David Buck

@dbuckedu.bsky.social

2061 Followers 3029 Following

Professor of English at a community college. Teaching composition (online & hybrid). #TempleMade. Interested in #SDGs, #pedagogy, #ungrading, #AIResistance, & #OER. Ungrading.weebly.com

Image of a brain merged with a computer chip. Under the image are the words: More Than Words Virtual Book Club
Though the most basic and fundamental use of language is in face-to-face communication, once we have acquired a linguistic system, we can use it to understand linguistic artitacts even in the absence of co-situatedness, at a distance of space and even time. But we still apply the same techniques of imagining the mind behind the text, constructing a model of common ground with the author, and seeking to guess what the author might have been using the words to get their audience to understand. Language models, problematically, have no subjectivity with which to perform intersubjectivity. Despite the frequent claims of Al researchers, these models do not learn "just like children do." Simply modeling the distribution of words in text provides no access to meaning, nothing from which to deduce communicative intent. Language models thus represent nothing more than exttensive information about what sets of words are similar and what words are likely to appear in what contexts. While this isn't meaning or understanding, it is enough to produce plausible synthetic text, on just about any topic imaginable, which turns out to be quite dangerous: we encounter text that looks just like something a person might have said and reflexively interpret it, through our usual process of imagining a mind behind the text. But there is no mind there, and we need to be conscientious to let go of that imaginary mind we have constructed.
Image of a brain merged with a computer chip. Under the image are the words: More Than Words Virtual Book Club
Image of a presentation slide. Pedagogical concerns: "As the linguist Emily M. Bender has noted, teachers don’t ask students to write essays because the world needs more student essays. The point of writing essays is to strengthen students’ critical-thinking skills; in the same way that lifting weights is useful no matter what sport an athlete plays, writing essays develops skills necessary for whatever job a college student will eventually get. Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way."
Image of presentation slide. Political concerns: “Axios cited senior State Department officials to report that an AI-fueled ‘Catch and Revoke’ effort will include AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders' social media accounts.” Photo of an article with students protesting in front of a university building while holding up a white banner.
Pedagogical Concerns As the linguist Emily M. Bender has noted, teachers don’t ask students to write essays because the world needs more student essays. The point of writing essays is to strengthen students’ critical-thinking skills; in the same way that lifting weights is useful no matter what sport an athlete plays, writing essays develops skills necessary for whatever job a college student will eventually get. Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way. Ted Chiang, “Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art: To create a novel or a painting, an artist makes choices that are fundamentally alien to artificial intelligence.” The New Yorker
Question 3: I have NOT used any GenAI tool (ex: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grammarly, Copilot, etc.) to generate content in my blog posting. My blog posting submission complies with Professor Buck's 🌐 Policy for AI Usage in ENGL-121Links to an external site.. My blog posting is 100% my wording and sentence structure (warts and all!). This ensures that I am interested in developing my unique writing voice. My focus is not on being perfect but on growing and improving within my writing practice. True/False
Broader Concerns “AI can't be relied on to give a useful answer to a factual question, but it will still give an answer no matter how conspiratorial or delusional the question is. We can see how useful this is to the technofascist agenda in the way Elon Musk's DOGE team is using LLMs to decide which money to cut and who to fire, based on imaginary connections to hated concepts like ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion.’” —Dan McQuillan (interview with Diyar Saraçoğlu) Image of Dan's book. Resisting AI on a blue background with technical webbing.
Full-on Clarity! “Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone [AI] to talk [write] without knowing what [it’s] talking [writing] about. Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person’s [AI’s] obligations or opportunities to speak [write] about some topic exceed [its] knowledge of facts that are relevant to that topic. This discrepancy is common in public life [college], where people [LLMs] are frequently impelled — [. . .] by the demands of others [students] — to speak [write] extensively about matters of which they are to some degree ignorant.” —Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit, 2005
Ethical Concerns (which ethics are we talking about?) The 3 Es of AI refusal: Ethically compromised, Extractive (environment), Exploitive (human labor). An image of a webinar presentation.
Image of a black snake eating its own tail. Based on the ancient Egyptian symbol representing the infinite cycle of time.
