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Undergraduate Students Share their Thoughts about Technology, Success, and Inclusivity

Anonymous — Thu, 18 May 2023 16:54:26 +0000

Undergraduate Students Share their Thoughts about Technology, Success, and Inclusivity Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/18/2023 - 10:54

Anthony Mignogna , Jacie Moriyama

By Anthony Mignogna & Jacie Moriyama

On April 3, 2023, ASSETT’s Student Technology Consultants hosted a Student Panel. The goal of this panel was to provide a safe venue for undergraduate students to share their perspectives around technology use and out of the classroom, student success, mental health, inclusivity, and well-being on campus. Panelist included:

Ellianna Campbell, Sophomore, Entrepreneurship
Matthew Fishbein, Senior, History & Media Production
Jona Hernandez-Pacheco, Junior, Integrative Physiology, w/ minors in Business and Media Studies.

The panelists were asked a series of prepared questions, and then answered questions from audience members. Below is a brief recap of some of the questions the panelists were asked.

When asked, “what is an interesting way that a faculty member has used technology or allowed you to use technology to complete an assignment?” One panelist mentioned he took a class where students were given the creative freedom to create a final project through a variety of methods, such as composing an original poem or song, video, audio clip, or creating a multimedia image, for example. Using a 3D animation software package, he recreated a historical ship to complete his final project. Another panelist took a class that used a business program to simulate the real world challenges of operating a business and how decisions, big or small, would impact the success, or failure of a company.

Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT have been controversial topics in education. And not surprisingly, the range of the panelists' views about this technology don’t differ much from faculty. The panelists had varying opinions about ChatGPT. One panelist thought that it is an overall bad tool and could potentially create a bad loophole in education because students use it to cheat and write papers for them. Another viewed it as basically a new form of a search engine that is able to pull information together. The other had a more middle view where it could be helpful if it’s used correctly (to search for foundational or peripheral information about a topic.)

The panelists were asked to provide examples of class activities that engaged them as learners and examples of activities that hindered their learning. Examples of activities that hindered their learning included an instructor who was less than passionate about teaching a large General Education lecture course and projected a negative attitude/hostility toward students. Another panelist recalled an instructor who used videos and documentaries as a substitute for teaching. The panelists also thought that the use of iClickers tool is not engaging and was only used for attendance purposes, which is ineffective because students can click in from anywhere. However, they did also say that Clickers could be effective if questions were revisited as a study tool or if faculty referred back to these questions during lecture.

Good examples included a teacher who implemented study group activities in the classroom. Another panelist mentioned how an instructor used real life scenarios to teach statistics and made the concepts of the course relevant and applicable to students’. Another panelist mentioned how an instructor encouraged students to ask and answer questions out loud during class, even though the answers may not have been correct. This but he encouraged students to continually engage with him and the content.

The term success has so many different meanings and interpretations. When asked what success means to the panelist, they all agreed that it varies from person to person and gave a variety of answers as to what success means to them. One panelist defined success as knowing who you are. They also remarked that success isn’t about the big accomplishments, but the small wins. Another panelist built upon that answer and said for them, sometimes, it was about being able to get out of bed, taking a shower, putting [my] clothes in the hamper, eating a meal, and going to class. They elaborated that it might not sound like a big deal, but when you’re dealing with depression and mental health issues, it’s the small wins that get you through the day. Graduating from high school, getting into college, and knowing that you are following your dreams - and not one that your family thinks you should be pursuing was another form of success from one of the panelists. They also lamented that there are services on campus that are available to help students succeed in college. Some of the programs they highlighted are the Miramontes Arts & Sciences Program (MASP), the Student Academic Success Center (SASC), and the Center for Inclusion and Social Change.

The final question of the event was, “if you had the power (authority, money, time), what is one thing that you would change about higher ed?” One panelist suggested that the General Education requirements be changed and shifted towards more major requirements and more major options. Another panelist suggested that workforce preparation (internships, resumes, job search, for example) be made into mandatory classes, or at the very least made more available and known to students.

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Sign up for your Reacting Consortium Library Membership!

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 15:52:09 +0000

In spring 2021, ASSETT’s Student Success Innovation Incubator team purchased an Institutional membership to the Reacting Consortium. In spring 2022, the team negotiated a system-wide membership to include all four CU campuses! With this membership, ALL CU faculty and staff have full access to the Reacting Consortium Library, expanded Instructor materials for published games, student and Instructor materials for 30+ games in development, and resources on assessment, rhetoric, and grading. This membership also provides discounts on registration fees for certain conferences, editorial guidance and play-testing support for game authors, and special discounted rates for institutional members hosting Reacting workshops.

