Critical Thinking Bootcamp 2023

Sharing skills, tools, and resources for librarians and faculty to combat misinformation in the face of constantly changing technology 

How can you cultivate critical thinking skills in students when artificial intelligence does the thinking for them? Sage’s Critical Thinking Bootcamp returned Tuesday, August 8 for a day of insights, guidance, and resources to help librarians and professors promote critical thinking in the digital age. In each of the webinar’s three sessions, a panel of librarians and social and behavioral sciences will share techniques and perspectives on the challenge and potential of generative AI in higher education.

Sage’s fourth annual Critical Thinking Bootcamp provided insights, guidance, and resources to help librarians, professors, and other staff encourage critical thinking in and out of the classroom. In the three sessions, panelists addressed the impact of tech trends on our media ecosystem and discussed tactics useful for educating students.

Experienced librarians, faculty, and students spoke on:

  • “Asking the Right Questions: Prompt Engineering as a Tool for Critical Thinking” with Dr. Jonathan Michael Spector, Dr. Madeleine Mejia, and Dr. Raymond Pun

    As some faculty and schools prohibit the use of generative AI in completing assignments, others embrace it. The key to doing this successfully is revamping assignments to encourage students to engage in an active, iterative dialogue with the tools rather than passively accepting their output as a one-and-done outcome. How can faculty and instructional librarians:

    • help students ask better questions to get at what they intend;

    • refine their prompts in response to shortcomings in the output;

    • fact-check the results and, crucially, situate them in their broader context;

    • and decide which pieces are actually useful to make their point or achieve their goal

    Participants will share how they are using AI in class and assignments to foster, not replace, critical thinking skills in their students. Can AI support critical thinking instead of help students skip it, thereby hindering its development? How?

  • “Fact-Checking the Hive Mind: Detecting Mis- and Disinformation” with Dan Chibnall, Dr. Richard Wood, and Dr. Brooklyne Gipson

    Many tools used by students to assess the accuracy and bias of information rely on knowing where, and who, that information came from: Who funded the study? What is the political position of the news outlet? Is that a reputable journal? Others, often applied to less scholarly concerns like scam emails and fake online reviews, sometimes involve spotting spelling and grammar errors. But in the era of large language models that don’t share the details of their training data, it can be impossible to tell who originally said the authoritative-sounding information being presented as fact in flawless, or at least technically proficient, prose.  Without those cues, how can students best learn to identify signs of AI “hallucinations” or bias in the training data – or, more subtly, bias in what was omitted from the training data --- especially as more of the available material to check it against may have been generated by the same tools? Panelists will share their techniques as well as their real-world experience adjusting to this new normal.

  • “What Your Students Want from AI, and What They Want You to Know” with Sarah Morris, Dr. Brady Beard, Anne Lester, and Will Lam

    Hear from a panel of students and researchers on how they do and don’t use AI tools and why; how they learn about them and what they learn from them; what classroom and institutional policies feel useful or out of touch; and how they feel the advent of AI is changing their education—and what they want out of it. If AI doesn’t turn out to be the next metaverse bubble, the jobs that still need to be done by humans will likely center on critical thinking while also including the use of AI tools: what do students want from higher ed to best prepare them for that future?

Dr. Leo Lo, dean of the University of New Mexico’s College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences, will provide a keynote address—What is the future of teaching critical thinking skills when AI can do the work?  

A recording of the webinar and a copy of all slides will be distributed to participants after the event. Participants will also receive a comprehensive toolkit of resources designed to help them combat misinformation and encourage critical thinking in and out of the classroom. 

Speakers:

Leo Lo (Keynote)

Dr. Leo S. Lo is a respected academic leader with a passion for integrating artificial intelligence in library science and education. As the Dean and Professor of the College of University Libraries and Learning Services at the University of New Mexico, he guides library operations and university programs. Dr. Lo's academic background includes a doctorate degree in Higher Education Management from the University of Pennsylvania; an MLIS degree from Florida State University; and a master’s degree in screenwriting, and survey research. Dr. Lo is a recognized author and speaker on topics such as library science, leadership, and education. His focus on AI's role in library services and information literacy initiatives led to his current leadership role in UNM’s AI literacy effort. As the president-elect of ACRL, Dr. Lo continues to champion the advancement of academic libraries and their critical role in higher education.

Meredith Schwartz

Meredith Schwartz is Managing Editor of CQ Researcher, which publishes weekly in-depth, journalistic reports on issues in current events – including Artificial Intelligence – for academic libraries. Before joining Sage, she was Editor-in-Chief of Library Journal. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, too many books, and one spoiled Siberian cat.

J. Michael Spector

Dr. Spector is a professor of learning technologies at the University of North Texas. His research includes intelligent support for instructional design, system dynamics-based learning environments, assessing learning in complex domains, distance learning, and technology integration in education. He is a member of the executive committee of the IEEE Learning Technology Technical Committee and has served as executive vice president of the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance, and Instruction (IBSTPI), is past president of the Association for Educational and Communications Technology (AECT) and was editor of the Educational Technology Research and Development journal. He has written over 125 journal articles, book chapters, and books, and co-edited two editions of the Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology, the Encyclopedia of Educational Technology.

