The next online session of the AI in Practice series will be  "How Faculty and Entrepreneurs Are Actually Using Generative AI: “Use Case” Lightning Round" on 12-1 pm EST, Wednesday, November 13, 2024.

Do you wonder: How can I actually use AI in my life? In this fast-paced session five leading faculty members and entrepreneurs from UMB, UMBC, and JHU will share their most practical AI use cases, delivered in just five minutes each. You'll hear more than 15 examples of concrete ways you can use AI today. 

The presenters are John G Schumacher (UMBC), Mikhail B. Pevzner (UBALT), Carly Schnitzler (JHU), Paul Davidson (JHU), and  Henry Mortimer (UBALT).

In this second event of the AI in Practice series, Mike Kentz discusses a new way of using AI, one that leverages your existing skills and removes the fog and mystery from a process we already know and understand. Discover what safe and effective use of AI looks like, thereby bringing you one step closer to incorporating in your classroom in a way that is understandable, effective, and helpful to your students. 

Mike Kentz is an award-winning educator with over 14 years of experience across journalism and teaching. He is a TEDx Speaker and his work in AI in Education has been featured in EdSurge, Edutopia, the Wall Street Journal, Canadian National Radio, and more. His workshops have been formulated as a product of direct classroom experience in 2023-24, when he developed a ground-breaking approach to teaching with AI in the classroom that has since been accepted for presentation at multiple national and regional education conferences. These experiences now inform his unique, humanities-based approach to developing AI literacy among adults and students and helping schools to adapt to the advancement of artificial intelligence.

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UMBC Center for AI

In this presentation two UMBC faculty, Karen Chen (IS) and Fow-Sen Choa (CSEE) as well as Kevin Hwang and Kenneth Wang, two students from Glenelg High School in Howard County, MD, will share lessons learned from their joint paper on using AI to generate multiple choice questions. In particular, they will share findings on how well AI aligns auto-generated questions to Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning, and discuss the implications for both faculty and students for supporting students’ own development as self-regulated learners

Note: This will be a hybrid event with lunch provided for registered participants (17 max). As such, the seat limit only applies to in-person attendees. A virtual meeting link will be sent to all registered participants. Register here.

Thumbnail image created by Microsoft Copilot, prompted by DoIT's John Fritz.

Learn how generative AI can enhance teaching and learning in higher education in the free AI in Practice Webinar Series, a collaborative initiative of the University of Baltimore, JHU, and UMBC. On the second Wednesday of each month this Fall from 12-1 ET, it will engage with industry leaders to explore AI’s role in teaching and the skills students need to thrive in an AI-enhanced workforce. Join the September 11 kickoff session featuring Jason Michael Perry.  Discover more about the series and first speaker, and REGISTER HERE.

UMBC's Faculty Development Center will hold a series of online discussion sessions on Teaching with AI, based on the book Teaching with AI: (2A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning 024), by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson.  UMBC faculty can register using the links below. An electronic copy of the book will also be available to registrants via UMBC's library.

Teaching with AI Book Discussion: Part 1 

See how AI is changing the world & why AI literacy is vital.

Wednesday, October 2, 2024 · 12 - 1 PM · Online · REGISTER HERE

Join us for the first of three workshops designed to help us think together about engaging Artificial Intelligence (AI) for teaching, learning, and assessment. In the first session, we’ll explore “Thinking with AI,” part one of Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning (2024), by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson. The introduction and the first three chapters help readers to gain context on how AI developed; how AI is changing the work world (and the changes anticipated); and why AI literacy is vital. The last chapter in this section explores how AI can interact with and enhance our creativity.

Teaching with AI Book Discussion: Part 2 

Learn how AI can support educators and also impacts grading.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024 · 12 - 1 PM · Online · REGISTER HERE

Join us for the second of three workshops designed to help us think together about engaging Artificial Intelligence (AI) for teaching, learning, and assessment. In the second session, we’ll explore “Teaching with AI,” part two of Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning (2024), by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson. They explore how AI can support educators, examine how AI complicates cheating and detection, and share insights about AI policies. Arguing that C-level work is no longer acceptable, since AI can do that for all of us, the last chapter in this section looks at how AI impacts grading and our shared understanding of quality.

Teaching with AI Book Discussion: Part 3 

Help students learn to use AI productively and responsibly.

Wednesday, November 13, 2024 · 12 - 1 PM · Online · REGISTER HERE

Join us for the third of three workshops designed to help us think together about engaging Artificial Intelligence (AI) for teaching, learning, and assessment. In the third session, we’ll explore “Learning with AI,” part three of Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning (2024), by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson. This section discusses how we can help students learn to use AI productively and responsibly in our courses, including prompts, checklists, and other adaptable tools. For example, to ask students to engage with frequent feedback, adapt their Feedback Prompt Template, which is designed to elicit useful feedback from AI for revision. Additionally, the authors examine intrinsically motivating assignment design with checklists that guide students through acceptable use of AI, adaptations for writing assignments, and AI-focused assignments.

This week three UMBC faculty had papers in the Second Teaching and Learning with AI Conference held in Orlando and organized by the University of Central Florida.

Timothy Nohe, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

AI has grabbed headlines and sparked fervid debates among visual artists and faculty. This presentation will open an opportunity to engage on the topic of natural language AI generative image engines like Midjourney and the controversies that attend them, such as the illicit use of artists’ works to train the systems and the efforts to “poison” these generators. Timothy Nohe has investigated these tools, and exhibited works that allow him to speculate on engineered biomaterials and plants. As a graduate assistant to the late AI pioneering artist Harold Cohen, he brings over 30 years of experience to this conversation.

Muhammad Ali Yousuf & M. Nicole Belfiore, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Akbar Ali, University of Virginia

We present a variety of innovative AI tools that show significant potential in enhancing the experience of students with learning challenges. These tools, some of which are already available and others actively in development, leverage the power of AI to address a range of challenges. These include the creation of art for the visually impaired, support for students with Dyslexia/Dyscalculia, writing tools for students with Dysgraphia, etc. We have developed activities that consider different learning styles, abilities, and limitations of the students with the help of AI. A brief presentation will follow a group discussion on the limitless possibilities.

Muhammad Ali Yousuf & M. Nicole Belfiore, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Akbar Ali, University of Virginia

Grading of assignments created with the help of Generative AI tools poses a major challenge to instructors who were trained on rubrics developed decades ago. Such rubrics are incapable of handling situations where the work is clearly a violation of honor agreements. We propose a set of metrics that may be useful for grading student work that is at least partially generated with the help of AI. The audience is encouraged to bring their own ideas as explicit feedback will be sought and will be part of the discussion.

Join UMBC Information Systems PhD student Rachael Kang as she shares her research journey of how she came to study AI, starting from her master's thesis on the utility of machine learning in predicting suicide risk to her current research interests of integrating a large language model into patient portals to increase patient health literacy. Rachael will also discuss how she has introduced ChatGPT as a learning tool for the students she TAs in Information Systems 303, the activities she has conducted with the students to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT, and the types of conversations she has with students about what is proper and improper use of ChatGPT.

Get more information and join the event here.

Here is a video of the session.

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UMBC Center for AI