Learning Outcomes Leaders 004 | James Moore

Welcome to Learning Outcomes Leaders.

In this episode, we'll be talking to James Moore, Director of Online Learning at DePaul University, about his personal journey as a neurodivergent learner and how it shaped his approach to the Hyflex classroom model.

We'll discuss his AI sommelier analogy and how flexible learning environments act as a crucial safety net for today's students.

Let's get into the episode.

Transcript

Speaker: 0:03

Hello and welcome to Learning Brought to you by Genio I'm And on this podcast you'll hear professionals who can talk the there and done it. We'll discuss some of their projects, and explore the most helped to improve and elevate In this episode, we'll be talking to James Moore, director of online learning at DePaul University, about his personal journey as a neurodivergent learner and how it shaped his approach to the Hyflex classroom model. We'll discuss his AI sommelier analogy and how flexible learning environments act as a crucial safety net for today's students. Want to find out more. Let's get into the episode. well, we would like to start off a little bit about you. Um, and ultimately your origin character, um, understanding And I imagine it being quite interesting seeing as, uh, you're over in Chicago at the moment. Yes. Um, so if you want to go ahead from the, from a formative educational experiences you had from a young when you were a young man up until now, um, clue us in. Okay. So I discovered late in life sort of explains all the issues I was the worst student ever. Um, I didn't want to follow Couldn't spell all those things So I feel it's kind of embarrassing that I work at a university now. Um, but I fell into this by Um, I met my wife. She wasn't my wife at the time in London, and she convinced me that I should come to America with her. So at that point, you've got You can get an immigration lawyer, which is like ten thousand dollars with no guarantee that you can get into the country or you can get married within three months of arriving in the country, which is like, you know, high pressure, or you can become a student and they'll take you the next day. So, uh, I signed up for my University in Chicago. Arrived the next day. Um, and it's one of those international student, you can the first nine months. So there's a job, uh, to be a webmaster, uh, focusing on online learning. I was like, I can do that. I love that. That's the exact thing for me. So I fell into this by accident. So like I say, it feels kind of Um, but if you're working in telling faculty to do something, So the only way that I can get have teaching experience. So I chose elected to, to teach Um, and I've used that experience to sort of demonstrate to my colleagues that when I'm saying something, you know, it's based on real life experience. And ultimately these are ways that would make their life easier. So I have, like I say, the worst Things just fell into place and That's, that's, that's great to You know what I think? I think most people's careers Yeah. I feel like they just end up end So I, I have dyslexia, um, and, um, I was always told when I was younger to get, get yourself a manual job? Yeah. Do what? You don't need one of those Um, and then so I, I, I went um, and basically just fell into for me, right? I have the same struggles I can, struggles, like a lot. Um, is yeah, it's just, it's And it was purely just by Um, there's a really high percentage of dyslexic, neurodivergent folks who had, um, undiagnosed learning disabilities in instructional design because they're so good at realizing the potential problems that a student's going to have. Um, I'm sure you've seen this. I mean, the problem typically is educators did really well in school. And the thing is, they assume that when they're teaching, this is easy. You know, this is how you should This is how I did it. And really most people in the they're playing a game of poker. They're trying to sort of show They're not struggling. You know that they're waving, So instructional designers who in the past, they're the best Yeah, I remember I remember having that, that sort of experience when I was in in high school. No matter how hard I tried, Right. I would, I would, I was always school, you know, I was like the lock in on this teacher and I I couldn't do it. And my teacher was very focused on we're going to get everyone a stars, but I couldn't get to the B, let alone the A. Um, and so I, I, I found it really difficult because I was being taught in a way that was meant to make me this high fly student, but I didn't have those foundations in, in, in the first place. And like looking back now at power of what it can be to information in different ways supporting the eighty percent, get those grades. Like that's where you make the biggest, the biggest impact on students right the way through the ages, whether that's in, in, in sort of kindergarten, even, right, right. The way up through, through That's so true. I was at a conference a couple of years ago, and we're just talking about how to sort of present. And one of the participants there was a teacher and she was like, I want all of my students to get an A. And we were like, you know, there are some students who don't want an A, they're comfortable with A, B or a C, they're looking for work life balance or they're really struggling. And a B to them is an that is tough to get and they're So sometimes it's you're, you're It's sometimes difficult to get has a different target. We're not all trying to be in Yeah, it's a it's a difference It's going to be very different and their own experiences and, in their own life. I mean, you mentioned work life I think that's like an excellent Like, what is it? I, I, I know a bit, but can you explain for everybody what Hyflex is? Um, so we can dig a little bit your methods and how you do it? Yeah. So technically the name should And it's a really cool concept So my theory