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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Ryan:Hello, and welcome to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. In today's episode, Doctor. Rob McDole and Doctor. Jared Pyles chat with Doctor. Trent Rogers once again as part of our series on AI resilient course design by talking about resources and content.
Ryan:Thanks for joining us.
Rob:Well, Jared, I'm really excited today because we are in the third installment of our lab series
Jared:We are.
Rob:With Doctor. Trent Rogers, and he is in the studio again. And today we're talking about resources. So you wanna kind of give us... Give our listeners if they're jumping in for the first time, what we've been doing.
Jared:Yeah. Sure. So we're basically going through the course design process that we do here at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville, where we typically go through and talk about objectives, and then we talk about the assessments that meet those objectives. And now we're at the point where we have to talk about the content and resources that get the students from not knowing to knowing before they can take the assessment that measures the objective. It's the final piece of the puzzle for the whole design of the course.
Jared:So this is now the bridge in between, you know, when they come into the class or they start the module or the week, whatever unit of time or unit you're using of organization, what is the content they need so that by the time they get to the assessment, which meets those module objectives or course objectives, What do they need to... What can you present to them that gets them ready for that mastery assessment to show mastery of the objective? That's where we are right now.
Rob:Yeah. And doctor Rogers, thank you again for being here with us. I mean, it has been a joy recording with you. I mean, there's been so much that has been left on, as they say, the cutting room floor, but has been gold for us personally. And I think what listeners are hearing has been also gold.
Rob:So thank you for persevering with us through this because, you know, some of these questions that that you have, Maybe sometimes there are things that we say that, you know, like lecture for two minutes. You know, that still is
Jared:one that's...... Me.
Rob:That's still one that's...
Jared:I did say that. Yeah. You did. 2%. Not two minutes.
Trent Rogers:2%. 2%. That wasn't in a... So first, I'm happy to be here. It's good it's good to be back with you guys.
Trent Rogers:But I don't think that was actually a a podcast conversation.
Jared:It was. I said on the podcast. Yeah. And that's that... And that's why he came up to me and you said, did you really say this
Trent Rogers:on the podcast? There was a follow-up conversation because I wasn't in that particular podcast.
Jared:You're right. 2%. But
Trent Rogers:in some ways, that illustrates the the larger interactive environment that we have at Cedarville. Right?
Rob:Yeah.
Trent Rogers:That we're... The podcast can be a catalyst for conversations. And so I've appreciated the conversations we've had both in the podcast and more of them even outside the podcast.
Rob:It's been fun. Well, today, resources. So we're talking about that. What questions do you have? What is your approach?
Rob:And as you think about this in terms of, you know, even your work with us and also, you know, now we are talking AI resilience. So where would you like to start?
Trent Rogers:Well, I think about resources. I always tell students that one of their biggest resources for success in the course is being present in the classroom. So that, of course, is something that is important in a residential classroom. We probably need to talk about the online environment as well. But maybe we start with what happens in the classroom.
Jared:Yeah. Okay. What happens in the classroom, doctor?
Trent Rogers:Well, I guess it depends on the class. So some of the classroom environment that... What we're trying to do to bring them from the stated course objective to being able to assess that course objective. Some of that hasn't changed with AI. Some of it has.
Trent Rogers:Yeah. Right. There are some things that are different. There are some things that are inherently AI resilient in the classroom that we've been doing for decades. Yes.
Trent Rogers:That we should probably keep doing. Mhmm. So here's an example. I lecture for longer than two minutes. 22%.
Trent Rogers:Two Rogers.
Jared:2%.
Rob:I'm the one who said two minutes, and I was wrong.
Trent Rogers:So It's
Jared:okay to lecture for longer than... I just put a challenge on myself to do that. I just wanna clear the air on this.
Trent Rogers:Nobody has given me said challenge. So It's okay.
Jared:I wouldn't recommend it, to be honest with you. It's been interesting. That's for sure.
Trent Rogers:So here's here's an example. So let... Let's say I lecture. Let... Let's say I I lecture and present a new paradigm in Greek grammar.
Trent Rogers:That's one of the things I teach. Right? So I present this, say it's the third declension, right, which is frustrating to Greek students, and it's been frustrating, I I believe, for millennia. Yes. But nevertheless, I present this.
