Category Archives: Higher Education

Artificial Intelligence, Digital Humanities, Higher Education

Historical Anachronisms

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I recently experimented with using AI, specifically DALL-E, as a tool for teaching about anachronisms in history. While AI image generation offers fascinating possibilities, it’s important to approach this tool with a critical eye, especially in the field of historical education.

DALL-E, an AI model developed by OpenAI, has the capability to generate images based on textual descriptions. This offers an opportunity to visually discuss anachronisms – elements that are historically out of place – with students. For instance, by generating an image of a 19th-century setting with modern elements, students can visually identify and discuss historical inaccuracies.

However, it’s crucial to note that DALL-E, as of now, is not a subtle tool for this purpose. I asked it to create 5 images based on a specific event and add at least one anachronism to each. You can see the results below.

Despite the ease of finding the anachronisms in each of these, it was a good starting place for discussion and I am pretty confident my students will remember what an anachronism is now.

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Artificial Intelligence, Digital Humanities, Higher Education

AI Resources for Academics

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Some AI Text Generation Models

Some AI Image Generation Models/Tools

Some AI Research Tools

  • ChatPDF – Ask Questions about PDF you upload
  • Elicit – Analyze Research Papers
  • Litmaps – Papers Linked by Citations
  • SciSpace – Literature Review, Copilot, Paraphraser

Some AI Internet Search Tools

Some Teaching AI Tools

Some Helpful Academics Using AI

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Artificial Intelligence, Higher Education, History + Writing, RTTP

First Required AI Assignment

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I just created my first assignment requiring my history students to use AI.  It is a paper prep assignment for the Reacting to the Past – Constitutional Convention game that requires students to use AI to help generate the opening parts of their papers. What I’m hoping to achieve is to have students learn how to create useful and good prompts and how to rework those prompts to achieve their objectives.

This is what the current assignment asks them to do:

  1. Locate the Paper 1 topic on your role sheet. In the space below write 2-3 sentences about the topic your Paper 1 is supposed to address.
  2. Initial Prompt Creation: In the space below write an initial prompt for an AI model to create an essay on your first paper topic.
  3. AI Model: Input the initial prompt into one or more of the available AI models (Bing Chat, Claude 2, ChatGPT). Which model did the best job, or did you end up using to complete the rest of the assignment?
  4. AI Output: Post below the first two paragraphs of the essay generated by the AI model.
  5. Prompt Reworking: Based on the AI’s response, rework the initial prompt four times, aiming to improve clarity, specificity, and persuasiveness. Post below each reworked prompt that was used along with the first two paragraphs of the essay it generated.
  6. Upload: When done upload this completed to sheet to Canvas.
  7. Print: You may want to bring a printed copy of this sheet to class, where we will discuss, analyze, and reflect on the AI’s output.

What is really cool is that I made AI help me created the assignment.   You can see the prompts I used, and the output I got back.

I completed the assignment myself and will share it with the students when we discuss their results in class and I ask them to reflect on the process.

This is what the Google AI art generator apparently thinks history students working on papers looks like.
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Artificial Intelligence, Higher Education

AI Book Description

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I’ve been playing around with AI more over the last week to see how it can be helpful for my own work and to provide me with some better ideas how to teach history in a world where AI is so available to students.

Today I told Bing Chat: Write a blurb for the back of a history textbook about the historical debates in U.S. Women’s history, the blurb should be between 300-500 words and focus on the variety of topics and scholars covered in the work, ask me questions about the text until you have enough information to write the blurb.

Bing replied: Hello, this is Bing. I can help you write a blurb for your history textbook.  First, I need to ask you some questions about the text. Please answer them as clearly and completely as possible.

    • What is the title of the textbook and who are the authors or editors?
    • What is the main theme or argument of the textbook?
    • What are some of the historical debates or topics that the textbook covers?
    • How does the textbook approach the study of U.S. women’s history? Does it use any specific theoretical frameworks, methods, or sources?
    • Who is the intended audience of the textbook? Is it for students, scholars, or general readers?

After I answered all the questions, Bing produced a description that was a little too ‘gushing’.  So I told it: Rewrite the blurb to be more informational and less about marketing.

And what I got back wasn’t too bad, it made up how many chapters are in the text, but otherwise it took what I told it and turned it into something I could use.  You can see its output below.

U.S. Women’s History: Historical Debates is a textbook that examines the field of U.S. women’s history through the lens of historical debates. Edited by Christy Jo Snider, this book consists of 12 chapters that cover some of the key topics in the history of women in America, such as witchcraft, birth control, slavery, and women in sports. Each chapter presents the views of two historians who have written influential works on the topic, showing the different interpretations, evidence, and arguments that shape the historical debates. The book aims to help college history majors learn how to critically analyze historical sources, evaluate historical arguments, and develop their own historical questions and opinions. U.S. Women’s History: Historical Debates is a textbook that reflects the complexity and diversity of women’s experiences and contributions to American history.

