The Grade Book That Lies to My Students

I do not use weighted categories in my Canvas gradebooks. I never have. The math behind simple point totals is fully transparent: a student earns 850 out of 1000 points, and that is an 85. No hidden formulas, no intermediate normalization steps, no categorical arithmetic that requires three operations before you arrive at a meaningful number. A student who wants to dispute a grade can sit down with a calculator and check the total points in under a minute. That is the system I want.

Canvas does not want that system. Or rather, Canvas does not care what I want. Its gradebook is built around assignment groups as the primary organizational unit, and its student-facing interface surfaces percentage summaries regardless of whether you have enabled weighted grading. So even when my course runs on pure points, my students see columns organized by group, percentage breakdowns by category, and a visual presentation that implies weights exist. The underlying math may be correct, but the interface tells a different story. I cannot turn this off.

This bothers me more than it probably should, and I have thought about why. The issue is not cosmetic. When a student sees a "Participation" group sitting at 72% next to an "Exams" group sitting at 88%, they naturally ask how much each one counts. In a weighted course, that is a meaningful question with a clean answer. In my course, it is a question the interface invites but cannot honestly answer, because the groups are not weighted at all. The percentage figures are real, but the framing around them is misleading. A platform designed to communicate grade structure is, in my course, actively miscommunicating it.

There is a genuine argument for weighting that I do not want to dismiss. Weighted categories give course designers a stable architecture: if you add two more homework assignments mid-semester, the homework category still counts for exactly 30% of the final grade, and nothing else shifts. With a points system, every new assignment changes the denominator, which means it changes the implicit weight of everything that came before. If your course structure is stable, this does not matter. Mine tends to be stable. But the weighting approach is more robust to the kind of mid-course adjustment that happens in real teaching. I understand the appeal.

What I do not understand is why that robustness requires opacity in the student-facing view. The two goals, design integrity and computational transparency, are not actually in conflict. A course could show students the running point total, the total points possible, and the implied percentage, all without requiring them to reconstruct categorical normalization by hand. Canvas could offer this. It does not, at least not as a clean default. Instead it presents a percentage-based view that fits weighted courses naturally and fits mine awkwardly. The workaround I use, a single assignment group with explicit point totals and a plain-language explanation in the syllabus, is functional but inelegant. It is the kind of fix that should not be necessary. Instructure Inc., are you listening?

A case against prompt engineering in education

Do we give students examples of great prompts, or do we allow them to struggle with developing their own prompting skills? This dilemma is common amongst educators integrating AI into their pedagogical strategies.

Refining prompts is as a pivotal vehicle for cognitive advancement. It fosters growth by nudging students to navigate beyond their current capabilities. A meticulously crafted ready-made prompt, while yielding impressive results, might overshoot a student's zone of proximal development. The essence of learning lies in recognizing and rectifying flaws of the output. In other word, giving students a great prompt to begin with may produce the result that is painfully obviously flawed to the instructor, but the flaws are completely invisible to students. When students are handed sophisticated prompts, there's a risk of them becoming passive users, merely applying these tools without understanding or growth. Here is some empirical evidence of this provided by Jack Dougal. One of my colleagues, hopefully will soon present similar results.

The general principle should be to calibrate potential outputs to a level where students can discern imperfections. It is also to ENCOURAGE them to look for imperfections, guiding them to be critical to the output. Just because it sounds good and grammar is perfect does not mean the text is good. This approach encourages active engagement with the learning material, prompting them to question, adapt, and evolve their understanding. It's akin to guiding someone through a labyrinth; the instructor's role is to provide just enough light to help them find their way, without illuminating the entire path.

In the educational sphere, the prompt industry's role is contentious. While it offers a plethora of ready-made prompts, enhancing efficiency, this convenience comes at a cost to cognitive development. In academia, the journey of crafting and refining prompts is crucial for fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

On the research front, the prompt industry does contribute valuable insights, empirically testing and refining prompts to optimize AI interactions. I love to find out about the chain-of-thought approach, for example. However, a significant portion of the prompts available in the market are of dubious quality. These prompts, lacking empirical validation, are frequently oversold in their capabilities. The indiscriminate use of these untested prompts can result in suboptimal outcomes, reinforcing the necessity for a discerning approach to their adoption and application.

The overarching promise of AI lies in its potential to democratize content creation, designed to comprehend natural, imperfect language and provide equitable access to all, regardless of their mastery of writing mechanics, their disability, or fluency in the dominant language. This vision is threatened by attempts to monopolize and professionalize access to AI, a trend that runs counter to the very ethos of this technology. The notion that one must know 'magic words' to effectively communicate with AI is a form of self-interested deception. It undermines the inclusive and accessible nature of AI, turning it into a gated community where knowledge is unfairly hoarded rather than shared. Vigilance against such practices is essential to preserve the integrity and egalitarian promise of AI, ensuring it remains a tool for empowerment and collective advancement, rather than a vehicle for exclusion and profiteering.

Is AI doing too much for students?

Educators’ worry about AI boils down the concept of 'Goldilocks zone.' A learning task should neither be too challenging nor too simplistic, but just right, fitting within the learner's zone of proximal development. It is something that the learner can first solve only with help, but eventually internalized and can solve on their own. The concern is that AI, in its current form, might be overstepping this boundary, solving problems on behalf of learners instead of challenging and guiding them. It is like that rookie teacher that keeps solving problems for students and rewriting their papers, and then wonders why they have not learned anything. I just want to acknowledge that this concern is very insightful and is grounded in both theory and everyday practice of teachers. However, the response to it isn't that simple. AI cannot be dismissed or banned based on this critique. 

