Artificial Intelligence in Fall Classes

Hey folks!

We have received quite a few requests for help with Artificial Intelligence (AI) policies for Fall syllabi. Faculty have had a wide variety of reactions to AI programs that generate language, solve problems, create images, and write code. There is no one-size-fits-all policy for the campus, and we have several workshops on the horizon to help faculty explore some of these new possibilities. For now, you have quite immediate and practical concerns—here is what we are suggesting.

Things to keep in mind

• The “ignore” disposition with AI is not viable. The tools are here, accessible, and accomplish a wide variety of tasks.
• You should play around with some of these tools. Google Bard is free. ChatGPT has a free and a premium version. There are a thousand other specialized tools.
• Consider how AI will change your course overall and specific outcomes/assignments in your course. I (Zach Justus) created a guide with Nik Janos if you are interested in a systematic approach.
• We strongly recommend you adopt a syllabus policy. Below you will find sample policies adopted from Bryant University by joshuah whittinghill. AI is prevalent with students so if you don’t adopt a policy, students will ask or will use it without knowing what your expectations are.
• There are legitimate privacy concerns with ChatGPT and other programs. Requiring student usage requires careful consideration.
• joshuah is developing a series of AI workshops starting with several on AI Syllabus Statements & Detection Tools. Workshop information is below. Some of these workshops are after the first day of the semester. It is okay to make syllabus adjustments during the first week of the semester as long as you notify students.
• It is important to be aware the tools currently available to detect AI-generated work are inconsistent and may discriminate against non-native English speakers. Therefore as noted in the Chico State’s Integrity Policy, have a conversation with the student(s) before referring the student(s) for violation of Academic Integrity to the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities.  

Sample syllabi language

• All Use: AI writing tools such as ChatGPT are welcome in this class, provided that you cite when and how you use the tool. You will be provided with examples of how to cite your use of this tool in your assignments.
• Some Use: As an instructor I recognize there are a variety of AI programs available to assist in creating text, images, audio, and video. However, I want to stress that, AI programs are not a replacement for human creativity, originality, and critical thinking. Creating is a skill that you must nurture over time in order to develop your own individual voice, style, and view.  During our class, we may use AI  tools.  You will be informed as to when, where, and how these tools are permitted to be used, along with guidance for attribution.  Any use outside of this permission constitutes a violation of Chico State’s Integrity Policy and may result in you being reported to the Office of Students Rights and Responsibilities.
• No Use: AI writing tools are not permitted for any stage or phase of work in this class. If you use these tools, your actions will be considered academically dishonest, and a violation of Chico State’s Integrity Policy and you may be reported to the Office of Students Rights and Responsibilities.
• Example of attribution language: “The student generated this assignment in part with [enter tool used here]. Upon generating an initial draft or outline of ideas, the student reviewed, edited, and revised the work to their own liking and takes ultimate responsibility for the content of this assignment.”

Workshop Information

• Wednesday, August 23 from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
• Thursday, August 24 from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
• All workshops will be in the Zoom TLP Lab

Zach Justus
Interim Director of Faculty Development
Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences
Google Voice/Text: 530-487-4150

FDEV Program Resources

Dear faculty,

As the semester winds down, I want to take this opportunity to share some resources that were developed this year within programs we offered in Faculty Development. Our hope was to collect all resources in one place to facilitate access and navigation and to allow for easy sharing even after the programs end. For each program listed below we created a webpage and, even more importantly, we built a “one-stop-shop” schedule where all information and resources associated to each workshop are posted. As you can tell if you explore these links, we also tried to diversify the formats of the resources to satisfy different learning and engagement preferences.

UDL Faculty Learning Community: schedule

EDI Teaching Series: webpage and schedule

HSI Professional Development Initiative: webpage and schedule

I hope you will take some time, possibly after finals, to check out these resources, because there are a lot of tools, templates, and tips for best practices that you can apply to your courses, even if you ddi not have a chance to complete these programs.

Chiara Ferrari, Ph.D.

Faculty Development Director

Implement Universal Design for Learning in your Courses

Sent on behalf of Dr. Jamie Gunderson, Assistant Professor in the School or Education and READI Equity Fellow

Hello, Fellow Faculty! 

