Skepticism and Curiosity in the Age of AI with Marc Watkins

Marc Watkins shares about cultivating skepticism and curiosity in an age of AI on Episode 613 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode I do think online education is going to be the focal point for this next year, and how it can survive with an agentic AI. My feeling is, we need to be offering students more embodied experiences and disembodied spaces. -Marc Watkins Every technology has its affordances and the things that are negative about it too; your cell phone, the computer, the fact we’re talking about this right now on the systems that we are using, cloud computing, that all has a cost. -Marc Watkins For an incoming freshman student in college to take 4 or 5 classes and have 4 or 5 very different AI policies, 4 or 5 very different understandings of what AI is, it is incredibly confusing. -Marc Watkins Resources Sesame Street: One of These Things (Is Not Like the Others) What We Give Up When We Let AI Decide: Automation Is Easy. Judgment Is Not, by Marc Watkins Working with AI is more Mindset than Skill, by Marc Watkins Civics of Technology’s Privacy Week Resources The Opposite of Cheating The Transformers: Imagining the Future of the Teaching of Writing, by Anna Mills, Jon Ippolito, Maha Bali, Jeremy Douglass, Mark C. Marino, Annette Vee, Marc Watkins

Lynn Meade uncovers how to make learning visible with portfolios on episode 612 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast Quotes from the episode An ePortfolio is basically a curated collection of student work. It includes reflection, and it’s usually across the college experience. -Lynn Meade Anytime I teach portfolios, it’s really big that we talk about audience and purpose. Who is your audience and what is your purpose? -Lynn Meade There’s something particularly lovely about seeing student or faculty members’ written comments about my work. Both the critiques and those comments that build me up, and how very powerful they are, and how much they mean to me. -Lynn Meade It’s not about the tech. The most important thing is, am I writing? Am I able to think about myself? Am I able to reflect about myself? -Lynn Meade Resources Building a Professional Portfolio (OER Book) by Lynn Meade University of Arkansas Student Portfolios (portfolio.uark.edu) Award-Winning ePortfolios Highlight Student Talent and Career Readiness Fulbright College Team Outlines ePortfolio Initiative Multiple New U of A ePortfolio Resources Available for Students and Faculty Beyond a Resume, Part One: ePortfolios in Higher Ed (podcast) Beyond a Resume, Part Two: ePortfolios in Higher Ed (podcast) ePortfolios Overview (AAC&U ePortfolios Topic Page) Poll Everywhere Reese W. is Here to Boost My Writing Career, by John Warner The Feeling Good Handbook by David Burns Nancy Duarte on LinkedIn Video on Box Breathing

Danny Mann shares about fostering peace, joy, and community in teaching and leading on episode 611 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Great teaching, and I think great life, is this adaptive, responsive thing, pulling out the bugs or getting things back in balance. -Danny Mann Peace and joy are really interrelated, and I gravitated a lot towards these, as I spent time studying and practicing mindfulness practices. -Danny Mann If you discover your why, you could basically feel much more energized and joyful about what you do, if you align your life with that. -Danny Mann Giving students space to speak and share ups and downs. So the ironic leading by listening. -Danny Mann Resources University of California Irvine’s Division of Teaching Excellence & Innovation Find Your Why, by Simon Sinek How to Debug Your Life, by JA Westenberg Happiness: Essential Mindfulness Practices, by Thich Nhat Hanh Pedagogical Wellness | UCI Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, by Don Miguel Ruiz How to Debug Your Life, by JA Westenberg Happiness: Essential Mindfulness Practices, by Thich Nhat Hanh

Mike Cross shares about his experiments (big and small) in teaching and learning on episode 610 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode The reason I did it is because I just wanted to better understand what my students were going through. -Mike Cross I love that, that idea of tiny experiments. I think that that is absolutely critical because we’re all so busy. -Mike Cross Anytime you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes, it makes you a better person, right? Whether that’s a better teacher, a better spouse, a better friend, a better citizen, anything. -Mike Cross Resources Episode 106: Undercover Professor with Mike Cross Snow College Coaching for Leaders Episode 747: How to Get Out of a Rut, with Anne-Laure Le Cunff What Baby George and Handstands Taught Me About Learning, created by Mike Wesch Francesca and the Genie of Science, by Mike Cross Living with Grief: A Poem for Those Who Are Grieving, by Christy Albright The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley The Midnight