First, there's the question of what skills are truly worth learning. This is the most profound, fundamental question of all curriculum design. For instance, we know that certain basic procedural skills go out of use, and learners leapfrog them to free time to concentrate on more advanced skills. For example, dividing long numbers by hand used to be a critical procedural skill, and it is not worth the time, given the ubiquity of calculators. There is a legitimate, and sometimes passionate debate whether the mechanics of writing is such a basic procedural skill that can or cannot be delegated to the machines. I don’t want to prejudge the outcome of this debate, although I am personally leaning towards a “yes” answer, assuming that people will never go back to fully manual writing. However, the real answer will probably be more complicated. It is likely that SOME kinds of procedural knowledge will remain fundamental, and others will not. We simply do not have enough empirical data to make that call yet. A similar debate is whether the ability to manually search and summarize research databases is still a foundational skill, or we can trust AI to do that work for us. (I am old enough to remember professors insisting students go to the physical library and look through physical journals). This debate is complicated by the fact that AI engineers are struggling to solve the hallucinations problem. There is also a whole different debate on authorship that is not quite specific to education, but affects us as well. The first approach is then to rethink what is worth teaching and learning, and perhaps focus on skills that humans are really good at, and AI is not. IN other words, we reconstruct the “Goldie locks zone” for a different skill set.

The second approach centers on the calibration of AI responses. Currently, this is not widely implemented, but the potential exists. Imagine an AI that acts not as a ready solution provider but as a coach, presenting tasks calibrated to the learner's individual skill level. It is sort of like an AI engine with training wheels, both limiting it and enabling the user to grow. This approach would require creating educational AI modules programmed to adjust to the specific needs of each user’s level. We have the Item Response Theory in psychometrics that can guide us in building such models, but I am not aware of any robust working model yet. Once the Custom GPT feature starts working better, it is only a matter of time for creative teachers to build many such models.

Both approaches underscore the importance of not dismissing AI's role in education but rather fine-tuning it to enhance learning. AI is here to stay, and rather than fearing its overreach, we should harness its capabilities to foster more advanced thinking skills.

These are conversation we cannot shy away from. It is important to apply some sort of a theoretical framework to this debate, so it does not deteriorate into a shouting match of opinions. Either Vygotskian or Brunerian, or any other framework will do. Vygotsky has been especially interested in the use of tools in learning, and AI is just a new kind of tool. Tools are not note all created equal, and some are better than others for education. The ultimate question is what kind of a learning tool AI is, and whether we could adjust learning, adjust the tool, or do both.

Assessing writing with AI

Writing with AI is a complex skill that overlaps with traditional manual writing, but it is not the same. Many instructors struggle to grasp this new skill because it is unfamiliar to them. Teaching something you haven't mastered is challenging, leading to noticeable unease at all educational levels. Even those eager to incorporate AI in teaching, often open to new innovations, face this difficulty. The issue essentially lies in redefining the objectives of writing instruction. If the belief is that students should ultimately write independently, then traditional practice is paramount, leaving no role for AI tools. However, the more challenging conceptual shift is recognizing the need to teach students how to write with AI. This is like the transition from penmanship to typing. We lose something in this shift: the beauty, the discipline, and the rigorous exercises of handwriting. I recall diligently practicing letter formations in my first-grade penmanship class. Although I was never adept at it and gladly transitioned to typewriters when they became accessible, I understand the pain of losing the esteemed art of writing, cherished for centuries. This pain, particularly acute for those who have spent decades mastering and teaching writing, must be acknowledged. Yet, this shift seems inevitable. We are dealing with a technology that is being adopted faster than any in history, and it is not a passing fad. The benefits are too clear. We face a stark paradox: educators use AI to create lesson plans and assessment rubrics, yet often bar their students from using the same technology. This is unsustainable and awkward. 

As a profession, we are only taking the first steps in integrating AI into writing instruction. Here's another baby step: I revised Sacramento State University's Undergraduate Writing Portfolio Assessment criteria, considering the new skill of "wrating." 

Writing Placement for Juniors Portfolio (WPJ)

5 - Exceptional Wraiter: Demonstrates mastery in "wraiting," producing AI-assisted compositions at a publishable level in their respective discipline. Showcases exceptional skill in generating rich, engaging prompts and collaboratively refining AI outputs. Exhibits a deep understanding of AI's strengths and limitations, skillfully navigating these in producing original, high-quality work.

4 - Strong Wraiter: Effectively employs AI tools in "wraiting," producing texts of high quality that reflect a sophisticated understanding of AI's capabilities. Demonstrates the ability to create rich prompts and engage in the iterative process of refining AI-generated content. Shows a clear grasp of AI's strengths and limitations, using them to enhance original thinking and critical evaluation.

3 - Competent Wraiter: Demonstrates a solid understanding of "wraiting," using AI tools to assist in writing tasks. Capable of creating effective prompts and engaging in the process of refining AI outputs. Shows awareness of the strengths and limitations of AI in writing, but may require further guidance to fully exploit these in creating high-quality texts.

2 - Developing Wraiter: Beginning to understand the role of AI in "wraiting." Can generate basic AI-assisted texts but requires further instruction in creating effective prompts and refining outputs. Shows potential in understanding AI's strengths and limitations, but needs more practice to integrate these effectively in writing tasks.

1 - Emerging Wraiter: Early stages of grasping "wraiting." Struggles with effectively using AI tools, often producing clichéd, uninspired texts that lack human input and originality. Needs substantial guidance in understanding AI's capabilities, constructing prompts, and refining AI-generated content.

0 - Incomplete Portfolio: Portfolio does not demonstrate the basic competencies in "wraiting" or effective use of AI in writing tasks. Requires additional work to understand and skillfully employ AI tools in the writing process. What do you think?

The fundamental misunderstanding of AI-assisted writing

The debate rages on in various Facebook groups dedicated to AI in education, encompassing educators, publishers, and even lawyers. They grapple with the ethics, practicalities, and legality of using AI-generated text, often under the flawed assumption that there's a clear demarcation between human-generated and AI-generated content. This is a classic case of misunderstanding the nature of large language models (LLMs) – it is not just technically impossible to make such a distinction, but theoretically as well.

Imagine writing assistance by AI as a spectrum. On one end, there's the lazy prompt: "Write me an essay for my class based on these instructions." On the other, a minimal request: "Here's my text, just correct the grammar." In the former case, the content is mostly computer-generated. (Although some instructors give such detailed assignment descriptions for students that the paper is practically written by the instructor, but that is another issue). Yet, the most effective and transformative uses of AI lie somewhere in the middle. This is where the magic happens: turning a raw idea into a paper outline, transforming a rough argument into coherent text, asking ChatGPT for feedback on a draft, or enriching a paragraph with vivid examples.

