By posing provocative inquiries about local and state government, this worksheet is intended to ready students for abstract learning while guarding against conformity and encouraging critical thought. Specifically, students will be able to express their opinions on key concepts related to representative democracy, including elected officials, term limits, and the interconnectedness of state and federal politics

Author: Sharon Haigler
Editor: Mary Landry, C. Anneke Snyder
Supervisor: Terri Pantuso

In this section, we will examine how generative AI (GenAI) tools may assist with academic reading and research. Examples of content generated by ChatGPT will show how GenAI may be incorporated into a classroom setting. Each section offers suggestions for use and various strategies that could be incorporated for those who wish to allow the use of these tools for assignments. Included throughout are suggestions on how to promote students’ ethical and effective use of these tools and to possibly limit their use if desired. By the end of this section, you should be able to use GenAI to support reading practices.

Author: Jonahs Kneitly
Contributors: Gwendolyn Inocencio, Mary Landry, C. Anneke Snyder
Designers: Irene AI, Sweta Kailani
Supervisors: Terri Pantuso, Sarah LeMire

In this section, illustrative examples from ChatGPT show how to incorporate Large Language Models (LLMs) into the writing process while considering ethical concerns associated with such tools, namely avoiding plagiarism or exploitation of AI-generated content. The advent of public access to LLMs means they are now a critically important aspect of digital information literacy. As such, this technology must be addressed in the composition classroom with guided instruction. We recommend a strategy that models application of a modified version of stasis theory to all LLM-generated content.

After reading this section you should be prepared to teach stasis theory as a strategy for continual interrogation that helps rhetors discern whether generative-AI content exhibits appropriate depth, scope, and quality, along with the appropriate next steps in argumentation, writing, or research.

Author: Gwendolyn Inocencio
Contributors: C. Anneke Snyder, Mary Landry, Jonahs Kneitly
Designers: Irene AI, Shweta Kailani
Supervisors: Terri Pantuso, Sarah LeMire

This document explains what to do after an exam is completed in order to make changes prior to the next test cycle.

What intervention strategies can you align to this lesson?
Active Study Techniques
Levels of Learning (Bloom’s Taxonomy)
6 Strategies for Effective Learning
Exam Preparation

Author: Morgan Jones, PhD

The Academic Success Center at Texas A&M University operates with a mission to provide comprehensive resources that help all Aggies achieve their academic goals and realize their academic potential. This award-winning organization specializes in intervention strategies geared specifically toward academic success for all learners. Their knowledge base derives from attending nationally and regionally recognized conferences, serving on university-level committees, and conducting ongoing professional development, all in the area of diversity and inclusion. Their vision is to be a state and national model of excellence known for inspiring academic success through innovative collaboration, cutting edge research, and efficient and inclusive student-centered programming.

This component is about talking with professors, instructors, and teachers at a professional level of communication. The importance of effective communication with educators is discussed along with examples, case studies, and actionable items for students.

What intervention strategies can you align to this lesson?
Time Management

Author: Tyler Laughlin

The Academic Success Center at Texas A&M University operates with a mission to provide comprehensive resources that help all Aggies achieve their academic goals and realize their academic potential. This award-winning organization specializes in intervention strategies geared specifically toward academic success for all learners. Their knowledge base derives from attending nationally and regionally recognized conferences, serving on university-level committees, and conducting ongoing professional development, all in the area of diversity and inclusion. Their vision is to be a state and national model of excellence known for inspiring academic success through innovative collaboration, cutting edge research, and efficient and inclusive student-centered programming.

This resource contains activity handouts, a rubric, a facilitation guide, and tex files. The material is meant to be used for those teaching a college algebra course. The activities are meant to provide a deeper understanding (than a traditional course offers) of some of the topics covered in a college algebra course. The activities are intended for group activities and options exist for use in a single class or multiple classes.

