Doug Holton

A Treatise on AI Chatbots Undermining the Enlightenment On chatbot sycophancy, passivity, and the case for more intellectually challenging companions

I've been trying to articulate why the fawning, complimentary responses from AI chatbots feel so insidious to me. I've finally figured out how to explain it.

Wrote a long piece on how current model training and design choices threaten our critical thinking skills: maggieappleton.com/ai-enlighten...

Advancements in astronomy education research: Two decades of progress with undergraduate and adult learners journals.aps.org/prper/abstra...
#Astronomy #PhysicsEd #STEMeducation #DBER #EdDev #ActiveLearning #Teaching

Annie and Lakeesha struggle in school. AI teacher assistants treated them very differently. A Common Sense Media study found that prominent teacher assistants that use AI generated recommendations that appeared to be rooted in racial stereotypes based on students’ names. About a third of teachers report using AI weekly, according to a recent survey.

A Common Sense Media study found that prominent teacher assistants that use AI generated recommendations that appeared to be rooted in racial stereotypes based on students’ names. About a third of teachers report using AI weekly, according to a recent survey.

Grading student writing with AI: What we lose when AI replaces teachers Our students don’t write to impress a rubric--they write to be heard, and using AI to grade student writing misses the mark.

Grading student writing with AI: What we lose when AI replaces teachers
#AIEdu #AIinEdu #EdChat #EdReform #EduSky
www.eschoolnews.com/...

Design Principles for Developing Information Problem Solving Competence in Higher Education: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis - Josien Boetje, Bo Sichterman, Stan Van Ginkel, Matthijs Smakman, Jo... Developing students’ information problemsolving (IPS) competence in higher education is imperative. However, existing theoretical frameworks describe IPS learni...

Meta-analysis on promoting information problem solving competence, which "is commonly defined as the integrated knowledge, skills, and attitudes that enable individuals to search for, assess, and use online information to solve problems and construct knowledge." #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky

Text Shot: Approximately 40% of students engaged with textbook references when prompted by feedback---significantly higher than traditional reading compliance rates. Survey data revealed high student satisfaction (M=4.1/5), with 82.1% reporting increased confidence on midterm topics they had practiced, and 73.4% indicating they could recall and apply specific concepts from practice sessions. Our findings demonstrate how thoughtfully designed AI-enhanced systems can scale formative assessment while promoting sustainable study practices and self-regulated learning behaviors, suggesting that embedding structured reflection requirements may be more impactful than sophisticated feedback mechanisms.

How Adding Metacognitive Requirements in Support of AI Feedback in Practice Exams Transforms Student Learning Behaviors | Proceedings of the Twelfth ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3698205.3729542 #AI #education

Exploring Language Models in Scratch with Machine Learning for Kids In this post, I want to share the most recent section I've added to Machine Learning for Kids: support for generating text and an explanation of some of the ideas behind large language models. youtu...

Today was #ScratchConference - a chance to learn from the incredible creativity of the #Scratch community 😍

I was lucky enough to be invited to talk about the work I've been doing this year with schools using Generative AI in Scratch - a short version of my demo from dalelane.co.uk/blog/?p=5538

AI-Based Teaching Evaluations: How Well Do They Reflect Student Perceptions? This study presents an innovative solution for evaluating university-level teaching quality using artificial intelligence (AI), focusing on key aspect…

Strong claim: "AI evaluation removes human bias in teaching assessment" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Ironically, I asked AI to evaluate this claim. Gemini: this is an overstatement docs.google.com/document/d/1...
ChatGPT: misleading drive.google.com/file/d/1p_69...
#AIEd #EdDev #Teaching

“The Ones that Care Make all the Difference”: Perspectives on Student-Faculty Relationships - Innovative Higher Education Student-faculty (S-F) interactions that are conducive to students’ learning can help reduce the retention and graduation gaps in higher education, especially for college students from underrepresented...

“The Ones that Care Make all the Difference”: Perspectives on Student-Faculty Relationships
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
"4 themes for faculty practices: (1) Creating Pedagogical Space, (2) Being Inclusive and Aware, (3) Being Engaged and Engaging Students, (4) Doing More Than Teaching."
#EdDev

Recent #AIEd resources:
* AI & ID research drphilippahardman.substack.com/p/beyond-the...
* 6 apps in a day aieternaut.substack.com/p/claudes-ai...
* AI wrapper w/google forms readysetcompute.com/gptwrapper/
* Course Review GPT onlinelearningconsortium.org/olc-insights...
* onmicro.ai & cogniti.ai

PAIRR public webinar slides Peer & AI Review + Reflection (PAIRR) An invitation to engage with our human-centered, research-based approach July 9, 2025 Supported by the California Education Learning Lab Anna: Hello and welcome t...

If you're exploring critical reflection on AI feedback, we hope you'll take a look at our Peer & AI Review + Reflection (PAIRR) approach. Input welcome! All OER.

Webinar recording: pairr.short.gy/webinar
Slides: pairr.short.gy/slides
Materials packet including prompts: pairr.short.gy/packet

One thing that has helped immensely when planning workshops is keeping a running list of my favorite facilitation techniques. | Tolulope (Tolu) N. One thing that has helped immensely when planning workshops is keeping a running list of my favorite facilitation techniques. My list is in the form of a Google Doc, and it has multiple sections like ...

I created free templates that you can use to collect your favorite facilitation techniques! This can make it easier to plan workshops, as you’ll already have a curated list of strategies to choose from.

www.linkedin.com/posts/tolu-n...

#HigherEd #FacDev #EdDev #AcademicSky #EduSky #Facilitation

Professors at Play PlayBook Visit the post for more.