in academia is the the struggling professors, the who are trying to make it work. So this idea came up that Sometimes being in the classroom or remembering what happens in the classroom. So try and create this environment where a student can be physically in the classroom space, or they can connect to that space remotely, or they can access a recording of what took place there. So this is hyflex. We call it flex here, just to be it's essentially the same thing. And it's a beautiful concept students at the moment. So I don't know if this is your business students who would be They'd finish work at five they head to the university, you They're there at six, they'll study till nine and then they'll go home. And that worked for them. And now we have work from home. So these folks are typically, some days during the week. At home? Other days. Why would you want to drive minutes for a three hour class Not going to happen. So the beauty of flex is it be in the classroom, which is most of the time. But to be able to connect same experience, the same can continue their studies. I'll be honest with you, the of that is of debatable value. I definitely don't want students viewing that as their only experience. So for an online class, they're looking at the recording of the live class. That's not good. But for some students who had that live experience, knowing that there's a recording, a transcription, something that they can look at after the fact and sort of remind them of things that took place, or use that as an alternative to taking notes. That's beautiful. So I think it transforms the And that's something I'm really But getting it to work is a trick, because there are different sort of audiences that you want to feel comfortable in these spaces. So that's something that we at really hard on. But I feel that we sort of That's brilliant. I think what we've seen certainly from our experiences is this this want for flexibility and this need for flexibility. I think especially since Covid, uh, has, has really come in right across education, but also just in the working world as well. I know. Um, one thing that appealed to was it was hybrid. I wasn't having to wrestle that And we've, I've been just I remember having a coffee just outside and it's, you know, right in the center of Chicago in this really beautiful, beautiful location. It's also surrounded by traffic. Yes. And, and which can be such a stress inducer for so many students. If students have other barriers, challenges or even just working Chicago and, and coming in that do that drive. I've done a commute before and then had to jump straight into a meeting or go straight to a conference. You're not on your A game. So being able to just go. Let's, let's take out two and a half hours from my day of commuting to the same place that I can still access that content at home. That two and a half hours then becomes free to extra, study extra or get some more done and things that it sounds absolutely transformative. And to that you add the, you struggling, your child is ill at You can't afford to bring in a Um, you've got the sniffles. You don't want to give someone You can stay at home. You know, the really amazing thing is now that we've got flex in place. I don't get the seasonal colds the same way that I used to previously. You know, little things like Yeah. I think that that that like life and study balance like is, is crucial. And it can be, it can be a big factor why people struggle in education. It's like if, if, if you have thing you're not going to drop education maybe, right? Um, so being able to balance that and just like organize your life around that a little bit easier is like, it's super incredible. Keeps people, keeps students Because that's what they want to Um, so what, what did you, what were you seeing then before this? What were you seeing that made we need to do? And how did you get to that That's a great question. So there's a mixture of things. Um, so I was seeing a lot of second or third language So the, the irony sometimes is I'm English and I live in North America. I speak the same language, but There are different cultural Words have different meanings. So anyway, you know these say, the second or third They're hearing these strange out of the park. It's in the red. It's in the black. You know, don't have a cow. And they're like, what on earth And they're looking, you know, on their laptop or device to sort of translate that concept, but they're searching actively for that. And when we have Zoom or equivalent running in a live meeting. That student will see a And that transcript could be in Or the fact that it's in English And then you add things. We didn't have it then, but you something that you could query don't understand that. So that's the folks where, like or third language. And again, I'm attuned to the uh, perhaps the ones who are say something in class and So that was one aspect. Then I'm just seeing the stress people crowding into a train on rushing to a classroom to be And then I could see, you know, movement to work from home. It wasn't as prevalent before Covid, but you could see the signs. And really you want to create an Most classrooms look the same as ago, and we're using a by the Prussians with the resources are books and a those scarce resources. So I don't think I was unique Um, but my feelings were, you know, this needs to change and there's some sort of existential threat there. Um, so within the states, there's about five thousand universities and colleges and we know for a fact there won't be that number over the next couple of years. And then within certain, you seeing a population drain. So, you know, there are fewer children, which become students, state to state. So it's making sure that you can convenient for students. The education is still going to you're going to take away the anything to the experience. There's some painful things in education that make sense, you know? That