Prep: Kellie Charles — PCOL3888 Flash Lab Placement

When: Wed Jun 17, 2026, 4:30–5:15 PM PT (≈9:30am Thu Sydney) · With: Kellie Charles, Josh Weiss Zoom: https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/j/84891181216 Profile: people/kellie-charles.md · Prior meeting: meetings/spellar/2026-06-09-kellie-charles-and-josh-weiss.md

What this meeting is

Working follow-up to the Jun 9 reorientation. Kellie walks Josh + Reuben through how PCOL3888 runs (her unit timetable), and together they (1) place Flash Lab in the unit and (2) draft research questions for her study on how students’ AI orientation shifts over the semester.

The headline to carry in — Dan’s green light + Kristen offer

Dan Schwartz replied Jun 12: likes the research idea + topic, and — since Kellie is a pharmacology prof, not a learning scientist — suggested she’d benefit from guidance from the Accelerator’s learning scientists (Kristen Pilner Blair) on designing her study. So: (a) tell Kellie the external-research path is clear on Stanford’s side; (b) offer to connect her with Kristen as a study-design sounding board. This is the “when we chat next week” item Reuben promised Dan.

Who she is / stakes

Professor of Pharmacology, Univ. of Sydney. Coordinates PCOL3888 — semester-long interdisciplinary unit, student teams turn literature into a video communication for an audience of choice (~50 students). Met Josh + Reuben at Stanford 2025. First international course-embedded Flash Lab placement + the test case for outside researchers running research on SAL offerings. Hits Goal 2 (strategic influence) + Goal 3 (scalable capacity).

Where she already landed (Jun 10 email)

• “Definite place in the middle of the unit” — students use the literature to plan then build their video communication.
• Wants a soft entry (teams may have settled AI habits by mid-semester).
• Likes the wager/gradient activity: students wager the AI-vs-human proportion for a task, then track how/why it shifts.
• Sees the unit’s longitudinal check-ins as the spine for the research project.

Design anchors from Jun 9 (build, don’t re-litigate)

• Flashlight phases Designer → Builder → Advocate; video-build = Builder/Advocate fit. Plan phase may be redundant — decide.
• Weekly 10-min reflective journals (chose what? why? surprised? choose differently?), gradient/wager at start/mid/end, end-of-semester interviews using journals as evidence.
• Core wager: does the Flashlight framework change how students think about AI + human collaboration? Ethics under her umbrella program.

Questions to ask

1. When does PCOL3888 run next — semester-2 start + key milestones (6-week lit review, build phase)? (Need to back-plan ethics + materials.)
2. Ethics timeline — when must research questions be locked to submit under her umbrella approval?
3. Does she want Kristen’s help on study design? (Dan’s suggestion.)
4. Soft entry = one workshop or recurring touchpoints?
5. Cohort / team size this run.

Flag out loud

• OOO: Reuben out Fri Jun 19 → ~Jul 6 (Mammoth, then ISTE Orlando). If Sydney S2 starts late Jul/early Aug, the research-question + ethics work lands ~Jul 6 return — agree today what’s owed before vs. after.
• Timebox: 45 min booked; she wanted the full hour and can flex ±30 min if the walkthrough runs long.

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Prepared 2026-06-17.