by William McDonald-Newman

Amongst the myriad tools for making teams better, or for being a better leader, supervisor, or facilitator, I’m constantly impressed by the power of improv. The skillset goes by many names: flexibility, adaptability, or being quick on your feet. All of these generally refer to the same things, and improv is perhaps one of the more socially pressurized contexts for learning them. Beyond the ability to refer to yourself as “flexible” with confidence, improv (or something improv adjacent) can be personally and professionally rewarding.

For clarity, improv (abbreviating improvisation) is most often used in reference to theater techniques developed to help people thrive in the spotlight. Whatever hiccups or challenges, improv experience prepares a performer to adapt and can give a shy performer a lower stakes form of showmanship. Personally, I think performing Shakespeare is a much scarier challenge than to be amongst a smaller crew of people in a make-shift show based on audience suggestions (no offense intended to the truly stunning skills of improv troupes everywhere, who do amazing things).

Like many practices, removing improv from its home context is a jump, but much less of one than it seems! Facilitating a team meeting is not so far off from a stage performance, and sometimes it can be far more tightly scripted. Committees following rules of order can be extraordinary to watch, a careful ballet of words and forms, though, sadly, far less likely to be accompanied by music or applause. Applying improv skills to meetings can make a facilitator, or a participant, far more comfortable when technology fails, when someone is put on the spot, or when disagreement arises.

So, knowing a bit of what improv is, and how it applies outside of theater, how do we get better at it? What a fantastic question that I ask myself all the time!

For those looking to jump in the deep end, improv classes/workshops are not uncommon in many cities, especially if there’s a theater community. For the more cautious, there are party games like Yes, And or That Escalated Quickly, with summer camp games like Mafia as excellent additional options. For the more game inclined, Dungeons & Dragons is a Tabletop Roleplaying Game (TTRPG) that has spent the last decade or so blossoming in part thanks to improv/theater performers. D&D is the most common of many TTRPGs, ranging from the most esoterically math inclined to essentially improv games with a single page rulebook. Lasers and Feelings, one of the more well-known one-page games, is a single 8.5×11 meant to get you pretending to be a crewmember of what is definitely not the copyrighted Star Trek franchise.

Whatever your preferred starting point, the key to improv is practicing it in a lower stake environment first. Improvisation is valuable when it helps ease the confusion, startlement, or fear that can come from surprises. It gives you reflexes for those moments when your mind goes blank, or when your face wants to betray how you actually feel. It’s also a great, borderline miraculous, excuse to interact with others, form social connections, and try something new.

Life doesn’t come with a script, and we all learn to improvise to handle that. Growing in a skill you may not know you had, and doing so intentionally, purposefully, can make you a far better team member, facilitator, friend, and leader. If you were itching for an excuse to try a party game, start a D&D group, or take a class, here’s a reason.

Individual feedback on assignments is a valuable way to connect with students, support individual understanding of course content and growth, and encourage engagement. It also takes time and effort and can feel overwhelming. My teaching experience is mainly across writing and academic success courses which are usually 30 or fewer students. However, I used to teach 4-5 sections at a time, regularly providing individual feedback to 100+ students. Whether you teach 25 or 200 students, if you’re providing individual feedback, it helps to have a plan and find strategies that work for you. Here are some strategies I’ve found helpful providing timely and supportive individualized feedback to students.

Before Grading

• Gather materials. Create a document for drafting comments before posting to Canvas. Have the assignment directions and the scoring guide for reference.

• Read the full assignment directions and scoring guide if applicable. Be sure you understand requirements and areas outside of the assignment’s scope.

• Be open-minded. Avoid imagining one “ideal” assignment and consider the range of ways students could meet requirements.

• Skim through a sample of submitted assignments. Get a sense for general understanding, quality of work, and missing work for outreach.

• Plan a format for comments. This can help you provide each student with a similar amount of feedback. The format can create consistency whether you’re at the start or end of grading. Here’s an example:
  • Greet and thank student by name
  • Note two areas that were working well
  • Share one or two areas they could improve/focus on in future work

• Think about feedback if students are meeting requirements. Students whose assignments meet requirements often get shorter or less nuanced feedback. While it’s great to acknowledge success, if that’s the extent of feedback, students may feel like they don’t know how to continue developing skills. Including praise and areas to prompt thinking for each student can ensure everyone has ideas for ongoing development.

