If standard-based grading is to progress beyond the real difficulties that beset it, it must espouse curiosity over defensiveness, openness over dogmatism, empathy over insularity. @achiaravalli.bsky.social www.growbeyondgrades.org/blog/we-need...

"I refuse." This is it. There's no reason we should accept a narrative of an already settled future which marginalizes humans and individual agency. No one wants this. No one asked for it.

Happy winter solstice! Here’s my short reflection on the darkest night of the year 🕯️🌲🖤 medium.com/@heatherlesl...

I wrote about using biomimicry in my course design. I am finding inspiration from 🌱Nature🌱 more so than artificial forms of intelligence 🤖

I wrote about my reflections going into the Giving Thanks season 🙏🍂✨ medium.com/@heatherlesl...

This is not the way, and @cnygren.bsky.social and I lay out in detail why it isn’t in this essay here. static1.squarespace.com/static/55577...

This whole thing is out of control.

Read Audrey Watters, always. "Technologies are often wielded in ways meant to imply that humans are weak, messy, slow, stupid, replaceable. We are strong, messy, awkward, flawed, irreplaceable. All of us. Our strength comes, in part, from this vulnerability, from our humanity."

I wrote about a recent book I read and the start of my journey trying to integrate regenerative values into my education design amidst all this AI disruption medium.com/@heatherlesl...

...When experts talk about artificial intelligence, for example, they always talk about tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the day after that; very rarely do we hear about what has already been achieved to date." 2/2

This is actually the thing that worries me most about AI. It's "there is no such thing as society" implemented as software solution. Needing to ask people for help, advice, or information is part of how we build and maintain social and professional bonds.

“I already ban the use of generative AI in my own courses, and as a promoter of master’s theses. I explicitly tell my students they won’t learn anything by using it. [...] A general ban is necessary, but nobody dares to say so.” 🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️ apache.be/2025/10/24/b...

“The widespread use of these tools, in both school and work, feels like it's driven by a self-fulfilling prophecy: the promise of an employment landscape only AI itself can imagine.”

There's a nice chart on this page with alternatives. www.raspberrypi.org/blog/ai-educ...

"Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again." *** Katherine May,  "Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times"

It’s time to post this quote again… “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” ― James Baldwin

So one thing I cannot stand are those AI-generated podcasts from Notebook LM. So many in higher ed are telling students to use this to understand dense academic articles. While I get the intent to make content accessible to learners to both: a break down the subject and b: present it in an audio

Just published an article in the Journal of Faculty Development on a new instructor orientation I designed that onboards faculty to teach asynchronous online courses. The orientation has received positive feedback and I’m happy to share our experience digital.sandiego.edu/ldc-scholars...

"I’ve concluded that instead of teaching students to read and write, I should be teaching them how to prompt AI better. If only I’d had a better education in AI prompt writing, I’d be able to get AI to create more AI-proof teaching materials for me."

This is so sad. Among other horrible decisions, reinstating grades and doing away with narrative evaluations are removing what distinguishes this institution and the quality educational experience it offers www.insidehighered.com/news/governa...

Really a must read. And very brave right now too.

🚨NEW RESEARCH🚨 AWU teamed up with @techequity.bsky.social & @cwaunion.bsky.social to produce a report - Ghost Workers in the AI Machine: U.S. Data Workers Speak Out About Big Tech’s Exploitation - documenting the working conditions of the workers behind the AI boom. cwa-union.org/ghost-worker...

Does anyone know of a meta-analysis of ungrading research? #ungrading

Read the long version here. www.artforum.com/features/gen...

This quote: “writing requires an unending effort at something resembling authenticity. Most mistakes come from not being yourself, not saying what you think, or being afraid to figure out what you really think.”

Everyone involved in committees and policymaking around genAI in universities should be required to listen to at least one episode of Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 with @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social before every meeting. www.dair-institute.org/maiht3k/

My very limited understanding of the technology had me believing that hallucinations were the wrong concept because (1) everything LLMs do is repeat statistical probabilities, and so have no grounding in reality or truth, and (2) LLMs are not beings and do not perceive and so do not hallucinate. 1/

Beautiful piece!

If we want to stem the problematic use of A.I. in K-12 and higher education, we need to understand why students use it. The latest from me and @ehutt.bsky.social.

Luddites unite! "As we train our sights on what we oppose, let’s recall the costs of surrender...We condone platforms that not only urge children to commit suicide, they instruct them on how to tie the noose. We hand over our autonomy, at the very moment of emerging American fascism." ⚒️🤖⚒️

My latest Substack piece, “The False Precision of Grades: What are we really measuring?” Do grades really capture student learning? I briefly dig into this and the illusion of precision in grading… echoesoflearningandteaching.substack.com/p/the-false-...

💛🚫🤖 No AI Gods, No AI Masters 🤖🚫💛 I am massively excited to share the backstory ACADEMIC SHENANIGANS behind our Open Letter (& so this paper below too) — and as always big thanks to my co-authors {@irisvanrooij.bsky.social & @marentierra.bsky.social}: www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/no-ai-g... 1/n

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

This new book, The Ungraded Classroom, edited by Carlo Ricci and Gina Riley (with a foreword by @susandblum), has just been published! It has many examples, beautifully and honestly presented, of ways educators have included ungrading in their classrooms. www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQHZKJZ...

This is exactly the right way to think of this; precisely what I'm saying, yes

In my experience, using an LLM only works if you know how, when, and where to correct the LLM when it returns non-factual or counter-factual information. You need the very expertise that many people are attempting to "outsource" to the LLM to avoid believing the AI slop. This is not a good system.

Amen! Schoolishness = artificial

I have a half-baked morbid idea for some class exercises to have students use LLMs. Scenario-based (dark academia?) 1.) Student pretends they are an executive at a health insurance company.

These are desperate attempts to embed AI technologies into schools and recruit lifetime users and I urge my fellow educators to see these attempts as such and refuse to be bought by Big Tech and this fascist government.

This by @eryk.bsky.social

Since tomorrow is Labor Day and school is in session, I'd like to argue (again) that teaching about GenAI should include discussion of the extractive, exploitative labor conditions that make the technology possible. 🧵

“With our new virtual servant program, you can have the blackness and the subservience that you need without the uncomfortableness of having to talk to an actual black person”

"A fellow human is not designed to make you feel good about having interacted with them, or to convince you of their utility, or to persuade you to bring your thoughts and problems to them instead of someone else; a fellow human is not designed at all." defector.com/butlerian-ji...

New curriculum resources from @jbpleasa.bsky.social just added to our site! Read about them here: www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/new-cur...

Ungrading comrades- I am putting together a presentation for faculty on #ungrading and am looking for examples to share from other faculty who practice ungrading/alt grading. If you have a syllabus or examples to share of how you do this, I’d love to include it as samples! Thx 🙏

LLMs are purely statistical engines that operate on purely formal objects (character strings). We can “train” an LLM to distinguish true from false or fact from opinion or warranted from baseless just as soon as we can figure out how to reduce semantics and epistemology to syntax (which is never)

Yep, using this quote for syllabus day #academicchatter

I truly believe traditional grades (already problematic) only exacerbates the transactional problem of education when coupled with AI.

THIS. I think a not-insignificant reason that people are buying into AI hype is because they believe it will allow the to avoid tricky issues we’ve never solved: insufficient mental health services, toxic professional and academic cultures, unsustainable productivity expectations… just slap AI on it

I can't dedicate the time required to research it myself, but OpenAI and the other big ones hide the numbers so that doesn't help