This resource contains activity handouts and considerations for facilitators. This resource is part of the Teaching Excellence Toolkit to help accomplish the College Readiness Goal: I want students to learn from their mistakes.Activity Description:After assignments are returned, provide students an activity in which they analyze and learn from a mistake they made on the assignment or reflect on a part of the assignment they found particularly challenging.

This resource contains activity handouts and considerations for facilitators. This resource is part of the Teaching Excellence Toolkit to help accomplish the College Readiness Goal: I want students to collaborate effectively for learning. 

This resource contains activity handouts, a rubric, a facilitation guide, and tex files. The material is meant to be used for those teaching a college algebra course. The activities are meant to provide a deeper understanding (than a traditional course offers) of some of the topics covered in a college algebra course. The activities are intended for group activities and options exist for use in a single class or multiple classes.

Some words may not cause a particular emotional reaction whereas other words with similar meanings may fire up anger, joy, fear, or other emotions. Authors may choose to use more emotional words to convey a particular tone in their writing, and critical readers need to be aware of this literary device to maintain an objective view of the topic and not be subtly swayed by the author’s attitude.

In this worksheet, students will evaluate groups of words and identify the choice that suggests a more emotional response. The objective is for students to hone their ability to assess tone, connotation, and denotation through word choice.

Author: Sharon Haigler
Editor: Mary Landry, C. Anneke Snyder
Supervisor: Terri Pantuso

This section is designed to build confidence about what Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) means for the future of education by closely studying the operations, limitations, and theoretical value of a Large Language Model (LLM) like ChatGPT. To this end, this section seeks to explain what language modeling is and how this process contributes to an LLM’s tendency to generate inaccurate information. Additionally, this section considers how the design of an LLM—specifically, the collective knowledge it is trained upon—can contribute to the perpetuation of biases. Lastly, this section encourages critical thinking about the value of an LLM from a theoretical standpoint regarding the writing process and collaborative learning. By the end of this section, you should be able to articulate how an LLM like ChatGPT operates, as well as the value and limitations of this design within the evolution of learning.

Author: Mary Landry
Contributors: Gwendolyn Inocencio, C. Anneke Snyder, Jonahs Kneitly
Designers: Irene AI, Shweta Kailani
Supervisors: Terri Pantuso, Sarah LeMire

This two-part unit provides instructors with materials to encourage student development of information literacy skills. The unit can be understood as supplemental materials for the OER textbook Informed Arguments: A Guide to Writing and Research with particular focus on the research aspect of writing and argumentation, or the materials could be useful on its own, for instructors who do not teach with the Informed Arguments textbook. It addresses, most specifically, how to find and evaluate source material. It covers things like types of sources, biases, peer-review processes, and other information literacy skills helpful for successful college writing. It includes 1) general instructor notes, 2) an online discussion activity, 3) a quiz about evaluation of sources, 4) a Research Journal (short essay) assignment, 5) a rubric for the short essay, and 6) a further information resource guide for faculty about information literacy and the college classroom.

Part 1: https://pressbooks.library.tamu.edu/engl1301/chapter/research-and-argumentation-teacher-facing-lesson/
Part 2: https://pressbooks.library.tamu.edu/engl1301/chapter/research-and-information-literacy-student-facing-assignment/

Author: Michael Gardin
Editor: Mary Landry, C. Anneke Snyder
Supervisor: Terri Pantuso

This two-part unit provides instructors with materials to encourage student development of information literacy skills. The unit can be understood as supplemental materials for the OER textbook Informed Arguments: A Guide to Writing and Research with particular focus on the research aspect of writing and argumentation, or the materials could be useful on its own, for instructors who do not teach with the Informed Arguments textbook. It addresses, most specifically, how to find and evaluate source material. It covers things like types of sources, biases, peer-review processes, and other information literacy skills helpful for successful college writing. It includes 1) general instructor notes, 2) an online discussion activity, 3) a quiz about evaluation of sources, 4) a Research Journal (short essay) assignment, 5) a rubric for the short essay, and 6) a further information resource guide for faculty about information literacy and the college classroom.

