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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.
So I think the way that we train the next generation is emphasize, hey, you still need to be a subject matter expert in your field and use AI to make your productivity better, to make your outputs better, to help challenge you on that, which is completely different than just saying AI solve the problem for me.
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 continue our series on AI literacy by chatting with Donnie Woodyard. Donnie Woodyard is the executive director for the Interstate Commission for EMS Personnel Practice.
Ryan:Thanks for joining us.
Rob:Jared, here we are. We're getting some insight today from some industry folks, and we're gonna have folks from different parts of the industry. This one happens to be the federal side, services, specifically, I believe, EMS. Is that correct?
Donnie Woodyard:Yeah. That's that's right. Emergency medical services, on the national level. Yeah.
Rob:So really excited to have, Donnie Woodyard here with us today. We are going to dig into how AI is changing what he's doing and what he sees we need to be ready for in terms of AI literacy.
Jared:Yep. For our future graduates down the road, what is it that they need to know, be able to do when it comes to from the AI literacy front. So, Donnie, why don't you go ahead and, give us a quick bio who you are, all that stuff for us.
Donnie Woodyard:Well, hey, yeah, it's great to be here with you and good to be on the podcast. So I'm Donnie and in my current job, I lead the United States Emergency Medical Services Compact. I've been a paramedic for thirty three plus years, but if you go back into the 1990s when I was a college student, was there at Cedarville, I chose Cedarville because I had the academic programs I was looking for and it had the Cedarville University EMS, which was the first collegiate based EMS service in The United States, is pretty amazing. So I served there with Cedarville College EMS at the time and was EMS chief and did that. After Then that I went all over the place.
Donnie Woodyard:I continued to develop an EMS and served as EMS chief and flight paramedic and critical care medic and went international, spent ten years predominantly in South Asia, places like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam and then the Haiti earthquake response, so did disaster and war medicine. Founded a private sector healthcare company and grew that up and was their CEO and then came back to The US and went into state and national government. Worked in Louisiana and Colorado and then I've had two positions at a national level. So, yeah, that's my bio, and it's thrilling to be here.
Rob:It's so cool because I get the pleasure of serving the EMT program here through continuing education. So our department helps support that, and it's still going today, sir.
Donnie Woodyard:Yeah.
Rob:And we've had, what, we get anywhere between twenty and thirty students every semester. So it's, you know, having you on, having you make that connection and saying we were one of the I didn't even know we were one of the first collegiate EMS squads.
Donnie Woodyard:The the first. And right now the first. And so now there's a little bit of semantics between there and Virginia Tech, is actually where I grew up. They're both really close and it depends on which semantic verb you want to use, but it's safe to say Cedarville was the first And likewise, it's safe for Virginia Tech to say they were the first. But, yeah, it's really cool.
Donnie Woodyard:And now there are literally thousands of collegiate based CMS providers around the nation, and I go and speak at their conferences. It's really amazing.
Rob:Wow. So this is apropos then because we want to know how is AI going to change the field of things like those who service medics or EMS, you know, workers just up through the line? What's going on, and what do we need to be prepared for? So how is it changing work for you?
Donnie Woodyard:You know, I I love that question. In fact, I've focused a lot of time answering that question. I've got two books out that just talk about that and really what's going to happen for EMS is EMS obviously is a subset of healthcare, AI is changing healthcare and it's changing healthcare even faster than what I would have predicted. And so even my predictions which people said my predictions are crazy, I was conservative. But it's changing the way that we do diagnostics, it's changing the way that we do patient monitoring and we are going from a phase where last year or two years ago, AI was really solving a problem related to documentation.
Donnie Woodyard:So how do you better document your patient care encounter, how do you better analyze that data? What's pivoting in front of our eyes right now is really how AgenTik dot ai is helping to do clinical decision support and how it's helping us be better doctoral physicians and how we are able to provide better patient care and what we're moving into is really having AI as a clinician assisting the clinician and that's really going to take things to a whole new level, especially in EMS where you have typically one or two providers with a very critical patient. The moment they arrive at the hospital they have 15 or 20 providers. So having that extra set of eyes and ears and data analytics can really help change the quality of medicine that's being provided.
