Learning Outcomes Leaders 005 | Amy Tureen

Welcome to Learning Outcomes Leaders.

In this episode, we chat with Amy Tureen, Dean of Academic Success programs at South Puget Sound Community College, about transforming the library into a vibrant third space featuring everything from Dungeons and Dragons to therapy dogs.

She also walks us through their new five credit AI course and explains why we must teach AI skills, even if we struggle with the ethical implications.

Let's get into the episode.

Transcript

Speaker: 0:03

Hello and welcome to Learning Brought to you by Genio. I'm James and I'm Scott. And on this podcast, you'll hear professionals who can talk the We'll discuss some of their proudest and most most effective ways in which elevate their students chat with Amy Tureen, Dean of Puget Sound Community College, a vibrant third space featuring Dragons to therapy dogs. She through their new five credit AI teach AI skills, even if we to find out more? Let's get into the episode.

Speaker 2: 0:49

Well, let's get cracking then. Um, so yeah, Amy, thank you so I guess before we get started, little bit about yourself. What do you do? Where do you work? Uh, that sort of thing.

Speaker 1: 1:00

Sure. Yeah. My name is Amy Tureen and I am the Dean of programs at South Puget Sound Community College. So that's a two year college. Well, two year. We have one four year program. Um, and my portfolio is very broad. So background is in libraries, is, uh, I'm the Dean of the in addition to several other things. I also run the faculty development center. I tutoring programs. I run the year experience course, which is And for reasons I don't entirely understand, I the bookstore.

Speaker 2: 1:34

A lot of hats to juggle. Yes. I can't imagine what your calendar looks like on a day to day basis. Um, how did you get into So, you know, you're in this roles right now. At a community college. Yeah. What what brought you into What brought you to to South

Speaker 1: 1:54

Sure. So, um, I was a child of My parents were both K-12 Um, my mom was an administrator And as a kid, I said the one become a teacher. And then I became a teacher. And then I said, okay, well, I, I, I'm a teacher, but I'm not going to become an administrator. And then I very quickly became Um, and initially I started out I was doing a PhD in Canada. Um, I wanted to become an And what I found was that the focus on research was not really my interest. I was interested more in the particular helping students see they maybe didn't necessarily Um, so kind of my specialty was students who hated English and in, in the subject.

Speaker 3: 2:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:41

So I decided, well, I think I want to work in higher ed, but I don't necessarily want to be a professor. I looked at the other available master's degree in gender and College, which is primarily So I knew a lot of librarians I actually went to Drexel, um, became a librarian. Um, I then bopped around the So I came home to California I worked full time while doing Then I moved to Georgia for five University, which is a private And then I moved to Las Vegas, very different environment. Twenty five thousand student R1 And then I wanted to keep here because of all those hats. I mean, I enjoy libraries, but I multiple areas and kind of not And I definitely got what I Um, yeah, so that's how I ended And I've really enjoyed the opportunity to kind of see how different aspects of education and in particular the support programs outside of the classroom are. What are a big part of what staying at college is.

Speaker 3: 4:02

You mentioned then like you, of different universities. You've experienced a lot of Like you mentioned, Drexel being those experiences that you've like informed what you do now?

Speaker 1: 4:22

Yeah. So I think one of the things that has really informed for me is that the education system in this country, on the tertiary level, is in no way equal. The experiences are radically school you go to, you'll have a you'll have very different So I'll give you an example. Um, one of the big ways that school is through their Fafsa. So federal aid, student loans. And at my undergrad, which was a women's college, they did our Like they just processed them we're having to constantly do to do it, how to do it on time, And, you know, the Fafsa is not hard, but the fact that that was even a service at some schools, but is not a service at other schools. Another example is my undergrad, students study abroad for at That's very uncommon in that private liberal arts colleges. Also the focus was very So, you know, my parents went to a state university And the idea was you go to school to get a job, and you might have to go to graduate school for a year or two. You get whatever credentialing But it was about a job. And that's certainly what we Like we're helping students get And it was what we talked about We're helping students get jobs. But at Mercer, at my undergrad, Scripps College, um, to some degree, even at Simmons, because for their undergrad program, the focus is more about like, how do you become a more well-rounded, thoughtful person? It's much more about the So students who are at some of years to develop themselves, to Just kind of think for four privilege, but not one that's And the barrier between that is I mean, my undergrad was very five thousand per year. Now it's almost one hundred and Like I couldn't go to my own So yeah, so I mean, I think it's really helped me kind of go, okay, we need to think about the fact that students pick the school in part because of their economic situation, but also students come to schools for different reasons. And are there ways so that aspect of, say, the four year Like, what can we do at a community college level that helps students have time and capacity to develop themselves while also developing their skill set? And honestly, even in the other way, how do we teach students who are at a four year college to prepare themselves for the workforce? And I think actually the big because students are having to not necessarily the coding of And so I think that we're going to see a pivot in some programs and in four year liberal arts colleges of kind of going, oh, wait, we need to look at career skills. We can't wait till we ship them