• Plan more time than you need. If you start early, you’ll have time for norming, revision of comments, and follow-up.

• Plan for grading at times when you feel most alert and focused. Are you a morning person? Evening? Do you have a day that’s more open?
  • Avoid grading if you’re upset, overwhelmed, or exhausted. Most students understand if you share that grading will take longer than anticipated.
  • Break grading into manageable chunks so you can maintain energy and consistency.

While Grading

• Start grading at different points the alphabet. This ensures one person’s work isn’t always graded first or last.

• Stick to your planned format.  This supports consistency, routine, and momentum.

• Spend as much time on praise as you do on feedback. Helping students identify their strengths, validating work and effort, and thanking them encourages future learning, revision, and motivation.

• Don’t worry too much about language in your first draft of comments. If you’ve saved time to revise, you can read and revise specifically for language later.

• Be a generous reader and meet students where they’re at. Here are some practices to support that mindset:
  • Read to understand vs. from a point of critique
  • Work to make connections like you would when reading writing in your field
  • • Be open to an approach to the assignment that you didn’t anticipate
• Be specific. Reference specific ideas from students’ work. If you have something to say to all students (copy/pasting, rubber stamping), talk about it in class or post an announcement.

• Engage with ideas and assignment requirements. Spend time with at least one or two ideas that stood out to you. Show students you’re listening and care about what they’ve said.

After Grading

• Leave time between drafting comments and submitting them. Give yourself time to think about what you’ve read and written; then revise.

• Grade norm for your class. Review student work that earned similar grades. Keep in mind different students might have the same grade but for different reasons. Revisit work if you find inconsistencies.

• Re-read comments and revise for language, tone, depth. Consider the language you’ve used to praise, give feedback, pose questions, or point students in a specific direction. Show up in a way that represents you and your values.

While I know not all these ideas will resonate for everyone, I hope some might prompt thinking about how to provide feedback in a way that creates routine and supports individual students in their learning and growth.

by Adam Lenz

Why Using A.I. Is Complicated to Talk About

In my own work supporting students and student employees, trying to decide how and when to talk about the use of artificial intelligence (A.I) and generative A.I. tools like Gemini, Copilot, or, of course, ChatGPT never feels easy. Besides critical questions like “What is your faculty member’s perspective on A.I. use for this assignment?” or “Is this tool trained on and utilizing copyrighted or otherwise personally protected materials without consent?,” there are also other considerations to keep in mind such as the environmental impacts of large language model systems, the intended skills a task is meant to develop that A.I. tool use may circumnavigate or detract from, and whether or not a given prompt may produce outputs laden with problematic biases obfuscated as content-neutral or verified information. When my audience is also wary of potential academic repercussions and may not be any more familiar with the options available than I am, it is easy to feel like mentioning A.I. at all is more stress than it is worth. 

Even when I focus on questions that carry perhaps less immediate ethical weight, providing responses that meaningfully support a student or fellow staff member who came to me with questions can still feel hard to provide. Giving a response that targets that sweet spot of empowering the other to grow their own autonomy while still feeling like I provided a comforting support must land somewhere between a directive statement like “Here is what you do…” and an outright unhelpful statement like “I have no idea, you’re on your own.” For example, a common question a student may ask me is something like, “Here is what I need to do with this assignment or task. Which A.I. tool will best provide what I am hoping for?” Questions about HOW to use A.I. tools require me to maintain familiarity about the range of potential options available, the user-friendliness to learn and use each tool, the degree of validity versus hallucinations in outputs provided, and the accessibility of features on offer. All these questions are themselves further complicated by the fact that more products hit the market seemingly each week and often come with both free and premium-tier features that essentially produce two or even three kinds of product with the same label (e.g. ChatGPT 3.5 vs. ChatGPT 4o).

If only there were repositories of useful, curated strategies, articles, and tools to help the weary educational professional hoping to provide thoughtful mentoring for students on the overwhelming issue that is “How to approach the use of A.I.” in higher education…

Oh wait! There are!