could be good, but there So it's finding ways to sort of So that was the need. But then the trick was like finding out the right tools, the right environment, the right support and to sort of culturally sort of position this as something that we should get behind. Um, but luckily I work for a So the cool thing is if you make a business case, your audience is going to accept those arguments. So, you know, I was lucky. There are places where perhaps easily as that's super I think one of the, one of the was, um, like how the workplace And you noticed that. I think there's so many, like so many institutions have like strategic initiatives towards like building career ready students. Right? And you're basically doing that if they're going to go into a place where they're going, going to experience working in situations which are hybrid, hybrid working. You're preparing them for how to Um, that's yeah, so it's super institutions are looking towards interesting externalities there. So, um, I don't know if you are parents, but there's a lot of research that talks about the ideal time of day for a student to learn. So if you think about your experience of school, you know, as a teenager, you're early in the morning when your body wants to be asleep, your brain isn't working. You're not going to learn as tired in the afternoon. Um, but we throw graduate students into a classroom at six o'clock to nine o'clock for three hours. They haven't eaten. They're getting tired. And then the research suggests that we can only learn a certain number of things every hour of instruction. So it's around sort of for sort hour of instruction. So there's a lot that you're And we need as humans, the ability to sort of reflect on our learning. So cramming something into three So one of the weird things that I noticed now as we move towards flex, so, you know, we're pointing out the advantages to students. This is, you know, for some a better way to learn, an easy way to learn. And one student came to me last year is like, can we have classes that are only forty five minutes long? But we have them five days a And it's like, that is a good institutions are looking to So what they're doing is they're making sure that utilization is high. So when one class finishes, You want people in the building, you want people in the classroom. But that's really not the effective way to teach, you know? So the cool thing is you offer a there are other solutions that maybe we should consider. So that's the cool thing about There are so many places that we're sort of reevaluating our biases. We're reevaluating our previous best for our students. It's funny, you mentioned like that we have to, to learn how I remember years ago being in a talking about how to effectively um, you know, study sprints and modalities of learning. But this workshop lasted for lecturer talking at me. And so all of the actual learning theory wasn't put into practice in, in, in that same moment. So it can be so easy for us to it's a whole different thing to really does work for those more complex than that. Going back to one thing that you of, of demographics that we're nationally with, with sort of actually sort of who are the How, how have you seen that, We talk a lot about this sort of where it's these students that non-traditional, um, previously majority of students. Have you seen more parents and this flex model? Um, than, than you would have done sort of coming to to, to DePaul years. Years before the flex model Yeah, definitely. So, um, it falls into almost If you think about the, you you know, a type of porridge There was a chair that was just There was a bed. That's just right. So here's sort of the of the preferences I'm seeing. So undergraduates, the younger students coming in fresh, they definitely want their face to face experience initially because they're looking to make friends. Maybe they want to date, um, they want to know who their professor is. They want to become part of that But then over time, they start mixed bag of modalities. So if they know that a class is easy, they want that to be online and in some cases online asynchronous, so they can sort of move study to a convenient time. If something's really tough, then they want access to their professor. So again, that might be face to For our graduate students, what life is really involved. And they typically have families need to look after. So they're looking for that So I see a movement towards And again, flex sort of creates many things simultaneously, you flexibility is important. But it's really interesting. I find too often people talk modality when it's not. So some of my students, they at your own pace. Do it when you have time. With the assumption that you're in an army of one, you don't really need to socialize that much. You know you can figure it out and at the other end, online live. You know, you realize that you And then in the middle, we have, And the name isn't great, but time is asynchronous and then And for that, I'm seeing our That's what they want. If they can't do flax. So flax, as I say, sort of is But for the folks who know that, they definitely can't come to a physical location. They want a mixture of they need, you know, some moment, interact with people, But the thing that I think we're good at is proactively, we're checking to see what modality students want. And then ideally, you're sort of and understanding how those Um, so we have online teaching we're asking our students, in In what modality is this the Because those are sort of two close things, but they're not the same. What would your preference be What would you like for a hard What would you like? There's something that's entry What would you like for What would you like? And you see some commonalities So from that we're using that intelligence to sort of better plan what's going to make sense for students. But that itself sort of creates what you think works best for a to work best for faculty. Or they may think that student of student needs. So it's a fun sort of mix of It sounds yeah, it sounds like, um, the key thing is options, right? Yeah. Providing those options to the space where like technology is provide those options, we should And that life is way more And there are so many last minute requests on people's lives. Um, so yes, we need to work with So the thing that I'm starting to realize the longer I work in academia is really, we want to be coaches who understand students individually. You know, what are their needs? Where do they want to be, and for them that allows them to be And you don't do that by You do that by creating something that gives people options. And when you allow people to elect to do something, they're going to commit to that to a greater degree. Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. It's like it's the investment It's like when you've been given the what you want to do. You have such a higher And so you touched on business case for flex. Um, out of the project itself, challenging things that you came your way through them? Thank you. So I think with everything, change management is typically the, the largest barrier, the greatest barrier. Um, I work on the opinion that if you give people a reason to change, they're going to push back. And to be honest, they know, to change, to adapt just So the way that you create identifying what the barriers to for ways to remove them. Um, so to give you an example of Years back, I was trying to and they would say to me, James, high stakes testing and students So I'm not going to do this. So it was finding ways that we could do high stakes testing online, providing academic integrity. And once you sort of removed okay, maybe this will work. So a lot of the people I was working with understood the reason for change, the need for change. So the things that we needed to address were the design of the classroom and then supported the professor. Um, so designing the classroom is creating a space where you can walk in and things feel intuitive. You can do what you want to do. So typically when I sit down them how to use the system. I asked them two questions. What do you most enjoy about What are the things that are things that you hate that you You don't want to do. And from that, you're showing in this technology, here's how things that are good to you. And then support falls into So one of the things that I when we got people teaching in I would send a targeted email And basically it's five It's like, if you don't have But tell me what's working. What isn't working? Is there anything that you would Is that a thing you want to How many students turned up? And I would get feedback from were targeted on the day. But the really important thing And quite often professors would your five questions, but I tried Or I want to do this. And it's reducing the friction. It's looking for ways to sort of because otherwise you end up in quarter finishes, when the has this whole litany, this long but they didn't tell anyone. And what you want to do is you want to fix problems immediately. And then the cool thing is, if immediately, they sometimes turn start showing their colleagues, So that was a lot of work. But I think that's what you want to do at the early stages of the project. And you're also sort of reinforcing the reason why we're doing this. So it's like, hey guys, there is This looks like it might fix the Here's the feedback we're Here's how we're seeing students This is important. Yes it's going to be painful. But we're doing it for a good reason and we're going to do it with you. We're going to listen to what We're going to change our policies and procedures based upon feedback. That makes sense from you. You know, we're in this So that's that's the good news. I mean, this can be done. It's just basically making sure that you invest time and energy to make sure that those things are dealt with right at the start. And again, that can sometimes be difficult in higher education because people are cutting back on resources. You know, sometimes there isn't We don't have the people who have spare time to to work on something. I think that that change, change happens everywhere, right? And I know in, in my own life, my own sort of working world, if something's changing, it's very easy to go, oh, this, this feels different. But the, the more that that becomes a conversation and this sort of two way thing, rather than it feeling like something that's being either dictated to you or told that this is what you're going to do, and we're going to review this in four months. The fact that that's that continual thing I think is, is so important. Have you seen professors themselves wanting to sort of encourage themselves to do teaching online, or is the expectation still for them on the most part that they're on campus for most or all of the classes? How, how does that work from sort of a faculty, um, side of things? That's a great question. Um, there's a lot of nuance there and a lot of factors there. So, um, what you typically see promotion and tenure, faculty something new that might reduce effectiveness until they've got So there was a weird sort of typically the older professors change because they felt And the younger professors were like, I've been told that if I get promotion in tenure, I need to concentrate on these things here. Um, and ours is a university publish as well. So there are three things that They have to teach. They have to provide service. They have to research. So I understand they're sort of sometimes to change. The weird thing is Covid is a I'm sure you sort of see this. The things that were sort of in our common place. So we definitely have an are like, well, this is how I do I should be able to do this in So, you know, there's an Um, but the thing that I think has sort of changed things in really powerful ways is the ability to bring in guest speakers in a way that's