Speaker 2: 7:13

Yeah, I think we've seen a huge I think about I remember having as a sort of an AI chatbot. Maybe about four years ago, I and got chatting to someone who able to like summarize documents And before I only knew AI as something that was what I played against on the computer on the PlayStation. And we've gone from that to now very quickly, you know, it can generate videos. It can, it can do all sorts of different, really, really amazing things. And so, um, yeah, I think AI literacy is going to be something that increasingly not just is something that's a nice to have, but ends up becoming a real necessity. Um, for, for a lot of students. You, you talked about, about how like the, the four year, four year colleges, um, can, can support students in different ways. Is there, is there one thing sort of, I guess before we jump into sort of AI in, in, in the round, is there one thing that you've seen in that four year college that you've tried to bring, uh, to South Puget Sound, for example?

Speaker 1: 8:16

Um, I try to bring students opportunities to interact with subjects in ways that they maybe weren't, didn't think about doing or making connections for them. Um, and giving them an opportunity to explain and actually give you an example from that I had in high school, actually, I went to an unusual high school that had a trimester system. And assuming you had passed all your classes, there were thirty days in the middle of the year where you got to take three electives for two hours each all day long. And the first one I ever took was, uh, Star Trek and Shakespeare. And looking at the way that, um, various stories was very heavily was incredibly rigorous, like expect for a high school. But because it was so accessible through this lens of Star Trek, um, it became you kind of go, oh, wait, I might be a Shakespeare person. I might be that kind of person. So I try to find examples of here in the library. We try to find ways to bring the literature of the African example, with speculative from black authors and kind of entirely different universe, the future of space, or imagine isn't all, you know, tiny hobbit white and elves who are also all Um, so we just try to make We've done a lot with, um, our really interested in manga and thousand dollars to buy manga. Um, and that's been a huge And, you know, even for me has there's a lot of original of our students are asking for they're being asked to read in more accessible that way, and then they go, okay, now I can full text version. So yeah, just making those And because I'm a librarian, We're doing that through, you out to students.

Speaker 3: 10:19

I, I feel, I feel like I wore I normally have like a sci fi Excellent. I feel like I should have, I should have wore that hat this time. Um, but like I, I, I massively So, um, I, um, I have, uh, a film film studies degree and, um, I think obviously I did film studies. So like storytelling was a And I, but storytelling is like transcendent throughout many people's job roles and many people's lives. And I like to explain like how simple things like movies But I think like just standard movie, like he can break that telling a story, which is going Right? So breaking those, breaking those elements down is, um, is super interesting. Through through through means of like they already know, like, yeah, you just need to break it down, be more comfortable with it. That's that's super interesting. Great that you're doing that, especially with the manga as well. That's. That's awesome to hear what I'm. So when it when it comes. How, how what impact have you then With the bringing in the

