Learning to Learn AI

My ongoing work with various forms of artificial intelligence (AI) has me thinking a lot about the learning process. In my personal experience, I believe sports greatly enhanced my ability and grit to learn, while my time as a student at Mott Community College gave me the confidence and curiosity to keep learning.

I leaned into my capacity to learn while interviewing for my first professional role as a graduate intern at Oakland Community College. When the Director of Institutional Research asked about my qualifications for a research assistant position, I knew I had to sell it. I was a 23-year-old with a Communications degree, and my experience consisted mostly of high school jobs at a golf course and various non-research positions on campus as an undergrad (including the mail room and intramural coordinator). When he asked if I knew spreadsheets, I confidently said, “SURE!” His follow-up question, “What software?” was met with an equally confident “LOTUS 1-2-3” (yes, I’m so old that I was using computers before Microsoft Excel was invented.) While my responses had a confident tone, there was little substance behind them — the only spreadsheet I had ever created was to track my scores as a varsity golfer. He quickly responded, “If you know LOTUS, you’ll know Quattro Pro.”

I spent the next several months poring over the Quattro Pro manual like a page-turning mystery novel to learn what I needed for the job. Three years later, I had completed my master’s degree and landed a job as Director of Institutional Research and Planning at Red Rocks Community College. By that point, spreadsheets had become second nature for me.

I recognize that diving headfirst into the deep end of learning comes naturally to me. It fills my bucket — “Learner” is one of my top five Gallup Strengths. Whether it’s learning a new sport — from baseball to golf, racquetball to pickleball, bowling to cornhole, cross-country and downhill skiing to water skiing — learning stretches my brain to think differently and grow in new ways. These experiences have also helped me confront my inherent paranoia and skepticism with AI and become, as I said in my last post, “productively paranoid.” The more I use AI, the more I find myself using it on my terms.

For example:

• Rather than asking ChatGPT to write an entire speech, welcome remarks, or a PowerPoint presentation — tasks that still feel a bit uncomfortable for me — I ask it to provide five choices to help focus my remarks. I often iterate on one or two of its suggestions and ask for an outline, which I then adapt and refine before writing my own final version.
• I find myself using the ChatGPT app more than Google to search and answer both complex and trivial questions. I sometimes use Perplexity AI to explore more sources, but I can also ask ChatGPT follow-up questions to name its sources when needed.
• I once assigned ChatGPT the role of a Termite and Wood Structure Specialist and asked it to analyze a picture I took of some wood on a fallen tree, and it taught me about powderpost beetles.
• Perhaps my favorite experience thus far has been reproducing special memories. Using the MidJourney AI image generator, I created an image for which no photo exists but is forever etched in my mind. Recently, I delivered a keynote at Mid-Plains Community College in North Platte, Nebraska. I opened my presentation by sharing a story about how, 30 years ago, my wife and I drove past Exit 179 on I-80 during our honeymoon trip to Denver, Colorado, in her 1992 red Saturn coupe. After about 15 to 20 prompts and iterations, it produced the image I envisioned.

While the potential negative impact on humanity — and the sci-fi apocalyptic scenarios coming to life — has secured more real estate in my mind than I’d like, setting those fears aside to create space for learning has allowed me to imagine how to use AI in creative ways that have made me more efficient, effective, and productive. The more I experiment with it, the more useful I find it to be.

I fully acknowledge that my “Learner” strength looks different than it does for others with the same strength, and that there are many combinations and themes within strengths that will manifest differently in each of us. However, given the rapid pace at which AI technology is evolving and the myriad ways it can impact us, I hope that everyone — both professionally and personally — takes the time to reflect on the roles AI is playing in their life and considers how to take agency and ownership of its impact.

Right now, I feel like I’m in my second week on the job, devouring that Quattro Pro manual. My brain is on fire, my heart is racing, and the possibilities and challenges all simultaneously seem endless. I’m running as fast as I can — skinning my knees and picking myself back up again — as I race toward some level of competency with this technology before it outpaces me. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to venture on your own learning journey and develop your AI skills at your own pace. AI is here, and it's moving quickly.

If you have any questions or comments on this post, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu

The new Mandia Family Learning Commons — a special space for success

Built for success

Where do our students go to identify and find academic support on their pathway to success? It is the place where they can find experts in coping with learning — and life — obstacles to graduation, in a new, inviting space with familiar, welcoming faces.

The Mandia Family Learning Commons is the newest and coolest space for MVCC students on the Utica Campus. Located in the Information Technology Building, the Commons is a multi-functional, collaborative learning space for students to be with each other, with faculty, and with staff to help them advance on their path to success.