Part 1: https://pressbooks.library.tamu.edu/engl1301/chapter/research-and-argumentation-teacher-facing-lesson/
Part 2: https://pressbooks.library.tamu.edu/engl1301/chapter/research-and-information-literacy-student-facing-assignment/

Author: Michael Gardin
Editor: Mary Landry, C. Anneke Snyder
Supervisor: Terri Pantuso

Upon successful completion of this assignment, students will
- create a well-organized personal narrative essay that includes all the essential components of a story, such as an introduction, setting, characters, plot (rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution), and conclusion.
- apply descriptive writing techniques, including the use of vivid diction and dialogue, to paint a clear picture in the reader’s mind and maintain an authentic writer’s voice.
- evaluate the effectiveness of their drafting by seeking feedback from peers and revising for clarity, organization, tone, and audience awareness.

Author: Kimberly Stelly
Editor: Mary Landry, C. Anneke Snyder
Supervisor: Terri Pantuso

Upon successful completion of this assignment, students will
- define and distinguish the various types of phrases and clauses.
- analyze sample texts to recognize and label what phrases and clauses are present.
- construct sentences that incorporate specific types of phrases and clauses.

Author: Pujarinee Mitra
Editor: Mary Landry, C. Anneke Snyder
Supervisor: Terri Pantuso

Upon successful completion of this assignment, students will
- prepare for reading a text by analyzing its title through the 5W1H (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How) questioning technique.

Author: Christopher Manes
Editor: Mary Landry, C. Anneke Snyder
Supervisor: Terri Pantuso

Upon successful completion of this lesson, students will
- analyze a text by completing a graphic organizer that identifies an author’s use of evidence and rhetorical devices.
- evaluate the impact of these devices on the target audience.

A PowerPoint lesson is included

Author: Brandi Morley
Editor: Mary Landry, C. Anneke Snyder
Supervisor: Terri Pantuso

This handout serves as a tool for introducing students to textual analysis, encompassing its definition, objective, significance, various approaches, and considerations for analyzing text.

Authors: Brandi Morley, C. Anneke Snyder
Editor: Mary Landry
Supervisor: Terri Pantuso

Upon successful completion of this lesson, students will
- review the steps in the writing process (Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, Editing, Publishing).
- generate ideas about a topic using three prewriting strategies (Listing, Freewriting, Clustering).
- reflect and discuss the various prewriting strategies as well as their importance to the writing process.

A PowerPoint lesson is included.

Author: Brandi Morley
Editor: Mary Landry, C. Anneke Snyder
Supervisor: Terri Pantuso

In this section, you will gain insights about privacy and confidentiality concerns related to a form of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) known as Large Language Models (LLMs) and, specifically, OpenAI’s policies about ChatGPT.

The full extent of privacy and confidentiality risks in relation to ChatGPT, which relies on collective intelligence for information gathering and dissemination, has not been fully realized. Users should be mindful of OpenAI’s terms of use, particularly as those terms are subject to change. Though OpenAI claims to not share private user information, the language around such statements is vague and contradictory, and there is a strong possibility that personal information may be monitored by human proctors. Moreover, educators who are bound to the legal obligations outlined in FERPA should be particularly concerned about how student privacy could be potentially violated by using ChatGPT and other GenAI technologies.

After reading this section, you should be able to articulate and discuss OpenAI’s significant terms of use and privacy policy, consider the potential privacy and intellectual property violations contained within the collective intelligence paradigm, and communicate your own concerns about privacy and confidentiality in relation to GenAI technologies.

Author: C. Anneke Snyder
Contributors: Gwendolyn Inocencio, Mary Landry, Jonahs Kneitly
Designers: Irene AI, Sweta Kailani
Supervisors: Terri Pantuso, Sarah LeMire