This one is for the educators out there, especially those wrestling with AI in the classroom. “The Digital Sugar Rush: AI as the Refined Sweetener of Social Learning” by Dr. Flux of CU Boulder. So much gold in this talk! @fluxinflux.bsky.social youtu.be/wceud79nRz4

​Digital Sugar Rush: AI as the Refined Sweetener of Social Learning

YouTube video by eLearning Consortium of Colorado

youtu.be

How do I apply to a teaching professor job? A little unorthodox, but with style 😎

I’ve been waiting for this headline for some time. Part of me thought that maybe it wouldn’t come, but unfortunately here it is. I’ve been lecturing about neurodiversity lately, and vaccine science. These phenomena are incredibly complex, but this narrative doesn’t match the evidence.

OpenAI put out a press release today addressing mental health concerns. I have many issues with it, but something super troubling: They estimate a WEEKLY prevalence of 560,000 users displaying signs of psychosis or mania and 1.2 MILLION users indicating suicidal plan/intent.

Strengthening ChatGPT’s responses in sensitive conversations

We worked with more than 170 mental health experts to help ChatGPT more reliably recognize signs of distress, respond with care, and guide people toward real-world support–reducing responses that fall...

openai.com

I have a website now!

As a scientist, I can attest to this!

The world works this way because of you, Mr. Altman. You created a world of runaway digital body snatching and SpongeBob meth labs. Don’t blame human nature to remove your culpability. Quote from today’s article in @theverge.com www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

Check out my discussion of video pedagogy and layered instruction on the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast!

Layered Learning: Designing video with Intention and Authenticity, with M. C. Flux – Teaching in Higher Ed

M. C. Flux uncovers lessons for video creation from what he calls layered learning on episode 587 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast

teachinginhighered.com

Science is self-correcting, but only if our goal is accuracy over ideology.

The biggest AI problem right now isn’t a Skynet scenario (yet), it’s the concentration of power and lack of oversight or public input. “Your hairdresser has… more regulation…” This is from @theatlantic.com’s recent article “The AI Doomers are getting Doomier” by @matteowong.bsky.social

Currently reading an article about the impact of AI hype. There’s so much here, but the impact of AI investment on the balance of military investment and power is the most damning. (Highlights my own) Paper: dl.acm.org/doi/full/10....

The Just World hypothesis doesn’t necessarily make the world more just…

My General Psychology class had the special treat of a guest lecture from @marawilson.bsky.social! She discussed her article on extroversion that was published in @theguardian.com last September. It’s our week on personality psychology, and I was thrilled that she agreed to speak. She nailed it!

My friend @marawilson.bsky.social wrote a beautifully kind and loving tribute to Michelle Trachtenberg. I highly recommend a read!

My Cool Friend Michelle

The kids at school misunderstood Trachtenberg. In our group of child stars, we all wanted to be like her.

vulture.com

What is consent? This is a clip from my general psychology lecture on human sexuality.

I'm currently developing three video lectures for my general psychology module on human sexuality. This is perhaps one of the most complex lectures I've ever created given our current political climate. I am proud of how it is coming together though.

I've been trying to do topic lectures that relate to current events in my general psychology class. This week we've been discussing behaviorism, so I put together a lecture on the operant conditioning methods involved in cancel culture (a thread)

In honor of Oscar season, yesterday's General Psychology lecture explored the operant conditioning methods used to respond to Will Smith's 2022 outburst. It seemed to get the point across well.

There is a German word, "torschlusspanik," which refers to the feeling that your window of opportunity in life is closing. I introduced this to my human emotion class, and it's a little unsettling how many college students deeply relate to this emotion.

I just finished editing the first third of video content for both General Psychology and Human Emotion. It's over 5 hours and 40 minutes of instruction over 24 different videos. I somehow made all of this in a month. Now to grade 150 assignments.This semester has really been baptism by fire.

I'm editing several hours of video lectures where I had my microphone plugged into the headphone jack of my camera 😑 I don't have time to re-record them, and they are usable. But it's making the editing process AGONY!

My first week of in-person teaching is in the bag! I really like my students! I’m not sure my classes were as engaging as I’d like them to be yet, but it’s coming together. Now to get back to curriculum design for my asynchronous courses 😵‍💫

I had my first student recognize me on campus and say “hi professor Flux” as I was getting coffee. Feels like a milestone.

My first three PSYC 1001 mini-lectures are live on YouTube on my LiveLifeinFlux channel. I really did not know what I was getting myself into when I agreed to put this class together. But I’m very pleased with how it’s turning out.

Raw video footage for my class lectures is MASSIVE now that I’m trying to optimize for lighting and color in 4K. I just filmed for about a half hour and the file is 40 GB 😱

I've been feeling a bit torn by the amount that I've leaned on AI while developing my courses. I'm not torn by the level that I'm engaging with generative AI, as I've been using it in very thoughtful ways. I'm mostly torn over the environmental impacts. I've been power-using for weeks...

In the past week I binged 12 hours of lectures, skimmed a textbook, compiled 111 pages of lecture video scripts, and have so far made 357 PowerPoint slides. How do other professors prepare to teach? This is my first in-person class and I feel like I’m going a bit overboard…

I’m currently binging an entire semester of general psychology lectures on double speed because I am unhinged. I’m trying to prepare to record my own versions for the class I’m teaching in 2 weeks. This has been some winter break…

I'm teaching a Winter Session version of Abnormal Psychology, and I added a few assignments to motivate students to interact with their communities at the university's request. The first assignment had them interviewing people about how they view normal/abnormal. The responses are pretty incredible.

Consistent feedback from students has been that they enjoy when I use TikToks to promote and enhance discussion. As I develop a new class in the shadow of the TikTok ban, I’m trying to figure out how to pivot this strategy to other social media.