Faculty in Cal State Fullerton’s Department of Sociology gathered recently for their biannual retreat. Faculty members supported each other in integrating innovative technologies into their teaching practices. They also shared experiences and strategies for teaching in the current political climate.
The goal of the retreat was to develop ideas to foster collaboration and community building with students and to ensure the sociology curriculum remains inclusive and relevant.
Carter Rakovski, chair and professor of sociology, demonstrated how faculty can use Google’s NotebookLM, an artificial intelligence tool that allows users create specific subject notebooks by adding files, such as journal articles or lecture notes. Users can query NotebookLM with questions, ask it to create summaries and even generate a podcast to summarize the uploaded content. The retreat explored how AI tools can be positively leveraged to enhance faculty research and student learning.
Anthony Alvarez, associate professor of sociology, shared an overview of all the new AI tools provided by CSUF to students, faculty and staff, including TitanGPT. From his vantage point on the Academic Senate Committee for Information Technology as well as his own expertise in teaching economic sociology and statistics, he shared how students and administrators are envisioning the role of these new tools in university life.