Professors at Play professorsatplay.org has 3 free #ebooks on incorporating games into your 1) #Teaching professorsatplay.org/playbook/
2) #OnlineTeaching professorsatplay.org/professors-a... and
3) and #AI ideas professorsatplay.org/ai-playbook/
#EdDev #EdTech #AIEd

Lucile Favero, Juan-Antonio P\'erez-Ortiz, Tanja K\"aser, Nuria Oliver: Do AI tutors empower or enslave learners? Toward a critical use of AI in education https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06878 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.06878 https://arxiv.org/html/2507.06878

The promise of mastery-based testing for promoting student engagement, self-regulated learning, and performance in gateway STEM courses Decades of research show that tests, beyond assessing student knowledge, are powerful tools for promoting learning. However, high-stakes tests can als…

The promise of mastery-based testing for promoting student engagement, self-regulated learning, and performance in STEM courses www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Used OLI platform chemistry course oli.cmu.edu/courses/gene...
Repeating tests linked to increase in use of study resources & grades

Vibes DIY Vibe coding made easy

vibes.diy is a free & #OpenSource tool that lets you or your students or kids generate shareable/remixable web apps in seconds.
Example pomodoro timer app
slow-flamingo-4228.vibesdiy.app
Bias buster app
unhappy-fly-3636.vibesdiy.app
More info fireproof.storage/posts/introd...
#EdTech #EduSky #AIEd

What did 'that MIT study' really find?

💡In this post, I go behind the viral clickbait to explore what the MIT research led by Nataliya Kosmyna, Ph.D actually says about #AI, cognitive debt, and #learning - and why the “Brain-to-LLM” approach might be one of the most important ideas for educators

Testing out a #DeepResearch tool on the topic of: Research-Based #Teaching Techniques for Improving Student Retention in Online Courses
https://www.opendeepresearch.dev/chat/OSVutEomBXzjwqpga5oNA
Here are also links to NotebookLM summaries and a podcast version […]

The Benefits of Anti-Models for Boosting Learning Teachers can explore with students what not to do—like confusing operations in math or using boring word choices in writing—to set students on the right path and boost learning.

The Benefits of Anti-Models for Boosting Learning www.edutopia.org/article/powe... #EDU #teachers

Building Students’ Confidence and Learning Skills in Online Classes: Lessons from the Postsecondary Collaborative (slides and paper) ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/presentation...
#OnlineLearning #OnlineTeaching #EdDev #StudentSuccess #HigherEd

OPINION: Clamping down on good, publicly available higher education data will send our system into a dark spiral Cuts to the Department of Education, including positions that involve data collection and analysis, threaten our domestic progress and could trigger a decline in the very qualities that have made Amer...

The inability to measure and publish data on college outcomes weakens the U.S' global competitiveness, potentially triggering a decline in the very qualities that have made American higher education the envy of the world.

New op-ed from me @hechingerreport.org.
hechingerreport.org/opinion-clam...

Beyond Bluesky: These are the apps building social experiences on the AT Protocol | TechCrunch A list of AT Protocol-based, consumer-facing apps that are either built on top of Bluesky or its underlying protocol, allowing users to take back control over their social networking experiences and personal data.

Beyond Bluesky: These are the apps building social experiences on the AT Protocol

(PDF) How Students Fool Themselves PDF | In this essay, I describe common ways that students fool themselves and how, with the help of their teachers, they can avoid that trap. | Find, read and cite all the research you need on Researc...

My essay for The Teaching Professor, "How Students Fool Themselves," now freely available on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Anselm Eickhoff.mp4

Watch @anselm.io talk about how local-first is accidentally perfect for the AI age. youtu.be/e3-yIWGNBLQ?...

Launching two new applications today that extend @smokesignal.events with digital badges and signed record capabilities in the ATProtocol ecosystem. Both are open source and built on our new atproto-* Rust crates.

European Open Source AI Index Evidence-based openness assessment for Generative AI: an EU-based community-driven public resource.

European Open Source AI Index osai-index.eu
An EU-based community-driven public resource on #OpenSource generative #AI systems. Supersedes opening-up-chatgpt.github.io
OLMo by @ai2.bsky.social is still the most open #LLM: allenai.org/olmo
#EdTech #AIEd

Students Don't Learn the Way They Think They Do in a Large, Active-Learning Genetics Course | CBE—Life Sciences Education Recently, our course team transformed a large-enrollment introductory genetics course from being predominantly lecture based to active learning based. During class sessions, students engaged in proble...

Students Don't Learn the Way They Think They Do in a Large, #ActiveLearning Genetics Course
www.lifescied.org/doi/full/10....
"students exhibited larger learning gains from prediction activities compared w/worked examples or tell-then-practice activities, as evidenced by a course pretest/posttest"

3 Considerations for “Nudging” Intervention in Higher Ed A review of research on behavioral interventions finds opportunities for reducing complexities and creating systemic solutions for student success.

Student Success | Report: Best Practices in ‘Nudging’ for Student Success

A review of research on behavioral interventions finds opportunities for reducing complexities and creating systemic solutions for student success. #HigherEd #EDUSky #AcademicSky bit.ly/4kdOaze

Exploring the Relationship Between First-Year Seminars and #StudentSuccess Outcomes - Christine Harrington
journals.flvc.org/jpss/article...
See also her #FYE resources:
www.scholarlyteaching.org/fye
I have some more resources at the bottom of this site:
canvas.instructure.com/courses/3168...

A New Headache for Honest Students: Proving They Didn’t Use A.I.

Generative AI has been very toxic for the student-teacher relationship and we're all trying to figure it out. But the answer to a frayed social contract isn't to add to it. AI detectors don't work and they make things worse. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/s...