meaningful. So, um, having, you know, zoom in all of our classrooms, having, you know, effective microphones, great sort of cameras that track, we can bring in a guest speaker who can see the room, can see the individual students can see their expressions. So when they come in to guest present on something, it's not the voice of God on top of PowerPoints. It's not a telephone call coming It's something where they feel conversation with the classroom. And for many of my colleagues, you can bring in an expert every minutes about something and I'll Um, students are always looking They're looking for, you know, as you pointed out, sort of divergent views, alternative views, something that isn't their instructor to sort of add flavor and an alternative perspective. So you have teachers, you know, professors who love being in the classroom, but they love sometimes using this technology to amplify the power of what they're doing as traditional teaching. That's yeah. That's fantastic. And how would you say now that going to say completed, but I you're constantly iterating and But now, now it's sort of rolled How, how would you say the from sort of that institutional Is, is this something that that is being looked upon as this like turning point for, you know, moving to that next generation. How's that response? Well, again, it's a great So there's a couple of things We've got to the point where So a lot of people say, oh, I'm teaching a class that's called, you know, there is some pushback from some parts of the community because the thing that sometimes we don't sort of say in a loud voice with flex is essentially you're teaching to two populations simultaneously. So that's creating some cognitive load for the professor. Um, because of its success, coming into that modality. And some faculty may say, you face because they know they're Or I might prefer to do online asynchronous because I'm not going to get as many sort of student requests. And it's a similar scenario to where students would choose a Quite often faculty will do the It's like, okay, for these couple of classes, I want to do this because it's going to reduce my load, you know, fewer students or less things to worry about. So I think on the whole it's There's definitely sort of So there's some faculty. It's like I'm never teaching in Again. This is the thing for me. And there are others who are like, you know what, I don't like this. I want to go back. But I think we have a good base And again, sort of we have a business case, a rationale for this, and we've got enough data to demonstrate that GPAs are not negatively impacted by this modality. You know, the students are The students are happy. The students want this. This naturally is something that But you know, teaching is an Um, quite often there are things that people enjoy doing and you don't want to take away that thing. So again, the reason why flex, I Cinderella um, sorry, not wrong fairy tale. The reason I think it sort of so many different needs. Uh, and again, I, it's the way because it allows me to do so Plastic. I was, I was going to ask God got you. Go ahead. You go ahead. I, I something just came to mind that how is that this, this because the students have got so Now, if I'm a student and I'm for, for different universities I would be looking for is that to go hybrid. Have you seen this have an Is this something that you, sort of driver for students to Because we are the university pioneering this, is that seen impacts that actual Definitely. Um, and then some other sort of So like every institution, we sort of bring in the number of And we're typically above that Now, a lot of the reasons we're above that is because of outreach. So my colleagues who teach quite often are on the telephones over summer, sort of calling students and saying, we'd love to have you here. We saw your application. Can we talk about something? So ultimately it gets down to sort of creating interpersonal The relationships that are always there. So I think my perspective is pressure that students have. So if you think about committing there's always that fear. Oh my God, I'm going to have to father is ill or my job's going or something's going to change. So even if they were never to do flex, saying that we have that as a safety net is really, really powerful. In the same way that online safety net some years back. You know, no matter where you go, you can complete your degree. So yes, it definitely fixes The downside to that is we have a number of modalities at the university. And ultimately we want to reduce You know if you have too many If you have the right number of So from my perspective, three modalities is a good target to go for. So I would like us to say we've who want that. We've got flex and then we've is probably online hybrid in have that live interaction. But yeah, you're so right. You know, we are in a We need to sort of demonstrate that we have the things that are going to reduce stress and make it possible that someone's going to complete their degree on time. And for the amount of money that So yeah, I think it's part of It's not the only thing, but Yeah, I think yeah, I think it's a competitive space, right? And you're, you're working for student, what is going to be Right? And, and, and that's what But yeah, if you have too many comes in, right? And you're like, oh, it's great options, but I don't know which Right. So and simplifying it for the understanding like which ones to Like which options do you zone Yeah. So we do a lot of survey data. I talked to a lot of students. My colleagues are running, um, sort of, you know, brown bag sessions. Like anytime I meet a student, So it's just that nature of being inquisitive and sort of understanding. We're looking at the data so we see pain points. Um, He's sort of a weird angle So one of my favorite professors who didn't know technology. He actually printed out his emails or sometimes even asked someone else to print them out for him. But what he did when he when he I'm your professor today and I when the class is over. You have my name, you've got my email, you've got my telephone number. You can always reach out with a And I think ultimately, that's looking for, the fact that relationship with their the other students. So you're looking to make sure where people feel at home, at And again, I think flex is part Um, there's some weird anecdotes So quite often faculty hate it the physical class than online. And I can understand that. But sometimes when we're asking They were I was on the bus. The bus was going to be late. I didn't want to walk into the classroom late, so I let you know. I decided I selected to go so I could be ready. So it's, that's one of the other talk to people. We need to sort of explain what a certain way. And again, it's just getting back to that sort of air of inquiry. Don't make assumptions, you know, ask what people would like to do, explain why you're doing something. And that's the beautiful thing I mean, again, you know, we can sort of break down some of those sort of systematic barriers when when you talk about that, that split there between sort of the students that are in person, students that are online that we, we talk a lot about sort of how learning has to be a process, how, you know, learning can't be an event where you just sit, listen, and you remember it. You one thing that we've had as sometimes is because some of us some half the team, a quarter of online to have interactions, Sometimes it can be quite broken up across those two, two mediums. And I'd imagine that's that's going to be the same if you're in more of a debate environment, um, or, you know, something that's a bit more interactive, how, how have professors found that challenge? How, how has that been sort of, um, I was going to say negotiated. I can't think of the word now navigator is what I was looking for. So that's a great question. So there are a couple of ways So one, uh, we introduced during So when we speak to faculty who are going to be teaching in the room, we say when you walk around the room and we design these rooms so faculty can walk around them. So in some cases, there are We've got multiple confidence Sometimes in the ceiling, so You know what's behind you. So we're pushing faculty to walk But what we do is we say, when first to the folks who are in meeting, when you've got people ambient information to look this person's leaning forward. She's going to answer first, so They don't get that as easily. So we say be very purposeful, folks first and then bring it So a couple of my colleagues, they even have, um, ratios for this. They're sort of like seventy, time is projected on the online the room or using breakout between remote and in-class. So like I said, a lot of that comes in training to try and push that and it's created some weird anecdotes. Um, so one of my accountancy student who'd been online for and sat at the front of the know what's going on here? Why are you doing this? And he was like, well, you always pick on the online people. So I thought I'd have an easier Oh, it's the complete opposite of what it was like at school for me. I was sat right in the back. Yeah, it's amazing, but every So, um, when I teach, I start of class, you know, a quiz We're looking to see who's on You make sure that you're saying into the classroom. So your class might start at six, but Zoom starts at six fifteen. Every time someone pops up online, you know there's a quick chat. You're looking for ways in which always say something in class. So you might pick on them or, you know, might, you know, do something where they're sharing something, but you need those voices. But this gets back to sort of traditional teaching and actually sort of any sort of meeting. You're making sure that the person who hasn't spoken has an opportunity to say something because you want all voices heard. That's yeah, that's it's great to hear because it's so like, like James referenced, like when we're in Zoom meetings, sometimes the person I'm the one person on Zoom can get like drastically overlooked. So it's so important to have that like tune in to them first, right? Maybe we're even going to take When we're going to tune into reference everybody else in the That's super useful. Learn something here. Um, and in the, in the, in the, in the theme of learning this, this podcast that we're doing, it's all about like sharing the ideas, right? So that other people can take on ideas and do something similar need to or want to. So what would you say to someone who wants to do something like flex High flex at their institution? What would you say? What advice would you give them Thank you. That's a great question. So there's a couple of pieces of The first is I would look for So things take a while in And the way that you're from little actions. So again, to, you know, to provide an analogy here, um, if I'm working with faculty and ultimately I know that there's a big problem that we're working towards. I look for little problems along It's like a computer game. You know, before you battle the the little bosses. So you're looking for ways that faculty, that you can sort of that I'm on your side for. So ultimately, when you come to track record and you're looking So there are, you know, faculty asked to do more each year with in some more hours, do this. So if you are looking to make a change, look for things that you can remove. Look for things that you can So someone has the ability to shift to a new thing. And then the last part is So that has to be rapid, way, which is two part. You're not just saying things. You're listening to feedback. So if I'm really involved in a my time is just spent on meeting people in their office, Being able to chat on the telephone, you know, being available. So, you know, it's not a thing snap of a finger. It's not something that you thing that I'm going to do. You take some time thinking