Speaker 1: 11:25

Well, one thing we've seen is use of the library. So I came to this institution in So it was after the height of the pandemic, and there were maybe five students in the library at a time ever, like all day. Um, and we have been steadily increasing that first by just communicating what the library was. There was a misunderstanding. So, um, it kind of drove me a kids to come in. So I just started trawling the Um, and, uh, we have basically hallways of our buildings. And so you could stop and say, Especially the ones immediately outside the library and not in there? And some of it was just lack of information, some of it they thought, well, we can't eat in there. Yes, you can eat in the library. We're not allowed to talk. You can absolutely talk in the I don't care if you run around I mean, I'd prefer you don't, freak out about it. Um, you know, there was a sense Well, you know, we want to play. One of the big focuses was a either magic or Dungeons and And so I said, well, what would play those games in the library? Some of it was just clarifying Some of it was. They said, well, if you had the have to bring our dice, it was of dice you can check out now we these different things. Some of it was just getting And then once we got people in, we tried really hard to demonstrate that if they asked for something, they would get it. So for example, one of my big things is I always, as everyone else does, I have my phone, I carry it with me everywhere, right? If a student tells me they want immediately on my phone and I You know, I say, look, we bought It's coming. You know, um, a couple other far as like just trying to get We had a lot of, we hired a outreach specialist who does events. Um, and some of them are the events that you would find in most academic libraries, at least here. So we have the therapy dogs that Um, we have, you know, some art Uh, my outreach coordinator got stores that do things. So like our local, um, plant nursery comes and does a plant sale. And so there's, and they donate they're getting students who more about their business. Similarly, we have a, for some reason, we have the world's biggest bead factory in, in this city, uh, like, like crafting beads. They come and do huge you can do with beads. So just getting people in and space that they own. And to do that, it's got to Right? So like what I often tell to tell us what you want because information, we will default to you having the same interest as ladies is pretty small. So you need to tell us.

Speaker 2: 14:19

That's that's brilliant. And I think I'm looking back to The library was really a safe Um, we, we had a fantastic who, um, used, um, that was his I always found that amazing. He was called to register and worked in the libraries and things. Um, but yeah, he, he created around comic books. There was a lot of kids that out in, in the school during comic books was his thing. And, and he really created this amazing interest amongst that student population. And the kids that used to come fantastically, partly because than, than anybody else. Right. And we ended up having he called I think he's called. Maybe he was, uh. Yeah, he. His Stan Lee Comic Book Awards Sheffield in England, and that And it was like this amazing thing to have kids from a really disadvantaged backgrounds at my high school, see something from the wider world, come to them, and realize that if you build a community, people from around the world will will come and visit. I think it was a it was thought of for for years. But when you mentioned that, what you can do. If you, if you build the right community, especially in a library, the impact that you can have is, is really, really significant. Absolutely. For sure. Um, I guess to, to move on to, to the sort of the AI conversation that we talked about. Now I know we had a conversation beforehand, but just so you could sort of give us a bit of an overview. What, what has South Puget Sound it's become such a hot topic, I

Speaker 1: 16:03

Yeah. So in for the most part, faculty members thus far. And we have some faculty members You know, I mean, one hundred their class to a level that I'm Um, we have a Spanish teacher, for example, who one of the requirements every week is students must interact with the AI in Spanish and have conversations. Um, and he uses that as part of And it's a good way to practice because, you know, part of learning any language is not only the communication but the written communication. Like a lot of times you will literate verbally or, you know, can't write it. So this makes them experience Um, and then we have some people that would sooner lay down and die than have to interact with AI. Like they just do not want to Um, in, particularly in our humanities, which is not uncommon, right? Um, we have a lot of, we had a like, we have to go back to the sit there and write by hand. No, we're not doing that. So our initial phase was kind of ways to retool their teaching so proof, but that it was easier, for students to use. AI just skip doing the work, But now we're kind of going, We definitely need to do AI And you know, at a community technical programs and then we The professional technical we need this in our jobs. The employers are doing that as So we're teaching them um, largely that tends to be people learning how to do props correctly or learning how to like the best way to put in lots of different types of data and then have it analyzed in the correct way. Our computer science students do I develop AI? How do I train AI? How do I make it do a thing? Right? Um, but we are looking at five credit course, which is AI for work and study, right? And the idea being that the core and also the ethics of AI. And as a librarian, I'm really because personally, I'm speaking way to use AI the way that it's that get consumed to use AI, the damage that does to people. There's tons of stories about You can look it up if you really So we need to make sure that we teach students what the ethical concerns are so that they can make fully informed decisions about how and when they use AI in ways that align with their own personal values and own personal ethics. And we cannot do that if we do not educate them on what those are. And we also can't tell show them using it despite the ethical actually engage in it. And the other thing is, you my point of view, the ethics of That doesn't mean they always One of our students might be the student that finds a way to train large language models in a way that is ethically viable and safe. We're just not there yet. So we can't just say, well, we're not going to teach them because we had ethical concerns about it. We need to turn around and say, look, here's the information you'll make, the decisions that you'll make when you're out of this classroom. We're going to give you with to build AI. Depending on the program you're Um, and our hope is that by having students master that we might get to a better place with AI. Hopefully.

