From the Robot

Use the robot to help you redesign your assessments! 

Prompt: I am a teacher teaching an online class. Part of the class has discussion boards that are aimed at humanizing the classroom and getting to know one another. Can you give me a few assignment ideas that take this model and make it effective even if students decide to use a Chatbot?

The Robot: 

Certainly! Here are a few assignment ideas that can help create an engaging and effective online discussion board, even if students decide to use a Chatbot:

1. Personalized Storytelling: Ask students to create and share a short, personal story about a memorable experience or event in their lives. Encourage them to include specific details and emotions to make their stories more engaging. This will be difficult for a Chatbot to replicate, as it doesn't have personal experiences to draw from.

2. Virtual Show and Tell: Have students upload a photo or short video of a personal item that has special meaning to them. They can then write a brief description explaining its significance and how it connects to their life. This encourages students to share a piece of themselves, which is not easily achievable through a Chatbot.

3. Debate and Reflection: Introduce a thought-provoking topic or question, and divide students into teams to research and argue for or against the topic. After the debate, have students reflect on their own opinions and how the discussion influenced their perspective. This requires students to actively engage in critical thinking and self-reflection, which is more challenging for a Chatbot to mimic.

4. Video Introductions: Ask students to record a short video introduction of themselves, sharing their interests, hobbies, and goals for the course. This personal touch will make it difficult for a Chatbot to participate authentically, and it helps students put faces to names in the online classroom.

5. Collaborative Projects: Divide students into small groups and assign them a creative project that requires teamwork and communication, such as creating a multimedia presentation or a group research paper. This encourages interaction and collaboration between students and is less likely to be completed effectively by a Chatbot.

6. Peer Feedback: Have students submit a draft of an assignment or project and then assign them to provide constructive feedback to their peers. This promotes critical thinking and communication skills, and it is difficult for a Chatbot to provide meaningful, personalized feedback.

By incorporating these types of assignments into your online class, you can create an engaging and effective learning environment while making it more challenging for students to rely solely on a Chatbot.

• Source, Open AI's ChatGPT 

Human Interaction 

• Have video discussions using Canvas Studio, YouTube, or similar.

• Consider group work. The chat transcript can be turned in as homework. Or a collaborative assignment could be turned in. 

Peer Review

Discussion Blog Prompt: Write a blog discussing the significance of metacognition in learning and the role of peer review in this process. Read and evaluate several classmates' blogs. Choose one idea from a peer's blog that resonates with you and incorporate it into your initial post, making sure it connects with your thoughts. Credit the author and explain why their idea worked well for your blog and what you appreciated about it.

For example: Christina shared that self-assessment promotes metacognition. This idea aligns with my thoughts on peer review, which offers different perspectives on assignment approaches. By analyzing others' methods, I can enhance my learning through self-review, considering new insights, as suggested by Christina.

Please revise your initial blog to include a section on self-review and how it supports learning.

Slide Deck Presentation

For this assignment, you will create an engaging and informative slide deck that focuses on specific topics covered in our course. Once your slide deck is complete, you will record a screen capture video while presenting and discussing the content of your slides. Follow the steps below to successfully complete this assignment:

1. Choose 3-5 key topics from the course material that you find particularly interesting or important.

2. Create an organized slide deck with clear headings and concise bullet points, making sure to include relevant images, graphs, or diagrams to support your discussion.

3. Design your slide deck to be visually appealing and easy to follow, using a consistent theme, font, and color scheme throughout.

4. Prepare a script or talking points to guide your presentation, ensuring you explain each topic thoroughly and make connections to the course material.

5. Record a screen capture video of yourself flipping through the slide deck and presenting the content. Make sure to speak clearly, at a moderate pace, and maintain a conversational tone.

6. Keep the video length between 10-15 minutes, making sure to cover all the topics adequately.

7. Save your video in a common file format (e.g., .mp4 or .mov) and submit it along with your slide deck.

By completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your understanding of the course material and improve your communication and presentation skills. We encourage you to be creative and make your presentation as engaging as possible to help your fellow students better understand and remember the content.

• Have your students use ChatGPT to evaluate their essay. Ask it to give you suggestions for improvement. Make improvements based on those suggestions. 

• Have ChatGPT evaluate the tone of your writing. 

• Use ChatGPT for brainstorming. What did it come up with? What did you like about those suggestions? Why? Now write your own.

Ask ChatGPT to help you craft an assignment. For example: 

Prompt: Write a short answer essay question, based on the article "Editorial: The Impact of Music on Human Development and Well-Being," that cannot be answered with artificial intelligence.