You create some space in your routine to be able to do that, and you realize that this is something that's going to take some time. I think that brings it back to It's all about change Building that trust so that when you do eventually propose this idea, which is going to be very difficult. They trust that you're the person to manage that situation and support them along through it. And that's a great sentiment to, close out this podcast. Um, I would love the opportunity for you to plug anything you wanted to. If you, uh, if you've got working on or working on in the Yeah. So the thing that I'm pushing at colleagues is AI literacy. So, uh, my colleagues at our has developed an online introduces artificial generative AI, but provides a and staff to understand the it's going to change society. You know, the negatives, the positives, ethics bias, and then provides a framework for using this practically in small ways and then larger ways for either teaching or for regular staff positions. But what I'm looking for is within my college and then ultimately the university, we have a one hundred percent take up rate. Everyone who works here has taken that foundational course, because imagine then talking to a prospective student or parent of a student to say, all of our staff, all of our faculty are AI literate. They might not want to use AI. They might think that it's the wrong thing to use in this context, but there's a reason why. And they have that. So I think that's one of the things that's going to be hugely transformative. Um, and if there are folks, you have that centralized support, good places that they can go to So the University of Helsinki back in Finland in twenty eighteen, uh, put together one of the most effective MOOCs that provides a foundation for artificial intelligence. They built two more on that. They've been localized over You get a certificate when you So I think for any organization, foundation of AI literacy, then smart decisions going forward. And if you can show that to your audience, they're going to trust you. Because I don't know if this is a daily conversation that you have. But at my university, we're environment is highly looking for AI skills, and it's student to get that first job or So we're making sure that our students are prepared for this new reality. And the only way that we can do that is if everyone in the organization understands this new reality. So that's my plug. That sounds that sounds awesome, I mean, from my own personal perspective of AI, I've been a bit apprehensive of it until like, I delved in to fully understand when and how to use it. Right. And I think that's what, that's For students, there are reasons If you think about education, the nature of a professor or the nature of an educator is anytime they're presented with something is to interrogate it and say, is that true? You don't take something at face And all of us on this call, we work in technology, and we've seen various situations where a technology overpromised and under-delivered. So, you know, we're wary. But to your point, you know, we definitely need hands on experience that goes beyond theory. Yeah, it's I was listening to a podcast on this recently, actually just talking about AI in general and these predictions that this, this is our generation's industrial revolution and that the ways in which we communicate, work, socialise are going to be changed so significantly by this technology because of how rapidly it's, you know, it's continuing to, to sort of develop over such a short period of time. I remember looking at AI for the first time or ChatGPT when that first launched, probably about two years ago, and it being able to summarize something for me really quickly and being blown away by that, and now it can just automatically generate a video based off of one sentence prompt. And that's what's happened in But being able to understand can be used effectively for the be leveraged to teach, but to Using that to be able to say, Do this with with this can really set students apart. Being able to to to now to use Um, there for sure. So yeah, so that's a great plug. So here's my dumb concept there. So when I teach about AI to my be a sommelier for AI. So I don't understand why if I on the menu, I have no idea. But a sommelier can do three They can talk about the You know where it came from, the They can talk about pairing, how it's going to sort of elevate the food that you're going to eat that evening and make it a transformative night. And then they can talk about You know, you indicate how much can show you the right wine So it's the same thing with AI. You want students to taste it and to understand those three components. So okay, what's the provenance? Because a lot of AI is if you ethical, it's biased. It has all these things in that So you need that. You need to understand pairing how it's going to work for a particular task. Then you need to understand You know, how much is it going to cost and the cost of implementing it. How is that going to change you So like I said, that's my dumb of share with my students. I like that being a sommelier of the podcast, AI sommeliers. Well, before we close out, I'm going to plug something of yours. James, you were on our podcast, our podcast, our webinar, uh, recently navigating AI in higher education. Super interesting, super Um, so if anybody else wants to go and have a listen, um, a watch of, like, James's views on AI. Absolutely. Go and check that out as well. Hopefully we can have you again Um, one hundred percent. This was so much fun. Thank you. We had a great time. Thank you very much, James. Um, I hope you have a great day. You too. Take care. And that's a wrap. Thank you so much for joining us We hope you found the conversation valuable and that it gave you some ideas for how you can elevate your own student experience. Don't forget to hit that get your podcasts so you never Until next time, have an amazing