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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.
All right, you need to sort of step back, be the faculty member of who you were trained to be, and truly evaluate critically and see, okay, these might be some weak points, these are some strong points. Right? And really just take an open -minded crack as if you were a young researcher or a young instructor back when you first started college.
Narrator: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, Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles chat with Eric Alvarado, associate vice president for digital strategy at St. John's University in our series on AI literacy.
Ryan:Thanks for joining us.
Jared:Rob, here we are again talking about AI literacy. We have someone joining us today. I'll let them introduce themselves, but they come highly regarded from Ryan, who met him at a conference talking about generative AI. So, Eric, why don't you go ahead and tell us who you are, where you're from, and all that?
Eric Alvarado:Sure. So I'm Eric Alvarado. I'm the AVP for Digital Strategy here at St. John's University in Queens, New York. In addition to that being my day job, I'm also an adjunct faculty member at St. John's, teaching data visualization to graduate students.
Eric Alvarado:I'm also a PhD student, in the, studying in the multi sector communications field with, hopefully a goal of doing some deep dive work into data visualization as communication medium. And I'm also a parent of two sons, a rising senior and a rising seventh grader. So in that vein, I'm starting to go through the exploration of college, as well as taking a look at where potential job markets are going to be available to him with the, you know, the introduction of AI, into the, into the world.
Jared:I have a rising senior and a rising seventh grader as well.
Eric Alvarado:Yeah. There you go.
Jared:Then I have a rising junior as well. So I have one right like, not in the middle, but in between there. So
Rob:Yeah. It's it's interesting. You you both are talking about, you know, feeling this pressure going into college, and you have that as a parent. You probably also feel it as a faculty member. You know, talk about what you're finding in terms of, the difference between reacting to AI, kind of like what happened in probably 2022 when it came on the scene, and, where we're at now in terms of trying to think through how do we integrate this and and what does this mean for my son or my students who are coming up, and going to go through college and be prepared and what kind of job are they gonna have.
Rob:So let's talk about those differences, what you see there, and where you see it going.
Eric Alvarado:Yeah. It's it's interesting. So so, you know, I've been in higher ed now for almost thirty years, Technology since I was a kid. So I mean, I've seen, you know, pretty much all the disruptors. You know, I think the what I find wild is, you know, you know, AI, Gen AI is obviously, you know, a technology disruptor.
Eric Alvarado:No one's going argue that. I think the interesting piece with this one is sort of how we're reacting to it as a society versus other disruptors that have occurred. Right? I mean, we've seen the computer, we've seen the internet, you know, even the word processor. I mean, there was always these, you know, worries that we're losing our, our sense of humanity, but then we sort of get through, adopt it, incorporate into our daily lives and sort of move on.
Eric Alvarado:Right? And so, you know, it's interesting now because I think we're all attuned to something that is, you know, pretty, pretty interesting in what it can do and what the possibilities are. And, and so as, as a, you know, both as an administrator who focuses on digital strategy, what's coming down, impact to higher ed, faculty member who's seeing in the classroom and how this sort of fit in. As a student, even with regards to my PhD journeys, and how do I incorporate it without losing the whole purpose of the PhD with its academic rigor? And then also as a parent seeing, okay, so is my son actually going to have a job?
Eric Alvarado:And if he is, what does he need to sort of equip himself and start to evaluate colleges that are ready for that? Right? Because that's the other thing is, you know, some institutions are still, you know, pouring out the holy water and and, you know, getting their wooden stake sharpened and and just want to just ignore it and try to put the genie back in the bottle. And in reality, that's just not possible.
Eric Alvarado:I think it's more of, okay, how do we approach this? How do we, what is going on that's basically making people panic?
Eric Alvarado:And, you know, I've had discussions with, with, you know, colleagues of mine. I think what Gen AI is doing is sort of showing or highlighting the cracks of higher education. Right?
