By Raven Chakerian, Blended Learning Faculty Fellow, Center for Teaching and Learning
Part of the intrigue of a podcast is its storytelling nature, and the origin story of an upcoming Center for Teaching and Learning podcast on teaching and Artificial Intelligence (AI) marks no exception. In graduate school, I looked forward to the articles focusing on teaching research which were read and discussed in weekly GTA meetings. I enjoyed keeping up-to-date with the latest evidence-based recommendations and best practices and then experimenting with them in my own teaching. When I entered the working world as a full-time instructor, I vowed to keep up with this practice and spent my first semester scrambling to find time to locate and read at least one new article each week. By the end of the first term, I decided one article a month was more realistic. Not long after, my daughter was born, and I have been chasing that elusive goal ever since.
Somewhere along the way a colleague recommended a podcast episode on language teaching, my field. I’d never listened to podcasts and wasn’t completely sure what to expect, but the episode description was compelling, and it was something I could do while commuting to work, walking, exercising, or doing chores. Hundreds of podcast episodes later, I have no memory of what that first episode focused on, but listening to podcasts about teaching has become an integral part of how I remain informed, engaged and curious as an instructor. When I started hearing about ChatGPT and similar generative AI tools last year and how they were likely to impact the educational environment, I wasn’t sure what to think or how to react. I did come across a few podcast episodes like Preparing Students for an AI Future, a recent episode from Tea for Teaching, but I wished for more.
That brings us back to an upcoming podcast hosted by Oregon State University’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). Starting Fall 2023, my colleague, Joseph Slade (a Ph.D. student in Psychology), and I have been in OSU’s Media Hub podcasting studios recording interviews for AI on Campus, a podcast focusing on teaching and artificial intelligence that will be released during the spring term of 2024. We’re talking to instructors and administrators across campus and hearing stories about how they are adjusting their teaching and supporting student learning in the face of AI’s increasing presence in our academic environments. We also have interviews lined up with folks working in student and instructor support roles from the Academic Success Center, the Office of Institutional Diversity, the Career Development Center, the Writing Intensive Curriculum program (WIC) and more.
Do you wish you could hear how writing experts from WIC and the writing program are adjusting their writing assignments with AI in mind? Are you curious to learn more about AI literacy skills for instructors and students alike? Do you think about how to prepare students to be AI-ready for future careers? Do you have equity and ethics concerns about AI? Do you wonder how colleagues across campus are using AI to support their work as educators? Whether you are an avid podcast listener or are a curious podcast novice, we hope you will join us later this year from your commute, run, laundry room or couch for an episode of AI on Campus to explore these topics.
Watch for an announcement here in the CTL blog during spring term with information on how to access episodes and subscribe to the podcast. Until then, if you have a lead on a story related to AI and teaching or would like to share your own story, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Joe (joseph.slade@oregonstate.edu) or me (raven.chakerian@oreognstate.edu).
See all AI posts on the CTL Teaching and Learning blog.
Raven Chakerian is the 2023-24 CTL blended learning faculty fellow and senior instructor of Spanish and Italian in the Oregon State University School of Language, Culture and Society.
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