Reacting to the Past (RTTP), as defined by the Reacting Consortium at Barnard College, is an active learning pedagogy of role-playing games designed for higher education. In Reacting to the Past games, students are assigned character roles with specific goals and must communicate, collaborate, and compete effectively to advance their objectives. Reacting promotes engagement with big ideas, and improves intellectual and academic skills. (https://reacting.barnard.edu/)

Through this pedagogical approach, students study a historical moment and react to a series of events through a character or role, typically assigned by a faculty member. Each role has a specific goal that the character attempts to achieve. Unlike a play, these roles do not have specific lines or a script, but the student must react (to their opponents or opposition) through the historical figure’s beliefs and philosophical views as defined in a role sheet.

Access for the Reacting Consortium Library (RCL) is ONLY for faculty and staff at the CU campuses. Access will NOT be granted to students. Create an account by going to http://reactingconsortium.org/institutional/profjoin. Use your CU email address to register for your account. If you need assistance with creating an account or more information about the Reacting to the Past pedagogy, please contact Michaele Ferguson at Michaele.Ferguson@colorado.edu.

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ASSETT Welcomes New Undergraduate Student Interns

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 22:41:40 +0000

ASSETT Welcomes New Undergraduate Student Interns Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/09/2021 - 15:41 Blair Young

This fall, ASSETT welcomed a cohort of new student employees who joined either the ASSETT Innovation Incubator or our team of Student Technology Consultants (STCs) or. We are thrilled to add the experience, talent, and skills brought by each of these students to our team and our programs.

Catherine Garvin is a student intern with the ASSETT Innovation Incubator Collective to Advance Multimodal Participatory Publishing (CAMPP) Team. Catherine is a senior majoring in English and minoring in Religious Students. She enjoys playing video games, reading, and trivia. Catherine hopes to go on to learn about library science and have a career as a librarian. One of her biggest passions is making literature and education more accessible to everyone. She is excited to learn everything she can from the CAMPP team members and their work!

Z MacLean is a Student Technology Consultant for the ASSETT team. He is currently a Senior at CU �鶹ӰԺ pursuing a B.A. in History with a focus on religious transmission and the creation of religious texts. His goal is to teach English in South Korea before jumping into a graduate program to work towards a Ph.D.. In the future, he hopes to teach and inspire future students by utilizing a progressive-focused and student-centered pedagogy. Z is involved with Student Ambassadors through the Office of Admissions and runs tours every week on campus. He is also involved with the on-campus Chess, Caving, and Tabletop clubs.

Shivangi Khandelwal is pursuing a major in Creative Technology and Design from CU �鶹ӰԺ. She is a UI/UX Designer looking to expand her expertise and apply her skills in an unconventional yet user-centric way. She completed her undergraduate degree in Architecture from Pune University in India and is excited to bring her experience and enthusiasm to the team!

Ethan Pyke is a second year undergraduate student, currently pursuing a BS in Computer Science and a certificate in Music Technology. He is very passionate about music and the arts and is an avid guitar player and singer. He also enjoys snowboarding, mountain biking, and running, and is a member of the CU Triathlon club team. After graduation, Ethan plans to pursue a career in software development and hopes to eventually use his skills for developing music technology software.

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Welcome to Karen Crouch

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 20:21:56 +0000

Welcome to Karen Crouch Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/09/2021 - 13:21

Karen Crouch , Olivia Marrese

Meet Karen Crouch, our new Instructional Design and Technology Consultant! She holds a Master’s in Education with a specialization in International and Comparative Education from Northcentral University and a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from CU �鶹ӰԺ. She brings 15 years of experience working in education at international and K-12 levels and has been at CU �鶹ӰԺ for over 8 years designing learning experiences and programs, teaching, and researching technology.

Karen is excited to join ASSETT because she loves working with students and faculty to plan new ways to improve student learning, and this team is in a great position to support the college. She has been designing online and student learning experiences at the �鶹ӰԺ since 2013. Combining pedagogy and instructional design is rewarding and allows her to support meaningful and effective learning at CU. Karen says, “As we acquire new platforms and tools, technical innovation and teaching are exciting topics and critical areas to explore. I am all about finding the tools and tech that work for faculty and enhancing engaging learning experiences for students.”

Prior to joining ASSETT, Karen was faculty at CU’s International English Center (IEC) and worked at the Anderson Language and Technology Center (ALTEC) as a Professional Research Assistant with a focus on immersive technology for language and culture learning. When asked about her journey from undergrad to ASSETT staff, Karen says, “I love traveling and working in other countries, but I keep coming back to CU! I was a CU student back in 1999 studying International Affairs, involved in student groups, worked off-campus jobs, and honestly struggled during my undergraduate experience. If it wasn’t for excellent faculty, friends, and a patient advisor, I’m not sure I would have completed my UG degree. I often use my empathy muscle of being a student at a large public university to inform my decisions around creating community and engaging practices in teaching and learning. I love this school and am passionate about higher education and student retention….sko’ Buffs!”