An A.I. tool may learn how to superficially mimic the end result of writing, but it will never mimic a writer’s soul or how he or she actually produces meaningful writing — that process by which an individual idiosyncratic mind works out a problem, granting readers access to the inner life of another actual person, that constitutes the lifeblood of writing and storytelling.
Image of a brain merged with a computer chip. Under the image are the words: More Than Words Virtual Book Club
UN (prefix): used for giving word the opposite meaning • UNgrading-instead of grades, use feedback and student reflections to focus on learning rather than performance • UNessay-instead of traditional academic formats, use authentic modes of writing (blogs, memes, websites) • UNsyllabus—instead of boring, policy-driven syllabi, use a "liquid syllabus" as a humanizing first contact with students #HumanizeOL (via@brocansky.bsky.social) • UNtextbook—instead of a costly commercial text, use a free openly licensed one #OER • UNLMS—instead of using an LMS, display your content in open, outward-facing platforms • UNdiscussions-instead of a discussion board in an LMS, use social #annotation • UNdisposable assignments-instead of using assignments that die with the course, design assignments that students can use in their lives after your course has ended (via@brocansky.bsky.social) • UNconference—instead of traditional events with a keynote and a schedule of pre-planned sessions, encourage participants to drive the conversation and their learning #Edcamp • UNleading-instead of a leadership based on compliance, hierarchy, or fear, lead from a position that encourages humanity, inclusion, reflection, and systemic change (via @VidyaShah6) • UNstuffing-instead of over-packing a course with stuff like content/assignments, create moments of rest that enable curiosity and make pedagogic choices that allow students to marinate, to listen to their bodies, and to develop their curiosities organically (via @jessicazeller.bsky.social) • UNlecture —instead of long, drawn-out traditional lectures, provide micro-lectures and bumper videos (2-3 min videos that clarify a sticky topic) (via @brocansky.bsky.social)
Image of a globe (earth) with a graduation cap on its top. On a banner midway across the globe are the words: Failing Our Future Virtual Book Club. The cap and globe are blue.
What happens when we focus on labor rather than on grades? "I believe that the amount of time that went into my work showed in how well I did each assignment. I worked my hardest in this class, not just because I wanted a good grade. I worked hard because I thoroughly enjoyed the work that we did. I like being able to focus on labor because don't need to stress out too much about what grade I will get, and I feel that if I'm less stressed out I can produce better writing compared to when I'm anxious." — student reflection
Assessment derives from the Latin “assidere” meaning to sit beside. Conferring is one of the most effective forms of authentic assessment.
September 28, 1956 Dear Mr. Adams : Thanks for your letter inviting me to join the committee of the Arts and Sciences for Eisenhower. I must decline, for secret reasons. Sincerely, E. B. White
When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Image of a globe (earth) with a graduation cap on its top. On a banner midway across the globe are the words: Failing Our Future Virtual Book Club. The cap and globe are blue.
If every action which is good, or evill in man at ripe years, were to be under pittance, and prescription, and compulsion, what were vertue but a name, what praise could be then due to well-doing, what gramercy to be sober, just or continent? many there be that complain of divin Providence for suffering Adam to transgresse, foolish tongues! when God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had bin else a meer artificiall Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions. We our selves esteem not of that obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force: God therefore left him free, set before him a provoking object, ever almost in his eyes herein consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of his abstinence.
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell. Not free, what proof could they have givn sincere Of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love, Where onely what they needs must do, appeard, [ 105 ] Not what they would? what praise could they receive? What pleasure I from such obedience paid, When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice) Useless and vain, of freedom both despoild, Made passive both, had servd necessitie, [ 110 ] Not mee. They therefore as to right belongd, So were created, nor can justly accuse Thir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate, As if predestination over-rul'd Thir will, dispos'd by absolute Decree [ 115 ] Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed Thir own revolt, not I: if I foreknew, Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault, Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown. So without least impulse or shadow of Fate, [ 120 ] Or aught by me immutablie foreseen, They trespass, Authors to themselves in all Both what they judge and what they choose; for so I formd them free, and free they must remain, Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change [ 125 ] Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain'd Thir freedom, they themselves ordain'd thir fall. The first sort by thir own suggestion fell, Self-tempted, self-deprav'd: Man falls deceiv'd [ 130 ] By the other first: Man therefore shall find grace, The other none: in Mercy and Justice both, Through Heav'n and Earth, so shall my glorie excel, But Mercy first and last shall brightest shine.