Trent Rogers:And and then an interactive way to to have students practice this, bring them to the whiteboard. Nobody likes to go to the whiteboard because your ignorance is on display for everyone, right, in the class. But nevertheless, it gives me the ability in one learning activity to see where all of my students are. So they're not all mine. Probably get about 20 to the whiteboard at a given time.
Trent Rogers:And I tell the other 20 to be doing it at their seats. But that's a... And I can give them not just the one I... The the third declension noun that I presented, but I can give them a new third declension noun to see if they can apply what I taught to another noun.
Jared:Good.
Trent Rogers:So they're taking a skill that that I've taught them and then applying it to a new a new area.
Jared:Yeah. Mhmm.
Trent Rogers:So then that's... That is AI. That might be AI proof. I don't know. Don't like that term.
Jared:No. But I I think it's fine because it's it's hands on. It's right there. You can see if they were to pull up their phone and be like, I need the... What is it?
Jared:Third what? Third to clinching. Third to clinching. You can see them trying to spell that out, first off, on their app if they have and figure out if they're trying to cheat it or not. So I I think it's great.
Jared:I... That's something I I would say that would be hard to fake with an AI tool in some capacity.
Trent Rogers:Well, and I mean, they'd have to have their phone and I'd sitting there watching.
Jared:Watching the whole time.
Trent Rogers:Right. And... Yeah.
Jared:So I think it's great.
Trent Rogers:So that kind of supervised learning activity where I take I take knowledge that I've given them Mhmm. And make them apply it Mhmm. To an... A new area that I haven't given them. I think that...
Jared:But it's adjacent to it in some way.
Trent Rogers:Yeah. That's right.
Rob:Yeah. Yeah. That's that's excellent. I mean, that's a great example of AI resilience. Is there anything as you're thinking through where you're like, oh, I've had to change that?
Trent Rogers:Yeah. I mean, I would say some of the things that I've had to change, I probably should have done differently from the get go. Okay. Because I think AI has been a... An impetus to pedagogical evaluation.
Jared:That impetus to pedagogical evaluation.
Rob:Gold statement right there.
Jared:That should be a title of an article.
Trent Rogers:I didn't intend it to be that.
Jared:That, sir. That excellent. Fantastic.
Trent Rogers:In the in the same way that COVID provided that. Right? Mhmm. We had to evaluate what we were doing, and so AI has given us another moment to evaluate what we're doing. So if I say to a student, provide me a translation of John three or whatever.
Trent Rogers:Let's say that that was that was an assignment. So we're talking about how do we get from those objectives to being able to assess what they've done. As an assignment, that was probably never a good assignment. Right? Because there are many translations of John three.
Trent Rogers:If I said, provide me a translation of John three that that displays your particular interpretation of various grammatical features. So one of the easy things that we sometimes talk about is how genitive nouns are translated.
Rob:Mhmm.
Trent Rogers:So in English, they're often... Let's use the the most famous of these faith of Christ is that faith in Christ or is that Christ faithfulness? Right? And so if I make them produce a translation that displays their exegetical decisions, And then maybe parenthetically says, or maybe footnotes as I chose this translation because I interpret this genitive to be subjective in light of such and such. I think that is something that, actually forces them not merely to give me the product, but also show their work in the process.
Jared:That's exactly the terminology I was going to use. We've talked about this, AI resilience process over product.
Trent Rogers:Well, because the product I really want is them. Sure. Right? I want them to be shaped not just in their affections, but also in their skill and their content knowledge.
Jared:Servant teaching. Servant teaching right there.
Rob:Well, and I don't disagree with you. Think AI has done this just like COVID. It's provided this opportunity for us to take cruise control off and evaluate. Are we actually accomplishing the things that we we say we want to accomplish? And you've had to do some some deep thinking Mhmm.
Rob:And evaluation of what you have in your course. And I think it takes a lot of guts and discipline,
Jared:quite frankly.
Rob:Humility to be able to look and say, yeah, that's not actually covering what I wanna do.
Trent Rogers:Here's another area. So there's a Greek workbook that we use. So just like a math textbook or many other textbooks, there are answer keys that exist.
Rob:Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah.
Trent Rogers:And so if my goal is merely to have them produce the right answer, well, that's not a... I mean, that's not a good a good assignment or assessment of their learning. If they produce the... If I tell them... So this gets to, like, how do I frame the assignment?
Trent Rogers:If I tell them to complete the workbook. So if if it is just come in with the workbook answers. Yep. Well, they can give me that product by not doing anything.
