Six states and a group of conservative advocacy organizations filed lawsuits Monday to block the Biden administration’s new Title IX rule and accused the Department of Education of acting unlawfully and overreaching. In two lawsuits filed in Louisiana and Alabama, the plaintiffs argued that several changes to the new rule, which was finalized earlier this month, contradict the text and purpose of Title IX. Specifically, they take issue with the Biden administration’s decision to expand the definition of sex-based discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
Monday, May 6, 2024
Shaping the Future of Learning: The Role of AI in Education 4.0 - World Economic Forum
This report explores the potential for artificial intelligence to benefit educators, students and teachers. Case studies show how AI can personalize learning experiences, streamline administrative tasks, and integrate into curricula. The report stresses the importance of responsible deployment, addressing issues like data privacy and equitable access. Aimed at policymakers and educators, it urges stakeholders to collaborate to ensure AI's positive integration into education systems worldwide leads to improved outcomes for all.
Why so many bad bosses still rise to the top - McKinsey Podcast
Narcissism. Overconfidence. Low EQ. Why do we persist in selecting for leadership traits that hamper organizational progress—and leave the right potential leaders in the wrong roles? When leaders are competent, we all benefit—yet incompetent leadership is everywhere. Why do we equate leadership potential with qualities like overconfidence and narcissism, enabling incompetent people to rise to the top? In a new episode of McKinsey Talks Talent, professor and author Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic speaks to McKinsey’s Bryan Hancock and Brooke Weddle about why so many incompetent men are in leadership positions and what we should be doing differently to choose stronger and more diverse candidates for leadership roles. Tune in and see what it takes to cultivate true, genuine leadership.
Sunday, May 5, 2024
ChatGPT 5: Release Date, Features & Prices - Niel C. Hughes, Technopedia
The earliest expected release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT 5 is early in the summer of 2024. ChatGPT 5 is said to bring improved contextual understanding and AI agents capable of operating autonomously — no humans involved. The GPT-5 model is “materially better”, according to one sneak preview. New developments may include Sora and the AI voice product Voice Engine. If OpenAI sticks to the playbook, we expect ChatGPT 5 to arrive in two flavors: a free-to-use model and a $20-a-month subscription model that expands the capabilities.
Students Needing Career Advice Turn to Faculty - Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed
Faculty members serve as a critical resource for students charting their career paths, according to a new survey from the National Association for Colleges and Employers (NACE), with support from the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the National Society of Experiential Education. The study—which included full professors on down to adjunct-level instructors—found 92 percent of faculty have been asked for career advice from a student in their disciplinary area within the past year, and three in five faculty have been solicited by alumni from their institution for career help.The findings point to the role faculty members play in fulfilling student success goals as students launch into their lives after graduation, particularly because not every student engages with their career center.
Microsoft Makes a New Push Into Smaller A.I. Systems - Karen Weise and Cade Metz, NY Times
Now tech companies are starting to embrace smaller A.I. technologies that are not as powerful but cost a lot less. And for many customers, that may be a good trade-off. On Tuesday, Microsoft introduced three smaller A.I. models that are part of a technology family the company has named Phi-3. The company said even the smallest of the three performed almost as well as GPT-3.5, the much larger system that underpinned OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot when it stunned the world upon its release in late 2022.
The smallest Phi-3 model can fit on a smartphone, so it can be used even if it’s not connected to the internet. And it can run on the kinds of chips that power regular computers, rather than more expensive processors made by Nvidia.
Saturday, May 4, 2024
Here are 7 free AI classes you can take online from top tech firms, universities - PRESTON FORE, Fortune
“AI is providing people with on-demand learning anywhere they are at any time of day on any day,” says Jared Curham, a professor of work and organizational studies at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Curhan recently launched two new AI-powered courses focused on the world of strategic negotiation and says that the technology is overall making education more accessible with personalized feedback and coaching. While there are an increasing number of full-fledged AI degree programs, including within business schools, some students may be looking for a simpler or self-paced route. If you’re interested in learning more about this in-demand field, several top tech firms and universities offer free online courses that serve as an introduction to AI technologies.