This is not a simple case of either-or; it is a true collaboration between human intellect and machine assistance. By pigeonholing AI as a tool that merely replaces human effort, many reveal their unfamiliarity with what I like to call 'wraiting' – a blend of writing and AI. The current clamor for distinct labeling of human vs. AI-generated text, or setting limits on the extent of AI use, can come across as naïve or even embarrassing to those well-versed in AI-assisted writing.

The beauty of 'wraiting' lies in its collaborative essence. It redefines authorship, shifting the focus from the creation process to the act of releasing the final product. The most important wraiting skills is the ability to wring great content from the machine by giving it most of the ideas. Equally important is the final editing, the ability to discern between mediocre and great content.

Just as the user of a word processor or spell-checker is considered the author, the human guiding the AI in 'wraiting' holds the rights of authorship. The key lies in understanding and experiencing this process firsthand. So, before jumping into heated debates or formulating policies, it might be wise to take AI for a spin in your next writing project. Only then can one truly appreciate the nuances of this new era of authorship, where the lines between human and machine are not just blurred but non-existent. Regulating a thing you don’t know much about is always going to be risky. 

AI Use by Students is an Issue of Equity

As we consider how to integrate AI in higher education, it's essential to examine who stands to benefit and why it matters. The historical context of language paints a complex picture, where written language has been a marker of class and education. The ability to write elegantly and follow grammatical rules distinguished the educated elite from the masses. Even today, mastery of written language serves not just as a tool for communication but as a status symbol, a differentiation between "us" and "them."

This outsized prominence of literacy and grammar has no intrinsic value; dialects are not inferior, and misspelled words can still convey meaning. The significance of literacy often aligns with social class markers and the dominant culture, rather than enhancing the clarity of ideas.

The fear of losing another marker of social status continues to drive anxiety around language and writing in our society. However, those concerned with social justice should recognize AI-assisted writing, reading, speaking, research, and problem-solving as potential equalizers. For individuals grappling with dyslexia, aphasia, ADHD, and other learning disorders, writing is a daunting task. AI has the potential to level the playing field, offering a means to overcome these hurdles.

Moreover, for the vast population trying to master English or any second, dominant language, AI's smart algorithms can simplify and streamline the learning process. This benefit extends to students from underprivileged backgrounds who may struggle with writing due to a lack of quality secondary schooling. AI offers a chance to level the playing field for these marginalized groups of students.

The transformative potential of AI promises liberation for those constrained by conventional written language. With technology capturing thoughts and expressing them competently, the value of ideas rises, while the value of grammar falls. It is a liberating thing, not a sign of cultural impoverishment.

However, the rise of AI also highlights an enduring concern: inequality. Technological revolutions, while empowering, can exacerbate socio-economic disparities. Those with education and technological proficiency might find themselves better equipped to reap the AI revolution's benefits, leaving others struggling to keep up.

The answer to the question "who benefits?" is contingent on university faculty and administrators. We hold an ethical obligation to empower disadvantaged students with the advanced skills of writing with AI, giving them an equal opportunity to harness this powerful technology.

The potential "AI gap" could become our reality if we do not take proactive measures. We must avoid criminalizing the use of AI, such as GPT, especially as it may disproportionately penalize the most vulnerable students, including students of color. If we equate the use of AI with cheating, the most brilliant, original thinkers will be punished, while the most compliant will be rewarded. Do I want our students to use AI in their real careers, to write better CVs and cover letters, to use it in their jobs? – you bet, I do, and I hope so do you.

AI use by students is not just an issue of technological advancement; it is an issue of equity, inclusivity, and human potential. We must avoid letting others fall behind in the race.

Rethinking the Dissertation: Moving Towards Authenticity and Career-Relevance in Social Sciences

Higher education's traditional forms of assessment and instruction have long been the subject of critique, discussion, and reform. Perhaps nowhere is this truer than the capstone dissertation – a mainstay of doctoral studies in the social sciences including education. There is an increasing sentiment in academia that the traditional dissertation may not be the most useful or authentic form of scholarly work for students in these disciplines.

The dissertation is an unauthentic genre, as it often represents an academic exercise that a student is likely to engage in just once in their lives. This poses an interesting problem for social science students, as the disciplines they study tend to communicate primarily through papers, not monographs or books. While in humanities, a book is a conventional and widely accepted medium of communication, it is different in social sciences. Although there is an abundance of books in social sciences, they do not typically follow the structured format of a dissertation. Consequently, students learn to work with a genre that does not reflect the true nature of scholarly communication in their field.

As an alternative to the traditional dissertation, some institutions, particularly in Northern Europe, are embracing the "publishable papers" model. This model requires doctoral students to write three to four related papers of publishable quality. Some institutions even require that at least two of these papers be published or accepted for publication. The student then writes a brief overview detailing how the papers relate and the overarching point of the project.

This approach has several key advantages. Firstly, students acquire skills that are directly applicable to their careers, improving their academic writing and research abilities. Secondly, it enhances their publication record, increasing their competitiveness in the job market. Finally, the model benefits the institution, as published papers contribute positively to the reputation and ranking of the university due to their doctoral program affiliation.

In practice-oriented programs, like Education Doctorate (EdD) programs, the dissertation can feel especially incongruous. Students in these programs are learning to apply research skills to improve the organizations they lead, and neither a dissertation nor a traditional research paper truly reflects the kinds of documents they will be expected to produce in their careers.

Rather, these students should be writing reports, strategic plans, grant applications, accreditation reports, and papers for practitioner journals - the genres of communication that are native to their future careers. An academic approach that values these authentic forms of assessment is likely to be far more beneficial for students, better equipping them for their professional roles.

Resistance to changing the dissertation tradition often stems from faculty who believe that the way they were trained should be the standard for all students. There's an element of academic hazing in this attitude, an idea that you must "suffer through" dissertation writing to become a better scholar. But the truth is that academia is always evolving, and clinging to tradition for tradition's sake can hinder progress.

In summary, it's time for academia, particularly in the social sciences and education, to reconsider the traditional dissertation. We must ask ourselves: does the dissertation truly prepare our students for their careers, or does it simply perpetuate an outdated tradition? Is this the only genre where research skills can be assessed? Adopting an approach that promotes publishable papers or career-relevant genres of communication can make doctoral education more authentic, career-relevant, and beneficial for all stakeholders.