Rob:Right?
Trent Rogers:But it... But if my instructions for them in completing the workbook are complete the workbook and be prepared to defend your translation in the face of other options of translation. Right? So and then the interactive classroom environment, they come in, I read the Greek sentence, and then they are forced to def... And they translate, and then they know that we're going to press into the other options that are available for how we might translate that.
Jared:Mhmm.
Trent Rogers:I think framing the assignment so it's not just I've completed the... I've completed... I have a product. I'm done. But that they have to think even more about that because they have to think, what are the other ways to do this?
Trent Rogers:What are the other possible translations and why do I arrive at this one? And when the pattern week in and week out is that interactive classroom environment, I think it forces them, maybe encourages them, to do more work on the front end.
Jared:Walk me backward through that. So what you've just talked about is, you know, having them translate and then defend in front of the class or at their seats or whatever it is, or maybe even the whiteboard you talked about, clearly there's a process along the way that you as an instructor got them to that point. Yeah. Because there's a level of comfort they have to feel with their peers and with you to be willing to go up into the dry erase board and be willing to look at and think that, you know, this could be... I'm looking at Ryan who took the course and Evan who also took the course.
Jared:I can imagine both of them being comfortable going up there, but at some point maybe they weren't or they feel like, you know, I could be not ridiculed, but I I could be wrong in this. But I feel comfortable enough to be up here in front of the point. What what did you do to get them ready for that?
Trent Rogers:We laugh a lot in elementary Greek. Yeah. We laugh a whole lot. And and part of it's the way that I interact as a professor. Like, I come down pretty hard on failure to complete the assignment.
Trent Rogers:Like, just what we what we say is I was... They have this line that they have to say if they didn't do the assignment and it makes me laugh. So after they say this line, I don't get that angry. I was a feckless soul and I didn't do my workbook or I didn't do my assignment. Yes.
Trent Rogers:See, look. It it made you guys laugh. See?
Rob:And and... I was a feckless soul.
Trent Rogers:And like, you ask any Greek student on campus, they're gonna... They know that line. Right? Mhmm. So I come down kind of fairly hard on on failure to attempt.
Trent Rogers:But if they're trying and they just couldn't complete it, if they get in there and they're like, oh, I got this element. I couldn't figure this out. Here are the three things that I was thinking. I'm gonna celebrate that. Mhmm.
Trent Rogers:So if you celebrate effort and attempt Mhmm. I think you create... You you foster a learning environment where people and their insecurities are gonna know that we can try, and we we can make mistakes as we're developing those skills.
Jared:Failure doesn't... Isn't the end of the world in that case. Failure is just a step along the way, and you get feedback along the way. That's fantastic.
Rob:Well, I curious. Yeah. I mean, failure is quickest way... Yeah. Failure is feedback, and it's the quickest way to get to you becoming a professional at whatever it is you're doing.
Rob:You keep trying and you keep trying. And, you know, the reality is that doesn't change in your life. Yep. So you're also teaching them a life skill. It's like, don't be caught up in what it makes you look like as much as that you actually have a step.
Rob:Yeah. You see it as failure, but it's not actually failure. It's it's forward momentum. Mhmm. That's AI resilient in and of itself because I think it stems to self determination theory as well as it connects back with some of that because you're you're actually calling that out of them.
Rob:You're saying you're capable of doing this. The only thing that you're gonna ridicule is the fact that you didn't try. Yeah.
Jared:Mhmm. This current generation of students too, we've talked about this in the podcast, is that, you know, anything short of perfection is failure. Right. So create an environment where it's safe to fail and it's not the end of the world is helpful for them as well. So...
Trent Rogers:And and they they will fail. Oh, yeah. In elementary Greek, there there there will be something where they're... They will be beyond them. Right?
Trent Rogers:And so we introduced them to that day one. So many students lament that the first thing they do in elementary Greek is they read first John one. So they, like, they come in and they're like, oh, we're actually gonna we're actually gonna look at the... Those words that I don't know what they mean. And so you just confronted front with that at the outset, which is a little different than, like, when I teach New Testament literature
Rob:Mhmm.
Trent Rogers:Where students typically come in thinking, oh, I know this stuff. Right? I mean, I've heard a lot of sermons on on the New Testament, so I'm good to go here. Mhmm. So they come in with a different probably disposition.