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H5P, Higher Education

Perusall VS ChatGPT

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Instead of giving students a reading assignment and having them answer specific questions about it in a paper they turn in to be graded,  I’m going to have students read and annotate a book on Perusall. Perusall is a social annotation program, where students can ask questions or make comments about the book as they are reading it.  Other students can interact with those comments and questions.  What is really cool about the program is that the instructor can set the guidelines for how it would like Perusall to evaluate those comments.  You can set the minimum number of annotations that are required, a penalty if students don’t read until to the end of the assignment, require students to make annotations spread throughout the entire work, etc. You can then go in to the Perusall gradebook, look at all the annotations/comments that students made, see how long they spent on the reading, see how much of the reading they finished, see what grade Perusall assigned them and then adjust the grade either up or down depending on your own evaluation of how the student performed.

I’ve created a H5P activity to teach students about the different types of annotations they can make in Persuall and what constitutes a good annotation.  I based this off of a handout created by physics professor Phoebe Jackson to teach her students about making high quality annotations.

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Digital Humanities, Higher Education, U.S. Survey

Infographic Syllabus

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After being inspired by a couple of different things I’ve read and some examples from people who have done similar things, I’ve turned my syllabi this year in less ‘wordy contracts’ and more infograph.  Mind you there are still lots of words on the syllabus – but it is less wordy than previously, the font is bigger, and it should stand out from the other syllabi students will be receiving.

Made with Piktochart – better control over look and design.
Made with MS Word – not exactly what I wanted.
Syllabus for same course that was used last semester.

I used Piktochart to create it, after a failed first attempt using word.  They have lots of snazzy templates, but I couldn’t really find something I ‘loved’.  Therefore, I ended up building something from scratch.  I based the color scheme and lots of the design elements off of pages from old books (especially books with pictures).  I’m pretty satisfied with the final product, although it took much longer to produce than usual.  Hopefully, in the future it won’t be so time consuming.  Here is a link to the full-size version.

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Higher Education

Reading Strategically in College and Grad School

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This post is primary focused on how grad students should go about tackling the tremendous amount of the reading they need to do.  It offers some advice, however, that undergrads should probably take to heart.

My piece of advice is:

“Reading without taking notes is time wasted. Taking notes on your reading will help you process the information more deeply. In graduate school, the purpose of reading is not to learn definitions or simple facts, but instead to develop a deep understanding of concepts and to be able to apply those ideas to your work. To do that, you cannot simply passively read texts. Taking notes and annotating your texts while reading will help you think deeply about what you read. Good note taking will also save you time in the future. Marking useful quotes or annotating your readings well means you will not have to read that same text over again to find the main points.”

Source: Reading Strategically | Graduate Connections | University of Nebraska–Lincoln

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Higher Education

Less humanities for engineers ?

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At times I get the feeling that my colleagues in math and the sciences don’t value the type of learning and knowledge that is taught in history, literature, and political science.  I’m really pleased to see this group of engineering faculty standing up for the idea that their students will be less valuable as employees (and perhaps as members of society) with a general education that doesn’t require coursework in the humanities.

Of course at the heart of this change is the idea of ‘accreditation’ and having demonstrable learning competencies.  This is just one of hundreds of examples of how the demand that colleges “prove” students know something is actually weakening students’ educations.

Source: Faculty members criticize proposed changes to gen ed accreditation standards for engineers | InsideHigherEd

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Higher Education

APP That Can Predict GPA

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A Dartmouth faculty member has produced an APP that monitors student behavior – study time, partying, sleeping, exercise, etc. – to determine what a student’s GPA will be at the end of the semester.  As far as I can tell, the APP has not been released to the public, but some of the take away points is that high performing students tend to limit conversations at the end of the semester and spend more time studying than partying.

Source: StudentLife Study

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Higher Education

History of Eductional Accountability

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Interesting story on how the educational accountability movement began in the progressive era and why teachers have not been able to resist or stand up to it.  The author, however, suggests that higher education has been able to resist the accountability movement, but anyone involved in reaccreditation at a college or university knows that isn’t true anymore.

Source: Education reformers have it all wrong: Accountability from above never works, great teaching always does – Salon.com

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Higher Education

Using Team-Based Inquiry to Teach Research Skills in the Humanities

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Interesting story from Inside Higher Education about a way of teaching research skills in the Humanities.  The inquiry approach is something I could see using in Historiography, not sure about team-based research though.

Source: Trying Team-Based Inquiry to Teach Research Skills in the Humanities | GradHacker | InsideHigherEd

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Higher Education

Technology and Higher Education

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Great Chronicle of Higher Education piece about how technology can not address inequalities in education, because it does not have the power to inspire the motivation that students require to succeed.  Moreover, technology without a trained and dedicated instructor also fails to  achieve highest of outcomes.

Source: Why Technology Will Never Fix Education – Commentary – The Chronicle of Higher Education

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