Jared:Sounds like there's blooming occupational or career for graduates to go into where not only do they need to be able to, read AI output like you're talking about, but also be able to create and refine those AI tools you're talking about.
Donnie Woodyard:Yeah, in fact, would take it into a splinter of many different ways. When we take something as, I'm going say as simple, which I'm going to oversimplify it, but as simple as having AI help you with a documentation or help prompt you on what a medication should be or consideration or the fact that the patient's blood pressure is changing and that might have a clinical outcome. So that's one use scenario. But if you think about from a student perspective, you need to have the people who are designing the AI systems and the power is learning how to design the system and doing the computer coding is one aspect, but the workforce needs translators, so they need people who understand the medicine and the software so you can help bridge that gap. So that's one element of a career trajectory.
Donnie Woodyard:The other is actually the clinician and making sure that we're training the clinicians to be a clinician first supported by AI and it changes the way that clinicians are being trained. So that's another whole mechanism, and then you have the whole data analytics side where you actually don't want the data research leveraging AI. So those are just three examples of career paths all related around EMS from different perspectives that are being impacted by AI.
Rob:I think it brings up you know, you you have these different paths. I I think one of the big questions, that comes up is how do we train students to evaluate, especially I think one of the things we've seen here is that we've gotta get students to move from using AI to come up with simple answers to jump through what they see as educational hoops to recognize that these aren't just educational hoops. They're the the things that we need to make sure we're training students on are the are the evaluative bedrock concepts that they're going to need to make sure that the output is legit, that it's accurate, and that it's usable? How do you see us addressing that? What how do we need to address it?
Donnie Woodyard:Well, you know, I think what you're doing at the university is important. First is that you are embracing AI and not resisting it, and so I think that that's gonna put your students already at an advantage of the fact that they have access to AI models. It's being encouraged to be integrated. But here's the thing that I think is so important for both students and the generation coming up. Our generation, if I dare say that, learned without AI being there and we truly had to learn core content and understand that, which for those who are leveraging AI, it makes us in some ways superheroes.
Donnie Woodyard:So leverage AI every single day to help take the things I know and speed up the process to get to an output, and so I'm taking my information, my knowledge, my research, my background, running it through AI models that's helping me do simple to complex tasks, and so it's helping me write the Python to analyze a data set of millions of records, but I understand the dataset and I understand a little bit of Python, so I can use this to accelerate that and get my output quicker. I can use AI to dictate a letter to and or dictate a policy to that I understand the concepts of the policy and use AI to format it, check the grammar, make sure it's in the tone I want. Now that's very different than sitting down at a computer without knowing the subject matter material and say AI, write a policy on the national movement of EMS clinicians. Well AI is just going to come up with something that maybe not even will be accurate or usable. So I think the way that we train the next generation is emphasize, hey, you still need to be a subject matter expert in your field, you still need to understand the core of what your degree is, you need to understand what it means to be a clinician or a businessman or a businesswoman, an owner, you need to understand that and use AI to make your productivity better, to make your outputs better, to help challenge you on that, which is completely different than just saying AI solved the problem for me.
Jared:You guys talked about the generational shift, I see that in you a lot, Rob, where it's like, well, I already have this knowledge base that I use to improve it. Your usage of it is different than even my usage.
Rob:And Yeah.
Jared:I'm not part of your guys' generation, by the way.
Rob:We yes. That's true.
Jared:I'm in I'm in between both of you. I'm one of those old elder millennials. So I have I have my feet in both camps where, like, I don't remember having Internet. I was dial up was, you know, the first thing, but then now I'm in this age of AI and and so it's a little bit different, but that usage is important because I think we come in with some sort of assumptions about our student usage and our ability that our students have. It's the same as true, you know, it's that AI is no different than any other educational technology in this way because we assume that because students have access to machines that they're able to use them, like why students should be able to use Microsoft Word.
Jared:But the reality is they don't they don't really have the understanding that we do. Our generation does. So I think it's true across the board.