Jared:So specifically to this course that we're building as part of this series, tell me... Walk us through these... The content that students are, doing as a result of being an exposition of an NT book. Like, what is it specifically? I know that there are...
Jared:At least for the online version that we're doing, there are video lectures, there's readings. Tell me about the content for that.
Trent Rogers:Yeah. So as I understand the purpose that we had in some of the videos, so each each each new week, there's these videos in this case from me teaching some of the content of that course. So the purpose of those videos, one is that personal interaction. So there's a personal touch where they can see like, oh, this is this is another human being walking me through that. Mhmm.
Trent Rogers:I'm also in those videos modeling how I want them to develop in their ability to handle the text. Mhmm. So my ability to take a text, in this case, first John, and walk through it, that's actually the skill that I want them to develop. So there is an aspirational element to it as well. It does present some content, but I would say the content they probably could get from the readings as well.
Trent Rogers:Mhmm. So Okay. The the lecture component, if you will, is is not merely for content. It's also to model what it looks like to to handle this text well. Does that does that make sense?
Jared:Oh, yeah.
Trent Rogers:So the the actual exegetical content is reinforced in the readings and in those those opening lectures, but how I want them to develop the ability to expose it, to speak about the text is in part modeled through those opening videos. Some of the content that we have is reading. And I think for ministry students, this is a textual discipline. Right? I'm asking them to develop the ability to read the biblical text, to analyze and understand it.
Trent Rogers:They also need the ability to analyze other texts. Mhmm. And that might not be true of of every course, but in ministry, it is still a very textual endeavor. And one of the ways... And this is something that you all introduced me to was this idea of mastery quizzes.
Trent Rogers:So I think mastery quizzes have have been a good good tool for online students. Now I'm gonna defer to you all to explain the the role of mastery quizzes and why that might be a better assessment, interactive assessment than just a multiple choice reading quiz in the past.
Jared:I've been doing a lot of talking. So why don't you take this one, Robert McDole?
Rob:Oh, well.
Jared:Doctor Robert McDole.
Rob:Well, this is right up your alley. It's one of your favorites.
Trent Rogers:Formative. Well, thing is Formative.
Jared:We're going back to our our off, recording, you introduced this to me, so therefore, you should be the one that talks about it.
Rob:Yes. I did. So it is a form of, formative assessment, and it's a way of putting the content into the heads of your learners, especially if you do it in a low stakes way. So you time it because timing is important. Recall is important even if you're doing true false or you're doing multiple guess, as I like to call it, and you make it open book.
Rob:So that way you take away the motivation potentially to cheat. And then what I... The way I do it most of the time... And there's different ways you can do it, but most of the time I'll do take it as many times as you want. It's timed.
Rob:I usually time it for like a minute per question or less depending on the complexity of what it is I'm having them recall. And they're usually synthesis questions. Unless you're just doing vocabulary where I could see you would do it with vocabulary, you would just ask them what's the definition and you would just put the definitions there. Right? So it's a matter of rehearsing that and forcing them through rehearsal.
Rob:Mhmm. But when you get into synthesis questions where it's much more formative, then it goes back to what we said earlier. You fail quickly and you fail often. And because some students, believe it or not, still don't know how to study
Trent Rogers:Mhmm.
Rob:In in class, and you need them to have that information in their head for you to even be able to interact with it. If it's not there, it can't come out of them. And if it can't come out of them, then you're kinda stuck. Right? So I found mastery quizzing, you get the score that you want.
Rob:And I also... Some people put an hour between quizzes. Like, with our systems with Canvas, we can
Trent Rogers:Yeah.
Rob:We can tell them when they can take it again. And it's so funny. A little anecdote. My son, he's in my class right now, and he's having to do these things. And he he gets...
Rob:And it's interesting because once they get into a point where they're almost got a 100%, a lot of them will keep pushing until they get a 100%. And he looked at me and he's like, this is the one of the most frustrating things I've ever done in my life. I said, well, did you get the grade you wanted? And he goes, yes. But no.
Rob:I want a 100 and I'm one question away and I can't... I said, because I don't tell them what... You know, when they get it wrong, I don't tell them why they got it wrong. They have to go back and look that up.
Trent Rogers:So one thing you did mention is the mastery quiz is built on a large bank of questions.
Rob:It is.
Trent Rogers:That's randomized each each time they attempt the assessment. Correct. And the hour delay is designed to force them to go back so they don't just sit there. Well, I'm just gonna click through it again and try to get it. Yep.