Eric Alvarado:I think we've relied so much on the modernization, the ease, the, the, how should I say, the volume, right? So, you know, back in the day, you know, you'd have a teacher, they would have five students, the teacher would basically get to know the students and understand if they are ready to be passing their course or graduating from the college. And then we've gone into, okay, you know, Blue Books, then to Scantron, then to online quizzes and whatnot. And we sort of gotten, almost in a sense, lazy, relying on the very simplified forms to actually assess, you know, teaching and learning. And so now, you know, Gen AI's coming in and says, Hey, that's, you're, you're, you're, you're just basically printing money.
Eric Alvarado:An old colleague of mine always said that, so higher ed is just basically printing money. And I think we've lost our way. And I think this is sort of an opportunity for higher ed to say, okay, how do we take a, reevaluate how we assess and make sure students are actually critically thinking, using the tools to, you know, enhance, their experiences, to elevate where the possibilities are, right? So, you know, rather than having students go through and, you know, put together a for loop in a class or build a, in my case, you know, build from code. Why?
Eric Alvarado:You know, what's the, how do I now, I can actually now teach them not just for folks on the syntax, but actually the business purpose, the reason. Why does it matter? Push their fringes because they have tools to sort of help them like that, with that. So that's, I guess, what I would say as a first cut. Now, I want to monopolize the conversation.
Eric Alvarado:I'm sure we're going to go through this more and have other potential examples that enriches, you know, where I'm coming from with this.
Jared:So I finished my, dissertation in '24.
Eric Alvarado:Mhmm.
Jared:And the talk or the buzz around generative AI was still it was still very infantile. Like, we didn't really talk about it in academics, at the doctoral stage.
Ryan:Mhmm.
Jared:But you mentioned it, and I want or maybe this will be a good example of that growth. What is the buzz now in '26, now that you're going through it as a PhD candidate? What's the talk? What's the utilization of it? What's kind of, you know, taboo about it?
Eric Alvarado:I think when I talk to some of my colleagues and even some of the students that teach or the students we, we interact with, because I also oversee the Student Governance Technology Committee at St. John's, know, there still is a fear, right, because, you know, they, if they're caught or even if they're, you know, cues, right, there's ramifications with that. So there's concern with that. On the flip side, you know, there's also, for a lot of students, it's, they feel like their education's being cheapened with the adoption or inclusion of AI, right? And so we're really, from a student perspective, it's interesting talking with them.
Eric Alvarado:I mean, you know, some will take the opportunity to sort of optimize and take the easy way out, right, and just risk it, right? Because at the end of the day, you know, our society has been programmed, get college education, get a lot of money, right? So, you know, if there's a way to sort of take and remove the hours required to get the college education, get a lot of money, they're going to take those lines. But fundamentally, they were always going to take those lines, whether if it was there or not. There was always going to be a notion of cheating.
Eric Alvarado:I think what's interesting in, you know, being as a, a non traditional PhD person, and we'll put that without using the three- letter O-L-D word type of thing. You know, I think what's interesting for me as a technologist is I'm exploring how AI is actually expanding the rate at which I can explore the topic. So, so I'll give you for instance, right? That's, you know, so the focus for my, my PhD right now is I'm studying sort of data comics, right? It's a, you know, 2016, twenty seventeen researchers out in The UK were trying to say, "Hey, can we use comics as a medium to sort of convey visualizations, to the public?"
Eric Alvarado:Right? Because, you know, visualizations, you know, sometimes are dependent upon, your education levels if you consume them. So they try to make them easier so people can adopt them. So there's thing, it's comics is, you know, a lot of people see comics, whether it be, you know, Sunday, Sunday newspapers to anime and all that stuff. So they studied that.
Eric Alvarado:And, good success. So I want to go through and start to analyze that compared to other other visualizations. And as I was going through it, I was basically using AI almost as a research assistant saying, okay, I want to try this, this, this, this. Where, what are some articles, journal articles I need to go and bring back, right? It was sort of helping me doing those basic searches.
Eric Alvarado:And then even to some degree, you know, put together a survey. I'm like, am I missing anything? Are there things I need to sort of incorporate? And it would submit these suggestions and reference where I should go look to for more admission. So, so in those, in that regard, I was, for me personally, I was using, or still am using, GenAI as a research assistant.
