How to
Play
Below are 5 random activity ideas for using the Analog Inspiration card deck with educators and students. Of course, there are many more creative ways you might activate these cards, and you could certainly build an entire experience around one card! I offer a variety of workshops, talks, and intensives using the decks, so please contact me if you'd like me to facilitate a professional development opportunity at your institution. Be well and happy teaching!
Classic Mode
Don’t overthink it; use Analog Inspiration to generate new teaching ideas and cultivate new conversations among educators, students, and administrators in your community.
Setting: Anywhere
Decks Needed: 1 per person or group
Group Size: 1 or 2-6
1 Player: Shuffle the deck, pick a card, and start generating new teaching ideas.
2-6 Players (preferred): Shuffle, pick a card (or three), and discuss the selected concept with folks in your teaching and learning communities:
How else could I bring this value into my course?
How might I center it more deeply in my design, my practice, and my relationships with students?
How might we work together to build something new for our students, or for ourselves?
Value Set & Swap
Use Analog Inspiration to help folks reflect on how critical human values, concerns, and skills will be impacted by the emergence of generative AI.
Setting: Faculty Workshop
Decks Needed: 1 per table
Group Size: 4-8
Directions: Invite participants to pick three cards from the deck. Give everyone a few moments to read their cards silently and reflect on them. Ask participants to identify two cards to keep: one card that best represents their personal values as an educator and one card they believe will have the greatest impact on their discipline’s future. Next, have participants “discard” their remaining third card by passing it to the person on their left. Allow everyone to read their new card, then repeat the process: keep the cards they want, pass one to the left. Continue for a set number of rounds or minutes, with one person at each table drawing from the deck and the last person in the chain discarding extras. End the card exchange by inviting each table to display their two cards face up on the table. Discuss as a group: Why did you keep the cards you did? How do you see generative AI impacting this value, concern, or skill?
Targeted Task Time
Use Analog Inspiration to structure targeted individual work time, helping instructors develop tangible strategies for integrating human-centered learning into their own courses.
Setting: Course Design Intensive
Decks Needed: 1 per person (or 1 per table)
Group Size: 1 (or 2-6)
Directions: For individual work time, simply provide each participant with a deck and ask them to work through it, integrating ideas and completing tasks that resonate with them. After 30-60 minutes of work time, invite folks to share their progress with one another. For more collaborative work time, Place the deck in the center of each table and turn over three cards face up. Ask participants to read all three cards aloud to their table mates, and then silently choose one card to focus on for the next 15 minutes of individual work time. During that time, invite participants to develop one concrete way to integrate that concept more deeply into their own course. This could mean simply trying out the AI-activity idea on the card if applicable; or, it could involve coming up with a new original idea. After 15 minutes, ask participants share and compare their work with folks at their tables. Repeat with a new set of three cards!
A Student-Centered Start
Use Analog Inspiration to foster student reflection and critical engagement with AI during the first week of class.
Setting: The Classroom
Decks Needed: 1 per class (or more, depending on class size)
Group Size: 2-180
Directions: During the first week of class, share a physical or digital version of the deck with your students and ask them to reflect on one card that really resonates with them. Invite them to share an example from their life where this value, concern, or skill impacted their learning (either positively or negatively). You might ask students to turn in written reflections or bring their reflection to class to share with one another. Use this conversation as a segue into a discussion of how generative AI might be utilized or discouraged in your course in support these human-centered values and skills. For a more targeted first-week activity, go through the deck and curate a custom set of student-facing cards (I recommend starting with cards like Belonging, Bias, Hope, Insight, Intention, Motivation, Trust). Share these curated cards with students and invite them to complete the task on one of the cards and bring their work to class for community discussion.
Concept
Clusters
Use Analog Inspiration to help your department identify the values, skills, and teaching strategies most critical to your curriculum as generative AI reshapes how students learn and engage with course material.