Rob:Yeah. It's definitely this continuum of, at least at least in terms of how I've seen it, of of how do you get students one, where are they? Because you do sometimes make those assumptions. Right. They grew up with the Internet.
Rob:Now they're growing up with AI. They've been using it. A lot of students have been using it even way before some of our professors have been. And they've used it to do lots of different things, but that doesn't mean they actually understand it.
Jared:Right. Right.
Rob:And so we're kinda in this continuum of trying to figure this out, and that's what brings us to our topic that we've been working on is this whole idea of AI literacy. So, you know, Donnie, what what would you say I mean, I know you just said they gotta know the fundamentals. What else would you add in terms of what you think needs to come out of students, like, here at Cedarville and other places to be prepared for, say, your field in terms of AI literacy?
Donnie Woodyard:Well, I think, one, understanding how to use the different models and understanding what the different models bring to the table, because Claude is different from Chatuchiki, which is different from Perplexity, which is different from keep on going down the list. So I think a graduate needs to understand how the different models work and even some fundamental things. And so I run into people all the time who are frustrated with AI output, and I tell them, well your input's probably wrong. So I think that making sure that your graduates graduate understanding how to fully use what's in front of them, and so it's the difference of using Microsoft Word to type a paper and using Microsoft Word with the styles in it to actually assign styles to everything in the paper, and then with one click you can change the whole style of the paper, I think that's what we're working with with AI right now. Let me give you the example.
Donnie Woodyard:I run into people all the time and they are using say ChatGPT or Claude and I see them typing in their question. Well, number one, I say stop, absolutely stop. Don't type in your question. These are large language models, they're built on natural language and when you're typing in your question, you're missing so much. You're missing context that the AI model needs.
Donnie Woodyard:So I think making sure that your students know, hey, when you use this model, go to voice mode, have the conversation with it. So if I'm using AI to work on a policy, I might do a thirty minute or an hour long conversation with the AI model where I am conversing because it's a large language model and that's just a very simple example, but I see universities get that wrong all the time. No, train your students how to use a large language model with large language input and then how to use it to actually challenge you back on assumptions and data. And then also I use this all the time, I'm using Claude and I'm working on something, will have Claude create a markdown file for me to pressure test my theory or what I'm working on in another model. So AI is really good at communicating with AI, so I would tell Claude, hey write a markdown file, summarize everything, put this into a pressure test that I'm going put it into three other models.
Donnie Woodyard:And I put that into Gemini and ChatGPT and Perplexity, and then I take that output from those models and put it into the other. So I think students graduating need to have an awareness of all the models, how they're different, their strengths or weaknesses, and then truly how to use AI, and it's not by typing in a question.
Jared:So that begs the question, who's going to be teaching them this stuff? So it makes me, curious what you think an instructor who's listening, who's hesitant about using it, what would you say to them, and what's maybe a first step to Well help them
Donnie Woodyard:I think I would encourage instructors to start with a learning goal, and figure out what would you like your students to learn from the process, and then give them assignments that actually requires them to use a voice chat, or maybe the assignment is, hey, use two different context windows, do a question and prepare something, an output through a voice chat, prepare another one through a text input chat, and then do another one where you compare models. But integrate the use of the AI, the proper use of the AI into the class that you're teaching. So if you're doing a science class, have it based around science. If you're doing an English lit class, have it based around English lit. If you don't want a Bible class, have a based around Bible.
Donnie Woodyard:But encouraging instructors to actually be facilitating the learning of the AI system as much as the output. So learning it is just as important as what output they come to, and I'd even say in some situations even more important. And then I think the other thing that instructors have to do is instructors are probably struggling with how do you pivot on assessment, and the way that you assess students now has to change. When I was there I remembered Blue Book exams with number two pencil, and like wow, but even at the time I knew that was probably not a great way to assess my knowledge of that subject. It was a way, but maybe not the best way to assess that knowledge, but it's the tradition, it's what we had, and so now that broke with computers, but now what we have is traditional assessment that has things like writing a paper.