Speaker 3: 19:48

The ethics of AI is like, such as touches home a little bit with me. I'm a, I'm a fancy pants arty And I love, I love art, I love, Um, and I, I've long been like wary of AI for those reasons, right? Um, particularly stealing people's voices, not them, but like also replacing people's voices. Right. And then that becoming everybody's voice becoming the same because they're just using AI to produce that voice and we lose authenticity. Um, so for a long time, like backed off from using it. Um, and it's taken me a long to use it whilst keeping that like it as a productivity tool for everything, right? It helps speed up things I don't Um, the things I like doing, I So, so you mentioned this as You're, you're working, you're Like what? What do you know what it like entails for students at this point? Like from.

Speaker 1: 20:59

So the draft version of the It's just a, you know, the ethics of AI. Then looking at things like the So when we say AI, we probably But the reality is, is there's a If you have been using spell been using AI. So kind of looking at what are What is it really good at? What is it not good at? Um, and there are some things Um, and just, you know, it's a very rough schedule of the class right now, but, uh, the initial hope is, oh, maybe we could do this as a two or three credit class because then it would be cheaper. And we really found that to have idea, it needed to be a full It'll be a full quarter. Um, right now it's not going to added to all of our pathway that for students who. There's some limitations about on a. That will allow them to It'll also help our veteran Um, you know, we're just really kind of starting that process with the goal of having it go live in, uh, twenty six, probably fall of twenty six is my guess. Um, we're having faculty who are Um, and probably we'll have to teach it in a team scenario, right? Because our people who have the mechanics of AI are not members who can teach students to, you know, analyze, you know, data and find a commonality or Right? And we also want it to be relatively our big focus at our school, I should say, is how do we make this specific to your career plan? So anything we teach them, we this is going to come up, either Like you're going to have to write some, you know, a letter to somebody and they're going to have to understand what it is you're saying, you know, or something very specific of, you know, you're in our welding class. This is where you would use If you're going to become a marine welder, you have to know this documentation because you're going to be tested on it for your, uh, you know, your, your licensing, things like that. So we're trying to figure out Should there be several Should it lead to other classes Um, right now it's being envisioned as an entry level, like anyone could take it with the expectation that classes that have more advanced studies might be specific to their major. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:26

I really like that. I think it's, you're definitely getting ahead of the curve there with the teaching of it and trying to find those practical applications. I think we, we talk to so many education, and everyone is still now, like you mentioned, of it's for it or one hundred percent those practical applications, That isn't just how do you study Using AI is is quite few and far between right now, but actually being able to say to a student, yeah, you're going to be a marine welder. This is, this is an actual real use that or someone that might able to, to use it in, in an way, I think is, is really good. It's, it's ever evolving, but students when they're in university will only use it for university. They won't build up their skills I think that was one thing that, I studied international politics and I knew really, really in depth how to talk about particular case studies across the world, whether that be a war or an insurgency or anything like that. But actually, the skills that I fully understand, and I didn't bring that into the real world, speaking or anything like that. Um, so being able to draw attention to, hey, you're using this for your studies, but this is how you're going to use it afterwards, I think is a really valuable.

Speaker 1: 24:55

Absolutely. Yeah. We try to do in our library classes as well. Um, you know, the traditional the class says, oh, well, page essay on insert topic here. And so then you take them to the topic and you put in their articles and then you see, you look at that. And, you know, instead we're know, um, teaching database talking about, let's say you're How are you going to find the First of all, where are you Then if you have an idea of where you're going to go, how are you going to know if it's viable? Like if the Toyota website going to give you accurate information? Yes. But is it going to be biased? Yes. Because they want you to buy a Um, but on the other hand, you want to look at comparisons from another company here. But then again, that's biased biases and looking at the okay, so now you have a bunch of what's really important to you? So how would you rank that Um, and how would you really think about are those rankings appropriate? For example, you're in your most important thing is that I really cool, but, you know, can What's the benefit of that car? What about five, ten years from money into a car and now you nothing, no savings, you know, So we just go from a practical impact your actual life, not learn these skills for a longer teach someone else?