If a robot can beat your writing assignment, it is time to rethink it

The rise of machines, with AI bots like OpenAI's ChatGPT replicating human-like text generation, compels us to question our education system's foundations. Is reflective or expository writing a valid assessment when AI can mimic average student work? The answer isn't straightforward. However, this crisis provides an opportunity to redefine our understanding of writing and its relation to thought.

The advent of AI challenges us to de-emphasize the mechanics of writing, such as grammar, style, and syntax, that a machine can master. Instead, we should focus on more complex aspects of writing that are inherently human: original thought, artful language, and narratives that resonate with the human experience. This shift, although jarring, is necessary. It signals not just a technological revolution, but a cultural, intellectual, and educational upheaval.

The AI revolution illuminates a harsh truth: traditional education and assessment methods are no longer sufficient. The challenge is to teach students not just to write well, but to think originally, create artfully, and understand deeply. In the face of the machine, we must thrive in domains that are distinctly human.

In this technological metamorphosis, we're compelled to redefine our work and our value. Perhaps we are not merely creators, analysts, or workers. Perhaps we are artists, thinkers, dreamers. And perhaps, in this transition, we will find our survival and our redemption.

We must revisit traditional teaching methodologies, challenging the efficacy of our current writing assignments. As educators, a simple test can provide clarity: input your exact writing assignment into ChatGPT. If the AI produces a B-grade paper, it's time to rethink.

One option is to replace the writing assignment with an alternative assessment, such as oral exams, multiple choice, or short answer tests. Another option is to transform the assignment to require students to engage with AI, like ChatGPT. This approach would involve designing assignments that test not just writing ability, but also the capacity to evaluate AI outputs critically, discern the nuances differentiating human intellect from AI, and incorporate these insights creatively. In response to ChatGPT, dramatically raise your expectations of student writing, for now they have a lot of help.

AI's advent should be viewed not as a threat, but as an opportunity to explore new pedagogical frontiers. Our learning community is leading this exploration into AI-integrated education, and we invite all to join this journey.

In essence, AI's rise can help us rethink education. We must focus not just on subject mastery, but also on developing original thinking, creativity, and nuanced intelligence. In the face of the machine, we can still shine in our distinctly human domains, thriving in this technological metamorphosis. The future of education, interwoven with AI, might look different, but it promises a realm of possibilities, allowing us to redefine our unique human value.

The school energy

After a couple of years of dashed hopes and the zoom-fog, we are finally back. I will let you in on a secret; all educators know it, but most of other people do not. We have an endless source of power that makes education tick no matter what. If you gather many young people for a peaceful and productive purpose, they exude a special form of energy. Let’s call it the school energy. It is especially abundant and palpable this year, although it is always there, and always more visible at the start of a school year. To be completely honest, many of us in the teaching profession get a bit addicted to it; it is one of the main reasons we do what we do.

The way it works is a mystery. Get together hundreds of young people, with their own hopes, anxieties, peculiarities, their passions, the capacity to love, dreams and ambitions. Make it clear they will be learning something. I am not sure if they are just happy to see each other, and the learning part is a good excuse to do it. But it works. The ingredients are: young people, a school of some sort, the first day of the school year. Mix quickly, and you get a boost of energy, both invisible, and unmistakable. Consume with caution.

Speaking at orientations for future educators, I always struggle to convey this little trade secret we have. How do I tell them, it is not all hard work and sacrifice? Teaching can also be an immensely pleasurable experience if you know how to look. There is nothing as hopeful and optimistic as a crowd of young bodies and minds who came to make their – and your – lives better. You can watch future by watching a Sci-Fi flick with starships, or you can come to one of the new school year events. The latter is a much more joyful activity. You drink this energy of the young freely, without taking anything away from them. To the contrary, you help them get where they want to go. That is the paradox of the school energy – the more you take it, the more is left for others to take. Take this, the first law of thermodynamics.

Can I zoom into your class, professor?

This seems to be a persistent post-COVID request, a difficult one to address. On one hand, instructors want to be accommodating and compassionate to students. Everyone now knows it is theoretically possible to have some people Zooming in. Students have very good stories, including being sick with COVID. Other faculty relent, so one may feel a bit of a peer pressure to say yes. On the other hand, it is very hard to do well. The dual or HyFlex modality turned out to be very hard on instructors. First, the technology is not there yet. We thought it is, and some ed tech enthusiasts will tell you it is. But do not believe them. Someone has to point the camera to the right direction, make sure the sound feed is OK (most rooms do not have good microphones). Someone has to monitor the online portion of the class and include them into all kinds of activities. Depending on the class, the effort ranges from very difficult to impossible. Also, you look like an incompetent fool to the students, when fumbling about technology. These impressions may affect your student evaluations and ultimately your career.

Universities are reluctant to regulate for obvious reasons: Faculty tend to value independence on decisions, and classes and programs are too different to merit a one-size-fits all approach. Yet the lack of regulation is a problem on its own: it breeds inconsistency, and makes peer pressure worse. Going through the existing services for students with disabilities seems to be too cumbersome. Those procedures work for semester-long accommodations, but not for short-term, or one-time requests. Even regular doctors notes won’t work consistently.

To address the issue, we have been working on a set of guidelines and best practices. The fundamental assumption is that we should communicate three things to the student:

1. It is a curtesy accommodation; you are not entitled to it. It comes at a cost to me and to other students in class, so please only request when you are truly desperate. “Gas is too expensive” does not qualify. And even then, I may not be able to grant it to you, sorry.
2. Do not expect experience similar to being in class. We do not yet have technology to provide full participation for remote students in a f2f class. It is much more difficult than a regular online class, and you should appreciate the complexity.
3. If I agree, find a zoom buddy in class who will do this for you: turn the laptop around, make sure your sound is good enough, ask questions on your behalf, etc. The instructor is too busy teaching to do this for you. And your zoom buddy should do all of that without disrupting the rest of the class. 