Eric Alvarado:I'm the one thinking and ideating, and I'm just like, either verifying or have I go out and get stuff for me, or wherever the case may be. And it's been a phenomenal assistant in that vein. Now, could I do that without it? Sure. But would I be still be able to work a job, teach, and all these other things?
Eric Alvarado:You know, and then this is where, you know, from a PhD piece, I see that I'm still in the center, I'm still driving it, I still am going through the academic rigor, but I'm also able to explore more than probably what I could have in the past. And in some aspects even beyond what I could have probably done if it was just me on my own. So and that's sort of where it's interesting because, you know, getting it from that particular lens and then talking with with with faculty members, they usually you can't get over the academic integrity or that's how things are done discussion, and get to that next level for the average faculty member. And then this is where, you know, I'm trying to sort of try and get that discussion of moving away from it's cheating, it's allowing people to cheat, to more of, hey, how can I use this as my teaching assistant, as my research assistant, from an employee perspective, as a virtual employee, move it from being a tool that's cheating to how do we harness it as a entity that can assist us? And that's, that's the conversation that I'm trying to sort of push.
Eric Alvarado:But, again, that niche that initial fear, as such as it's got people still, like, in their grasp, but not allowing them to sort of stretch a bit.
Rob:I will say, I finished mine in '21, my PhD in '21. And when I hear you getting the kind of success that you're getting in terms of basically doing, you know, literature review, ferreting out some of the ideas that you have and able to get to that information quickly, I spent most of my time trying to find the information. I don't know if Jared can align with this.
Jared:Oh, yes.
Rob:I remember that
Jared:It was my worst part.
Rob:I remember that with my master's thesis. And I spent most of my time not actually working on the subject, just trying to find the data, trying to find the information.
Jared:Trying to find the keywords.
Rob:Right.
Jared:They were using
Eric Alvarado:Yeah.
Rob:And utilize library systems that had all these multiple searches on all these different databases and, you know, not knowing did I actually find it, and you had to go talk to somebody and say, "well, here's what I'm trying to find." They're like, "oh, yeah.
Rob:You need to do this and you need to do that." So you had to have a PhD in search of library databases in order to get your PhD to just do the work that you were trying to do. And Yeah. Hours and hours and hours of work just to find it. And so there is a certain aspect for some of us.
Rob:I don't feel that way, but there are times I'm like, man, it would have been nice to have. I mean
Eric Alvarado:then.
Rob:You know, goodness. I could have been working on this and maybe gone even further in the area that I was researching than just surface level. And and I can, and I have.
Rob:You know? And I think that's you bring that up, and I I'm very thankful for that. But could you go back to more of how we could help faculty become more confident, move past this this issue of feeling like they have to find the cheaters?
Eric Alvarado:So being in academic technology pretty much for most of my career, I think there is that, I sort of equate it as there's gonna be, there's gonna be a group of faculty members that you're just, just not gonna convert. They're just gonna, that's just the way they are. And as a technologist, I just accept that it is what it is. Then you have the majority of faculty members that just need sort of guidance, that need time to sort of, you know, play experiments, assistance, someone to ask questions to, and, and not have it sort of forced down their throat. Right?
Eric Alvarado:And I think that's the the the challenge we're running into is, you know, there's the desire to force this down people's throats as opposed to, hey, give them a chance to sort of like understand it, right? Because, you know, if you think about it, you know, for faculty members, this is a threat to them, right? So, so, you know, beforehand, you know, students have to go through the rigor of going to the library, doing that, that mountain search to try to understand things and whatnot. And now you have students coming into the classroom that are just doing quick searches and pulling information and challenging, you know, what the faculty member's doing, because they may not, they may not have the time to do and explore new areas and stay on top of what to do, because they're busy, you know, grading, doing advising, you know, being, you know, a part of the marketing for student recruitment. Their time is just like filled with all this stuff and not be able to stay on top of things.