Speaker 2: 26:32

So I used it for a very, I used it as a sense checker the other day. So I'm a proud nerd that likes to pretend I'm a racing driver and I steering wheel right behind me. I've decided that I want to get one that's a bit more expensive and apparently is going to make me faster. It's not, but I'm going to Okay, I've spent hours and hours different companies, and like You're going through all these I've come to my own conclusion want to buy, but what I also go through and I used a deep Google Gemini and said this. This is my things that I want to And it loosely aligned with me. And then I've gone, right, well, all of those in the UK and it's that I didn't even see and I just wasn't googling the So I used that there, not as a I wanted to go out and do my own my thinking afterwards. And I think that's that's an important thing because it is so easy, particularly when you've got this. The internet in a chat box.

Speaker 3: 27:42

To replace.

Speaker 2: 27:43

Critical thinking with AI. Have you seen that in the student body so far of wanting to go? Tell me what I might think based I'm going to think, is that

Speaker 1: 27:57

Yeah, we're definitely seeing I mean, we're seeing we're initially defaulting to just Um, so in fact, when our student workers, you know, they're younger than I am, so I'm constantly like, what do you mean? She was explaining to me that she has AI tell her what to wear every day, which I was like, what? Like, why wouldn't you just put Um, and you know, so then we started talking about like, well, what happens if the AI tells you you should wear X, you know, puts in like the weather and the whatever the vibe she wants is and all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, okay, but let's weather and everything. But, you know, there's a chance interview at the end of the day. Would you put that in? How would you do with that? What if you don't agree? Like, has it ever told you You're just like, I'm not going And, um, so we, we see that a We see some students doing some Um, I'll use an example, even shared with students who have they've done similar things. You know, I'm working on my the issue of, uh, wellness. And that is how do people learn and how is that valued? You know, the first chapter is a Wellness studies, all this kind I wrote my chapter. I, you know, worked on it for And then I went into AI and I was like, write me a dissertation chapter about the history of wellness, addressing these issues. And what I did was were there one or two that I was like, oh included that person. But if you use the AI as like, like, this is what the mass If you compare that to your essay and kind of go, oh, wait, I didn't even talk about that topic. And it's relevant. That's the key part and it's relevant, but you need to decide that's a good way of, of doing some use of AI as a, as a reflection tool.

Speaker 2: 29:57

Fantastic.

Speaker 3: 29:58

That's, that's a, that's a, good way to use it. Right? Like what, what things am I, am I perhaps missing from this conversation? Or what things am I missing from this, from this paper I'm writing? It will. And you can ultimately decide,

Speaker 1: 30:13

Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 30:14

If you think it's nonsense when there that doesn't that doesn't follow my messaging. So what's the matter? Don't need it. I said, that's really useful. I think I'm like you. I'm going to use that in my own Um, so this the AI skills class, So what's been challenging about bringing the fun or building this.

Speaker 1: 30:40

So the first part was getting actually create a curriculum. Right? So, um, we have a lot of people very specific context to them. So finding people who either learn or, you know, were just it more than other contexts. And one of the ways we dealt with that was by having a committee of people develop the class. Normally, a class is developed know a couple people are going In this case, we put together a We had a librarian who was on We had people who we knew loved We had people that we knew hated Uh, we made sure we had people we made sure we had people who more as like an intellectual Um, and brought all those ideas And I believe they actually used like this is what we're would cover these topics and syllabus for us. And then they kind of compared it to is that what they really wanted to? And in some ways it helped them into the weeds over here. Or, you know, maybe these issues three topics are too similar. Or maybe we need, we know our have steps between those topics, There's also a lot of other AI So we also did a lot of, let's pull all the syllabi from other colleges that have some form of an AI class, check it all into AI and say, looking at this and assuming students who are first and second year students at a community college, what would you recommend? And then using again, their own, their own critical thinking do, you know, to kind of go yes Um, some of it they had to actually go and research more because they just didn't know about. You know, they didn't have Um, I think the biggest barrier, were getting people past the know, we have a couple faculty that if we engage in AI on any values of our institution. Individual faculty members can choose to have AI policies, and they can choose what that looks like. So those people, we just kind of went, okay, you're not willing to participate in the conversation. So we're just going to put you over here and you don't have to do it. The other big issue was getting people to think about going beyond. You hear a lot when we talk the idea that workers will be want them to be more than just We want them to really think about, uh, what is it being used for? Why is it being used in this We want them to find have the use AI, you know, in ways that So really looking at it from rather than just create a class It has a paid version, it has a This is how you insert Then you hit return, it spits a Um, really making people think you would think about a subject I guess I would say, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a weird beast. It's a, it's a philosophy. It's a technology. It's an art. Um, it's a, it's a lot of It's different than teaching a class on like the TI eighty seven calculator. Right. It's, it's that does a single We are teaching students to use just a basic tool. And it's going to be in some form in their lives, probably for the rest, it's going to change. I'm sure it's going to change. But um, yeah, it's really trying this idea of it's not just teaching them a whole but also in doing that, refining kind of saying, this is machine, developed and we need to look at that we know where it is.