Regarding instructional design, Karen wants people to know that “instructional design benefits learning programs and is worth the investment because, in the end, it saves time and resources. Instructional design provides the framework, adds clarity to learning objectives, and enhances teaching through technology. It creates more efficiency by eliminating redundant content and creates space for updated information, new concepts, and ideas. I would encourage faculty seeking advice, resources, and user experiences to reach out and get excited about incorporating instructional design in their courses.”

When she is not at work, Karen enjoys swimming, learning Taekwondo with her son, and practicing intuitive meditation. She loves to travel and is actively involved in local and global social justice issues through volunteer work.

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Welcome ASSETT’s Newest Graduate Assistant, Olivia Marrese

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 21:23:15 +0000

Welcome ASSETT’s Newest Graduate Assistant, Olivia Marrese Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/15/2021 - 15:23 Amanda McAndrew

ASSETT is pleased to welcome Olivia H. Marrese to our team! Olivia is ASSETT’s Teaching, Learning, and Technology Initiatives Coordinator and a PhD student in the Department of Linguistics. She has eight years of teaching experience in higher education, in the Department of Linguistics and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the �鶹ӰԺ, and prior to joining CU, in the Department of English and Douglas Honors College at Central Washington University. Olivia was a CTL Lead Graduate Fellow from 2019-2021 and is passionate about providing engaged, informed, and inclusive pedagogy at all levels of the university. As a linguist, Olivia uses the methods of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics to study how people use language in their everyday lives.

In her new role in ASSETT, Olivia will be bringing her expertise to support the Buffscreate project, the Faculty Fellows program, and Innovation Incubator CAMPP (Collective to Advance Multimodal Participatory Publishing) team.

In her free time, you can find Olivia on �鶹ӰԺ’s hiking trails in the summer and skiing throughout the Rockies in the winter.

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BuffsCreate Has a New Design!

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 21:19:27 +0000

BuffsCreate Has a New Design! Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/15/2021 - 15:19 Blair Young

BuffsCreate has a new website design, featuring an FAQ to get started, a glossary of terms for quick reference, and an ever-growing library of tutorials and help documentation. The community showcase features websites designed through BuffsCreate for added inspiration, ranging from research profiles to online archives. Buffscreate.net is a space for all Arts and Sciences undergraduate students to experiment and learn to build websites, including professional portfolios, course projects, blogs, wikis, or other academic and creative works. The website redesign helps students, faculty, and staff learn how to reclaim their online presence and cultivate their digital identity.

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CODED BIAS Virtual Watch Party featuring Q&A with Director Shalini Kantayya!

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 21:10:44 +0000

CODED BIAS Virtual Watch Party featuring Q&A with Director Shalini Kantayya! Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/15/2021 - 15:10

Blair Young

Join the ASSETT Innovation Incubator Inclusive Data Science team for their 2021-22 CODE:SWITCH speaker series kick-off featuring a virtual watch part of the CODED BIAS documentary and Q&A with director Shalani Kantayya on Wednesday, October 13, 2021 from 7:00-8:30pm

Coded Bias explores the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini´s startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces and women accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all.

Modern society sits at the intersection of two crucial questions: What does it mean when artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly governs our liberties? And what are the consequences for the people AI is biased against ? When MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini discovers the most facial-recognition software does not accurately identify darker-skinned faces and the faces of women, she delves into an investigation of widespread bias in algorithms. As it turns out, artificial intelligence is not neutral, and women are leading the charge to ensure our civil rights are protected.

ABOUT DIRECTOR SHALANI KANTAYYA

Filmmaker Shalini Kantayya´s Coded Bias, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. She directed for the National Geographic television series Breakthrough, Excecutive Produced by Ron Howard, broadcast globally in June 2017. Her debut, Catching the Sun, premiered at the LA Film Festival and was named a NY Times Critick´s Pick. Catching the Sun released globally on Netflix on Earth Day 2016 with Executive Producer Leonardo Di Caprio, and was nominated for the Environmental Media Association Award of the Best Documentary. Kantayya is a TED Fellow, a William J. Fullbright Scholar, and an Associate of the UC Berkley Graduate School of Journalism.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE TRAILER

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FUTUREPROOF Author Kevin Roose to speak in October!