We also started to collect the best practices for such remote participation. I am sure, in a few years, people will find better ways of supporting such requests. I hope some smart entrepreneurs are working on better tech solutions. In the meanwhile, we should try to live with the imperfect the best way can.

After the pandemic: soft or hard landing

Many large CSU campuses have not yet dealt with the anxiety of dropping enrollments so prevalent in most of the country. Because of our young, ambitious, mostly immigrant population and relatively generous public support, we never really had to think hard what students really want. They came anyway. This is all about to change soon, and we will be subjected to the unrelenting forces of market-driven competition for enrollments. I am just a little worried about how well we as a system are prepared for it.

Here is one example. A new diversity among students has emerged and is patently obvious to anyone who wants to notice. Some students prefer f2f classes while others prefer more hybrid and online classes. We can debate endlessly about why this new split had emerged, and which group is wiser than the other. The difference in preferences does exist, and we can chose to ignore it or address it. “Hard landing” would be to ignore these new preferences, then face a drop in enrollments, and then fight to get back those students who may have come to us if we were more accommodating. A “soft landing”  would be to hedge our bets, and try to accommodate both groups of students.

Neither of these two options is easy. Going fully back to the pre-pandemic f2f world just does not seem like a good idea. And yet we do not know what to go to. So far, we have been operating on arbitrary target numbers, like 80-20, or 75-25, where the first number is for f2f or hybrid sections, and the second is about online sections. We do not know, however, what the real preference is. We do not know how many students want fully online programs, and how many – just some classes online and others f2f.

If we try to accommodate, the same questions must be answered. Do we redo whole programs, or just throw in a few online sections, so students can choose? Logistically, it is very difficult to guarantee students either a f2f or online track within an existing program, mostly because of our gened and free electives, and partially because of accreditation definitions. Adding additional layer of complexity will stretch our ability to manage to the point of breaking. And what if we misjudge the situation, and offer something students do not want, or few of them do? That would be a waste of resources. From a PR point of view “Sac State will meet your preference for online, f2f or hybrid course modalities” would be a great promise. The question is – can we keep it?

I have too many questions and too few answers. This is probably one of those cases where a committee could work through these issues. I just don’t think we can afford to ignore it.

Post-COVID innovations to consider

We should bite the bullet and start thinking about offering students on-line tracks. No one wants to do it, and I don’t want to do it either. It would add a layer of complexity onto already unmanageable complexity of a large campus. However, we need to find reasonable way of guaranteeing students entire schedules online, within reason. This could be temporary for a semester, or permanent for as long as they are enrolled. It will not for sure be applicable to all majors and all programs, but it could be done for many. These students may get special priority in registering for on-line sections of large courses, in exchange for their lighter footprint on campus. Why would we do that? I have no deeper theory, or a sophisticated rationale. It is just a function of demand. Some students, a significant number, want it, for whatever reasons. And we should think of providing it to them, for no major cost is involved, and there is a cadre of instructors that are willing to teach online.

Life itself created a form of accommodation, where students for whatever reason cannot attend a class. At least some faculty members agreed to accommodate them by providing a zoom access to classes – either in real time, or in recording. It does take extra time and effort and may be of questionable quality of engagement. And yet, since people are doing it already, we should recognize it, and perhaps create some incentives for faculty who are willing to take on extra work to accommodate students. Again, the burden of proof should be on those who opposes the practice, not on those who do more.

I know about the objections of identity. After all, we are not an online university, and do not intend to become one. I do not find the argument compelling. Having a substantial online track will not take anything away from our identity. I just do not see how it could happen. As long as we do not force people online, our reputation is safe. Students may still want to come to the library, to hang out with friends at Starbucks on campus, or join a student club. Some of them just don’t want to be sitting in class. Because we know we can do it, it is not clear why we would refuse to continue, if enough students want it to happen.

Innovation is many cases does not involve sitting around and brainstorming. It does not often come from special people. Sometimes life itself creates new things, and our job is to notice, support, and make possible for new things to exist. If we do not, students may take their business elsewhere, eventually. It will take many years, but if we miss this opportunity, we will be looking back on this moment, wishing we acted differently.

Wearing your failure as a badge of honor?

In education, it takes two to tango. Hence, it is not always easy to tell who fails. In any normal year, some students struggle with their coursework. They may not have enough skills, or are slacking, or life happens to them. Almost every college course will show a single digit percentage of DFW rates. While instructors may or may not provide sufficient support, some students will quit or fail a course. These rates randomly fluctuate a bit and may be affected by the sudden forced change of modality or of the grading options universities applied to adjust for the pandemic.

However, if a particular instructor consistently, every semester fails one out of five or more students, it is a clear signal of the instructor’s own professional failure. Such a teacher fails to teach and support students; it is just as simple as that. If one out of four or five students fails to learn, it is no longer their own problem. It is the instructors’ failure, and no one else’s.

Some people say, oh, my course is just too hard for many students to pass. Well, the stewardship of curriculum is faculty members’ collective responsibility. If a course is too hard to pass, it is designed inappropriately, and should either have prerequisites, or pa placement test, or be split in two courses.

I still sometimes hear that this is a screening course, designed to fail many in order to select those who can continue in a certain major. But this is such an expensive and cruel way of screening. Why not be honest, declare your major to be impacted, and offer some other, less devastating ways of selecting the best students? Making students waste tuition money and several months of their lives on failure is just not an ethical option.

What is truly shameful when a professor wears his or her own utter professional incompetence as a badge of honor. Such people imply that everyone else is not rigorous enough and giving students free passes. And they are the one true knight of the academic rigor in shiny armor, standing alone against the rising tide of mediocrity. This kind of attitude inevitably betrays a deep-seated anxiety about one’s own professional incompetence. I wrote earlier about “the harsh professor’s syndrome,” on the psychology of the phenomenon. But I am wondering why is ours the only profession where people can get away with wearing their own failures as a badge of honor? When do we collectively stand up to it? When will the academic freedom cease to be an excuse for poor teaching and stagnant curriculum?

