, Dickens scholar Dan Doughtery offers: “Write a story about a young man falling in love in the style of Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield” (Dougherty).

Learn More: https://bowiestate.edu/academics/colleges/college-of-arts-and-sciences/departments/language-literature-and-cultural-studies/ceamag/ceamar-journal-2024.pdf#page=38

🔮 Crystal Ball: “Digital Twins”
Watch for this in the next year: virtual models of a specific object, person or system updated using real-time data. Imagine it as a tool for the ultimate personalized learning system.

Learn More: https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/digital-twin

ℹ️ Students See Feedback from a “Calibrated” AI as Helpful
In this example, instructors augmented a general AI tool with research from their discipline and works from previous students (both = 35 million words). Then instructors had the AI tool give feedback on student assignments. The students loved it.

Learn More: (Numerous theories here – skip to page 17 for results). Zapata, G. C., Saini, A., Tzirides, A. -O. (Olnacy), Cope, W., & Kalantzis, M. (2024). The Role of Feedback in University Students’ Learning Experiences: An Exploration Grounded in Activity Theory. Ubiquitious Learning: An International Journal, 18(2), 1-30. https://cgscholar.com/bookstore/works/the-role-of-ai-feedback-in-university-students-learning-experiences

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 1/13/2025
Human-curated news about generative AI for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

😮 Word of the Day: “AI-giarism”
“The unethical practice of using artificial intelligence technologies, particularly generative language models, to generate content that is plagiarized either from original human-authored work or directly from AI-generated content, without appropriate acknowledgement of the original sources or AI’s contribution.” (Chan, 2024)
Learn More: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-13151-7

💚 H-Net Hosts 2025 AI Symposium: Fear, Faith, and Praxis: Artificial Intelligence in the Humanities and Social Sciences
This year’s theme, “Fear, Faith, and Praxis: Artificial Intelligence, Humanities, and Social Sciences,” focuses on student-centered approaches to the use of AI in pedagogical practice and reassessing previous assumptions about AI. This two-day event will be held on MSU’s campus on Feb 20-21, 2025, and available via live stream on the H-Net Commons.
Learn More: https://networks.h-net.org/2025-ai-symposium

💬 Try This: Use AI to Make Peer Feedback More Effective
Use this prompt: ‘‘I teach a university class where students work on teams for the semester. You are my assistant, who is going to help me provide formative feedback to my students. I collect peer comments periodically throughout out the semester, and I would like you to summarize the comments into a performance feedback review in a way that is constructive and actionable. Additionally, the students assess themselves and I would like you to compare their responses to the peer feedback. The output should be in the form of a letter, and please exclude anything that is inappropriate for the workplace.’’ [If there are less than 2 comments for a student, please provide generic feedback only.]
Learn More: https://www.ijee.ie/1atestissues/Vol40-5/02_ijee4488.pdf

🫥 AI’s That Can Read Your Student’s Emotions
Google wants its AI bots to read emotions. Critics point out the dangers from misclassifying user behaviors. AND recent research suggests the science of “universal emotions” is culturally biased.
Learn More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/05/google-says-its-new-open-models-can-identify-emotions-and-that-has-experts-worried/

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”).

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”).

Q&A with ChatGPT: "What ethical considerations should be taken into account when incorporating ChatGPT into higher education?"