How New Grads Can Find a Job in the Age of AI - Angie Kamath, US News
So how do students (and their families) navigate this exciting and stressful time when Americans are reading about AI disrupting jobs at every turn? The best advice is to find impactful and purpose-driven work while being attuned to new trends that have emerged as the AI landscape matures. In higher education, enrollment professionals often talk about the "funnel” of potential students when they take stock of the recruitment pool, then drill down to recruit and enroll the best-fit learners for their school. Job searching in today’s environment requires job seekers to manage their search as a funnel as well. That means it is important to first understand the macro labor market trends; the skills that are most in demand (and a realistic match with one’s interests, abilities and experiences); and how to use that information to search for the job, present oneself and find a best-fit role and organization.
University of Saint Katherine shuts down after less than 15 years - Ben Unglesbee, Higher Ed Dive
Facing a “steep” cash shortfall, California-based University of Saint Katherine is closing and will file for bankruptcy, President Frank Papatheofanis said in a letter to campus posted on social media last week by one of the institution’s sports teams. Behind the private nonprofit’s crunch in operating cash is “extraordinary inflation,” including salary increases, as well as high institutional financial aid, the president added. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Papatheofanis sent the letter announcing the closure on Thursday, the same day the university planned to cease all operations and employment. It will “pursue and consider any opportunity we can identify” while going through the bankruptcy process, Papatheofanis said.
Friday, May 3, 2024
Wharton’s Ethan Mollick: Co-intelligence and AI in education - Wachira Kigotho, University World News
Love them or hate them, artificial intelligence technologies are pushing the frontiers of teaching and learning, causing excitement as well as anxiety, and uncertainty as to whether they will eventually replace teachers. However, says education expert Ethan Mollick: “There is no doubt that education will adapt to AI far more effectively than other industries, and in ways that will improve learning and teaching.” People should not panic, according to Mollick, an associate professor of management, currently teaching entrepreneurship and innovation at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.
Authentic Assessment in the era of AI - Advance-HE
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the way we work and learn. Increasingly sophisticated natural language processing (NLP) tools can competently complete tasks currently the remit of professional roles. Higher Education providers, therefore, need to systematically think about how the increased use of these tools will change their practices. It is easy to get fixated on a deficit model where students use these tools to commit academic malpractice but there is a range of interesting and legitimate use cases that need to be considered. This raises important questions for quality assurance and institutional policies and broader questions about employability and the skills required to thrive in an AI-dominated world of work.
4 Traits That Quickly Identify Someone With Good Leadership Skills - Marcel Schwantes, Inc.
"Yes, you must deliver results," Davis says, "but people today want generous leaders who will work to see beyond themselves--you must learn to lead with your heart. Being vulnerable with your staff is intimidating, but connecting with your people will not only help you grow as a leader and a person, but will grow your business as well." As Davis explains, there have been, of course, many great leaders who were admired and respected for taking a broad view. They focused on the numbers but also cared deeply for people and were concerned about their company's impact on the community. "They existed, but this type of generous leader, who put their heart at the forefront of their leadership, was rarely visible," Davis attests. "This broad view of leadership was not in fashion and was not considered a model for success."
Thursday, May 2, 2024
Should online educational platforms offer courses following a schedule or release them on demand? - Marilyn Stone, Phys.org
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pennsylvania have published a new Journal of Marketing study that examines online educational platforms and the question of whether they should release content through a scheduled format that resembles a traditional university course or use an on-demand release strategy. The study is titled "More Likely to Pay but Less Engaged: The Effects of Switching Online Courses from Scheduled to On-Demand Release on User Behavior" and is authored by Joy Lu, Eric T. Bradlow, and J. Wesley Hutchinson.
Policies promoting digital education credentials - Sopiko Beriashvili & Michael Trucano, Brookings
Policymakers, organizations, and practitioners around the world that are attempting to implement digital credentials and LERs at scale have identified three common challenges. Countries do not often consider employers as key stakeholders in the process of developing and implementing policies surrounding digital credentials and LERs. It is often unclear how digital credential and LER programs should be funded once they move beyond pilot stages, which are typically publicly funded. Countries may need to make changes in existing legal frameworks in order to support the implementation of digital credential and LER initiatives.