Eric Alvarado:And I think, you know, a lot of it is work with the faculty members to show what the potentials are, but then also partnering with them on, okay, you know, knowing that the assessment strategy has to change, something that they've been comfortable with because they've been told, hey, you have to have, you know, six classes of 30 students and you have to grade them, and they need this and that and this and that. And they're just like, okay, this is the optimal way for me to do that with the time that I have. If when a way to get around it is, okay, you know, bring in instructional desires, universities partner with the faculty members, how are we going to adjust our assessment strategy for twofold? One is obviously, you know, with the technology, adapt and start to change and transform that. And then two, I think again, we sort of lost our way in a sense that we have to prepare our students to be critical thinkers, to, you know, connect with human beings, you know, it's not just about the quickest line to a degree, it's, you know, actually getting back to the roots of, you know, putting out students that are, you know, ready for the workforce that could contribute that, you know, they can play a huge part within various companies and such and start to get behind that.
Eric Alvarado:But I think it's a, for a faculty member to get back to your question, you know, it's giving faculty members time, it's university listening, it's the, or colleges listening, it's the, you know, addressing the assessment piece, looking at the volume aspect and trying to figure out how we sort of navigate those borders. And then on the flip side, because I mean, we've had, you know, faculty members basically do the immediate like, Nope, not touching this at all. You know, it's gonna, well, I think there was one that was, you know, it's my job as the faculty member, it's doing my job, like with any type of like feedback, you know, suggested feedback, and trying to get them to see, well, you know, there's not much difference between a teaching assistants and you as a faculty member and the AI, right? So, so if you have teaching assistants in your class that's alleviating your load, you let them grade the labs, you let them grade the quizzes, right? You let them leave some of the recitation.
Eric Alvarado:What the heck is the difference between that and the TA, the virtual TA? I mean, and and I almost, I want to actually get to the point where we stopped using the words AI or Gen AI. You now have assistants. You have specialized in the teaching assistant, research assistant, employee assistant, and start to move in that terminology as opposed to AI, because it's got such a negative stigma around it. It's got the bias associated from where it first came out.
Eric Alvarado:It's got the hallucinations associated. People remember those things and they can't get off of that. And and so they're always throwing that as the excuse as they're realizing that these models are speeding along and and fixing a lot of those old earlier versions of things. Right? I mean, you know, we go in cars now.
Eric Alvarado:They're a lot safer than when the old metal hunks when they first came out. So their change is is happening, but, oh, well, cars aren't safe because they aren't you know, they don't have seatbelts. So we're beyond that now. So it's how do we start to change dialogue a bit is, I think, the key aspect, but doing it with faculty members at the table as such.
Rob:Yeah, one thing that's, like, been documented, and I think I'm curious, The growth curve for technology has usually been fairly constant, but this one seems to be different. It most certainly seems to have a quadratic growth, curve to it. And so, you know, it's growing more than what our ability is to keep up with that change. Yeah. And how much of that do you think plays into some of this hesitancy, and how do we address that with faculty?
Eric Alvarado:Yeah. No. I mean, your point's well taken because when you think about it, you know, when the computer entered the classroom, I'm I'm going back to, like, the PET. Goodness gracious. You know, you know, when Internet entered the classroom, when Wi- Fi entered the classroom, when PET -- I mean, I remember having conversations with faculty members and they're like having, can you put jammer or signal jammers because the teachers aren't listening to me?
Eric Alvarado:Right? And, and so, so again, we've had these like situations where, you know, technology for the most part, it always is always going to outpace us. Right? And I think to your point, this is exponential. I think a lot of the reasons why it's exponential is one, it's it's it it came out as being ubiquitously available.
Jared:Mhmm.
Eric Alvarado:Right? Sort of like the because even the Internet, when it came out, you still had to pay for it, Right?
Rob:Right.
Eric Alvarado:Tele-- you know, mobile phones, you had to pay. You know, all these technologies, everyone sort of had to pay for it. Right?