Trent Rogers:They actually have to go back, reread Mhmm. And and think through the concepts again. So when they come back, they're gonna get similar but different questions that force them to, in this case, synthesize or apply Mhmm. Their reading. So, you know, it gives them a unique learning experience, but they also get to keep doing it until they are driven to get get that final.
Rob:Yeah. I have a lot of students that could probably pass a lot of the quizzes that we normally give, but they don't really know they don't really know the content.
Trent Rogers:Mhmm.
Rob:Yeah. And this is forcing them to actually have to to dig into it and read. Actually read. And some of them finally go, you know what? Now I just actually read whatever the thing is.
Jared:It's it's also forcing... Or what I said in the... Our previous episode on this is that the importance of what you include in the content and resources has to go to the assessment. So it forces you as an instructor to be like, okay. I really like this stuff, but I don't really assess it.
Jared:So maybe I shouldn't put it in the course.
Trent Rogers:Yeah. So. So it's reading. So we talked about reading and, how we might assess that in a formative way. Right?
Trent Rogers:I like that about mastery quizzes. It's not just, oh, did you read it? We get a yes or no, but it's actually seen did you... Not just did you read it, but did you understand the concept and can you apply it in that synthetic type question? In this particular course, we have a presentation element of this as well.
Trent Rogers:So we actually make them record themselves Okay. Presenting some content. There are a few of these presentations where their peers give them feedback, and we give them rubrics for the kinds of things, you know, you don't don't say, like, oh, I I didn't like the clothes you wore kind of thing.
Jared:But it's like, you know, what Disheveled dress.
Trent Rogers:Yeah. That's right. But but we we give them a rubric that involves, you know, the content of what they say, their organization, their... How how they have tone, their pacing, those kinds of elements. And also, what are their gestures?
Trent Rogers:What are their body language? And because we're trying to... One of our course objectives is try to get them to be able to teach the text. Right? Yep.
Trent Rogers:So they need practice in that. And at least right now, it... AI is not great about having a video presentation of a of a student. Right?
Rob:Mhmm.
Trent Rogers:If we were in person, a way to make an AI resilient presentation is to tell them that they're gonna have to give, you know, question and answer kind of thing. Right? So if I... They... In theory, they could go and say, if the assignment is give an explanation of why John appeals to Cain as the only, you know, explicit reference to the Old Testament in the...
Trent Rogers:In in first John. Okay. Let's say that's what it is. Well, they could go to AI, have them input the the answer or that that that prompt, and then they could just kinda read and present that that that content. Like, somebody would plagiarize a sermon Right.
Trent Rogers:Right. Ten years ago. Mhmm. But if they have to be prepared to respond to Questions. Peer questions Mhmm.
Trent Rogers:And the question's like, well, why didn't you cover illusions, like intertextual illusions that are also in first John? Or how does the idea of the commandment refer to the farewell discourse in the gospel of John and then to the old testament as well? And if they just sit... If they know they're gonna get asked those questions, they sit up there like, oh, I don't know. I I I didn't I didn't think of that.
Trent Rogers:Mhmm. They realize that that's part of their, formative assessment as well.
Rob:Yeah. I didn't put that into my prompt.
Trent Rogers:Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
Jared:You've also included in the course videos of sermons Mhmm. As well to help with the content area and prepare them for... Like, you have one of your own Yep. And then you have one coming up with doctor McKinnon. So that's helping prepare them from a content perspective for those recordings as well.
Jared:Right?
Trent Rogers:That's right. A content and a skill. Mhmm. Because we call those... It's kind of ironic to list myself like this, but we...
Trent Rogers:Master teacher. Right? Yeah. So we want them to...
Jared:I would agree with that.
Trent Rogers:So we we want them to see, like, okay, what is a what is a master teacher? How does a master teacher take the exegesis of this text and present it in a clear way to an audience? In this case, we're using Cedarville Chapel messages. So it's an audience of, you know, the... Most of these students share that age demographic with the participants in the Cedarville Chapel.
Trent Rogers:So we're trying to model for them not just what the exegesis looks like, but how it looks like in in an actual teaching environment.
Ryan:Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If you have any questions or comments about our conversation with Doctor. Rogers today, feel free to reach out to us at CTLPodcastcedarville dot edu. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn. And don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog.
Ryan:Thanks for listening.