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 21:04:58 +0000

FUTUREPROOF Author Kevin Roose to speak in October! Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/15/2021 - 15:04

Blair Young

Join the ASSETT Innovation Incubator Inclusive Data Science team for their 2021-22 CODE:SWITCH speaker series kick-off featuring a virtual keynote by Kevin Roose on Wednesday, October 13, 2021 from 2:30-3:30pm

This event is co-sponsored by ASSETT and the President’s Fund for the Humanities.

Kevin Roose is an award-winning technology columnist for The New York Times and the best-selling author of three books, Futureproof, Young Money, and The Unlikely Disciple. His column, "The Shift", examines the intersection of tech, business, and culture. He is a regular guest on The Daily, and appears regularly on leading TV and radio shows. He writes and speaks regularly on many topics, including automation and A.I., social media, disinformation and cybersecurity, and digital wellness.

Worried that he was not ready for a world dominated by AI, automation, and mind-morphing algorithms, Kevin decided to do what reporters do: He interviewed experts, read a ton of books and papers, and went in search of answers. The result was his latest book, Futureproof: a guide to surviving the technological future.

FUTUREPROOF: RULES FOR HUMANS IN THE AGE OF AUTOMATION

T A few years ago, New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose realized he wasn’t ready for the automation age. And, in fact, nobody was. Tech companies were using AI to boost their power and profits. Politicians and pundits were debating whether or not robots would destroy millions of jobs. The media was holding Silicon Valley’s feet to the fire. But nobody was asking one important question: How should we prepare for the future?

Based on his new book, Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation, Kevin Roose answers that question. Based on new reporting, interviews with experts, and centuries’ worth of history, Roose’s guide to the future will help you stay ahead of AI, protect your job from robots, and live a happy, fulfilling life in the machine age by rediscovering your biggest asset: your humanity.

MORE ABOUT KEVIN

Kevin's first job in journalism was unique: as a sophomore in college, he took a semester off and went undercover at Liberty University, Jerry Falwell’s evangelical Christian school. His goal was to figure out what life was like among people who he considered his polar opposite. From his experience came his first book, The Unlikely Disciple, a memoir of a strange and enlightening semester “abroad.”

After college, Kevin joined The New York Times, followed by New York magazine, and wrote a second book: Young Money, which chronicled the lives of 8 junior Wall Street investment bankers right after the 2008 financial crisis. Before rejoining The Times in 2017, Kevin produced and co-hosted a TV documentary series about technology, called Real Future.

At The Times, Kevin writes about technology and its effects on society. Recently, that has meant a lot of coverage of companies like Facebook and YouTube, as well as profiles of internet personalities like PewDiePie, and social phenomena like online radicalization and workplace automation.

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All Things STC

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 21:27:50 +0000

All Things STC Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/14/2021 - 15:27 Matara Hitchcock

As more and more students have been transitioning back to campus, the Student Technology Consultants team is preparing to help students and faculty navigate how technology can help them accomplish their learning objectives in this increasingly hybrid environment. Our goal is to help them use the new skills and tools they were able to leverage remotely while still taking full advantage of an in-person classroom.

To kick the semester off, we’ve been able to work with a few faculty members interested in providing podcasting assignments for their classrooms. Their objectives range from helping prepare students for the different kinds of writing that might be assigned to them in a corporate environment to simply providing a change of pace for assignments that would normally default as essays. We’ve continued to work on content for the EMERGE podcast feed, which we hope to share with you in next month’s column.

Lastly, we are currently seeking new hires for our team! If you know any undergraduates interested in helping improve the student classroom experience, please pass along this job description. As always, if you would like assistance using technology to provide for your students, feel free to reach out to us. We’d love to hear from you!

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David Paradis Winner of the 2021 ASSETT Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 21:23:08 +0000

David Paradis Winner of the 2021 ASSETT Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/14/2021 - 15:23

Amanda McAndrew

Congratulations to David Paradis, winner of this year’s ASSETT Excellence in Teaching with Technology award! Since ASSETT’s early days, David has taken advantage of almost all of ASSETT’s professional development offerings, including participating in the 2017-18 Faculty Fellows cohort and the current Innovation Incubator Student Success Team. Through these experiences, he has been introduced to different tools that aid his vision for higher education teaching. David shared with ASSETT his perspective that “students arrive in our classrooms with many different journeys behind them. Their knowledge of prerequisite materials related to basic skills such as research, problem solving, interpretation of evidence, and writing varies dramatically. As instructors, we cannot possibly account for every different journey these students have had, but we can significantly enhance students' chances for success by recognizing the diverse forms that intelligence takes. By providing ways for students to recover from failure, by scaffolding assignments, and by creating a collaborative rather than an adversarial relationship with our students, we can increase the likelihood that we can accomodate the various journeys and forms of intelligence that a diverse student body brings to the classroom.”