What think'st thou then of mee, and this my State, Seem I to thee sufficiently possest Of happiness, or not? who am alone [ 405 ] From all Eternitie, for none I know Second to mee or like, equal much less. How have I then with whom to hold converse Save with the Creatures which I made, and those To me inferiour, infinite descents [ 410 ] Beneath what other Creatures are to thee?
When I Consider How My Light Is Spent “When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide, “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is Kingly: thousands at his bidding speed, And post o’er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.”
Assessment derives from the Latin “assidere” meaning to sit beside. Conferring is one of the most effective forms of authentic assessment.
Rembrandt's Portrait of an Old Woman. A pale-skinned older woman looks down and to our left in front of a shadowy background in this vertical painting. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the woman’s face, hands, and clothing. Her shoulders square toward us but she looks down and to the side with heavy-lidded, sunken eyes. Her face is deeply lined between her eyebrows, down the sides of her nose, and at the corners of her mouth. Her cheeks sag in jowls on either side of a fleshy chin, and her thin lips are set in a line. An earth-brown hood rests across the crown of her head and droops to her shoulders, where it meets the cloak. The background is also dark brown.
Ethics In ethics class so many years ago our teacher asked this question every fall: if there were a fire in a museum which would you save, a Rembrandt painting or an old woman who hadn't many years left anyhow? Restless on hard chairs caring little for pictures or old age we'd opt one year for life, the next for art and always half-heartedly. Sometimes the woman borrowed my grandmother's face leaving her usual kitchen to wander some drafty, half imagined museum. One year, feeling clever, I replied why not let the woman decide herself? Linda, the teacher would report, eschews the burdens of responsibility. This fall in a real museum I stand before a real Rembrandt, old woman, or nearly so, myself. The colors within this frame are darker than autumn, darker even than winter — the browns of earth, though earth's most radiant elements burn through the canvas. I know now that woman and painting and season are almost one and all beyond saving by children.
“Long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.” —John Milton, Paradise Lost
“People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers—a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars—and on up through the university.” —Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline
ut say I could repent and could obtaine By Act of Grace my former state; how soon Would higth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay [ 95 ] What feign'd submission swore: ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void. For never can true reconcilement grow Where wounds of deadly hate have peirc'd so deep: Which would but lead me to a worse relapse [ 100 ] And heavier fall: so should I purchase deare Short intermission bought with double smart. This knows my punisher; therefore as farr From granting hee, as I from begging peace: All hope excluded thus, behold in stead [ 105 ] Of us out-cast, exil'd, his new delight, Mankind created, and for him this World. So farewel Hope, and with Hope farewel Fear, Farewel Remorse: all Good to me is lost; Evil be thou my Good; by thee at least [ 110 ] Divided Empire with Heav'ns King I hold By thee, and more then half perhaps will reigne; As Man ere long, and this new World shall know.
“The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least We shall be free: th’Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in hell; Better to reign in hell than serve in heav’n.” –Paradise Lost, Book One, lines 254-263 John Milton
“The flaw in the educational system, as far as I can see it, is that you live your life—the teacher and the student—in quest of A’s. Yet later in life, the A is irrelevant.” —Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist
So what that rhetoric around AI is telling us is to surrender our human freedom, and to me that’s such a profound violation of what is good about being human. The idea that we should give that up would mean giving up the possibility of artistic growth, of political growth, of moral growth — and I don’t think we should do that.
Part of the problem is the broader higher education context that incentivises students to value the qualification, not the education, and that needs fixing as well. But there are a lot of tools that students can use that don't accept this framing, and my colleagues and I certainly don't accept it. The reason AI offends me so much is that it fully accepts this framing, and worse, it automates it!
Image of unfinished horse drawing. The left side of the horse is beautifully drawn and detailed, with a flowing tail and strong back legs. The right side of the horse is drawn in stick figures with a cartoonish face, as if the drawer is not very talented.
UN (prefix): used for giving word the opposite meaning UNgrading—instead of grades, use feedback and student reflections to focus on learning rather than performance UNessay—instead of traditional academic formats, use authentic modes of writing (blogs, memes, websites) UNsyllabus—instead of boring, policy-driven syllabi, use a "liquid syllabus" as a humanizing first contact with students #HumanizeOL (via @brocansky.bsky.social) UNtextbook—instead of a costly commercial text, use a free openly licensed one #OER UNLMS—instead of using an LMS, display your content in open, outward-facing platforms UNdiscussions—instead of a discussion board in an LMS, use social #annotation UNdisposable assignments—instead of using assignments that die with the course, design assignments that students can use in their lives after your course has ended (via @brocansky.bsky.social) UNconference—instead of traditional events with a keynote and a schedule of pre-planned sessions, encourage participants to drive the conversation and their learning #Edcamp UNleading—instead of a leadership based on compliance, hierarchy, or fear, lead from a position that encourages humanity, inclusion, reflection, and systemic change (via @VidyaShah6) UNstuffing—instead of over-packing a course with stuff like content/assignments, create moments of rest that enable curiosity and make pedagogic choices that allow students to marinate, to listen to their bodies, and to develop their curiosities organically (via @jessicazeller.bsky.social) UNlecture—instead of long, drawn-out traditional lectures, provide micro-lectures and bumper videos (2-3 min videos that clarify a sticky topic) (via @brocansky.bsky.social)
Assessment Design When designing assessments, I am drawn to open-ended tasks that allow for expression, choice, and inquiry in multiple directions. Educators employing this approach need to trust their students, trust the learning process, and let go of fears or preconceived notions about how we might approach something. This can feel risky. We may worry whether students will produce work of an appropriate standard. However, scaffolding, sharing, and evolving ideas together can overcome these concerns. Often, when we let go a little, students exceed our expectations. When we hold on too tightly to preconceived ideas of what “good” looks like, we confine students to our own perspective, imposing a deficit model. Letting go opens the door to unimagined excellence.
You should consider this course a “busy-work-free zone.” If an assignment does not feel productive, we can find ways to modify, remix, or repurpose the instructions.
“For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper” Now I let it fall back in the grasses. I hear you. I know this life is hard now. I know your days are precious on this earth. But what are you trying to be free of? The living? The miraculous task of it? Love is for the ones who love the work. —Joseph Fasano
"I loved how the emphasis was placed on learning rather than grades; it causes you to think about the readings and writings rather than just doing them for the GPA. I think I am going to try and use this philosophy in other classes, because the grades will follow if you focus on learning the material."
What happens when we focus on labor rather than grades? "In the first few weeks, English didn't seem like it would be my favorite class. But as the class moved on, I started to like how we didn't get grades. It became so much easier to read my professor's feedback because I wasn't caught up in some numbers. I honestly think because of this was able to retain more suggestions my professor made because of the no grade system." -- student reflection
What happens when we focus on labor rather than grades? "As a writer, I have been more interested in knowledge gained during learning rather than focusing on grades or points. Because I believe points make me less motivated to try things and learn from my mistakes." -- student reflection
Labor-Reflex Model. Merges a little something of all approaches. Default labor tied to A grade. Tons of reflection with final self-assessment to determine grade. Goal—students grow to reflexively labor with mindfulness.
In agriculture, you don’t make plants grow, you create conditions for growth. Plants grow themselves. —Sir Ken Robinson
Mastery is in the reaching, not the arriving. It’s in the constantly wanting to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be. —Sarah Lewis, Embrace the near win
Grades thwart basic psychological needs of students and academic motivation, while narratives evaluations and actionable feedback promote trust between instructors and students and cooperation amongst students. —Chamberlin, et al. “The impact of grades on student motivation.”
A word cloud in response to the question: What words or feelings immediately come to mind when you hear the phrase “This will be graded”? The main word is STRESS.
Students write quality, process-driven work when we simply ask them to avoid AI, to trust their creative instincts and we turn around and offer meaningful, human feedback. Toss every fun, inspired strategy that you know works into your classroom. Maybe you hate stifling rubrics or annotated bibliographies. Resist. Think that outcomes-based assessment cannot possibly capture the magical synapses of imaginative writing? Burn. It. Down. Generative AI pushers are asking us to do the same, and it’s time to return the sentiment with rebellion born in the knowledge that this ship is going down either way.
Quotation: “Good will, like a good name, is hit by many actions, and lost by one.” —Francis Jeffrey