Bloom's Sixth

By Doug Ward Canvas will soon be absorbed by KKR, one of the world’s largest investment firms. That is unlikely to have any immediate effect on Canvas users. The longer-term effects – and costs – are impossible to predict, though. Instructure, the company behind Canvas, has agreed to be acquired by KKR for $4.8 billion. KKR and similar companies…

By Doug Ward The future of colleges and universities is neither clear nor certain. The current model fails far too many students, and creating a better one will require sometimes painful change. As I’ve written before, though, many of us have approached change with a sense of urgency, providing ideas for the future…

By Doug Ward Colleges and universities in Kansas will receive more than $100 million this year from congressional earmarks in the federal budget, according to an analysis by Inside Higher Ed. That places Kansas second among states in the amount earmarked for higher education, according to Inside Higher Ed. Those statistics don't include $22 million for the Kansas…

By Doug Ward We need to talk. Yes, the conversation will make you uncomfortable. It’s important, though. Your students need your guidance, and if you avoid talking about this, they will act anyway – usually in unsafe ways that could have embarrassing and potentially harmful consequences. So yes, we need to talk about generative artificial intelligence. Consider the conversation analogous to a parent’s conversation with a teenager about sex. Susan Marshall, a teaching professor in psychology, made that wonderful analogy recently in the CTE Online Working Group, and it seems to perfectly…

A year after the release of a know-it-all chatbot, educators have yet to find a satisfying answer to a nagging question: What are we supposed to do with generative artificial intelligence? One reason generative AI has been so perplexing to educators is that there is no single step that all instructors can take to make things easier. Here are a few things what we do know, though: The sudden rise of generative AI has felt like the opening of a Pandora’s box Students are using generative AI in far larger numbers than faculty, and some are using it to complete all or parts of assignments…

When Turnitin activated its artificial intelligence detector this month, it provided a substantial amount of nuanced guidance. Trying to keep ahead of artificial intelligence is like playing a bizarre game of whack-a-mole. The company did a laudable job of explaining the strengths and the weaknesses of its new tool, saying that it would rather be cautious and have its tool miss some questionable material than to falsely accuse someone of unethical behavior. It will make mistakes, though, and “…

Since its release late last year, ChatGPT has reverberated through the academic mind like an orchestral crescendo in a Strauss symphonic movement. It has amazing abilities, and even greater potential. Even so, it delivers many of its responses in a monotone reminiscent of HAL 9000, the rogue artificial intelligence system in 2001: A Space Odyssey. PlaygroundAI and Doug Ward Like others, I want to know more about what ChatGPT can and can’t do, and how we might…

Nearly a decade ago, the Associated Press began distributing articles written by an artificial intelligence platform. Not surprisingly, that news sent ripples of concern among journalists. If a bot could turn structured data into comprehensible – even fluid – prose, where did humans fit into the process? Did this portend yet more ominous changes in the profession? By DALL-E and Doug Ward I bring that up because …

The latest enrollment report for universities in the Kansas regents system (down 1.5%) seems worth little more than a shrug. Longer term, though, the higher education trends in Kansas will require considerable attention – and action. Enrollment at the six regents universities has fallen 13.5%, or 10,100 students, since peaking in 2011. That average masks even bigger declines at individual universities: Pittsburg State, down 28.4% since 2011; K-…

The future of higher education may very well hinge on our skill as interpreters and communicators. Too often, though, we never bother to define the terms we use or to help students, parents, and employers understand the purpose and significance of a college education, Ashley Finley told participants at the 2021 KU Teaching Summit last week. Ashley Finley “We develop language as currency,” said Finley, who is vice president for research at the Association of American Colleges and…