On November 18th, faculty members across the school of Arts & Sciences took part in the inaugural Teaching Innovation Showcase hosted by WashU Arts & Sciences. The event was an opportunity for A&S faculty to present work meant to transform the classroom learning experience. The showcase featured two Political Science department faculty, Dan Butler and Jacob Montgomery, highlighting their work helping students learn about civics and government and data science, respectively.
Butler presented on his teaching project "The Poli-Sci LEGO Guy for WashU and Beyond", an effort to create LEGO stop-motion videos to engage undergraduate and high school students in the study of U.S. Government. The videos cover at least one topic from the AP Government test in an effort to provide the essential knowledge expected by the College Board on the exam. Professor Butler has a team of undergraduate and graduate students that help him create each script and video, which helps those students learn new teaching techniques and communication styles to aid their own teaching capabilities.
Montgomery's work is centered on the all-too-modern problem: how can AI be utilized in the classroom constructively? His presentation was titled, "The Teaching Multiplier Effect - Scaling Excellence in Data Science Education with AI." The center of his work is custom AI chatbots that, as he presented, "can guide, hint, nudge, and unstick—but they cannot just answer." Montgomery's chatbots are trained on his course materials, syllabi, and other relevant materials, and help students with course questions ("when is our mid-term?") that reduces the number emails, and, importantly, reminds students of key points of lectures and lessons to assist them with coursework questions. This gives students an always reliable, always awake, and always helpful assistant to help them complete work, and gives faculty a more manageable work load and less frantic 2am emails. Montgomery's idea took home a win for "Integrating Technologies to Enrich Learning Experiences and Outcomes."
Below are images from Professor Butler and Montgomery's presentations at the Teaching Innovation Showcase hosted by Arts & Sciences at the Clark-Fox Forum in Hillman Hall. Thanks to everyone in Arts & Sciences for including our faculty and congratulations to Professors Butler and Montgomery on their achievements!
