DOLCE - February 2, 2024 - Reflective AI Alternatives and Metacognition

Please enjoy the recording of a DOLCE event on Friday, February 2, 2024. We heard presentations from Russ Carpenter from the University Writing Program and Patricia Turner from the Center for Educational Effectiveness.

Russ Carpenter: The Reflection – an antidote to CHAT GPT hysteria?

In this DOLCE presentation, Lecturer Russ E. Carpenter from the University Writing Program and the Writing Across the Curriculum committee (UWP and WAC, respectively) discussed the most potent tool in his teaching toolkit: the reflection. In a time of crisis (real or imagined) ushered in by unfettered access to Artificial Intelligence writing bots informed by large language models, Russ discussed a simple yet devastatingly effective tool for instructors to use to help their students show their thinking as part of the writing process. While there are a number of tools, strategies and approaches being discussed near and far to working with and/or mitigating the threatening aura of tools like Chat GPT in the classroom, this simple approach is quick, personal and, gasp, can provide opportunities for students to develop even more as writers/thinkers regardless of who/what wrote their paper. Particular attention was paid to how to leverage this type of work within the context of a writing assignment in a class, using Canvas as a learning management system and how he uses Google docs to replicate this process in a lower stakes environment.

Russ E. Carpenter is a Lecturer in the University Writing Program and a member of the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) committee. He is entering his 4th year at UC Davis after spending 7 years teaching at Stanford University. His Ph.D. is in Neuroscience, and he specializes in teaching science communication, with a particular emphasis in writing, presenting and the genre of scientific research posters. Through his role with the WAC committee, he works with STEM faculty to help them design and create impactful content for their courses to help students learn how to communicate in their disciplines. He can be reached at carpenter@ucdavis.edu.

Patricia Turner: Developing metacognition around the use of ChatGPT for academic tasks

Patricia described her talk this way: “In this short talk, I will discuss my experience with developing and implementing a module designed to introduce graduate student instructors (GSIs) to the use of Generative AI (GenAI), specifically ChatGPT, in teaching and learning. My goal was to look at how GSIs’ understandings of GenAI in education were impacted by having engaged with a module on GenAI during a course on college teaching. The module presents a variety of informed perspectives about GenAI and engages GSIs in a 3-step Cognitive Process Analysis to help them develop an enhanced metacognitive orientation to using ChatGPT (or other GenAI platforms) for their own learning and that of their students. Early results indicate that a specific focus on the interaction with GenAI with human cognitive processes may help developing educators determine how to use GenAI in ways that are human-centered to promote learning in the classroom.”

Patricia Turner, Ph.D., is an Education Specialist with the Center for Educational Effectiveness-Learning, Teaching and Assessment unit (CEE-LTA). Patricia earned her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from UCLA, where her areas of concentration were Conversation Analysis and institutional talk-in-interaction. Patricia’s MA is in Linguistics, with emphases in teaching English as a Second Language and writing instruction.

Patricia has 26 years of teaching experience and has taught at all three systems of public higher education in California. She has held faculty positions at UC San Diego, San Diego State University, Santa Monica College and she taught extensively at UCLA while completing her doctoral studies. She has also taught at Harvard’s Institute for English Language Programs, and prior to coming to UC Davis, she provided professional development for K-12 educators at WestEd, a non-profit research, development and service agency.  She is interested in how modalities, dispositions, practices and artifacts of teaching and assessment influence teaching effectiveness in higher education.