Teaching in Higher Ed

The AI Con

with Alex Hanna & Emily M. Bender

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Emily M. Bender & Alex Hanna share about their book, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want on episode 576 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Quotes from the episode

The boosters say AI is a thing. It's inevitable, it's imminent, it's going to be super powerful, and it's going to solve all of our problems. And the Doomers say AI is a thing, it's inevitable, it's imminent, it's going to be super powerful, and it's going to kill us all. And you can see that there's actually not a lot of daylight between those two positions, despite the discourse of saying these are two opposite ends of a spectrum.

What’s going on with the phrase artificial intelligence is not that it means something else than what we’re using it to mean, it’s that it doesn’t have a proper referent in the world.
-Emily M. Bender

There’s a much broader range of people who can have opinions on AI.
-Alex Hanna

The boosters say AI is a thing. It’s inevitable, it’s imminent, it’s going to be super powerful, and it’s going to solve all of our problems. And the doomers say AI is a thing, it’s inevitable, it’s imminent, it’s going to be super powerful, and it’s going to kill us all. And you can see that there’s actually not a lot of daylight between those two positions, despite the discourse of saying these are two opposite ends of a spectrum.
-Emily M. Bender

Teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions.
-Alex Hannay

Resources

Are We There Yet? Rebuilding Trust in the Value of Education

with Rolin Moe

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Rolin Moe shares about rebuilding trust in the value of education (among other things) on episode 575 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Quotes from the episode

Education is the process of helping people find things that they don't yet know they love.

I never again had a static lesson plan. I was always very fluid in whatever I was going to be doing. I knew where I wanted to get, but the road could go in all sorts of different directions.
– Rolin Moe

Learning is a continuous activity in all sorts of areas and all sorts of places.
– Rolin Moe

Education is the process of helping people find things that they don’t yet know they love.
– Rolin Moe

Resources

May Contain Lies: Stories, Stats, and Bias

with Alex Edmans

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Alex Edmans shares about his book, May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases and What We Can Do About It on episode 574 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Quotes from the episode

It's not that they're bad people, it's that they're people, they're humans. And if we're a person, we have biases.

We think a lie is basically the opposite of truth. So something is a lie if you can disprove it factually.
-Alex Edmans

What I focus on in my book is a more subtle form of a lie where something could be 100% accurate, but the inferences that we draw from them might be misleading.
-Alex Edmans

It’s not that they’re bad people, it’s that they’re people, they’re humans. And if we’re a person, we have biases.
-Alex Edmans

What I’m trying to highlight is the importance of being discerning. We want to have healthy skepticism, but we want to have the same healthy skepticism to something that we do like as something that we don’t.
-Alex Edmans

Resources

How to Facilitate Enriching Learning Experiences

with Tolulope (Tolu) Noah

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Tolu Noah shares about her new book, Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality, on episode 573 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Quotes from the episode

Whenever I'm planning a learning experience, I start by identifying a clear goal for the experience.

Whenever I’m planning a learning experience, I start by identifying a clear goal for the experience.
-Tolu Noah

I don’t think there’s necessarily one right way to approach planning.
-Tolu Noah

A really important aspect of facilitation is that yes, you have a plan, but you also need to be flexible with that plan and be willing to take a rest stop or a detour if needed.
-Tolu Noah

Timing is probably one of the most important aspects of facilitation.
-Tolu Noah

Resources

Myths and Metaphors in the Age of Generative AI

with Leon Furze

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Leon Furze shares about myths and metaphors in the age of generative AI on episode 572 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Quotes from the episode

We can take a a personal moral stance, but if we have a responsibility to teach students, then we have a responsibility to engage with the technology on some level. In order to do that, we need to be using it and and experimenting with it because otherwise, we're relying on third party information, conjecture, and opinions rather than direct experience.

In higher education there is a need to temper the resistance and refusal of the technology with the understanding that students are using it anyway.
-Leon Furze

We can take a a personal moral stance, but if we have a responsibility to teach students, then we have a responsibility to engage with the technology on some level. In order to do that, we need to be using it and and experimenting with it because otherwise, we’re relying on third party information, conjecture, and opinions rather than direct experience.
-Leon Furze

My use of the technology has really shifted over the last few years the more I think about it as a technology and not as a vehicle for language.
-Leon Furze

Let the English teachers who love English, teach English. Let the mathematics teachers who love math, teach math. Let the science teachers teach science. And where appropriate, bring these technologies in.
-Leon Furze

Resources