If you are anything like me, the winding down of one semester serves as a sort of cue to begin planning for the next semester. This planning normally begins with a review of the scope and goals of the courses I am preparing to teach as well as reflection of my previous experience with teaching the courses’ content. During my reflection, I think about any lessons and/or activities that students engaged with and responded favorably too. Next, and this part is my favorite, I take a look at The UDL Guidelines to identify any areas in which my lessons and activities align to Universal Design for Learning (UDL). From there, I can pinpoint any areas that I may want to focus on or increase my implementation. Here is an example; In the fall I am teaching a ChicoFlex course that I will be facilitating via Canvas. In my previous teaching of this content, I noticed that students appreciated the opportunity to review and provide feedback on each others’ work as this practice fosters collaboration and community (UDL Checkpoint 8.3). As this course is new to the Canvas platform, I am currently working on creating a module and assignment in Canvas wherein students can submit their work for peer review and feedback. This module, launching in the coming semester, uses the Canvas platform to facilitate the peer review and because I promote the use of Kurzweil in all my courses to support reading and writing, I am now using multimedia for communication (UDL Checkpoint 5.1) and multiple tools for composition and construction (UDL Checkpoint 5.2). As my example suggests, the implementation of UDL begins with reflection and recognition – consider what it is that you do in your teaching that works and review the principles, guidelines, and checkpoints to determine where those practices align with UDL. From there, challenge yourself to select an additional principle, guideline, or checkpoint to focus on for future implementation. 

Interested in implementing UDL within your teaching? In true UDL fashion, here are three options for you to start your UDL journey:

1. Adapt and apply the above example to your own teaching practice and review the UDL Guidelines.
2. Check out the UDL Teaching Guide on the FDEV website for tips, ideas, and more UDL-focused resources.
3. Recommended Option – Join us on Thursday, 5/11/23, in Colusa 100A from 12:30 – 2:00 PM, to see examples of UDL implementation and chat with faculty who are participating in the UDL Faculty Learning Community!

For more tips, resources, or to geek out on all things UDL, please contact Jamie Linn Gunderson: jlgunderson@csuchico.edu. 

STEM-Specific Teaching Guides

Sent on behalf of Tina Hanson-Lewis, lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and READI Equity Fellow.

Over the past year, your Equity Fellows have been hard at work serving as liaisons between each college and FDEV’s Hub for Research in Equity, Anti-racism, Diversity, and Inclusion (also known as the READI Hub). Based on the needs identified by each college, we developed, compiled, and/or organized resources in a manner that we hope will reduce barriers and increase access to resources. Some of these resources were in the form of new Teaching Guides. I particularly appreciate the Teaching Guides, as I find them concise, comprehensive, and extremely helpful. Each guide begins with a background information section, a list of peer-reviewed resources, and then a brief list of application ideas. The second half of the guide consists of resources in a variety of formats (text, videos, podcasts, etc.) about the topic from credible sources.

As liaison for the College of Natural Sciences (CNS), I was informed that many faculty members in CNS wanted STEM-specific guidance, since STEM course designs often differ from those in other fields. I would like to briefly introduce you to four new STEM-specific teaching guides that have been developed to meet this need.

• Flipping a STEM Course – (A Low Barrier Approach). This teaching guide supplements the more general “Flipped Classes” teaching guide by providing STEM faculty with additional insights and advice on how to flip their course(s).
• Assessment in the STEM classroom. As an addition to the more general teaching guides (“Formative Assessment” and “Summative Assessment“), this guide is designed to introduce STEM faculty to the concerns surrounding ‘traditional’ STEM assessments.
• The Anti-Racist STEM Classroom. Along with the guide on “Creating Anti-Racist Classrooms,” this STEM-specific add-on presents resources designed to assist faculty members in identifying how and where racism appears in STEM curricula.
• Inclusive Mentoring of STEM Students. In STEM we often work as mentors one on one with students or with small groups of students. Faculty may find themselves in a position where they mentor students who have different life experiences than their own. In this guide, faculty are provided with resources that will assist them in being better mentors.

These resources are provided in the hope that they will be helpful to you, even if you teach outside of the CNS. However, if you have any additional questions, concerns, or unmet needs, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Earth Day and Climate Change Faculty Learning Community

Dear faculty, 

To celebrate Earth Day, Faculty Development is excited to announce that in Spring 2024 we will be offering another faculty learning community on teaching climate change and resilience! We will send a call for applicaitons in Fall 2023, so we do not have any details yet, but I want to share the good news as you consider opportunities for professional development next year. The faculty learning community is sponsored by the President’s Office and the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences and will be led by Dr. Mark Stemen. 

This program is based on last year’s CSU-wide FLC, which received recognition by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and was awarded the Campus Sustainability Achievement Award. 

The FLC and Mark’s efforts were also featured in a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, part of their Future Trends in Higher Education, so this project has received recognition beyond just sustainability circles. 

