Posts

Bringing learning to life with experiential education

 I've worked in the experiential education realm my entire career. My specific focus is on outdoor and travel education. I've had the privilege to facilitate challenge courses, lead backpacking, kayaking, rafting, canoeing, cycling, sailing, and walking adventures, and introduce students to life in other countries like England, Italy, Portugal, Costa Rica, and Mexico. I never get tired of it. Experiential education is the "learning by doing" we all crave deep inside. It is active, hands-on, engaged, reflective, and iterative. It allows us to experiment, to create prototypes and test them, and to learn by failing and trying again. It can be applied to almost any academic discipline. (I say almost because I can't imagine what an experiential lesson on nuclear particle physics might look like...)  In collaboration with faculty members across my campus, I've combined my background and training in outdoor education to help them bring subjects such as biological ill...
Post a Comment
Read more

The AI impact we're not talking about in higher education

 Much has already been written about the potential implications of artificial intelligence (AI) being used by students in higher education. Much of what has been written is focused on the harrowing dangers of students who use AI to help write admissions essays, complete homework assignments, and fake their way through college. Faculty members vacillate between outright forbidding the use of AI on homework assignments and trying to find clever ways to incorporate AI into assignments (knowing that students are most likely using these tools anyway). Even as I type this post, Grammarly, an AI writing companion, is correcting my spelling mistakes and recommending style and grammar edits.  These issues will increasingly require faculty, administrators, researchers, and others to grapple with a time-honored question: What is the purpose of an education, anyway? Again, much has been written about this, and a few different camps are emerging across the higher education landscape. Some ...
Post a Comment
Read more

My thoughts on AI in qualitative research.

I recently read an article in the online periodical Inside Higher Ed entitled " Can we trust AI in qualitative research? " by Andrew Gillen. This title immediately caught my attention because I have experience with using AI in my qualitative research and have similar concerns with one caveat - AI systems will most likely get better over time. AI will improve despite its many problematic characteristics; the potential for "hallucinations," built-in biases and even overt racism, copyright infringement issues, and the black box problem of how AI "makes decisions." Not to mention the increasing environmental impact of using AI. Anyone who has been following the development of AI companies like Perplexity, OpenAI, and others are no doubt familiar with many of these arguments for limiting the development of AI. Even if none of those issues were at play, there is still a vital and persistent argument about the role of human creativity and intelligence in the fac...
Post a Comment
Read more

Confessions of an Enneagram Type 1

I took the Enneagram survey this week. The Enneagram is an assessment tool developed by Oscar Ichazo to better understand ourselves. There are nine Enneagram types. Each type categorizes you with certain personality strengths and areas for growth. After taking the quick and efficient Enneagram test at https://enneagramtest.com/, my results tallied up to a Type 1 - the Perfectionist... Type 1's are motivated to improve themselves and their lives. They can be perceived by others as ambitious. They are in general very responsible and others can easily depend on them. There's nothing wrong with being a perfectionist, BUT, it does come with its own set of challenges. Perfectionists are known to be detail-oriented, organized, and have a reputation for getting $*#! done. Those describe me fairly well. At work, I keep all my tasks and projects organized on a giant white board that I categorize by projects broken down into small, bite-sized chunks. I relish marking items off this li...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stand up, right now, right where you are.

If you're like me, you've been at your desk most of the day. Sure, you walked the dog this morning, but you've been sitting at the screen ever since then. So do yourself a favor. Get up. Look out the window. Get a drink of water. Stretch. The project/email/idea/to do list will still be there when you get back.
Post a Comment
Read more