Modality and morality or Do not go back to normal if it was abnormal

There we go again. I felt smug about figuring out a perfect solution, only to realize it does not work in real life. In ASL, facial expressions are an essential part of the language. Wearing a mask makes it very difficult to communicate. Face shields tend to fog up and they have a glare problems. I thought we would keep ASL interpreters on Zoom, and project the Zoom onto the large screen for meetings – and pipe any presentation through the same Zoom window. All participants, on Zoom and in the room would see the same thing, and the interpreter would not have to wear a mask. So, Binod, Michele, Leah and I went in to test the hypothesis. We tried our most advanced media studio room.

Here is how it went:
- What happens when a Deaf person from the audience wants to speak at a meeting? I need to see them up close, - says Michele, our interpreter.
- They will sign into a special laptop station with a camera. For equity, all speakers will have to come up to that station to speak.
- That’s a lot of commotion for everyone to come up to the speaking station, even to ask a quick question.
- OK, what if everyone will have a laptop and be logged into Zoom at the same time?
- Multiple Zoom sessions will create audio feedback, bunch of echoes – we learned that last year.
- OK, they will all be muted, and the room mics will pick up their speech.
- I imagine bunch of people in the room, each staring at and speaking/signing into their laptops… Why did they come f2f to begin with?
- [Silence]

This is just a small part of that testing exercise. At some point, we realized that someone had to be essentially a camera operator, and make sure the right picture is on screen and in Zoom. We have to develop a process where people on Zoom would feel as included in the conversation as people in the room – same opportunity to speak, same level of empowerment to affect the outcome of the meeting. In other words, every little problem has a solution. However, in aggregate, they are too much to overcome. Every little thing can go wrong. And it is too much to handle for whoever facilitates those meetings. Since I lead the College meetings, it would be me. I am not tech-shy at all, but that would be too much even for me.

Do not always listen to techno-optimists. Sometimes the technology is simply not there. The techies are trained to think how to solve problems. It is very difficult for them to say “sorry, we cannot solve this problem yet.” They will keep thinking about yet another camera, another powerful microphone, another trick to match displays, etc. Interestingly, the ed tech industry have been working on the problem of split classrooms for decades, so it is very hard for them to admit the problem has not been yet solved. It may be one day, like in Sci-Fi movies, where you are talking to a hologram, and are not aware this is not an actual human being. But we are very far from that.

Here is a really profound question for you. Why do we want to get back to f2f “normal” meetings? Because we enjoy the full spectrum of sensory experiences - an occasional short chat, a glimpse of other people, an aside joke, the body language, the energy of the room. But many of those things are inaccessible to Deaf and hard of hearing, to people with limited vision, with a difficulty processing facial expressions, not fluent in the working language, etc. What is fun for an able-bodied person is exactly the thing that excludes others.

Zoom is also incredibly limiting, but it is limiting to everyone in about the same way. At least we figured out how to make the interpreter visible. Thanks to artificial intelligence, the auto-captioning is actually OK: not as good as the best human captioner, but better than a terrible one. We learned that zoom-based meeting are not as much fun, but they do the job – things get discussed, and decisions made. Now, tell me, on balance, would you trade fun for most for more inclusion for all?

Moreover, the split modality will create a new underclass of people who cannot come. The very nature of the duel (split) modality puts the two groups of participants in two very different positions. It is impossible to provide equal opportunity and equal experience for both. By the way the few faculty that tried to teach the split classroom (we call it HyFlex here) all hated it. It requires too much effort from the instructor and takes attention away from teaching. Add accommodation for disability to this already very difficult task, and this is a recipe for disaster.

Now, when we go back completely back to normal, and not driving to a meeting will be indeed a preference, then we do not owe that much to people who chose to stay home. We can provide marginal participation opportunity for them, as a courtesy. If you want full participation – come here. But we are not in that world yet. People who do not come may have medical concerns for themselves, and their families. It looks like Zoom meetings are here to stay for some time. And even then, why go back to normal that has been exclusionary? How do we redefine the normal, so it works for more people? It may be the case that Zoom meetings are here to stay for a long time.

Seven strategies of successful online teaching

1. Build relations intentionally. Intuitive ways of relationship-building do not work online, therefore you need to apply specific effort. Educational relations generally have two dimensions: one is safety and the other is growth. Students need to feel safe and included first, and only then you can challenge them to grow. In other words, to take a student out of the comfort zone, they need to get into that zone first. It is important to know that the comfort zone is not universal, people of color, of various gender identities, individuals with trauma may experience both comfort and challenge differently.
2. Do not replicate, recreate. Online teaching is never a direct replication of f2f teaching. Even most experienced instructors must deconstruct their course all the way down to learning outcomes, and then rebuild it from scratch, assignment by assignment, assessment by assessment. It is the only way.
3. Focus on we-moments. I am using here Doug Lemov’s model: I do—We do—You, or a bit more detailed, I do­—I with your help do—you with my help do—you do. Online environment works great for “I do” moments, and fine for the ”you do” ones. Unfortunately, you must trick it to perform the “we do” activities. The most common, but not the only way of constructing a guided practice (we do) is a prompt or a clue. It is when a student does something they cannot yet do alone but can do with some assistance. You cannot be over the shoulder of each student to guess how much they are struggling and give them an appropriate hint. What you can do, is break down any skill into a series of gradually increasing in complexity skills and develop a prompt or a clue for each of these stages. This way, you will be invisibly present when students engage in stretching activities.
4. All can see. If you do not want to spend all waking hours providing similar feedback to every one of your students, design a clever way where your most critical feedback to one of the students is heard and seen by all. This will allow you to protect your time. I know at least 3-4 ways of doing it, but you can figure out your own.
5. Explain how you do it. Similarly, students need to see each other think. This is where Bandura extends Vygotsky. A student does not have to experience every cognitive break-through and every error. They can live through them vicariously, by observing others. A whole set of moves can make student thinking explicit, allowing others benefit from observational learning.
6. Micro-assignments. Unlike in f2f course, where you can have a few large assessments, an online course is better served by many smaller low-stake assessments. This is both to reduce cheating, but also to make skill development more granular, and more visible.
7. Low-stakes group activities. Circling back to #1, an online course will be successful with robust peer-to-peer interactions. The significantly decrease stress, encourage community, and provide even more opportunities for the “we do” activities. Just avoid high stakes group projects – in almost all courses, they end in disaster as often as in success. This is risk you do not want to take. Try games, brainstorming, TikTok-sized videos, mutual practice.