No-Code RAG and the Generative AI Knowledge Revolution - BRET KINSELLA, Synthedia
Retrieval augmented generation (RAG) is probably the most referenced acronym in generative AI, aside from LLM. The reason for this is simple. RAG makes LLM-enabled knowledge assistants more accurate by grounding them in a specific dataset. Generative AI is a knowledge assistance revolution. It is unlocking access to information in our vast stores of text data. Multimodal models indeed handle more than text. However, textual data has been nearly impenetrable for machines to make sense of at scale. LLMs have changed that situation.
https://synthedia.substack.com/p/no-code-rag-and-the-generative-ai
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Wells College to close at the end of the spring term - Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive
Wells College, in New York, announced Monday that it will close at the end of the spring term. The private nonprofit institution said it has faced prolonged financial distress that it was unable to address through fundraising or other measures. Wells also cited demographic challenges, the pandemic, inflation and “an overall negative sentiment towards higher education.” In its notice, which came just days before the planned closure, Wells leaders said they had recently had “conversations with other academic partners,” to no avail.
DeepMind researchers discover impressive learning capabilities in long-context LLMs - Ben Dickson, Venture Beat
In a few years, large language models (LLMs) have gone from handling a few hundred words of input to several books’ worth of content at the same time. These expanded input capacities, also referred to as the “context window,” are enabling new applications and use cases that were previously impossible without extensive engineering efforts. A new study by researchers at Google DeepMind explores the “many-shot” in-context learning (ICL) ability of LLMs that have very long context windows. Their findings show that by fitting hundreds or even thousands of training examples in the prompt, you can improve the model’s abilities in ways that would previously require fine-tuning.
AI has taken over education technology. What will come next? - Pavithra Mohan, Fast Company
For a time, online learning platforms were ascendant, meeting the moment when workplaces and schools alike went remote (and later, hybrid). With the public debut of ChatGPT in 2022, edtech companies—such as edX, which was one of the first online learning giants to launch a ChatGPT plugin—jumped at the opportunity to integrate generative AI into their platforms, while teachers and administrators tried to understand what it could mean in the classroom. It quickly became clear that the technology needed guardrails when it came to student use. Companies like Khan Academy set about trying to create GPT-powered tools that would enhance the online learning experience and offer personalized support—but without enabling students to cheat. The result was Khanmigo, a chatbot that Khan Academy launched to help students edit essays and solve math problems.
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
11 Online Learning Trends to Know Now - Sarah Wood, US News
While hastily planned remote instruction differs from fully planned online college programs, education experts say recent cultural shifts and a desire for flexibility accelerated the growth of online learning. Colleges are now poised to offer more choices in distance learning, but it takes time, expertise and resources to develop quality online degree programs, says Lisa Templeton, vice provost for Oregon State University’s Ecampus and division of educational ventures. "Many of our faculty and students that would've never wanted to teach online or take an online course had to during the (coronavirus) pandemic," she says. "I think they learned that you can connect in meaningful and transformative ways."
OpenAI is rumored to be dropping GPT-5 soon — here's what we know about the next-gen model - Ryan Morrison, Tom's Guide
Chat GPT-5 is very likely going to be multimodal, meaning it can take input from more than just text but to what extent is unclear. Google’s Gemini 1.5 models can understand text, image, video, speech, code, spatial information and even music. GPT-5 is likely to have similar capabilities. One of the biggest changes we might see with GPT-5 over previous versions is a shift in focus from chatbot to agent. This would allow the AI model to assign tasks to sub-models or connect to different services and perform real-world actions on its own.
The best free AI courses (and whether AI 'micro-degrees' and certificates are worth it) - David Gewirtz, ZDnet
So, do certificates have any value? Yes, but how much value they have depends on your prospective employer's perspective. A certificate says you completed some course of study successfully. That might be something of value to you, as well. You can set a goal to learn a topic, and if you get a credential, you can be fairly confident you achieved some learning. Accredited degrees, by contrast, are an assurance that you not only learned the material, but did so according to some level of standard and rigor common to other accredited institutions.
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