Reading Time: < 1 minuteIn this episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles chat with Genny McDole who has an MEd in Instructional Design from Western Governors University. Check out the episode to hear a student’s perspective on competency-based education and how CBE has influenced her teaching practice. Podcast links Show notes Genny was drawn to CBE courses because of the flexibility it provided. During that season of her life, she needed a flexible option that fit their family, could be done quickly, and would fit within their budget. CBE allowed her to take as many courses as she wanted, access all the resources she needed, and show mastery of…
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Transform Your Teaching: Competency-Based Education with Nate Brock
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIn this episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles chat with Nate Brock, Lead Evaluator in the Science Education Department at Western Governors University. Check out the episode to hear WGU’s approach to Competency-Based Education and the key features that make WGU’s programs distinct. Podcast links Show notes Western Governors University is a fully competency-based institution that designs their courses with a student-centered mindset. If a student can complete a course in a shorter amount of time, that benefits the student as they progress through the degree. This competency-based approach enables a student to progress at their own rate while ensuring they have mastered the course’s…
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Transform Your Teaching: Designing Competency-Based Education Curriculum
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn this episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles continue talking about Competency-Based Education, specifically what the design process looks like in developing a CBE course. Check out this episode to hear about the different considerations when creating a CBE course and how that affects planning. Podcast links Show notes Designing a Competency-Based Education (CBE) course is similar to designing a traditional course. The goal is still to design with the end in mind—paying close attention to the course objectives and module objectives, how the assessments give students the opportunity to show mastery of the objectives, and the course content that prepares them for those assessments. The…
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Generative AI, In Practice: ALT Text, Part II
Reading Time: 5 minutesLast week, we looked at some examples of alt text that Copilot generated for us and evaluated what we’d need to change before using them. It had done a good job with simple graphics, though the nuance of having elements faded more to the background and the meaning of that was lost on it. Copilot did not do a good job describing a still shot from a movie. But today, we’re going to look at this from a different angle – what can we do to help GAI create better alt text for us? Are there ways to prompt or feed it context to get drafts more…
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Transform Your Teaching: What is Competency-Based Education?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIn this episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles kick off a new series on Competency-Based Education. Check out the episode to hear the characteristics of CBE and how it compares with traditional educational practice. Podcast links Show notes In traditional educational models, time is the constant and education is the variable. With Competency-Based Education (CBE) models, time is the variable and education is the constant. In the current educational landscape, CBE is commonly seen in apprenticeships and in trades. Typically, it involves an instructor coming alongside a student to help them achieve mastery of content. Jared is currently apprehensive about CBE because it turns time…
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Generative AI, In Practice: ALT Text, Part I
Reading Time: 4 minutesNow that we’ve finished our series on Generative AI over on Transform Your Teaching, we wanted to take this opportunity to dive into specifics for some of the ways GAI can help speed along parts of your process. CTL recently worked on a course project that included designing a lot of figures and graphics to be included in lesson pages – and each of those images needed to have alt text written for it. Now, I’m no stranger to writing alt text, and it isn’t the most complicated piece of work to do; but it can take a decent bit of time when you’re starting with a…
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Transform Your Teaching: A Conversation with (Ret.) Lt. General Loren Reno
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn this episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles chat with (Ret.) Lt. General Loren Reno, Professor of Management and Senior Advisor, Office of the President at Cedarville University. Check out the episode to hear how he uses servant teaching to encourage and inspire students. Podcast links General Reno’s goal as an educator is to serve. He seeks to inspire his students instead of attempting to control their involvement in the learning process since educators can intrinsically motivate students through inspiration. With this foundation, General Reno provides several traits of a servant teacher: All these principles are based on approaching teaching with humility. General Reno shares that there…
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Transform Your Teaching: Recapping Generative AI Applied
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIn this episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles conclude the series on Generative AI and reflect on what they learned. Check out the episode to hear their top three takeaways. They also announce the launch of a new tool we are using to hold asynchronous video discussions with listeners. Join on Flip with all your questions and reflections on the topics we cover. Podcast links Show notes Jared’s takeaways: Rob’s takeaways: Resources We want to hear from our listeners, so we’ve launched a discussion on Flip – a video discussion platform. Join us with all your questions and reflections. Join Transform Your Teaching’s Flip discussion…
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Transform Your Teaching: Generative AI Applied with Dr. Jodie Penrod
Reading Time: 1 minuteIn this episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles chat with Dr. Jodie Penrod who has a PhD in Educational/Instructional Technology from Ohio University and is the Chief Information Officer at Marshall University. Check out this episode to hear how Marshall University has approached Generative AI and how other educators can use GAI to enhance teaching and learning. Podcast links Show notes Marshall University has decided to embrace using Generative AI and harness it to fit their goals. Their advice for faculty in using GAI falls into three categories: open use, moderate use, and prohibited. They created these categories to provide a framework to get started. Faculty…
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Transform Your Teaching: Generative AI Applied with Dr. Thomas White
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn this episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles talk with Dr. Thomas White, president of Cedarville University. Check out this episode to hear about possible applications of Generative AI at Cedarville and in higher education at large. Podcast links Show notes Dr. White sees how influential Generative AI will be on higher education and has explored it by using ChatGPT4 and plugins. While using the tools, he has found uses outside of education – recently using Generative AI to help book his family’s vacation. However, Dr. White’s main emphasis for Cedarville faculty is that they need flexibility and freedom to handle how GAI is used in…