By nominating David for this award, his colleagues and students recognize his commitment to lifelong learning, his passion for teaching, and his desire to constantly improve his use of technology in the classroom. David expressed that “ASSETT has allowed me to understand how certain technologies can help us address the various learning modalities that a diverse student body brings to the classroom.”

David’s journey using academic technologies in the classroom began in 2013 when, in an emergency situation, he was asked to see a remote, asynchronous class to completion. He was then introduced to backwards design by the Learning Design Group and soon thereafter attended a hybrid and flipped classroom course for faculty offered by ASSETT. David shared that in following these experiences, “I began to utilize my classroom time differently with more time for discussions, problem solving, and building relationships with students and with less for content delivery and testing. I started to enjoy the classes more, and the students picked up on my enthusiasm. I gradually found other technologies such as PlayPosit and Perusall which facilitated the in-class component of the course by preparing students for in-class interactions.” These technologies help to establish basic background knowledge for students before they enter the classroom. Then, instead of make-it or break-it summative assessments, such as midterms and finals, David uses clickers and other technologies so that students can demonstrate their learning in a series of micro-assignments or formative assessments. Technology has enabled David to give students tools to address assignments more creatively. He reflects that “when students gain a sense of agency by exercising their creativity, I think we all benefit.”

To augment his insightful approach to teaching, David continually seeks out opportunities to strengthen his teaching practice and philosophy. In 2017, David was selected from a competitive pool of applicants at the College of Arts & Sciences to participate in the inaugural cohort of the ASSETT Faculty Fellows. The program brings together a community of A&S faculty of all ranks who are committed to the continuous improvement of teaching and learning with technology. Fellows collaborate with colleagues from across the college and ASSETT to provide leadership on issues at the intersection of teaching, learning, and technology. For his culminating project, David advanced an initiative coordinating student learning outcomes in the Department of History to ensure that both majors and minors graduate with a clearly defined set of skills. He served as a member of a seven-person working group charged with identifying the academic and transferable skills that CU history majors can expect to develop.

Since then, David has participated in our book clubs and several one-on-one consultations with our instructional designers to address specific elements of his teaching. Through these interactions, he has consistently demonstrated a commitment to proactively meeting students' needs. David is receptive to feedback and suggestions, and is always eager to try new tools and approaches. With the help of the Student Technology Consultants (STCs) David has incorporated screencasting into his assignments. He has learned how to better implement the principles of Universal Design for Learning to ensure that his teaching materials are accessible and that all students have an equal opportunity for success in his courses. Furthemore, David has partnered with ASSETT’s Visualizing Instructional Practices service to conduct a total of 31 classroom observations from September 2017 to February 2020, the most observations of any instructor at CU �鶹ӰԺ! He has worked tirelessly to incorporate the data collected from these observations into his teaching, experimenting with both traditional lecture formats and flipped classrooms.

In the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters, David implemented the use of the Reacting to the Past pedagogy through The Copenhagen Summit and The Trial of Galileo games, respectively. Through these games, his students honed and developed skills such as critical thinking, negotiating, and debate. They also learned soft skills that often aren’t emphasized in the classroom like community-building, friendship, and empathy. And, notably, David conducted these activities completely online via Zoom and Slack. David’s conviction about the Reacting to the Past pedagogy led him and his colleagues to propose a system-wide book discussion on Minds on Fire through the President’s Fund for the Humanities. Their proposal was funded and they will start this book discussion to explore the value of the Humanities in fall 2021!

When asked what advice he could share with colleagues, David said, “take a class, participate in the Faculty Fellows program, join a book group/seminar, such as the one that the student success incubator is hosting this Fall on Reacting to the Past. If you want to avoid burnout that comes from your classes becoming stale and repetitive, ASSETT can spice up your teaching life. I don't think any of us are advocating for the use of technology simply to broaden student exposure to technologies, although that is a benefit. The first step is to find a learning objective that you would like to advance. Then, you can find the right tools to shape your assignments to meet that objective. ASSETT can help you with that journey.”

We are thrilled to celebrate David’s accomplishments and growth as a reflective practitioner. He embodies the type of teacher many of us hope to be and would be lucky to have as learners! We look forward to continuing to work with David as both a member of the ASSETT Innovation Incubator Student Success team and as an avid participant in all of ASSETT’s offerings!

Note: If you are interested in exploring any of the teaching strategies and technologies mentioned in this article, please reach out to us at ASSETT@colorado.edu for a consultation.

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