Hybrid as default: Imagining a post-COVID university

The year of forced distant learning is revealing two contradictory ideas: One is that meaningful instruction in the online environment is possible, although not easy. The other is that students and faculty physical co-presence for relationship building. My prediction is obvious: the post-COVID higher education will settle somewhere in between. While students and faculty crave on-campus experience, they are not craving all of it. Students will still love to hang out on campus, but not necessarily sit in hot packed classrooms. The need for human connection can be satisfied in fewer hours and trips on campus, without significant loss of learning. I think we should expect the hybrid mode of instruction to become the default. Obviously, there will be expanded online-only programming, and there will be exceptions at the other end, For example, I cannot foresee theater or dance programs going hybrid. But the bulk of coursework will settle somewhere in between. I know this may sound as a simplistic prediction, almost too obvious to matter. However, the most obvious is often the most realistic.

Sac State is engaging in planning for a new campus in Placer County. So far plans look somewhat boring: they for a typical college campus, with need for rooms driven by CSU formulas and matrices developed decades ago. How about envisioning a hub of hybrid instruction? We probably need fewer classrooms, but also classrooms that allow remote participation in instruction. We would need more places for students to work individually or in small groups. It would be nice to integrate cafes, shopping areas, entertainment venues, so life is not as separate from learning as it used to be. As we cannot expect large public investments, perhaps the new campus should also use a non-traditional economic model. Otherwise, it is not clear where they money will come from.

I am just so relieved to start thinking about wonderful mundane and practical things, and stop worrying about the coup d'état.

Teaching is not political activism

The Antiracist movement captured the academia, provided urgency, energy and a new focus to our work for justice. Many of our previous efforts with time became benign conversations about culture, broad and homogeneous inclusion, tolerance, etc. Somehow, despite all the critique, the “tourist approach” to multiculturalism remained strong. The antiracist uprising of 2020 changed that dynamics by focusing on one of the two original sins of the American project: Black slavery and extermination of Native Americans.

I have to say that I don’t find anything controversial about including the considerations of justice, including racial justice, in the aims of public education. The worn argument regarding political neutrality of education has been debunked. Neutrality is a conservative position, and education in contemporary society cannot be very conservative. I don’t want to go into a long-winded argument about why that is the case. The simplistic version of it is that societies change too fast for a conservative model of education to be relevant. Education is a huge public sector consuming some 8% of GDP and including a large portion of the population. We cannot afford not to use it for effecting and managing some desirable social change. We can debate which change is desirable, but it is too expensive to be the dead weight. Therefore, if it can help such problems as racism, we should. And if can do it more forcefully and more effectively, we should, too.

The question is how. The antiracist education has a fairly robust theory, but few established practical pedagogical approaches. One of the most problematic areas is the issue of educator’s authority and how it can and should be used for the purposes of antiracist education. In the political arena, the antiracist activism is almost always about confronting the political power, exposing and changing crypto-racist policies, practices, and discourses. A typical classroom is a much more complex environment than any city hall. An anti-racist educator has to confront his or her own and students’ racist attitudes and behaviors. And yet the educator is the agent of power, and students, even if they are ignorant and prejudiced, are also the relatively powerless. I can only imagine how difficult this terrain for faculty of color. The students they see are often both the oppressors and the oppressed: by the virtue of their own identities for the former, and by virtue of being students for the latter. In addition, the students in the classroom are not exactly volunteers. Students cannot walk away if they politically disagree with the instructor. Because the classroom is not a voluntary group, the freedom of speech for the instructor is somewhat limited. To add more complexity, some students will use their protected status to advance prejudice. While it is always tempting to use the full educator’ authority for the greater social good, the indiscriminate use of such power may do more harm than good.

All I am saying is that it is very-very difficult to manage. Teaching is not exactly the same as political activism, although they often overlap. The institutional arrangements and the power tensions are different here. And we all need to develop a common, pragmatic understanding of where the boundaries are and how they are enforced. For that, an open discussion is needed.

The harsh professor syndrome

It happens to those professors who do not learn how to teach and relate to students reasonably well within the first 3 years or so of their career. Receiving one- or two-years’ worth of negative student evaluations is tolerable; one can always use them to grow and learn. However, if they keep coming, the temptation to blame the students becomes almost unbearable. We begin to hear that “our students” are unprepared, immature, do not have good study skills, and need discipline. From such a colleague, we hear that students are too conservative, lacking imagination, racist, and otherwise prejudiced (All of which may be true but our job is actually to help overcome those deficiencies). The afflicted professor begins to talk more and more about the academic rigor, and how it is our job to uphold higher academic standards. They talk about how students need to learn a hard lesson, that harsh unbendable rules will prepare them for future lives and careers. You will inevitably hear how every student should be treated in exactly the same way. You will be told that if a student is homeless and lives in her car with a child, she must turn on her paper exactly before the midnight on Friday, like the syllabus says, otherwise it would be unfair to other students. And the entire world may actually end iа you show the slightest flexibility. You will hear that a student’s parent struggling with COVID is not an excuse for a missed class without a doctors’ note. And you will hear those stories again and again. They become incantations more than communication.

Our brains are very good at generating thousands of excuses to justify harshness toward students. As Tolstoy once wrote, “We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them.” And vice versa, we do not like people we are mean to. Each individual excuse may have validity to it, and we all make fun of some of our students. However, the give-away sign of the fully blossoming harsh professor syndrome is the obsessive discussion of reasons why it is just, right, and necessary to be an asshole. The syndrome is not caused by intrinsic personal traits, although there may be a predisposition. No, it is a result of failure to teach, and the strong need to explain away the failure. Chronic failure is incompatible with professional and personal self-respect. It creates a tremendous cognitive dissonance. The dissonance can be resolved in one of two ways: by learning how to teach and/or relate to students, or by developing the harsh professor syndrome.