Speaker 2: 34:44

That's really interesting. And you sort of touched on there how all encompassing this is and increasingly will be, um, over time. But then having some lecturers said, I don't want to engage, in those, those moments where profoundly changing the world, How do you reconcile that then departments that, that are something on like that? How does, how does that work?

Speaker 1: 35:19

So because we have academic make them do stuff. Um, so there is not a carrot and It's just a lot of carrots. You know, just going like, come Um, we try demonstrating it in Uh, through, as I said, I'm one faculty development center. You know, we have a ton of understanding what the concerns do, what it can't do, practice in doing things. Um, you know, one of the things unfortunately, that faculty are very interested in is, uh, AI based grading, you know, which, you know, and so we have a lot of conversations about why we don't, we don't support AI and those things. We can't actually say, you just Um, but talking about why that response is usually if they're should I not use AI to grade it? And it's sort of like, well, at you there at this point, you But, but also, you know, the don't know when they're, when You don't know when that's going And we also want them to them like the ease of it, like we had were very opposed to it. And then they had the, the, we like big interview reports, And they were like, oh my God, week and this took seconds. And when you find that be interested in it, then it's about, you know, what is it? But when people don't interact with it, when people, especially when they have had no experience, I have a lot of conversations. And I mean, I get it like I'm I mean, clearly I'm not a fan of I've I can see the benefit of There are certain documents that I am very aware would be more efficiently done by them, and it would not by AI and would not matter ultimately if I did it that way. But I am being a holdout, but being the holdout. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I mean, just and getting people to try it. And we have a couple people who I mean, just absolutely love it. And faculty listen to faculty. So we try to have them teach, I mentioned our Spanish Spanish chat bots basically to Just using that as an example of it's one of, I mean, tons of faculty, other language faculty What would it look like if you had them just using it with ChatGPT? What if you were to build like, to build a specific chatbot? Because we have students that We have it, you know, across students are not getting, um, either incorrect or of the concerns, right? There's all this growing fear Um, some AI is, you know, and all that kind of stuff. But if we can put controls chatbot is going to focus on the is on the table and then we're and then we're, you know.

Speaker 2: 38:44

That's like that.

Speaker 3: 38:46

That's, um, that's, that's super But you've got like, I think faculty on, on, on board. Right? I think that's, that's half the I, I know we've had, we've had conversations with, um, with faculty, uh, before and it's, and I think a lot of it is just understanding, right? I think there's an understanding ultimately, and how we can make Um, and when it comes down to easier and the students them their life better, right? That makes life better when the easier and a little bit better It's just fears, right?

Speaker 1: 39:26

Yeah. I mean, and I think you It's something that I have been have students struggle. We choose what the struggle is And are we choosing the right Um, and so just kind of looking the product, like there's an AI It takes notes and you know, there's a lot of reaction to that. It's like, oh God, no, they need But then you kind of think about Go, why? Why is the struggle at the note taking phase as opposed to the I am learning a concept phase and coming into from the point of view of. Some students have bigger And is the value of making it harder for some students but not others. What is the benefit for it and if there is a benefit for it, are you grading that differently? Right. Because is it the idea that And so it doesn't matter if a but they've demonstrated growth. There's a lot of ways that I make us think very thoughtfully and where our own, um, ableism

Speaker 3: 40:41

Oh, I so I, I have, I have a long time to like, I was to actually understand the because, um, yeah, like I can easier than others. I can simplify things because it's way, way more simple for me. So it should be more simple for But I can also massively recognize the things which I struggle at. And so it's really like, I think it's an important thing that you've said there is that like making it difficult because it's like, this is how it should be done, right? Isn't isn't necessary because a but not be able to articulate it Um, how do you think about AI How do you, how does AI play Then in your eyes.

