Title: Teaching Basics
Course: AI Guide Academy > Section: Teaching Basics (TB)

In this book, you'll learn the basics of pedagogy (Didaktik, auf Deutsch). By designing your own educational workshop, you'll understand the ins and outs of good teaching. You're welcome to use AI to help you through the activities. Just remember to evaluate the quality of the output before sharing!

Teaser

As an AI Guide, you will be using AI in educational settings. In order to do this well, you have to know a bit about how education works. What better way to do that, than to take on the role of a teacher .

In this module, you will design a workshop - which is like a lecture with more interaction - on a topic of your choice. You'll walk through the design process, from the logistics of planning to the self-recflection at the end.

Remember: when you design a workshop using proven pedagogical methods, your participants will both learn more and have more fun!

Note: To "turn the pages" of this book, click on the arrows at the top right and left of each page. They look like this:

First Step - Don't Panic

Familiarize yourself with the logistics of holding a workshop. Considering these factors will also help alleviate your worries about becoming the person at the front of the class!

Now it's your turn. Imagine you are giving a workshop about a topic of your choice. It could be like a tutorial for new students in your field, or an introduction to your hobby. Pick a topic, a location, and all the other details. Describe all of this briefly in the Teaching Basics forum. Check out what other people are doing, too, and tell them what you think.

For the Parrots (optionally for Robins), fill in the details in the form below. On the last page, you can either download a docx file, or copy and paste your answers to a text-editing program of your choice. Save this to submit with a few other documents at the end of this unit.

SItuation-Analysis.h5p

Prepare the Content

You can think of a workshop as a type of learning environment, just as a course is another type. The purpose of learning environments is to enable students (or participants) to acquire certain knowledge, or a certain skill.

When designing a learning environment, there are three initial questions that need to be answered. Click on the image below to see them.

Constructive_Alignment_triangle.h5p

The association of learning outcomes, teaching and learning methods, and examinations is called Constructive Alignment.

In the following pages, you will learn more about how to set goals (aka learning outcomes), how to design the content of your workshop (aka teaching and learning activities), and how to know if your participants learned anything (aka assessment).

Setting Goals

Set goals for your workshop by completing this sentence: At the end of my workshop, participants will be able to ....

Notice that the next word should be a verb, an action! These goals (also called a "learning goal" or "learning outcome" in education) help focus your planning and communicate to participants what they will get out of attending your workshop.

Here are some guidelines for creating good goals:

- Precise learning goals release concrete images - formulate your goals as precisely as possible.
- Write it down; this increases commitment.
- Goals are always formulated positively. We have no inner images for a "NO".
- A good learning goal challenges, but gives the feeling that it is achievable.
- The SMART formula can help you with the formulation of your learning goals.

SMART_Goals.h5p

Check your understanding...

SMART_Goals_test.h5p

This type of goal setting is great for everyday life. In academia, there is an additional model we often use, called Bloom's Taxonomy. This model breaks down cognitive processes (thinking) into six levels, which can be visualized in the triangle below. The idea behind this hierarchy is that students need to master the base of the triangle before they can master higher cognitive functions.

Blooms_Taxonomy.h5p

Now, it's your turn. For your upcoming workshop, write a few goals for your participants. What do you want them to be able to do? What do you want them to learn? Post your goals to the forum and then give feedback to your peers.

For the Parrots (optionally for Robins), after you get some feedback from your peers in the forum write down your revised goals. You can use the form below to create a document, or any other program. This is part 2 of your TB capstone, which you'll submit iat the end of this unit.

Workshop-Goals.h5p

Organize the Content

Now, on to the meat of your workshop. What are you actually going to do with your participants?

We recommend using the acronym ARIVA, which stands for:

Arriving
Reactivating
Informing
Processing (Verarbeiten auf Deutsch)
Assessing

When you break your workshop up into three main parts, the ARIVA parts fit nicely into each:

1. Introduction = Arriving
2. Body = Reactivating + Informing + Processing
3. Conclusion = Assessing

We'll take a look at each part in turn in the next few pages.

Introduction

The participants are walking through the door. What do I do?!

First things first! Watch the following video for ideas on how to start your workshop off on the right foot.

In short, you have three main things to accomplish in the first 10% of the time you have with your participants:

1. Welcome the participants
2. Introduce everyone
3. Set expectations

Here are a few ice breakers we like. You can find hundreds of other ideas by searching online (or asking your AI partner). Drag the names of the activity to the description below.