As it was in the former Learning Center, the heart of the Commons is the staff who inhabit the new fresh and inspiring space. With full-time professional tutoring in the Math Lab and Writing Lab, the Commons is a tremendous resource for students. Additional tutoring is available in most any discipline or program we offer, and students now have the added benefit of customized space to work with their tutors at computers, if necessary. Open computers are available for students who need to work individually or collaboratively with others.

And the Commons has much more — because of the people who are there to help. 

Four full-time faculty members have relocated their offices within the new space. Representing the disciplines of Reading, Math, English, and Physics, the faculty housed in the Commons are "all in" for student success. They are joined by three Completion Coaches from our Pathway to Graduation Project to help students with issues both in and out of the classroom. For the more complex issues, students can go to a Case Manager from the C3 (College-Community-Connection) Program who can leverage a robust network of community resources related to food, health, housing, transportation, child care, and other barriers that arise to threaten the success of students.

And that's not all! Students and faculty also will benefit from the talents of a librarian and instructional design professional who can provide tremendous resources and guidance to all. While students will draw on the "in-house" librarian talents, faculty can utilize the instructional design resources as they use the "iTeach" lab to explore new technologies and teaching methodologies, and hone their craft for the benefit of students.

While we wait for the last few pieces of furniture to arrive, the positive energy and excitement surrounding the Mandia Family Learning Commons will continue right through and beyond our ribbon-cutting, which is scheduled for Thursday, November 17, at 1:30 p.m.

If you have any questions or comments about this post, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu.

Liberal Arts to the Rescue

As the sad and dramatic increase in frustration, anger, and hate reaches new levels through the presidential debates, I can’t help but notice it everywhere now. All the angst we collectively carry around follows us into the modern workplace — with rumors, stress, conflict, brinksmanship, and dark humor preventing many from doing their best cooperative work. It seems Stephen Covey’s famous principle, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” is increasingly a lost art — which is why I believe the liberal arts are more important than ever.  

Aside from following national politics, the little television I do watch is usually for laughs – Saturday Night Live, Modern Family, The Middle, or Brooklyn 99 are all a nice release for me to laugh with my family.  

However, my odd bliss includes historical documentaries and formulaic makeover shows. I used to like Extreme Home Makeover, and now I’m hooked on the Food Network’s Restaurant Impossible — people with failing restaurants contact the star of the show to transform their restaurant in 48 hours with $10,000 and some tough love on how to make over their business. I love the formula where the star of the show comes in and finds things in shambles; from the décor and the service to the menu and quality of food, it’s all a hot mess. About halfway through the show, he surfaces that the heart of all the problems comes down to the quality of the relationships between the people working at the restaurant. The business isn’t broken, the people have just lost themselves and each other, along with perspective on the big picture. He facilitates some critical conversations, and in no time the crooked places are made straight and it all comes together beautifully. It chokes me up nearly every time.

With each passing year in my career as an educational administrator, I couldn’t be happier with my decision to have pursued a broad liberal arts undergraduate education. The perspective I gained through those classes helped me consider the variety of perspectives needed for problem solving, sparked a desire to be a lifelong learner, and created a deep appreciation for the human condition and the gifts that others bring to this world — the essence of a liberal arts education.

When I find myself in a conversation with a parent who wants their child to “just pick a career,” I often say “everyone in their own time.” The most important thing in discovering your path in life is passion, and that may take time to find. To this end, MVCC helps students discover their strengths at the very beginning in orientation. For those who discover that their passion and talents have led them to a certain career or technical field, we have a broad array of outstanding career and technical programs that lead directly to jobs in the workforce. And I’m proud to know that the liberal arts faculty at MVCC believe that liberal arts programs lead to great jobs as well. Our faculty help students understand how the cultivation of the creative process gives birth to the revolutions of design thinking and problem solving. With its broad base of education spanning a wide range of academic areas, the liberal arts help people to develop critical thinking skills and learn how to learn so that they may continue learning beyond the classroom. In today's landscape, this is more important than any skill that can be taught because technology, and the workplace in general, changes so rapidly that adaptation, understanding, critical reflection, and personal reinvention are absolutely necessary for job success.

On the simplest level, we cannot reinvent ourselves, or the world around us, if we have no understanding of these things to start. Where at one time creating workers was enough, today we need a generation of thinkers if we are ever to tackle the problems we face as a society. Additionally, these skills help foster better interpersonal relationships and develop emotional intelligence that nurture safe and understanding environments where creativity and effective problem solving flourish. With an increased influence of the liberal arts, the modern workplace — regardless of whether it’s a restaurant or a college — would have exponentially less friction and frustration, and the soul-wrenching polarization of our society would be replaced by thoughtful debate and progress. 

If you have any comments or questions on this post, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu.