Listening to one of the Boodle Box facilitated webinars, I had a chance to listen to Cheney Luttich. As I listened, I took notes. The goal of this webinar is to address some of the ways GenAI can be helpful in higher education classrooms. I found Cheney’s approach, Active Annotation, intriguing since it hinges on using screenshots of actual student annotations of work.

Cheney writes about what she does in her classroom in this piece:

As students work in small groups on the day when a check is due, I go around the classroom and sit by each student.  I look through their book and study their written engagement.  I inquire after the questions they write in the margins.  I ask about the synonyms they write next to challenging words.  I explain to them how what they wrote on a particular page showcases their reading comprehension.  If a check’s guidelines require something more than what they produced, I show them where and how to do so.  They can go home, make those adjustments, and return the next class to recover those missed points.  

This really reminds me of my days facilitating a writing workshop for fifth and sixth grade students. At least, the one on one with writers and tracking what they’re learning to show progress.

Key Ideas

“By leveraging AI to analyze student annotations, educators can provide targeted feedback on student reading comprehension. This has the potential to enhance student writing skills without adding a significant workload” (AI-Generated quote from notes).

Here are some of the ideas I jotted down in my notebook:

• Cheney likes the concept of Integrated reading and writing (IRW). This is the idea that we can’t write well unless we’re reading.
• Active annotation is about asking students to take a piece they are reading, then to “mark it up, highlight, underline, write comments, etc.”

I have to pause for a moment in my notes to share that I HATED doing annotation in a book (still do) because I might want to sell it, loan it, and I never had enough space. That’s why I have notebooks littering my domicile, stuffed into every bag. I take notes. Lots of notes. They help me process content I’m reading, reflecting on, or considering speaking about.

• The AI component involves students doing the following:
  • Taking photos of their annotated notes
  • Asking questions of the AI using a prompt like this one:
    • “I wanna be a good reader, okay? Look at my annotations. What do you notice about me as a reader? What am I doing well? How can I improve? Give me some suggestions of annotation strategies I can use for my next reading assignment.”
  • Have students employ those suggested techniques and then have them reflect on it.
  • Capture student thinking by asking them to share their understanding in a quick write: A quick write is a comprehension check where students respond to an idea from a course text. The idea is to write as quickly as possible for five minutes, capturing any thoughts that come to mind. Instructors may follow up by sharing quick writes with the class for further discussion.