#53 - Creating a learning session - 2

In issue 52 - "Creating a learning session - 1" we began putting a learning session together using some AI tools. We started with our audience and asked 3 key "audience discovery" questions:

Who are my audience?

What do they need/want to take away from this session?

Why should they care?

In this issue I'll explore some of the next steps in pulling this class together using AI tools to help along the way

Put a brief together

Sometimes I will have some kind of a brief from the client, but these are often quite broad topic areas. Or you might be constrained by a prescribed curriculum with some specific material that has to be covered, or just have an idea for a session. In many cases as a domain expert you are expected to bring your knowledge of the client/audience needs and subject together, which is why we started with the questions above.

Either way, putting some kind of a brief together serves several purposes. It clarifies your own thinking as to the playing field (in project management we call this scoping the project). It makes clear what are we going to cover - and maybe what will we NOT cover (this can sometimes be a lead on to a future session). It's also often good to run this past the client, & even one or two students to check that your aim aligns with theirs.

In formal teaching the brief would also include the aim of the session and the expected learning outcomes - but also include the why - why are these learnings going to be of some use to the audience. Learning outcomes are good because they focus you on what you want the students to have achieved & learned from participating in the session - which will shape what and how you include in the session, and the modes of engagement you offer for materials and activities.

AI can be good to outline an initial brief but also give you alternatives, and also it can output your brief in a consistent format if you've created an appropriate prompt.

Find a hook

A hook grabs your audience's attention right up at the top of the session. The first things you say or ask should get everyone listening and reacting. Maybe you tell a story that resonates, or highlight a problem that everyone identifies with. Maybe it's a provocative statement - your main aim is to get everyone in the room listening and interested...

Putting your brief and information about your audience into an AI and asking it to generate hooks for you can be a great way to come up with something meaningful to them, especially if the audience isn't one you are completely familiar with.

I find that adding all this stuff into a Claude Project is currently (Aug 2024) one of the best ways to inform your developing project as all the material added and in the chats is used to inform later responses.

Another tool that can be used for this is Google's NotebookLM - well worth a look if you have lots of material you want to draw on for a specific task.

Assemble materials

Brainstorm key issues on paper - you are a knowledge expert so use your own knowledge to start and begin to order the points that came out of your audience discovery.

Now add the different key things you came up with, and brainstorm the brief using multiple AI’s. I typically drop the same questions into ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and CoPilot (should probably add Gemini to this list as well).

What I'm doing at this stage is identifying blobs of stuff that need to be included somewhere in the session. I pick bits out wherever something useful surfaces, and copy/paste these into a Notion document.

Now I have them all in Notion, it's easy to structure up a logical flow through the materials just dragging and dropping. And don't forget that Notion also has Claude AI built in, so you can also do AI content generation within the Notion doc.

Assign Heading 1, 2 & 3 styles throughout - you can then have Notion add a Table of Contents at the top of the document that automatically updates whenever changes are made. Using heading styles also makes you material far more accessible for screen-readers, so it's just good practice.

Check, check, check

Source references from credible sources (Consensus, Elicit, Research Rabbit all offer great ways to search academic sources, build up networks of citation links and explore topics.)

Check ALL links that any of the AI's throw up - I'm still seeing a good number of hallucinations, so you still can't assume that references and links are valid.

Perplexity has the Focus button below the main prompt window and a lot of people haven't even pressed it. If you do, one of the options is Academic (powered by Semantic Scholar), and as shown below, this focusses the search on published academic papers - very useful!

Ground in established theory

Ask the AI's for the latest versions of relevant guidelines, models and theory that relate to your material and incorporate these as appropriate with links to sources and further resources.

Then run this draft past 2 or 3 other educators & students for ideas and feedback.

We'll finish this off in the next issue...

Some other AI news...

Khanmigo now available to teachers for free...

What's coming in the next 1-2 years in AI

Eric Schmidt knows a thing or two (he's ex-CEO of Google). Have a watch of this short video clip of a recent chat he gave on where AI is going in the next 1 to 2 years...

Claude makes Artifacts available to all

This is a biggie everyone - if you've not had a play with Claude Artifacts, you are missing out on some seriously powerful stuff! When using this feature, let's say you ask Claude to create you a webpage interactive quiz on the key points in the French Revolution. Claude opens up a split window on screen, the code for the webpage is generated in front of you, and then you can run and save that webpage. You can also iterate asking for changes and it just makes them on the fly. Magic - you've got to try it if this is new to you!

NotebookLM from Google

A new and very powerful tools for interacting with documents and also creating knowledge bases for AI to work on is Google NotebookLM. Some good tips on how to use it for study in this post:

Aligning GenAI with a writing cycle

Leon Furze wrote a good post recently with some pertinent ideas on aligning the use of AI with a writing cycle:

And Leon Furze has also just updated the AI Assessment Scale:

This model is gaining a lot of traction around the world…

Here’s a link to their peer reviewed Journal article The Artificial Intelligence Assessment Scale (AIAS): A Framework for Ethical Integration of Generative AI in Educational Assessment in the Journal of Teaching & Learning Practice:

OK, enough for today - see you next time!

EPALE - The European Adult Learning Network

Do you know about EPALE - the European Adult Learning Network? I'm one of the Irish Ambassadors for EPALE, and you can join over 100,000 educators across Europe in a free online community - it's a great way to get different points of view, participate in training from across the continent and stay up to date on educational thought. Create your free account at https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/user/login

Affiliate Links (stuff I use and recommend)

Perplexity AI - Best search and my go-to AI now... Uses the latest top AI models from ChatGPT, Claude et al, innovates constantly - give it a try!

https://perplexity.ai/pro?referral_code=VYD33BFN

Unriddle AI is a research site that lets you upload docs and then interrogate them.

https://www.unriddle.ai//?ref=JH

Check out Humata - it's another AI that let's you work on your own documents and interrogate them. https://www.humata.ai/?via=joe-houghton

My tool of choice for serious AI image creation is Leonardo. The user interface is easy and very powerful, enabling you to create just what you want in any style really quickly. https://app.leonardo.ai/?via=joe

Notion

This is my tool of choice now for collecting all the bits'n'pieces of information I squirrel away for talk, articles and presentations. I can then generate webpages in a snap and share them, and they update in real-time as I add new info to them! There's so much you can do in Notion - well worth a look:

Joe Houghton is an Assistant Professor at UCD Smurfit Graduate School of Business where he directs the MSc programmes in Project Management. After a career in IT in multinationals, Joe switched into a portfolio career of University teaching, management coaching and training.

He has authored 7 books to date including "Innovative teaching with AI: Creative approaches to enhancing learning in education", "Project Management made easy...: the ECCSR approach" & "Applying Artificial Intelligence to Close the Accessibility Gap: A practical handbook for educators & students!" His latest release "Study Smart with AI - 150 essential apps "is now available on Amazon! More on this in a future edition...

Contact Joe on email at [email protected] for any requests for training, seminars, workshops or keynote speaking.