As as you prepare to discuss climate change in your classes, as a way to recognize Earth Day, I also want to remind you that FDEV has created a webpage where resources from the FLC are collected. We hope these resources will be useful to you, and we invite you to stay tuned for more information about the FLC in the Fall! 

Chiara Ferrari, Ph.D.
Faculty Development Director

Spring into Canvas (…for Fall!)

Dear faculty, 

I want to use this Tuesday Tip to remind you about the Spring into Canvas for Fall day, which will be held on Thursday April 20^th both in person and via Zoom. 

You can access the program here for more details about the sessions. 

The Technology and Learning Program is planning a whole day to help faculty learn about Canvas and start getting familiar with the new learning management system. 

Spring into Canvas for Fall 
April 20, 9am – 4pm 
Colusa Hall 116, 114, 111 

Have a lot on your plate? TLP is  breaking Canvas down into bite-sized tasks. Come for 10 minutes, a single session, or the entire day. Or just come have pastries and coffee and/or lunch. This day is all about you.  

TLP Instructional Technology Consultants are hosting structured sessions and available to help you personally in a dedicated workroom. Join in-person or on Zoom. Our Canvas workroom will provide “10-Minute Tasks” that will help you get started.

• If joining us in-person, bring your laptop, your coffee mug, and TLP will help you get started with your transition to Canvas.  
• If joining on Zoom, you’ll arrive in the TLP Lab when you click on Zoom link and will then be directed to a Zoom breakout-room. 
• Can’t come at all? You haven’t missed the boat. We are here all summer and will continue to offer sessions and consulting to assist you before the fall semester starts when over 600 faculty will be using Canvas for the first time. 

I also want to remind you that Faculty Development released a Zine last week focusing entirely on Canvas. In the Zine, you can read longer pieces about the transition to Canvas but you can also access practical tips about specific tools in Canvas. 

TLP will offer more opportunities for training and support, both in person and via Zoom, later in April and in May, as well as during the summer. 

I hope you will take this and future opportunities to learn more about Canvas and I particularly want to encourage faculty teaching in summer to attend the Spring into Canvas for Fall Day and other workshops this Spring to make sure you have the proper support for your summer courses! 

Inclusive Pedagogy and Student Research Support

Sent on bahelf of Dr. Alisa Wade, Assistant Professor of History and READI Equity Fellow

While serving as a Research on Equity, Antiracism, Diversity and Inclusion (READI) Equity Fellow this past year, I’ve spent a lot of time reading about and reflecting on inclusive and equitable pedagogy. Part of the process of working toward a student-centered approach to teaching entails empowering our students as active agents and considering ways we as educators might draw on their cultural knowledge and creativity in the classroom. How might we, as instructors at a Hispanic-Serving Institution with a growing percentage of first-generation students, find ways to continue to support our students and encourage them to take ownership of their own learning experiences?  

In Active Learning Strategies in Higher Education: Teaching for Leadership, Innovation, and Creativity, the authors advocate for a pedagogical approach that “promotes creativity, imagination, and emotional depth of students along with knowledge acquisition and development” and “cultivates a participatory culture in academia at all levels” (5-6). In this framework, the goal is to embed students actively in work of our disciplines in the classroom and to encourage them as participatory and engaged local, national, and global citizens. In turn, the process of working closely with faculty members can help them learn and grow in new ways, build confidence, bolster their academic success, and give them relevant skills for their academic and professional careers. 

One program on campus designed to facilitate this process is the Adelante Postbaccalaureate Pipeline. The Adelante Program’s mission centers on supporting Latinx and low-income CSUC students, and includes a Summer Research Program for undergraduate and graduate students to participate in a “faculty-mentored, funded research experience” that will give students a hands-on opportunity to engage in—and, later, present on and consider publishing—their research under the guidance of their faculty research mentor. Applications for this summer just opened last week, and the deadline for submissions is April 24, 2023. For those in Agriculture, Engineering, and the Natural Sciences, CSC² offers additional student resources, including a Summer Undergraduate Research Program. 

For details, tips, and resources on encouraging students as active classroom agents, take a look at the FDEV teaching guide for building student agency. 

Teaching Resources (and more)

Dear faculty, 

Starting in Summer 2020, the Office of Faculty Development has produced a number of tools and resources “on demand” – so to speak – to ensure that faculty could receive support and access information whenever they needed, to mitigate the fact that the office was not physically available during the early stages of the pandemic. 

Since then our resources have grown exponentially, so I have begun a process of curation to ensure that every faculty can access and navigate our tools easily. After all, it is useless to have a lot of resources if faculty don’t know where or how to find them. 

