In this episode, Boz and Sharona take on a big question: What should we be doing to our courses, right now, in an AI-saturated world—without losing the human relationships that actually keep students in school?

Sharona shares her own urgency as she prepares to return to teaching precalculus for the first time in a decade, while hearing college students (including her own kids) question whether higher ed is “worth it” when AI can do so much of the procedural work. Together, she and Boz lay out five concrete steps instructors can use to rethink their courses immediately.

Along the way, they connect AI, course purpose, practice standards, assessment design, and in-class activities back to what the research keeps telling us: students stay when at least one adult clearly cares that they’re there.

Links

Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!

• The Future of Math Class: How AI Could Transform Instruction
• NCTM position statement on AI and Math Teaching
• How AI is Reshaping Higher Education
• How artificial intelligence in education is transforming classrooms
• Episode 66 of The Grading Podcast - Perseverance as a Critical Skill for Student Success in Alt Grading
• Why AI may kill career advancement for many young workers
• The Course Redesign Cycle

Resources

The Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

• The Grading for Growth Blog
• The Grading Conference
• The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading:

• Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
• Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel

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All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Music

Country Rock performed by Lite Saturation, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.