Eric Alvarado:But this is following almost the same trend as social media. Right? It's it's it's, you know, it's free, Facebook, Instagram, X, whatever. You know, it's got it's following that type of growth curve. So it's it's feels like it's outpacing us, but to some degree, I think it's just because it's now it's more ubiquitously available to to individuals.
Eric Alvarado:And even, you know, in the fact that everyone's charging $20 for the more advanced models and such. So I I think I I hear you with regard to some of that. And I also think that some of that's gonna there there I I believe that there is gonna be a slowdown at some point because, you know, we're we're already hitting that the the the capacities of what the silica could keep up with. I mean, can well, I think I heard that the the Valve Steam Deck is not it was delayed because of all the GPU orders as such, right?
Rob:Yep.
Eric Alvarado:The the manufacturing can't keep up with the demand, and the costs are getting more and more astronomical. I mean, was an a report that Microsoft was sort of adjusting how they're gonna distribute AI within their their company because there's a cost to it. Right? And so there there's gonna be probably we're in the still we're still in the hype phase of things. Right?
Eric Alvarado:And I think that it's going to sort of ease up a bit. I mean, I think they always talk about the AI bubble's going to blow at some point. And, and I think that's when, you know, we'll be able to start to sort of catch up. And, and fundamentally speaking, I mean, universities work at a glacial pace. Right?
Eric Alvarado:So so I think what you're seeing is that that gap between technology going at very rapid rate and then, you know, you got the nice university tortoise, you know, slowly trying to complete this race while the rabbit's taking a nap somewhere. We all know how that story ended. So so it it I think it's one of those pieces where there's gotta be some patience. There's gotta be some, you know, okay. What what is this highlighting?
Eric Alvarado:When Gen AI comes in, what's it highlighting as such and focusing on that rather than just la la la screaming into the microphone saying , "I'm not gonna address it." This is an opportunity for you to say, okay, how do we go and rethink what we're doing as such?
Jared:That's really great. I like the connection between Gen AI and social media because it also a comment on that, it also shows the importance of critical thinking with that aspect of it. And with the fake information and stuff that shows up through social media that we that I shouldn't say we, but most take for granted and assume as truth. The same is true with the outputs you get from generative AI with that. So this has been really, really good.
Jared:Something we've been asking each of our guests as we wrap up is, you know, we have instructors that are listening that want to prepare their students for life outside of higher education once they get that degree. But they're very overwhelmed with this prospect. As Rob mentioned, we can't keep up with the change. Education itself could be changing as a result of this because of this new technology. So what is something you would tell instructors, just one thing to help them along that path, either to get started with helping their students, preparing them, or to push them along if they're stuck?
Eric Alvarado:I guess the the piece of advice that I would give them, and it's one of the things that I try to call myself accountable on a day to day basis, to be curious. You know, when, when faculty members, when my, my fellow colleagues, and granted I'm an adjunct, so, and I don't have my PhD yet, but, you know, but we were all curious. We went on this intellectual journey because we were thirsty for knowledge. Right? We were, we were curious.
Eric Alvarado:We, we want to know more. We have very bright eyes. We have big ideas. And I think sort of as we've gone on this journey, we we've sort of gotten set in our ways. We've gotten, you know, we may have had some, you know, opinions on how things are happening in universities or wherever the case may be.
Eric Alvarado:I, I implore those faculty members to tap back into their curiosity, to really pull this apart and see where it fits. And, you know, the, you know, I've spoken with faculty members there immediately to say, you know, oh, it's hallucinating. Oh, it's getting me the wrong citation. Okay. You know, is, is Gen AI perfect?
Eric Alvarado:No. But in the same vein, this is where you as the critical thinker can start to say, okay, so it's, you know, it's, this is where it may not fit here, but it's doing a good job here. And just be curious and map your own way on where, where it makes sense for you, and realize that the students are going through the same type of where does it fit in their world, right? You know, my son, my son wanted to go into, you know, game design, and you know, we go visit a couple colleges, one he fell in love with, right? And you know, at the end of it, we're having the conversation, and then he's like, I'm not sure if this is a wise move, because I don't know if my, job is going to exist.
