Useful Resources for FWS Instructors

8/21/2024 By | Tracy Hamler Carrick

The KNIGHTLYnews is an online forum where FWS instructors and other teachers of writing can swap and share ideas for best classroom practice. Weekly posts are designed to help teachers develop lesson plans and writing assignments, and respond to classroom challenges by introducing new teaching tools and sharing emerging pedagogical ideas. Posts also direct readers to program and campus resources that support teaching and learning, and provide opportunities for peer collaboration and mentorship. #teachlikeabear

As you put the finishing touches on your FWS course syllabus and continue building your semester plans, please consult the following resources from Knight's campus partners.

Additions to your Course Syllabus

Academic Concern

The Office of the Dean of Faculty recently invited instructors to include on course syllabi a statement on the University-wide Academic Concern system. I lightly revised their sample statement as follows:

Academic Concern
At Cornell, we use an academic support practice called “Academic Concern” that’s designed for all students, across every college in the university. It serves as a communication bridge among you, your instructors, and your college academic advising office that prompts outreach to support you when, for example, an assignment didn’t go as planned or if you’ve missed several classes (especially when those absences can affect your grade).
Here’s how it works: If I notice you might need academic support, I let your college advising office know. The office will then invite you to schedule a meeting with an advisor so you can be proactive in making a plan to keep your academics on track. They’ll also point you to some valuable campus resources that can help you improve your learning.
Keep in mind, if I submit an Academic Concern, it’s not because you’re in trouble or have done something wrong. It’s simply a way for me to make sure you’re getting the support you need, when you need it, to be successful in this course.

Generative AI

The University recommends that all instructors include information about acceptable and unacceptable uses of GAI on their course syllabi. Here is the statement I developed last year for my FWS:

Academic Integrity
All the work you submit in this course must be written for this course and not another and must originate with you in form and content with all contributory sources fully and specifically acknowledged. Make yourself familiar with Cornell’s Code of Academic Integrity. In some courses, you are not permitted to work with others to complete assignments. In this course, however, collaboration is essential. Here, collaborative work of the following kinds is not just authorized, but encouraged and sometimes required: peer review, shared note taking, and co-writing in pairs or small groups of students.
Special note: If you submit assignments that include AI-generated text, you may be violating Cornell’s Academic Integrity Code. You may also be undermining the most fundamental learning goal of this course: to use writing to clarify and deepen the ways you think and make meaning. AI text generators, like ChatGPT, Magic Write, QuillBot, and WordTune, cannot think, and the ways that they make meaning are risky. This technology simply captures and integrates material from the internet that may or may not be accurate, logically connected, or interesting, and then inserts this selected material into basic templates that are unlikely to reflect the nuance of your voice, values, and ideas. Or those of your readers. That said, as a learning community of writers, we should be rightly curious, and so we will consider the impact of this emerging technology on how we communicate and its ethical and practical uses by trying it out -- together and in class.

Links

Center for Teaching Innovation Workshops

Generative Artificial Intelligence in Education and Pedagogy: An Introduction and Review

When: Friday, August 23, 2024, from 11:00 - 11:45 a.m., on Zoom.
Description: This 45-minute session offers a foundational introduction to Generative AI, with a focus on large language models (LLMs) in educational settings. Participants will also revisit Cornell's 2023 committee report, “Generative Artificial Intelligence for Education and Pedagogy,” to refresh and reinforce key recommendations and best practices for integrating AI into classroom instruction.
Register for Generative Artificial Intelligence in Education and Pedagogy: An Introduction and Review.

Facilitating Discussions with Divergent Viewpoints in the Classroom

When: Thursday, September 12, 2024, from 9:30 - 11:00 a.m., in-person.
Description: Connect with colleagues to contextualize the perceived higher stakes of managing classroom discourse in turbulent times. How do you manage your personal beliefs, identity, values–and a commitment to inclusion–in your role as an instructor? How can you provide opportunities to engage others’ with different and/or opposing views to foster learning? In this 90-minute workshop, identify key moments in the semester to lay a foundation for robust and challenging discussions and practice facilitation skills.
Register for Facilitating Discussions with Divergent Viewpoints in the Classroom.

The Art of Discussion

When: Tuesday, October 29, 2024, from 3:00 - 4:30 p.m. in-person.
Description: "The Art of Discussion" is the inaugural event of our new “Art of Teaching” series. Facilitating discussion is among the most important of all teaching methods because it encourages students to apply, test, and extend their learning in dialogue. It is also perhaps the most challenging art for the teacher to master. Facilitating a discussion, with all it entails, requires concentration and creativity. Join us to hear from colleagues as they share some of the hard-won secrets of this unique art. Then, participate in an ongoing conversation about how to better master the art of discussion.
Register for The Art of Discussion.