In this Tuesday Tip, I want to introduce a new set of resources included in the FDEV website. The Teaching Resources page offers a number of tools specific to teaching and learning, organized in six main areas: 

1. Course Design 
2. Course Delivery 
3. Assessment 
4. Inclusive Teaching 
5. Digital Learning 
6. Evaluation of Teaching 

Each area has a dedicated page that offers resources for fairly specific needs, and each page (with the exception of “Evaluation of Teaching) is organized in three columns: 

1. I need help with… 
2. Ideas for implementation 
3. Resources 

My goal was to identify specific needs, provide a few clear tips for implementation, and pair those tips with digestible resources and tools, including fillable templates. 

In addition to these new Teaching Resources, I also want to remind everyone of two additional resources page: 

New Faculty Resources: this is a page designed specifically for new faculty, and it offers broad resources, including links to faculty orientation and information on how to access our systems. 

FDEV Resources: this page includes a compilation of all resources and tools in FDEV so you can get a glimpse of the full menu available to you. 

We hope that these pages will make navigating resources easier for you, but feel free to reach out if you have any questions! 

Chiara Ferrari, Ph.D. 
Faculty Development Director 

Student Success Funding Opportunity – CREATE Awards

Dear faculty, 

Dean Kate McCarthy and I want to share information about a funding opportunity from the Chancellor’s Office, a call for proposals for the CREATE awards. 

Below is the broad description for the award and attached you find the full call. 

“The program invites individual faculty and faculty teams to propose plans that will transform the student experience. Winning proposal(s) will identify a common problem, articulate the ability to advance a solution locally and at scale, have a strong emphasis on equity and demonstrate the ability to institutionalize innovation across the CSU system. The award recipient(s) will be those who can creatively increase the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded, shorten time to degree and dramatically reduce equity gaps.” 

Proposals should be developed to align with one of three funding tiers: up to $50,000; from $50,001 to $100,000 and from $100,001 to $150,000. You can find more information on the CREATE Awards website, including information about past awardees, to get a sense of the type of proposals funded last year. 

Kate and I plan to host a Zoom session on Monday, March 27, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. to hear ideas from interested faculty and to see if UED and FDEV can support and/or collaborate with faculty who plan to apply. If you plan to attend, please let us know and share your idea in advance, so we can collect any necessary resource or information. Please be aware that this is not a call for funding sent by UED and FDEV, so for specific questions about the application process, please contact Dr. Chenoa S. Woods, director of Research​ and Student Success Initiatives at the Chancellor’s Office. 

The Zoom information is below: 
https://csuchico.zoom.us/j/7507777561?pwd=OWRzeUFyZERMdFJ6aldzaW5Ecjkwdz09

Meeting ID: 750 777 7561 
Passcode: 270151 

We look forward to seeing you on Monday! 

Chiara Ferrari, Faculty Development Director 
Kate McCarthy, Dean of Undergraduate Education 

Grading for a More Equitable Society

Sent on behalf of Dr. Grazyne Tresoldi, Assistant Professor in the College of Agriculture and READI Equity Fellow.

Dear colleagues,  

I assume we are all familiar with the equity biases in the student evaluations of teaching but are you aware of the implications of your own unconscious (implicit, hidden) biases?  

I hadn’t thought much about it until I found this study published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology. In their research, teachers graded (similar) students’ written essays but were not blind to their ethnical and socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds. Essays associated with students from lower SES received lower ratings than those associated with higher SES. However, the number of objective errors identified was the same, suggesting the teacher’s judgments were biased. After this, I stumbled over many articles addressing this topic, including in STEM – where we are trained to be highly objective and thus less subjective. Our unconscious biases can only help perpetuate the inequalities and a patriarchal society. 

As a person who truly enjoys knowing students at the personal level, I have implemented a few strategies to lessen the effects of this systemic problem.  

1. Recognize my own unconscious biases. I learned about the Implicit Association Test during the CSU Avoiding Bias in Hiring training. This free test can help you to explore your attitudes, beliefs, and biases toward marginalized groups. Becoming aware is the first step toward change! 
2. Use of anonymous grading. Both Canvas and Blackboard offer the option to hide student names during grading. If grading hard copies, I require a student ID number instead of names.  
3. Grading with rubrics. In addition to helping students evaluate their own work, rubrics help us to be more objective during grading. The British study above, suggested that teachers are more likely to revert to biased judgments when there is no clear evaluation rubrics.  

What strategies have you implemented? I would love to hear what you do to promote more equitable grading! 

Need help getting yourself started? Reach out! The READI hub is here to help you to implement EDI & antiracism teaching practices.