Reading Time: 4 minutesIn August, Cedarville University became the first evangelical Christian university to implement campus-wide educational ChatGPT. This has been met with a lot of different responses—enthusiasm, fear, disdain, apathy. I know some people who use it for everything. I know others who would equate AI use as an unforgivable sin. I’m Sophie, a senior studying Professional Writing and Information Design, and I land somewhere in the middle, if a bit on the “less AI” side. But there are some specific contexts where I do (or do not) use genAI—so let’s take a look at those! In my education The first day of class, all of my professors banned…
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Transform Your Teaching: Have You Tried…Starting a New Series?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteWhat do gaming, storytelling, and music have in common? Can they be used in innovative ways in our teaching practices? Join Rob and Jared as they begin a new series where they will explore how these seemingly uncommon applications in education could be used in innovative/common ways. 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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Transform Your Teaching: Metaphors that Stick with Dr. Barbara Oakley
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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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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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!
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Transform Your Teaching: Intentional Tech with Derek Bruff
Reading Time: < 1 minuteHow does the continued rise of technology affect how instructors should approach learning? What is a thoughtful usage of technology? In this episode, Rob and Jared chat with Derek Bruff, author of Intentional Tech, about what principles are most relevant six years after his book was released. 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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Transform Your Teaching: Book Review – Intentional Tech
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIn this episode, Rob and Jared review “Intentional Tech: Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching” by Dr. Derek Bruff. They discuss the key principles of the book and their major takeaways. View a transcript of this week’s episode. Podcast links Resources Chat with us!
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Transform Your Teaching: Online Teaching Practices – Lessons Learned
Reading Time: < 1 minuteWhat are the major takeaways from our “Online Teaching Practices” series? In this episode, Rob and Jared reflect on the lessons they learned throughout this series and provide some next steps for educators who want to improve their online teaching. View a transcript of this week’s episode. Podcast links Resources Chat with us!