ChatGPT Response: In the article "Editorial: The Impact of Music on Human Development and Well-Being," the author discusses various aspects of how music affects individuals and society as a whole. Based on the article, write a short answer essay discussing the personal emotional connection and impact that a specific piece of music or musical experience has had on you, providing details about the context and the reasons behind your emotional response.

Create a Dialog

Pick your 2 favorite authors. Create a dialog between the two. This is what a robot thinks. Now look at those assertions and find the sources. See what it really means. Is it accurate? How was it misinterpreted? 

Prompt for ChatGPT: “Create a dialog between Bell Hooks and Tim Wise”

What did the robot say? Find points in the dialog and cite where the computer likely got that information. Was there anything correct? Was there anything false? 

- (Paraphrased. Fabiola will be sending me an update/edit) Fabiola Torres-Reyes, Glendale CC

I teach an Educational Technology Class. In that class I have my students introduce themselves at the beginning of the class. In that introduction, I ask them to detail their favorite assignment that they have had as a student. Later in the class, we discuss learning theory and the process of selecting and applying educational technologies to the curriculum.  I have the students look back at their favorite assignment and identify all of the elements that it has and align those elements with Bloom’s Taxonomy. Then I have them select a technology intervention for a unit plan that they are developing and align that intervention with Bloom’s and state how this technology will promote learning above traditional classroom methods.

The following are a sampling of student responses.  None of the assignments listed below are direct student work. They have been paraphrased and grouped into general assignment types, to protect student identity and copyright.

***In all of the years I have been teaching this class, I have never heard a response referring to taking a multiple-choice exam. I do get responses about essays or papers. However, those written responses are always supported by some sort of active learning project. Project-based learning, peer review, social learning, and active learning are all the areas I receive responses from. No shade on multiple-choice exams! In fact, as a formative low-stakes assessment I think they are great. 

Under Construction. More to come! 

Please offer suggestions for improvement! Email them to me using the contact us link below. 

General Assignment Types

Assignment Type: Observations.

Primary Learning Type: Active Learning, including all of Bloom’s Taxonomy Categories: Evaluation, Synthesis, Analysis, Application, Comprehension, Knowledge

Description: In a biology class, have students select a place where they can observe plants and animals in the wild. Have students actually take pictures of those and tie it into the curriculum.

Why it is Engaging: It requires students to be active. It also lets them control their own learning process and helps them to tie in your curriculum with their personal lives. For many students, it gives them the opportunity to include a hobby, such as photography, surfing, hiking, etc.

Assignment Type: Instructor Who Cares/Mentoring

Primary Learning Type: Support, Caring, Personalized Education  

Description: Students can feel the support of their professor. Professors who expect high quality work but who also spend the time to really understand where their students are in their learning process is very welcome and engaging for our students.

Assignment Type: Active classroom with community learning.

Primary Learning Type: Social Learning. Active Learning. Depending on the assignments, this could include all of Bloom’s Taxonomy Categories: Evaluation, Synthesis, Analysis, Application, Comprehension, Knowledge

Description: Some teachers rotate their seating every few weeks to encourage group work and give students the opportunity to make social connections. This type of learning is called social learning, where you can use the collective knowledge of the group to more quickly overcome barriers in the learning process. Humans can be very social and learning is social as well. Don’t be afraid of group work! But do grade it fairly.

Assignment Type: Interview an Expert.

Primary Learning Type: Social learning. Active Learning. Depending on the assignment after the interview, this can include all of Bloom’s Taxonomy Categories: Evaluation, Synthesis, Analysis, Application, Comprehension, Knowledge

Description: We’ve all done this type of assignment, where we interview someone we know about something they have experienced. This type of assignment is a social learning assignment and it also requires students to be active in their learning outside of the classroom and also evaluate and assess information at a high level. That information is then applied to something in your curriculum.

Folks, we are living in and witnessing the dawn of a new age. We must adapt to this, design meaningful learning experiences, and propel our students into their very-different-than-ours-was future. If we put blinders on, we’ll become obsolete.

Additionally, online classes are a fundamental access consideration. Not everyone fits the mold of being able to attend an on-campus class, for a variety of reasons. Trying to go back to a one size fits all strategy for learning is not the answer. 

We’ve got this! It will ultimately be a good thing. Now let’s get to work.

"ChatGPT is exciting to me because it allows me to stay creative and flexible in my course design vs. policing my students. Whoohoo!" - Fabiola Torres-Reyes, Glendale CC