Speaker 1: 41:37

I, I wish I had a clean and neat I don't, I don't know, but I do I was using it in my example of, chapter of the dissertation and AI was saying. It's a good tool for reflection to kind of go, okay, do I I'm operating on a certain set of assumptions that AI has laid bare. Are those assumptions accurate? Are they things I really care Are they, um, I mean, we'll use language student, just And part of the reason I was bad learned to just study by rote. You know, if I had been a student who had been taught how to just sit there and memorize a list of verbs and conjugate them, I probably would have done better. But because of how I came through schooling and because of my own particular skills, that just wasn't something I knew how to do. And as I think back, as I took and years of Spanish, and I But the point my you know, when of learning Spanish was So if I need to use a tool to get through that communication part in a way that allows me maybe to not fully understand the specifics of Spanish language, but allows me to communicate to a Spanish speaker important information or authentic information. And if AI is helping me do that, Now, I shouldn't get an A in Spanish because I have not learned Spanish, but I think it makes you kind of go, well, what really matters is it does it really matter that I can speak Spanish? Does it really matter that I can It doesn't matter that I can You know, those kinds of things. Um, I also look at it from the point of view of there's a lot of things that we hold dear as educators because we learn them that way. And I think AI is giving us a going, wait, does this matter? You know, does this way of learning matter or is it just very familiar? And I'll give you an example We talk about that. You can always tell how old given library because of the reading hour, because they will they saw as kids, right? There's being there's hundreds of thousands of children's books printed every year, and people are still like, no, I want to show you, you know, green eggs and ham. There are new books. Yeah. But I so I think that AI gives wait, there's not a real reason Maybe we need to let that go.

Speaker 2: 44:14

We had a fantastic conversation Um, and it was one of the things that was talked about was, was that way that we learnt and, and one thing that was highlighted is the way that we teach in lectures and the way that we teach in the classroom is based on the idea that books are a scarce resource. And so we need one person to the book said. We don't need to do that But it's so easy to do that right now and I work at a learning, if I was told I need even done it there. I said, I need to tell everyone. I need to teach people about a You best believe I'd be stood at the front and I would just talk at everyone. Even though I know all the learning theory that goes behind what it is to help someone learn. My go to is what I've learned in And so being able to to reinvent like what you said about the it being able to allow people to that work better for them. Um, I think is really important. I lived in Germany for a year. I had done three, no, five years of high school German at all until I got there and actually spoke to someone for the first time and realized that no one's interested, that my favorite sport is basketball and no one's interested what my favorite color is. They want to know, do I want a I'm in a restaurant and, and so we always I don't know if it's the same in the American education system. We talk constantly about grammatical, like specific grammatical rules. Yes. Actually, nobody speaks perfect Nobody speaks perfect German, you know, across the world, it's that communication. So yeah, being able to use AI in a way like that, that allows the student to focus on what is the outcome. So do we make it specifically dyslexia, for example, because or the accent on that. Or do we say, well, the student clearly to somebody else. And so therefore they've passed that that particular thing, I think is a really interesting, um, really interesting thing there. How, how was the, the response Is this something that you have um, with students about that? This is something that's, that's Have you sort of had that

Speaker 1: 46:34

Yeah. Students, um, to be who brought it to us initially. I mean, we were aware of it informed us of AI, right? But, um, our professional and said, hey, you know, I'm whatever, or a lot of our have been in their career for a to move to the next level. And they would come and say, bookkeeping And this is not how We're using AI for, you know, whatever it is or we're using this technology. Um, so yeah, the students brought it to us to a big degree. Um, and I think that, yeah, so I students to a certain degree it's just in the news a lot. So students are kind of going, well, I'm going to a community college. If I was going to evergreen, which is the four year down the road, like would I be getting this? And we want them to have a As it turns out, they would not. But that's because we that doesn't mean we don't need to do it. We need to have them prepare. We work very closely to as a community college with our employers. So we have these things called, um, swaps or college wide abilities, which are a set of five skill sets that our local employers said, this is why we fire people. And it's things like It's things like, uh, capacity Uh, you know, quantitative very broad topics. But those same partners were people who at least know how to understanding, not necessarily AI works sufficient that we can and do like here at school, at one is through Microsoft. I don't remember is that Gemini?

