Get Back To Why You Started Teaching: Or, How Values Shape Our Approaches to AI in the Classroom

Get Back To Why You Started Teaching: Or, How Values Shape Our Approaches to AI in the Classroom Carter Moulton, PhD, Assistant Director of the Trenfy Innovative Instruction Center at Colorado School of Mines Description As generative AI tools become more embedded in and entangled with our teaching and learning environments, educators across disciplines face an urgent pressure to redesign their course materials, policies, activities, and assessments. This interactive talk argues that, before we make any of these overwhelming revisions, we can find clarity and direction by reconsidering the human values, skills, and concerns that matter most to us as educators. Drawing on Analog Inspiration, a card deck project adopted by thousands of educators worldwide, we’ll explore what it means to develop a human-centered approach to teaching in the age of AI. The session will outline practical strategies for cultivating trust with students, teaching critical AI literacy, making student thinking visible, fostering intrinsic motivation, and strengthening the human relationships that make learning meaningful. Participants will have a chance to engage with digital Analog Inspiration cards during the session and will leave with concrete strategies they can implement in their own classrooms. About the Speaker Carter Moulton, PhD, is an academic developer, speaker, facilitator, media researcher, bedroom composer, and novice graphic designer. He is the Assistant Director of the Trenfy Innovative Instruction Center at Colorado School of Mines and serves as Faculty for the AAC&U Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. He received his PhD in Screen Cultures from Northwestern University and is a former Graduate Teaching Fellow, Consultant, and Mentor at the Searle Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning. Carter’s pedagogical work has ranged from co-developing teacher training programs for primary and secondary teachers as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand, to founding a peer observation program for graduate students at Northwestern, to designing and delivering training for faculty in India. His teaching and learning publications include Teaching and Learning Inquiry, American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference Proceedings, and the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies Teaching Dossier. His research on media and digital culture has appeared in the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Popular Communication, and Communication, Culture and Critique, among other places. All are welcome! Please register on Zoom.