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Recommendations for Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence
These recommendations were provided in June 2023 in response to a request from Deans to provide guidance to the campus community with respect to ChatGPT – a generative artificial intelligence tool that can produce content that is difficult to distinguish from that produced by humans. Some links and terminology were updated in July 2023 and in October 2023. Advice in this area is evolving and questions and suggestions are invited for future updates of this resource (contact susan.bens@usask.ca). * On May 1, 2023, the European Network for Academic Integrity (ENAI) published recommendations on the ethical use of artificial intelligence in education. The ENAI recommendations are summarized, paraphrased, re-ordered, and grouped below,…
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Need to learn more about ChatGPT?
Are you looking for a comprehensive and digestible introduction to Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)? GenAI is the term in use now for the category of machine learning tools that ChatGPT falls under. A new module titled “Understanding Generative AI” has been added to the academic integrity tutorial. It is a recommended resource for both student and faculty. Check out this resource by Sidney I. Dobrin and download the free 37 page pdf booklet that provides a helpful overview of the technology, speaks to the academic integrity and misconduct challenges, and suggests strategies for the new context. In the section on pp. 18-19 under the heading “Assignment Design in the…
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Indigenization and Assessment – Rethinking Traditional Practice
“Education got us into this mess, education will get us out of it.” – Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair, Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, December 2015 Higher education is embarking on a journey of Indigenization, decolonization and reconciliation (IDR). Location will impact understanding of how to accomplish IDR and who will be involved in actualizing the initiative. One thing will be consistent, how we define assessment. Merriam-Webster’s definition is “the action or an instance of making a judgment about something.” This definition highlights the challenge when educators work to Indigenize assessment actions that may be subjective. In a world where people of First Nation, Inuit, and Métis identities face bias…
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USask Assessment Principles
In the 2022-23, USask adopted an updated set of principles about how we try to assess students. Here are some tips about using each of the principles in your course. Each principle is defined and related posts are listed. Is aligned with learning outcomes and instructional strategies (assessment of learning). Alignment refers to the process of planning your learning outcomes to describe what your students will be able to do, know or value, and then planning how you will assess and teach based on those outcomes. When align to outcomes, you only gather evidence of academic achievement that is critical to those outcomes. Watch this video what “aligned” means Understand…
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Assessing student participation and attendance
While everyone agrees a grade is designed to represent what a student has learned, some educators also think grades should be used to motivate students. When our students seemed less inclined to attend or participate during and after the pandemic, we turned to something the grading literature does not support – giving a grade for being in class. Here’s a quick summary of what the research says on the subject of giving grades for participating (i.e., the 1-mark quiz) or attending: You might think What research says What experts recommend Giving a small grade for attendance motivates students to come to class You should include academic achievements, not behaviour, in…
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Serious (about) Academic Misconduct? A lesson plan
Students encounter mixed messages when it comes to the seriousness of different forms of academic misconduct. As instructors, we may be assuming that our colleagues teach about and respond to academic misconduct issues in a similar way to ourselves, when very often, they do not. This post provides a lesson plan (using the “BOPPPS” model) for helping students see what the most serious mistakes would be in your course and why. Lesson Plan for Clarifying Expecations B is for “Bridge-in” What the instructor does What the students do Notes, Materials, Tips Introduce topic (2 – 5 min) Listen, reflect Ideas: tell a story of confusion over expectations you…
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GMCTL to Launch New Open Course on Open in Early February
The University of Saskatchewan is a leader in Canada around open educational resources (e.g. textbooks) and is moving toward wider integration of open pedagogy (students as contributors, not just consumers of knowledge). As part of this, and in the spirit of open educational practices (OEP), on February 1, 2022 we are launching a new open course to assist instructors in learning about all aspects of OEP. Open educational practices are a range of practices based on the idea that collaborating on the creation of and freely sharing knowledge, research, and learning materials benefits all of us. Key aspects of OEP include: Materials are accessible Anyone can create, collaborate on, and…
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Introduction to Teaching Online
If someone asked you “How is online teaching different from face-to-face teaching?”, the first thing you might say is that face-to-face teaching involves real time interaction between students and instructors (synchronous) whereas online teaching happens through a computer, with students typically working through course content like lectures and other materials in their own time (asynchronous). In an online environment students and instructors access the course at different times and from different places; therefore, it is necessary to deliberately build in opportunities to develop a rapport with students and guide them through the course so that they are successful. There are a number of strategies that are effective in online courses that…
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Using Oral Assessments to Collect Evidence of Learning
Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-wearing-blue-top-beside-table-1181712/ Summary: Boost learning engagement with oral assessments! Discover how this dynamic approach can provide richer evidence of student understanding and mastery. Date of publishing: March 30, 2021 Oral assessments can serve as a great method to collect another type of evidence of student learning. It typically consists of a time-limited interview with a student to verbally confirm to what degree they’ve met one or more course outcomes through a series of questions and prompts to guide the conversation. Collecting assessment evidence this way can be especially helpful while teaching remotely. Please review this video to learn more about this assessment strategy. Additional Resources…
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Considerations for creating an open-book exam
An alternative to the traditional time-constrained invigilated final exam is the open-book exam. “Open-book” implies that learners will have access to some type of references or resources during the exam, but the level of access to resources and time constraints are variables controlled by the instructor depending their exam design decisions. If you are considering an open-book exam, here are some things to keep in mind: Focus on the Learning Outcomes – When making decisions about exam design and the types of questions you are going to have on your exam, think about the most important things you want your students to come away knowing (your learning outcomes / key…