Donnie Woodyard:Well writing a paper to write a paper is probably not the skill that's useful anymore, and in fact in the workplace, I'll be honest, people would disagree with me, but I don't want you to write your response to me because your grammar is probably bad as a baseline anyway. I want you to actually use AI to actually make something that's legible and readable. Yeah, you need to have some understanding of grammar, but don't turn that into me cause that just means I don't want to put it into AI to fix your work. So writing a paper may not have the same utility as what it used to have. So we need to change how we do assessment.
Donnie Woodyard:So I'd rather, and it's going to take time and shifts, but, you know, probably conversations in class are gonna be very important. We need to make sure that education is a two way passage of information and, you know, make sure the students can articulate verbally the skill set.
Jared:It was great.
Rob:That was very good. Last question. So I want you to imagine an and and he kinda kinda got on this a little bit, but I want you to imagine an educator listening who feels overwhelmed by AI, but wants to prepare students well. What's one thing you would want them to understand about the future workplace that their students are entering that you think you tell them this, hopefully, it'll make a difference and be beneficial to students.
Donnie Woodyard:I can't imagine being an educator right now and trying to navigate these waters. It's got to be incredibly challenging and frustrating, but I think from a workforce perspective, at least through my perspective of the workforce, number one is I'm simply, except for maybe a rare perception, I'm simply not going to hire a candidate that doesn't come to me with high degree of AI literacy in any field. At least the fields that I would have purview over. And the reason is that if you take baseline knowledge across the industry of what's required for the job, both the candidate that can ethically, responsibly navigate and use AI is going to just have much more productivity and output. And as an employer by the way, what employers need to do, and this is what I encourage candidates to also manage, and that is best be careful that we don't use AI to raise productivity and ignore building time back in for ourselves, because as a workforce we are more and more, we're busier, our expected outputs are higher, and our work life balance is off.
Donnie Woodyard:Working international, I saw that very much that the American work life balance is off. AI is providing us the opportunity to rebalance that, so I think as instructors, let's make sure we teach the students, hey, you need to have the AI literacy, you must have your underlying subject matter expertise, and know how to research on yourself and validate, but also use this to rebalance our work life balance for a better mental and spiritual and physical health overall. And that's what the potential win could look like.
Jared:It was really good. That's consistent across everyone we've talked to so far in the industry. It's needed. And it seems like I'm glad Donnie, you said that, you know, regardless of the field, right? Because there is a sense of universality with these AI literacy tools, that if you know in one industry, it's gonna transfer over pretty well.
Jared:Just same with, like, different, LLMs. If you know Gemini well enough, it, for the most part will translate well into JHBT or Claude.
Donnie Woodyard:Just as a final or to put an example on that, in healthcare I've been monitoring kind of what's happening and the speed is happening. Well, just in the past month, month and a half, you have Amazon that released Amazon Health AI to the consumer, direct to the consumer, so consumers with Amazon accounts that have nothing to do with Amazon, but with Amazon accounts can link their patient care repositories and have their own custom GPT model with their health history in it. That's released to the consumer. Perplexity has done something similar, ChatGPT has done something similar, other AI companies that are always similar, then you look on the health medical record side and you have the epics with the MyChart app, which probably you or your listeners have, that are similar, so the moment you see your doctor you can see your results. But the reality is that that's permeated down to the consumer in healthcare.
Donnie Woodyard:Our graduates in healthcare need to understand how that they can use AI to research a patient's medical history and make diagnostic decisions. That's today's reality. You blink two years from now, it's going to be a whole new level. So that's just one example of it really is impacting everyone from the consumer to the providers, practitioners is prolific.
Jared:Well, Donnie, we appreciate you coming on.
Donnie Woodyard:Yep.
Rob:Yeah. It's great to hear what you're doing, and and having your input that we can get out to to those who listen. I think even our you know, here at our institution, those who listen. Pray that it does have a a positive impact. So thank you for your time, and, we appreciate it very much.
Ryan:Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If you have any questions or comments about our chat with Donnie Woodyard, feel free to reach out to us at ctlpodcast@cedarville.edu. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn, and don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog. Thanks for listening.