Madeleine Mejia

Dr. Madeleine Mejia has more than two decades of professional experience and expertise in the preparation of K-12 educators as literacy experts. Her courses focus on issues of diagnosis and remediation of reading and writing needs; critical literacy; diversity and critical self-reflective practices. Her research interests include making space for students’ voices in the learning and teaching process; teachers’ roles and active agency in professional development/inquiry into professional practice; and critical literacy and equity education. Dr. Mejia's service has been recognized by the Harvard Alumni Association for Outstanding Leadership in Service; the Harvard Latino Alumni Alliance for Excellence in Educational Leadership; and Phi Delta Kappa in Service in Education. She is a member of advisory boards supporting literacy instruction, diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives.

Raymond Pun

Raymond Pun (he/him) is the academic and research librarian at the Alder Graduate School of Education, a teacher residency program in California, where he supports library services by engaging with residents and teacher educators. With over 17 years of experience in the library field, Ray has previously worked at Stanford University, Fresno State, New York University Shanghai, and The New York Public Library in various roles. Ray is the Immediate past president of the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA) and the Asian-Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA). He holds a doctorate in education from Fresno State, a Master of Library Science from the City University of New York - Queens College, a Master of Arts in East Asian Studies, and a Bachelor of Arts in History from St. John's University.

Dan Chibnall

Dan Chibnall received his MLS from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2005. He is the STEM Librarian at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa and has been in that role since July 2016. Prior to that, he served as the User Services and Instructional Design Librarian at Grand View University for ten years. His focus is on embedded librarianship, information literacy, science communication, information behaviors, and helping students become better researchers. Dan teaches courses on the relationship between science fiction & science, misinformation & personal information behaviors, and science communication's role in educating the public about the role of science in everyday life. He also currently serves as the Past-President of the Iowa Library Association.

Richard Wood

Dr. Wood is an associate professor of practice at the Norton School of Human Ecology, University of Arizona. He has developed and teaches a course in critical thinking and rhetoric and authored the text “The Little Book: A Beginners Guide to Discovering your Rhetorical Voice.” Before joining the University of Arizona faculty, he was a senior lecturer at Arizona State University, during which he developed and taught undergraduate and graduate clinical assessment research methods and statistics. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication Theory from the University of Arizona.

Brooklyne Gipson

Brooklyne Gipson is an assistant professor of communication at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is an interdisciplinary scholar whose areas of research include digital and social media environments, Black feminist digital/technology studies, and the intersection of race, gender, social media, and power. Her work examines how social media platforms facilitate civic engagement within Black communities. Her current research takes an intersectional approach to analyzing how anti-Black discourses manifest themselves in everyday discursive exchanges within Black social media spaces.

Richard Rosen

Rick Rosen is a retired professor of practice and chair of the Personal and Family Financial Planning program at the University of Arizona. Following a successful 25-plus year career as a partner and owner of a boutique transactional law firm in Vail, CO, with specialties in corporate law, estate planning, and zoning and land use planning. Rick developed and led a Certified Financial Planner-approved degree program in personal financial planning which was formally approved by the Arizona Board of Regents, and the CFP Board of Standards. During his career, he taught business law and ethics, personal and family estate planning, professional conduct, and fiduciary responsibility, and coordinated student internships in the financial services industry.

Sarah Morris

Sarah Morris is a librarian, educator, and curriculum designer whose research and work focuses on critical information, digital, and media literacy, misinformation, civic engagement, and library and information science education. Sarah has been a librarian for ten years and received her Master's in Information Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. She held positions at Loyola University Chicago and the University of Texas and served as the Head of Instruction and Engagement at the Emory University Libraries. In addition to her work in libraries, Sarah has worked on curriculum projects with partners that include the Mozilla Foundation and the Carter Center. She currently works as a Research Coordinator and Instructional Strategist on an NSF-grant project on science communication and misinformation, managed by media Hacks/Hackers and the University of Washington.

Brady Beard

Brady Beard, PhD (he/him) is the reference and instruction librarian at Pitts Theology Library, Candler School of Theology, Emory University. He received his doctorate in religious studies from Emory University and is completing an MLIS from the University of Alabama. With six years of reference and user services experience, Brady is passionate about connecting people to resources. He presents and publishes on library instruction and religious studies. Brady’s research interests include the information-seeking behaviors of religious persons, critical information literacy, ancient religious conceptions of plants and animals, and theological education. You can find him on Mastodon at @theolib_b@glammer.us or ORCID.

Hannah Pearson

Hannah Jane Pearson is a fiction writer and recent graduate of the University of South Carolina’s Master of Fine Arts creative writing program. She is a currently corporate communications intern with Sage.

Anne Lester

Anne Lester is a second-year student in the Master of Theological Studies program at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. As a youth, she watched her father obtain several degrees and realized the importance of lifelong learning. Following her graduation next spring, she intends to pursue a Ph.D., and ultimately have a career as a professor. She hopes that this will give her the opportunity to continue pursuing her own research interests and encourage the rising generation to pursue their own.

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