Theresa Duong on episode 609 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode “All we’re really trying to do is create these conditions that can help our students flourish and thrive within our classrooms while maintaining the rigor of our work.” – Theresa Duong “I felt like I could thrive in my PhD program because I had these people who kept pushing me to go and kept pushing me to take care of myself.” – Theresa Duong “Pedagogy, the formal definition in my mind, is this art and science of teaching and learning.” – Theresa Duong “To me, wellness is really about thriving and flourishing in the work that you’re doing.” – Theresa Duong Resources Pedagogical Wellness | UCI Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation Pedagogical Wellness: A New Direction in Educational Development by Theresa Huong (Theresa) Duong, Andrea Aebersold, + Matthew Mahavongtrakul Okanagan Charter UCI Health Promoting University Pedagogical Wellness Day Artmakers Club with Lisa Bardow Calm Strips Forest App

Sheila Tabanli shares ways to overcome the curse of expertise and other ways to be inclusive in our teaching on episode 608 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast Quotes from the episode “I suggest, sign up to a course that you have no idea, and then we’ll talk later. In other words, feel what it means to be a novice.” – Sheila Tabanli “An expert in a field doesn’t necessarily mean they will be able to effectively teach that content.” – Sheila Tabanli “There are differences between how experts and novices look at this content.” – Sheila Tabanli “We can still slow down. We can still show how an expert solves a math problem without sacrificing from the rigor or the content.” – Sheila Tabanli Resources Guidebook for Reducing the Novice-to-Expert Perception Gap in Mathematics to Increase STEM Diversity, by Sheila Tabanli Minding the Perception Gap in College Math Classrooms and Beyond, by Sheila Tabanli for Inside Higher Ed Last-Day Activities Ideas from Sheila Tabanli, Featured In The Chronicle of Higher Education Teaching Newsletter Fostering Active Learning and Metacognitive Skills in a Cognitive-Science Based Math Course, by Sheila Tabanli for the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning, by Pooja Agarwal and Patrice Bain A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science, by Linda Oakley Learning How to Learn: Powerful Mental Tools to Help You Master Tough Subjects, Dr. Terrence Sejnowski and Dr. Barbara Oakley Episode 106: Undercover Professor with Mike Cross College Matters Podcast

Josh Brake shares metaphors and other ethical considerations regarding AI on Episode 607 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode “When you’re moving fast, it’s really easy to do things unreflectively and to make a poor decision without even realizing it.” -Josh Brake “The special thing about bicycles, at least in their non-electronic versions, is that they’re totally human-powered. So it’s all based on the energy that you put in, and it’s just transforming that energy, to make you more efficient and be able to move faster.” -Josh Brake “When you have something like an E bike, that augmentation can be used in a variety of different ways, so it can be used to actually extend your capacity.” -Josh Brake “It’s really this question about what’s the intention that you’re bringing to the technology when you come to the tool, what are the questions that you’re asking? And fundamentally, it’s a question of purpose and intention. Why are you using this?” -Josh Brake Resources An E-Bike for the Mind: E-Bikes and What They Can Teach Us About AI, by Josh Brake I Grew Up Oblivious About Grades. It Ruined Me. Now I’m on a Mission to Ruin You too, by Josh Brake The Moral Hazards of AI Are Closer Than You Realize, by Josh Brake We Are Teaching Humans: A 50,000-Foot View As We Enter a New Academic Year, by Josh Brake On Bandwidth and Bottlenecks: AI Tools Help Us Go Faster, But Speed is Not All You Need, by Josh Brake Technique’s Deception: How Jacques Ellul Helps Us Understand the Difference Between Education and Schooling, by Josh Brake Clip – Final Advice from Suborno Isaac Bari The Real World of Technology, by Ursula Franklin Player Piano, by Kurt Vonnegut College Matters Podcast

Karen Costa shares about An Educator’s Guide to ADHD on Episode 606 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Curiosity is just this sort of force of nature. So tap in to your students creativity, your students passions and interests as a way to support them in reaching and achieving those challenges that you also hold for them. -Karen Costa That’s a heavy thing for folks with ADHD to carry, that we are a burden on the other students in the classroom, that we are a burden on our teachers. And that is simply not true. -Karen Costa What we know now is that many times those are what are called stims in neurodivergent and ADHD and autistic communities. And those are actually a way that a lot of folks help themselves to stay present and regulated in their bodies so that they can direct their attention to the teacher or to the task at hand. -Karen Costa The best thing we can do to make the course real is as an instructor to be present in that online course. -Karen Costa Resources An Educator’s Guide to ADHD: Designing and Teaching for Student Success, by Karen Costa 99 Tips for Creating Simple and Sustainable Educational Videos: A Guide for Online Teachers and Flipped Classes, by Karen Costa Episode 577: Teaching and Learning When Things Go Wrong in the Classroom with Jessamyn Neuhaus Snafu Edu: Teaching and Learning When Things Go Wrong in the College Classroom, by Jessamyn Neuhaus Episode 578: Learning to Teach, Design, and Rest from Nature with Karen Costa Community of Inquiry Checklist, from Karen Costa Belmont University The Canary Code, by Ludmila Praslova Blackbird – The Harvard Opportunes AP 100 Photos of 2025 The Defined the Year Hard Core Literature

José Bowen shares about the second edition of Teaching with AI on episode 605 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode I do think that we are going to have to figure out how to focus on student learning in an era where students have this new technology that will short-circuit the learning we want. -José Bowen My advice to people is that I know we’re overwhelmed, so don’t ask AI to do something you love. Ask AI to do something that you hate. -José Bowen The real problem with AI privacy is that now we have a tool that can mine all that, right?  I’m more worried about AI as a tool for analysis and observation, and how that’s going to change the world in which we live. -José Bowen I think the potential is, you’re probably going to get more bias because people are going to use AI poorly. And so bias and privacy are two categories of ugly that are pretty big. -José Bowen   Resources Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning, second edition, by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson We Teach with AI Website Brilliant (courses Bonni mentioned that she is taking) José Bowen on LinkedIn Bonni Stachowiak on LinkedIn Shell Game Podcast Boodlebox Ethan Mollick on LinkedIn Anna Mills on LinkedIn Sarah Elaine Eaton on LinkedIn Krys Boyd on NPR’s Think

Bryan Alexander shares about Peak Higher Ed on episode 604 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast Quotes from the episode “It’s another form of thinking, it’s another form of organizing information and that we have to treat it seriously as such. The computer scientist actually recommends that we think about generative AI as children. These are AIs that have some degree of autonomy and they’re also not very wise in the world yet, and we have to train and rear them up.” – Bryan Alexander “So if AI is bubble, if it turns out to be a bubble and it pops, this might be bad news for the entire economy.” – Bryan Alexander “The problem of how do we actually figure out what people are doing with AI within post secondary education? That’s a really great challenge because if you polled people, they have all kinds of great incentives to not respond accurately.” – Bryan Alexander Resources Peak Higher Ed, by Bryan Alexander: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis, by Bryan Alexander Bryan Alexander’s Website Maha Bali’s Blog On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜, by Emily M. Bender et al Helen Beetham’s Newsletter: Imperfect Offerings Pluralistic: Daily Links from Cory Doctorow Faraday Cage Georgetown University: Learning, Design, and Technology John Warner John Warner’s Newsletter GTD – Workflow diagram Todd’s AI Playground Todd’s AI Songs About His Course Evaluations Adam Tooze Chartbook