Useful A.I. Resources

One of the great joys that has come from doing my best to keep up with the rush of new A.I.-related topics is to see the brilliant innovations and offerings that the community of scholars and academic support professionals have begun to feverishly put together in order to best support not only their students but one another as well. I’d like to share some resources below that I have found to be very helpful when I am considering using A.I. in an academic context or having a conversation with a student about their use of A.I. and hoping to give them resources and perspectives to most critically decide if any given tool is right for them:

How to Use AI to Do Stuff: An Opinionated Guide by Ethan Mollick

A quick article to turn to when trying to figure out which A.I. tools are able to do which tasks, helpfully (and snarkily) broken down into the three broad categories of “write stuff,” “make images,” and “come up with ideas” that also covers which are free and which are not.

The Prompt Library for Educators and the 5S Framework for Educational Prompts by A.I. for Education

I’m including these two resources in tandem because they both come from the same group, A.I. for Education, and also provide a solid base for finding, elaborating on, and eventually creating your own kind of prompt to use for nearly any question you may want to pose to an A.I. tool like ChatGPT. The Prompt Library is a remarkable time saver of useful prompts to use in your own work or offer to students on assignments where A.I. use is permissible, and the 5S framework is a list of important reminders to ground an A.I. tool firmly in the seat of assistant rather than driver of a learning experience.

Generative A.I. Ethics in Higher Education Scenarios – Discussion Prompts by TechnoEthics

Often when I think about sharing A.I. with students or fellow professional staff, I want to know if they have considered the various ethical ramifications and concerns that these tools bring up with their use. To this end, I have found this series of scenarios by TechnoEthics a great conversation starter for team or one-on-one meetings where we have time to reflect and discuss. Several scenarios here delve into questions about accessibility features that A.I. tools may provide, but at risk of linguistic oversimplification, disproportionate access to different resources in a classroom, and other challenges that are worth sharing a discussion about at the very least before creating a norm or policy regarding A.I. use in your classroom, program, or administrative unit.

OSU ECampus AI Tools and Decision Tree

I would be remiss if I did not include Oregon State University’s own excellent webpage about the important considerations faculty and student support professionals should keep in mind when working with A.I. tools. From a list of sample syllabus statements to modify about A.I. policy to ethical considerations to keep in mind when building out a specific assignment, OSU ECampus has done a remarkable job combining practical pedagogical frameworks with the role A.I. can play in a student’s learning experience. The section on assignment redesign ideas under their ‘Practical Strategies’ is a particularly useful list in my opinion as many of these suggestions can also be helpfully restructured into prompts that students use when in class or studying alone.

by Clare Creighton

This past spring I initiated a 360-degree review of myself. The general goal of a 360° evaluation is to gather feedback from people who are organizationally oriented to an employee in different ways. The name “360” is meant to refer to people who are organizationally on all “sides” of the employee hierarchically including people who report to the employee, their supervisor(s) or people above them organizationally, lateral colleagues and peers, and more. I initiated this activity to learn more about how people experience my leadership, supervision, communication, and facilitation, but also to learn about the process as a practice in general. Here’s how I approached this and a reflection on process elements in case this project is of interest to others.

Question Design

As I conceptualized this process, a colleague reminded me that everyone has different values and beliefs about leadership. I realized the evaluation would be more effective if I shared what I was trying to do (e.g. communicate clearly, provide opportunities for input) and ask if I was accomplishing that. Drafting questions based on my values and areas that are important to me produced feedback that was more meaningful.  

Working with a Reviewer

One of my priorities was to create a process where people felt comfortable to give quality feedback without holding back and to draw out perspectives I don’t currently have or can’t see.  I opted to work with a trusted colleague who would serve as the reviewer, receiving the responses and summarizing them for me. While some respondents could choose to give me access to their original comments, this approach created an additional level of anonymity for folks who wanted it. I would take this route again; I appreciated the opportunity to have someone help make meaning of the results.  

Invitations and Response Rate

I invited 46 people to complete the review. This resulted in 30 responses. I built the Qualtrics survey, but my reviewer copied it and sent it out so I wouldn’t have access. The challenge in this format was not being able to monitor response rates, and I had no way of knowing who to nudge to complete it. I also found myself wondering what perspectives I missed because I did a more targeted invitation instead of putting out a broader call.  