The tragedy of the syndrome is that it is very rarely reversible. Once a person develops it, her or his teaching and relationships with students fall victim of the self-fulfilled prophecy. One starts expecting all the bad things from students, and of course, they manifest in one’s classroom more and more readily. I am not writing from some point of moral superiority. If not for the great support from my senior colleagues at Bowling Green, I could have developed it too. They never supported the bad student talk, but strongly supported me in my growth as a teacher. I am so glad we have such a strong culture of teaching here at Sac State; it is the only way to avoid developing the syndrome. However, ultimately, it is a personal responsibility to stay away from it. Doctors never complain to each other how sick their patients are. Neither should we ever allow each other to blame student for the fact that they need teaching.

We are the tools that need care

Let’s not pretend this is normal, because it is not. The entire year online feels like a sentence to an exile. The conditions are reasonable, but it is still a withdrawal of freedom. Most people are resilient enough to cope with any one given stress. However, this is a low-level, long-duration set of stressed. They range from the increased time for teaching prep and grading to persistent child care issues, from the lack of social contact to the inability to recharge y getting out of town. I wish I had a way of reaching out to all to my colleagues and students, and tell them – I understand, I really do. I guess this is what I am doing right now.

People of caring professions are especially vulnerable to self-neglect. Their work requires a constant focus on the needs of others, on encouraging, challenging, consoling and cajoling of others. Their gaze is always directed outward, preoccupied with measuring of others’ well-being and progress. It is a cognitive and relational service, an act of giving. Looking inward is difficult for them. Assessing their own well-being, acknowledging stress, pain, and stating their own needs – all of these feel like an extra burden. Yet they need to do that.

It is because our own self is the most important, the most expensive instrument with which we can do encouraging, challenging, consoling and cajoling. For a teacher or a support staff, working while damaging one’s own self is like trying to play a beautiful and complicated music on a violin that is out of tune or missing a string. You can have all the skills and tall he right intentions in the world, but your music is not going to come out right. In this trade, we are our own tools. And any craftsperson takes care of her or his tools. It is totally fine to lay awake at night, mentally planning, or talking, or working through a problem – if it happens 2-3 times a year. If it happens a couple of times a week, this is a problem. Your tool is need of some serious maintenance. It will require some freeing of time, some creation of space for yourself. However, just accept the cost. There is no deferred maintenance of the self.

Our selves are very unique, which makes them so valuable as instruments. But the uniqueness also makes it hard to provide a universal recipe for self-care. However, all of the known ways require some mitigation of stresses. It could be in reducing the source of the stress, or learning to reduce the intensity of experiencing them. I will give just a few OK’s as examples; but the point is to continue.

• It is OK to tell your students: You know, I realized I planned too much work for myself in this semester. I am going to cancel this required assignment, because I cannot do a good job grading it. Feel free to do it on your own, just for practice, and ask your classmate for a feedback. I will give you an extra credit if you do that.
• It is OK to tune out of the political news out there. The situation is going to resolve itself without your great emotional investment. Consider how much you can actually do (other than vote), and how much this stuff is getting you upset. Watch a romantic flick instead of CNN. Sorry, CNN; perhaps another year.
• It is OK to tell your boss, your colleagues, or an organization you are volunteering for: Sorry, can we postpone this project to the next year? I cannot deal with it right now. We do not have to be super-productive right this year. Think of all years before and after.
• It is OK, no, scratch that, you need to seek help. We have professional help available; a unique program called the Employee Assistance Program. But we also have colleagues, administrators, friends, most of whom will hear you out, empathize, give support and advice. We all know that by helping you we are also helping those you care for. Any support given to an educator multiplies down the chain of care.

Don’t replicate, recreate: Observational learning in an online course

In his effort to overcome the limitations of behaviorism, Albert Bandura demonstrated the existence of observational learning, a subspecies of social learning. We learn our behaviors from others, and can develop cognitive models by observing others. In a good f2f class, such opportunities abound. For example, when one student tries to think aloud through a problem presented by instructor, the rest of the students observe and learn to apply the same moves in problem solving. The instructor always identifies good moves, and correct wrong ones. It creates a situation of guided observation. A similar thing happens in small group discussions: students will learn to reproduce skills shown by their more advanced peers. The phenomenon is not the only learning mechanism, but an important one.

For example, in courses on multicultural education, we teach student how to become culturally de-centered. In other words, they need to overcome the very common and naïve assumption that their own culture is normal, and all others are good but exotic. They master an ability to view their own cultural background just as exotic as any other, if viewed from outside. It is a fairly difficult mental and emotional shift. An instructor can explain it many times, and still students are unable to overcome the deeply help assumption about their own “normality.” The main pedagogical problem is that you cannot only use other people’s examples or stories; students need to work through their own, highly individual cultural experiences and assumptions. We orchestrate some sort of an explication activity, where students share their specific cultural experiences, compare them to each other. We wait for one of them to have the “aha” moment, to slip out of their own egocentric point of view and view themselves through the eyes of the very different other. And then we focus on that experience, call the attention of others, more or less asking them to do what this student just did. This is just one illustration. In almost any course, there are 2-3 significant growth points, where students need to move up to the next level. If you have not identified key jumps like this, you should definitely think more about your course. The point is, complex skills are hard to teach without the support of observational learning.

The common learning management systems facilitate student-teacher interaction really well. They are OK at facilitating student-student interactions. But they do not have an easy way of supporting the kind of three-way dance with students observing, and instructor approving/disapproving their actions and thoughts. This is why so many instructors are desperately trying to force their students to keep their cameras on during Zoom sessions. The really want to read and send the non-verbal clues. But that is not the solution; it simply does not work through Zoom. Besides, the requirement to keep the cameras on all the time has a whole set of legal and ethical implications.

The direct replication of f2f world generally does not work in an online course. This is why it is important to remember one rule: don’t replicate, re-create. What you need to do instead is build a routine where students are asked to produce bite-size performances that get them one small step closer to the target skill. Then you need to make sure they read or watch each other’s performances/texts, with explicit instructions on how to critique and learn from each other. Do that, repeat, crank it up one notch, repeat again. Wait for a breakthrough, and then point out explicitly to that break-through, and ask everyone do the same thing Jenni or Jose just did. In other words, structure your activities in a way that observational learning still takes place, even though more slowly, a lot more explicitly, and more deliberate. However, the larger point is more important: do not replicate the exact behavior, re-create something else, with similar pedagogical properties.