• Educational Theories,  Podcast,  Teaching & Learning

    Transform Your Teaching: Engagement, Motivation & Active Learning

    Reading Time: < 1 minute What role does a student’s self-determination play in active learning? What role does space play in a student’s learning? Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles chat with Dr. Chantal Levesque-Bristol who says that active learning is all about engagement and motivation. Dr. Levesque-Bristol is the Executive Director in the Center for Instructional Excellence at Purdue University.  Podcast links Resources  Student-Centered Pedagogy and Course Transformation at Scale – Dr. Chantal Levesque-Bristol  Connect with us! 

  • Educational Theories,  Podcast,  Teaching & Learning

    Transform Your Teaching: What Does Active Learning Look Like?

    Reading Time: < 1 minute Is there one definition for active learning? Or does it vary for every teacher and every class? Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles ask Dr. Tracey Birdwell—a self-proclaimed “teaching nerd”— to help pinpoint a true definition for active learning. Dr. Birdwell is the Assistant Director for Faculty Support in the Center for Instructional Excellence at Purdue University.  Podcast links Resources  What is Active Learning? – CRLT of the University of Michigan  Connect with us!  Transform Your Teaching is also launching a monthly newsletter where we reflect on the past series, preview our upcoming content, and share an exclusive article. Subscribe today to get our inaugural…

  • Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Generative AI, In Practice: Assignment Creation 

    Reading Time: 4 minutes Last spring, I taught an online course. In the middle of the semester, a student did not do well on one assignment and asked if I could give him another set of questions to review. I said yes.   The assignment was a database design task that involved a business case and a dozen sample data rows – for example, a fictional medical clinic that uses Excel sheets to manage its appointments. The table in the image below contains sample data from last year.   The most time-consuming aspect of creating a similar assignment was developing a new case and generating sample data which must represent as many…

  • Podcast,  Teaching & Learning

    Transform Your Teaching: Understanding Active Learning

    Reading Time: < 1 minute Rob and Jared start a new series on active learning and active learning spaces. They begin by setting a foundation by defining key terms (or at least attempting to) and previewing what’s coming up in the series.  Podcast links Connect with us!  Transform Your Teaching is also launching a monthly newsletter where we reflect on the past series, preview our upcoming content, and share an exclusive article. Subscribe today to get our inaugural June issue!

  • Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Generative AI, In Practice: Using GAI for Course Planning 

    Reading Time: 10 minutes Recently, I was tasked with creating a remedial English course for dual-credit students – but for this course, I needed to expand beyond my standard role as the instructional designer and also be the subject matter expert. Playing both roles is difficult, so I decided to employ ChatGPT to help with parts of the design.  I started with what I knew. Because this is a dual-credit course, I knew there would be English content the students were passing over and, as a result, not getting in their high school courses. I also knew that the learners in this course would go directly into another college writing…

  • Educational Theories,  Podcast,  Teaching & Learning

    Transform Your Teaching: A Conversation with Dr. Jeff Guernsey and Dr. Kyung-Hwa (Christine) Kim

    Reading Time: < 1 minute What is a servant teacher? How does someone practice servant teaching? Rob McDole and Jared Pyles chat with two professors at Cedarville University—Dr. Jeff Guernsey who teaches in the School of Business and Dr. Kyung-Hwa (Christine) Kim who teaches in the History and Government Department—about their professional development through multiple sessions on servant teaching. Transform Your Teaching has also launched a monthly newsletter where we reflect on the past series, preview our upcoming content, and share an exclusive article. Subscribe today to get our next issue! Podcast links Resources Connect with us!  Transform Your Teaching is also launching a monthly newsletter where we reflect on the past…

  • Educational Tools,  Teaching & Learning

    Generative AI: Current State and Future State (e.g., tomorrow)

    Reading Time: 3 minutes Writing a blog post detailing the current state of Generative AI (GAI) feels like a futile exercise. Why? During the writing of this post, the state of the industry will change. So, read with caution because like GAI, I can make mistakes.  Having dispensed with the disclaimer, let’s get into what you are looking for in this post—the current state of GAI. First, OpenAI’s ChatGPT continues to lead the GAI industry, but Microsoft and Google are making advances with Copilot and Gemini, respectively. Amazon, Mistral, Facebook, and other open source models continue to push OpenAI to innovate and produce more value, but they cannot compete with…