Ice Breakers.h5p

On the next page, we'll get into the meat of your workshop. Turn the page to learn more...

Body

The main part of your workshop consists of the ARIVA parts: Reactivating + Informing + Processing. First, a little detail about each of these parts, then a short video about putting it all together.

Reactivating

Reactivating means reminding your participants of some knowledge that they already have that's related to your topic. For example,

- Ask participants to think about how they already use AI in their daily lives. This also gives you a sense of how experienced your group is.
- Ask participants what the biggest benefits and risks to using AI in teaching are. This could prepare them for a later discussion on the ethics of AI.

Depending on the size of your group, how you engage them may differ. For example,

- For small groups, have them share with the whole group one at a time.
- For larger groups, they can share in pairs or in small groups.
- For really large groups, you can use a digital tool to poll them.

Here are a few reactivation activities we like. Drag the names of the activity to the description below.

Reactivating.h5p

Informing

Informing is more-or-less what it sounds like. This is the "lecture-like" part of your workshop, where you present new information to your participants. This often takes the form of a PowerPoint presentation, but it could also be a demonstration of an AI tool. I'm sure you have more ideas! If you use a whiteboard, for this workshop or for teaching, check out the tips below.

board-presentations.h5p

Most importantly, keep your informing part short, 10-15 minutes at a time is best. Depending on how long your workshop is, you might have 2, 3, or even 5 different informing parts. Each informing part should be preceded by a brief reactivating activity and followed by some time for processing.

Processing

The Processing part of ARIVA is the fun part! This is when participants get to dive into the topic and really grapple with the new ideas you've presented. There are dozens of ways to get your participants active and engaged. Here are just a few:

- Small (or large) group discussions.
- Using an AI tool for a specific task, like making an interactive video.
- Using an LLM to research sides of a debate.

Here are a few of our favorite processing activities. Drag the name to the description of the activity.

Processing.h5p

Conclusion

At the end of your workshop, you'll want to know if the participants have acheived the goals you created for them. You'll also want to know how you could improve for next time. This is the last A of ARIVA (assessing).

Likewise, at the end of a course, instructors need to evaluate the students to see if they have acheived the learning goals. They usually do this in some form of exam or assessment.

Quality-Criteria.h5p

What does this look like in a workshop?

Now it's your turn. Revisit your goals and develop specific questions that you could ask your participants or tasks for them to complete to evaluate whether they have acheived those goals or not.

Post your ideas in the Teaching Basics forum and get some feedback (give some, too).

For the Parrots (optionally for Robins), once you get some feedback, save your revised assessment and submit at the end of this module.

Assess.h5p

Chunking

But how do you know how many activities to do with your participants? A good rule of thumb is 45 minutes to an hour per "unit". This includes a brief reactivation (5 minutes), you informing the participants of something new (10 minutes), then they process the new information (30 minutes). When you "chunk" your workshop, it makes planning much smoother. I explain more about chunking in the next video.

Remember: A tutorial is very similar to a workshop, because you want to give your students a chance to process (V) the information that they got in lecture. In lecture, there is much more time spent "informing (I)" and a lot less time for "processing (V)". But it's still useful to include it all.

Now it's your turn! Map out what learning goal and activity you will cover during which part of the workshop. Give the participants (and yourself) breaks! Use Excel, Word, Miro, or whatever tool you want. Don't forget to ask your friendly LLM for help . Here is a link to a practice Miro board, if you want to check it out. If you like it, you can make a free educational account here.

Post your plan to the forum (image, text or video description, ...). Then give feedback to at least two others.

For the Parrots (optionally for Robins), after revising your plan based on the feedback you got, you'llsubmit this document with the others at the end of this unit.

Afterward

Your workshop is over, now what?

I am sure many of you already know some of these things, so let's just reactivate your knowledge by dragging the words to their correct space in the text:

First of all

There may be some participants who approach you afterward for a private chat. Give them your attention first, as much as possible.

drag-the-words (1).h5p

drag-the-words.h5p

Wrapping it all up

In this book, you learned all about pedagogy (didaktik auf Deutsch). In designing a workshop, you:

- Created goals for your participants,
- Chose or designed activities to help your participants acheive those goals,
- Created tasks for your participants to do, to prove they acheived those goals,
- And put it all together in a cohesive workshop.

You've also shared your effort in the forum and given feedback to your peers.

Congratulations on a job well done!

If you're on the Parrot track (optionally for Robins), upload your revised documents to the capstone assignment.

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