Eric Alvarado:And I had to tell him, like, no, the job is going to exist. It's just going be probably a lot different than what you're going to be exposed to. And I'm hoping that by the time he gets there, the program starts to adjust accordingly where, you know, he becomes the creator, the the one come up with the ideas, the driver, the one going across disciplines or or or across a a a skill set to to essentially architect, you know, whether it be a game or audio track, or whatever the case may be. Same holds true for a faculty member. The first thing I did, as an adjunct faculty member, the first thing I did is I took my entire course, I put it into GenAI, it says, how do I make my course better?
Eric Alvarado:Am I missing as far as what's, what's happening in the day visualization industry? How can I increase student success? How can I increase student outcomes? Right? Things that, you know, okay, I mean, I did do instructional design at one point in my career, but just ask it.
Eric Alvarado:What would it, what's what's the harm of that? Drop your syllabus in, you know, drop your content in. I mean, granted, I know there's concerns about IP and such, so, know, try to, you know, if you're concerned about that, they'll put it in there. But but, you know, ask it. See what it says.
Eric Alvarado:Or does it come up with any interesting ideas? You know? You gotta sort of explore it and and not just be always coming back to social media, if you if you listen to your echo chamber, and the echo chamber is basically going to give you negative insights of the world, which you wherever it is, you're just gonna continue to propagate that. Right? You need to sort of step back, be the faculty member of who you were trained to be, and and truly evaluate critically and see, okay, these might be some weak points, these are some strong points.
Eric Alvarado:Right? And and and really just take a, an open minded crack as if you were a young, a researcher or young instructor back in when you first started college.
Rob:That's good.
Jared:It's funny. The the curious idea, curiosity, I I was, before I was in higher ed and an ID, I taught high school English and read a lot of books by Kelly Gallagher, who was a scholar when it came to reading and writing, especially at the high school level. He wrote a book called Read -icide, where it's like homicide but with read. And he said that curiosity is often killed for students in reading around the third grade level because it's at that point where they start reading novels and the teacher in the classroom is telling them what to read and how to read it and how to interpret it.
Rob:Mhmm.
Jared:So the student no longer feels like they have any kind of agency and they don't have any room for their own interpretation, it's what the teacher says. So the curiosity idea dies. We've seen a we've seen that change. I don't think it's like that as much anymore, but the idea of curiosity is so incredibly important. And sometimes our students and our, and our faculty come in with just no curiosity of wanting to expand and learn or Yeah.
Eric Alvarado:It's interesting because the, so in my journeys right now in data visualization, I'm trying to understand why drawing or why the the graphic itself, the the visual itself is is essential. And one of the one of the lanes that I'm I'm analyzing and visual thinking. And when you open up any of the books that start with, hey, you could do this, right? I could draw stick figures. I could draw squares.
Eric Alvarado:But one of the things most of them start off with, at least the four or five books that it basically, everyone knows knew how to draw. They drew when they were a kid. They stopped drawing when they were a kid when they were told, okay. You gotta draw this, or you gotta draw this, or you gotta draw this. And then when they felt that they just couldn't do that, they just gave it up.
Eric Alvarado:But we all started drawing when we were kids. I mean, you know, I mean, what when you go to a restaurant, what does the restaurant give the kids? They give them, you know, the the, you know, either markers, pencils, you know, crayons, and and they they they're drawing to keep them occupied. But for some reason, as a society, we've sort of lost that even just for fun. And it's the same thing with reading.
Eric Alvarado:Once you start to you get into this routine, this rigor, you you lose the fun. It loses the fun.
Jared:Yeah. Well, Eric, we appreciate your time. An incredible insight. And then thank you so much for helping us and as we attempt to inform our faculty and and as they prepare their students, to approach the workforce and the generative AI world. Thanks so much for coming on.
Rob:Thank you, sir.
Eric Alvarado:My pleasure.
Ryan:Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If have any questions or comments about our conversation with Eric Alvarado, feel free to send us an email at ctlpodcast@cedarville.edu. You can also connect with us and send us a message on LinkedIn.