Speaker 2: 48:26

Uh, co-pilot. I think my.

Speaker 1: 48:28

Co-pilot. Yeah. So it's not that Gemini and ChatGPT and they need that whenever they get to their go, okay, this is similar enough do this work.

Speaker 3: 48:44

Yes. Uh, that's, that's, that's Like, I feel like, like I, I institution strategic plans just are going and that like building huge one and like it's only is skills for the workplace.

Speaker 1: 49:04

Absolutely.

Speaker 3: 49:05

So having those communications with the employers is, is key to understand where to go with that. So let's bring this down. What we what, what this, what this podcast is all about is about providing like supports and providing insights and learnings to any of the listeners listening. So to round this out, what would you say to someone else who's really interested in doing in bringing AI into their into their institution, perhaps building a course or just opening like faculty's eyes or the institute's eyes to how they use AI? How would you encourage somebody Who wants to?

Speaker 1: 49:46

So first, I would say, if you're heart, it's not going away. Just it's it's I'm sorry. It's not even a hill to die on. Like it's gone. The hill has been raised. It is flattened. It's not there. And no to that. You know, even if you don't want not be informed. Your personal ethical choices should not be informing and limiting access to information of students. Like that's your opinion. You're not a gatekeeper. You need to provide that I would say the next thing is, is making sure students understand the ethics of it so that they can make informed choices like don't skip the ethics option. There's a lot there was a lot of discussion when we started our class about, do we really need to discuss the ethics because it's discussed so much in media anyways? Yes, you need to discuss it because you can't assume everyone reads those same articles. Um, and then our next, I think the next thing would be looking at what are the most likely uses for students in your area to use AI. So, you know, like we have a we know exactly where those We talk to those employers, what do day one? What should they be able to What should they be able to learn within the first three months? Right. And then making sure that your set, that students are prepared have the kind of logical or learn the rest of those sixty ninety day options. I would also say that you do not There are a lot of AI classes Uh, find them and steal the best Just cannibalize them. I mean, really, like there is no ground up in AI class anymore. In the same way that if you were chemistry, you would look at You wouldn't just go, well, I'm a author from the very first sentence in original chemistry, understanding of chemistry, you know, do this and reach out to other of your colleagues at other schools and see what works. That's the other thing is instruction is inherently iterative. A class will change from quarter faculty figure out what students respond to, even just on the assignment, but it's a giant to keep assigning it. Talk to the faculty about what this, and then be open to for this class, because this I don't know what it's going to I don't know what's going to So just be open to that.

Speaker 2: 52:29

I like that as a key takeaway. I think AI being the the new team building, we've had been working with PowerPoint. That used to be the, the skill that's what you had to learn. AI is that that new one. And so we can prep prep students I think that's a very that's a

Speaker 3: 52:55

Yeah. And before we finish up, would like to plug. I know you sent us an email about some things you'd like to talk about. I think you mentioned that you there in a book coming out soon.

Speaker 1: 53:12

I actually have a book coming Um, so I edited volume that I It's coming out on October sixteenth from ACL press and it's, um, making values based decisions. And so we talked to librarians, about instances in their had to develop a value decision instances where they had to had to balance their own values, the institution's values, necessarily in sync. Um, we just example products as about where, how do what are What do those look like when It's, and it's really important right now, because I'm sure if you have seen that there's been a federal level of what say and what we can collect and And this is a really useful and do you survive in a profession maybe, or professional values always easy to honor? So how do you do that in a way that keeps you A employed and B allows you to live an ethical life?

Speaker 3: 54:30

That's awesome. So that's October sixteenth. How do you get hold of that?

Speaker 1: 54:34

Um, you can order it from, uh, It's also already available on basically any book provider.

Speaker 3: 54:42

Excellent. That's great. for your time. Super enlightening. For myself, I don't know about

Speaker 2: 54:49

Absolutely it is. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much, Amy. Really, really appreciate you

Speaker 1: 54:54

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker: 54:59

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