Explaining Myself

Throughout the early stages of this process, I encountered a few folks who heard I was doing this and asked, “what problem are you trying to solve?” There seemed to be a common perception that 360-degree reviews were for performance issues and not part of a natural feedback cycle to help leaders see potential areas for growth. When I sent out invitations, I included a document that detailed the rationale and purpose of this exercise, and I also think if we normalize this feedback loop more, it won’t be viewed as reactionary or negative. 

Unpacking Results

After the reviewer had completed the analysis of findings, we met and he walked me through a summary of responses to different sections, general themes, and provided me with a box folder of the 19 participants who gave permission for me to read their responses. I appreciated the space to ask the reviewer follow-up questions and have a conversation about what I was hearing in the data. Being able to review the raw data for some responses was by far the most valuable part of this process as it added nuance and understanding to some of the individual responses. Following my own exploration of the data, I circled back with the invited participants to thank them for their insights. For the folks who report to me directly, I shared results and take-aways in more depth.  

Strengths & Limitations 

Spending time reflecting on my values and what I wanted feedback on was not originally part of my process, but it proved to be an invaluable exercise. Giving folks the opportunity to release their verbatim responses to me was an element I would keep as it gave me additional rich data, but with their permission.  

While the format was helpful to gather a range of feedback from a group, it was challenging to have anonymous feedback at times. Some comments and suggestions would have been better with context. Some suggestions seem so specific to one respondent that it would have been useful to gather that feedback in a 1:1 so we could have created a plan moving forward to better meet those needs.   

Overall, I really enjoyed both the process of setting this up and the learning that came from the results. I think this is a useful tool within the feedback toolbox and would recommend it for folks in any position type. Questions? Comments? Interested in seeing the survey tool I created? Please be in touch, I’m happy to share more about my process and questions. 

The Office of Academic Support team communicates on MS Teams a lot. And within those channels, threads, individual/group chats, we must rise to the occasion with GIFs and memes that support our colleagues, convey our most astute reactions, and help us navigate successes and challenges. I can’t speak for all of us, but I can say that I love a quality GIF reaction. And I am happy to share five that have great versatility for your consideration.

That’s What Heroes Do

It’s the start of the year. Someone you know has done something awesome to kick off this new academic year! Maybe they’ve found a cool new way to support students or found a new keyboard shortcut nobody knew existed. There’s a GIF for that. Maybe you decided to challenge yourself and take on something new that makes you a bit nervous. Or you decided to say no to something—an intentional decision to support capacity. That’s what heroes do, folks. That’s what heroes do.

Detective Pikachu

Has someone ever asked you a Drupal 10 question, and you’ve no idea of the answer, but you suddenly feel a sense of (potentially misplaced) confidence in figuring it out? Or: have you or a colleague ever asked each other what something on your to-do list might mean—Past You had an intention, but Current You is now crowd sourcing for meaning? (Note: if nobody knows what it means, you get to cross it off your list). Or have you or someone else ever misplaced a common office item (an HDMI adapter, stapler, icebreaker cards, etc.)? If you answered yes to any of these questions, Detective Pikachu may be the GIF for you.

Star Trek Fist Bump

You do good work. Your colleagues do good work. You accomplish cool things together. In short, you rock. Channel your inner media tour Kirk and Spock with this GIF of Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine high fiving and fist bumping.

Elmo Falls

Accidentally schedule yourself to facilitate 5-7 different meetings, workshops, or presentations in a single week? Elmo falls. Just realize November is next week? Elmo falls. Read that conference proposal you had accepted three months ago and now have to actually plan it out? Elmo falls. Snow in April? Elmo falls.

So It Begins

Make work epic. The Horn of Helm Hammerhand will sound in the Deep one last time. And you will accomplish that amazing plan you’ve put together. And you will rock that new role/leadership opportunity. You will finally hold that hour to recycle excess paper or get documents in the shredding bin. Does this GIF have a bit of an ominous tone? Sure, but you can lean into that or ignore it. I used it today when sharing that I saw eggnog on store shelves last weekend [insert shrugging Elmo gif here].

What memes or GIFS show up the most in your work or Teams communication? Reply here or send me a Teams message (coffeym) with a GIF you love! Whether we know each other or not, I will be delighted and happily respond.