Reading Time: < 1 minuteHow can teachers use brain science to design more effective lessons? What do metaphors, working memory, and even a “quadrapus brain” have to do with student learning? In this extended episode, Rob and Jared chat with Dr. Barbara Oakley, author of Uncommon Sense Teaching, about how metaphor and clear direct instruction help both “race cars” and “hikers” learn more deeply. View a transcript of this week’s episode. Podcast links Resources Chat with us!
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Highlights from OpenAI on Campus: 5 Takeaways
Reading Time: 3 minutesOpenAI was on campus earlier this week to run some training sessions for both staff and faculty about how to effectively use ChatGPT in your workflow. Sessions covered everything from prompt engineering to effectively using the various tools accessible through our Cedarville workspace. We’ve got a quick recap of the biggest takeaways from the sessions, so let’s dive right in. Set up your personalization/memories settings This is super simple to set up! When logged in to ChatGPT, click on your name in the bottom left corner, then click “Personalization.” From there, you can enable customization, set the style and tone ChatGPT uses when responding, add custom instructions…
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Transform Your Teaching: Farewell Mr. L – A True Servant Teacher
Reading Time: < 1 minuteHow does someone remain a faithful educator over the course of their teaching career? What does it look like to invest in students beyond the classroom? How can you effectively pass the baton from one generation of teachers to the next? In this episode, Rob, Jared, and Wes Baker chat with our good friend “Mr. L” (Jim Leightenheimer, Former Associate Professor of Communication at Cedarville University 1982 to 2025) about his time at Cedarville and hear from former students about Mr. L’s influence on their lives and careers. View a transcript of this week’s episode. Podcast links Resources Chat with us!
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Transform Your Teaching: Flipped Learning, Student Engagement and GAI with Dr. Wes Baker
Reading Time: < 1 minuteHow has flipped learning developed over time? What are the best strategies for pushing students towards higher levels of learning? Is there any place for AI in flipped learning? In this episode, Rob and Jared chat with Dr. Wes Baker (former Professor of Communication Arts at Cedarville University from 1977 to 2017). View a transcript of this week’s episode. Podcast links Resources Chat with us!
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Canvas Update: Smart Search
Reading Time: < 1 minuteInstructure has started incorporating AI directly into Canvas with a few features available now and more on the way. Currently, Canvas has added discussion summaries as well as a smart search option in courses. Smart Search allows instructors and students to quickly search course content. Smart Search operates based on its understood context – it isn’t restricted to keyword-based searches like we’re used to with Google or other search engines. This does mean that things you may be used to (like including a search term in quotation marks for an exact search) do not work in Smart Search, but Canvas is working on an updated search…
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Transform Your Teaching: GAI & Reflections on STEM Conference
Reading Time: < 1 minuteWhat is prompt engineering? How can you use prompt engineering to improve the output from Generative AI? In this episode, Jared Pyles reflects on his presentation at the Ohio STEM conference in June and shares CRISPE, an easy-to-use prompt engineering framework. Have questions about some of the topics we’ve discussed recently? Drop all your burning questions in our form for an upcoming Q&A episode! View a transcript of this week’s episode. Podcast links Resources Chat with us!
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Summer 2025 Canvas Roundup
Reading Time: 2 minutesWelcome back for another semester! Summer is always a busy time and a welcomed break from the school year. Because of that, we’re going to highlight some of the Canvas changes to make sure you’re up to speed with the current status of things. Assignments Canvas has made a few tweaks and adjustments to Assignments this year – they made it simpler to update due dates for assignments with “assign to” available in more places, they added a way for students to self-assess their work with the assignment’s rubric, and they have an annotation assignment type! For full details on each of these changes or features, check…
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Transform Your Teaching: Dr. Thomas White on Campus-Wide ChatGPT
Reading Time: < 1 minuteHow did Dr. Thomas White move Cedarville University forward through the implementation of ChatGPT Edu across its entire campus? How will this campus-wide initiative make an impact on students, faculty and staff? In this episode, Rob and Jared discuss these questions and more with Dr. Thomas White (President of Cedarville University). Have questions about some of the topics we’ve discussed recently? Drop all your burning questions in our form for an upcoming Q&A episode! View a transcript of this week’s episode. Podcast links Resources Chat with us!
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Beginning of Semester Reminders and Tips
Reading Time: 2 minutesWelcome to the start of a new semester! Today we’re going be chatting about some tips and reminders to make the first week (and the rest of the semester) easier. We know there’s a big chunk of time between semester starts, so it’s easy for some of these things to slip your memory. Combining Canvas sections You may be teaching multiple sections of the same course but want to combine all your students into one section so you have a single place to work on the course. Canvas makes it simple to combine those multiple sections into one. A brief note: you’ll need to combine them before…
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Transform Your Teaching: Student Perspectives – Approachableness, Attitude & Assessments
Reading Time: < 1 minuteWhat can an instructor do to seem approachable to students? How does an instructor’s enthusiasm or attitude affect how students interact with them or their class? What kinds of assessments seem to be most effective for learning from a student’s view? Join Rob and Jared as they discuss the instructor-student relationship, assessments and more with Lauren and Daniel. Have questions about some of the topics we’ve discussed recently? Drop all your burning questions in our form for an upcoming Q&A episode! View a transcript of this week’s episode. Podcast links Resources Chat with us!