SPEAKER_00 0:24

All right, welcome to Ed Leadership on Tap. Gentlemen, how are we this morning?

SPEAKER_03 0:29

I'm doing wonderful. It's a beautiful rainy day outside, but I kind of like the rain. I'm down. It is nice. It is nice.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

We definitely need it, that's for sure. Yes. All right. So let's get started. Let's go over some feedback from uh our last episode where we had an in-the-chair segment with Mary Smith. We get some feedback on that.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Yeah, we sure did. Um, we all know the great Jeff Nisbet. Superstar. Yes, yes, Jeff Star. Yep. Yep. Jeff was our um AP art history teacher at Grapevine, um, Grapevine grad, wonderful teacher. I mean, man, dude was, I mean, sought after. Uh, moved to the East Coast and uh left me a great voicemail on on Wednesday, something for us to kind of maybe visit about a little bit. Um, he teaches at a private school up in the East Coast. And he said, you know, one of the things that his administrators do at the private school is they still teach one class. Um, you know, he he talked about, you know, not knowing if it's feasible or not, but it definitely keeps you as a leader of the campus one foot in the classroom. Didn't know if that was an option or not, but just brought that up as a talking point.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

That's an excellent idea. You know, if you're certified in history, social studies, whatever, if they could just allot one section in that master schedule for you to teach, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

Yeah, I love that. I'd sign up for that tomorrow. Um, from a selfish side, I miss the classroom a lot, and that would be really cool. But also, what a way to maintain credibility with your staff. You know, how often do you hear someone like, ah, my administrator hadn't even been in the classroom since before COVID? They don't know what's changed. You know, I think them knowing that you're going through the same stuff they are, even if it's to a lesser degree on a daily basis, you get some credibility there.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Yeah. I mean, I think if only downfall of it is just time. You know, I mean, we all know in the administrative seat what can pop up from any given minute. Um, you know, I think if it's not in the classroom, then having that culture of what we've talked about of being in the classroom a lot, you know, with walkthroughs or observations or just checking in on people.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Well, and if you can't do it full time, um, you can still model some lessons. Think about, you know, sometimes you um incentivize, like I'll cover your class for a day, you know, that sort of thing. But whether it, whether it's covering a class or whether it's with the teacher still in there modeling lessons, like you're still having to go through that experience again to a lesser degree time-wise, but you're going through that experience with the kids. Michael Crow, guest lecture, the bachelor. Hey, oh brother, I don't even need a script. Just put me in there, let me go.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Hey, another another way you could do that is for those semester classes, you know. Uh have maybe one AP teach one semester and the other AP teach the other semester. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

No, I I mean, I think it's a great idea. So thank you, Jeff, for uh a thought-provoking um voicemail on a Wednesday morning.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah, all right. And our on tap segment was on what trend from our childhood would we bring back? We have some feedback on that as well.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

Yeah, got some good stuff. Angela said, I'm with Dave. Saturday morning cartoons, big bowl of cereal. Going out and playing in the neighborhood till the streetlights come on. She said they had a nice street light right in front of their house that would collect all the June bugs and a frisbee and throw the frisbee and watch the bugs scatter and then do it all over again. Let's take me back to childhood. You know, that could be another on tap moment.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Best breakfast cereal. Uh June bugs? Or June bugs, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

From your childhood, I'd have to go with cocoa pebbles for me. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Yeah, that's a good that's a good one. I was a big golden grams. I love golden grams.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

You know what's underrated is honeycomb.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

People forget about honeycomb. Honeycomb, yes. Yeah, my grandma always had a box of honeycombs.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Is that the one with the frog in the cover? Was that a frog?

SPEAKER_02 4:16

That's uh Lucky Child or that's uh sugar smacks.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Sugar smacks, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Also heard from Shelby. Uh she agreed with some of what she heard too. Love those Saturday morning cartoons, after school cartoons, and of course, as Dr. G said, when MTV actually had music on, those were nostalgic to music television.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yep. So thank you everyone for your feedback. We love getting that. Please continue to do so. Jimlin, we ready for some AI?

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Yes, sir. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

All right, welcome back. So, you know, even though I'm retired, I still get the opportunity to talk to teachers regularly. Lately I've been asking teachers about, you know, their feelings about AI in the classroom, and and really it runs the gamut from teachers saying, as long as the kids are doing it to look at the steps and solving a problem, that's great. Um, but when it comes to kids using AI just to get the answer that that's not as productive and they don't learn the concept in those ways, to other teachers just basically saying, no, no, don't use AI. You know, I I I tell my parents not to use AI. Probably the right answer is somewhere in between. I don't think you should tell parents not to use AI. Um, I think that's a valuable resource for parents as long with the caveat that you let them know that AI can sometimes uh give the wrong answers. So as long as they have that caveat and understand that, I think it's appropriate to use AI. And I think telling people not to use AI is kind of like if you were in the 90s telling people don't use the internet, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. AI is coming.

unknown 6:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

And and there's the same kind of fear of the internet, and then later Google, and then you know, is the kids are gonna have all the answers. What are we gonna do now? And I think a lot of that relates to what questions are we asking? Stop asking something that can just be Googleable uh and and do something that requires a different kind of thought.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Yeah, I think so that that you know, the world is changing. What what tools do we have to be successful? So I guess part of it is, you know, how is it going to be used in the classroom, in the school, in your workplace, and what can we do to set the students and our staff up for success with it? You know, there's the uh CEO of Nvidia, uh Jensen Wong, um, was asked the question about AI. You know, obviously Nvidia is a big player in the AI market, and he said, you know, you're not gonna lose your job to an AI, but you're going to lose your job to someone who uses AI. So, how can we teach everybody how to properly use AI?

SPEAKER_03 7:12

I think the interesting thing about that quote and it is it connects really well to what Dr. G said. AI is a resource. And so when you're preventing your students from having any access to that resource out of fear, you're actually setting them up for some long-term struggle because they're not going to be equipped with the things that other kids are equipped with. And as you said, AI is not going anywhere. Like who raise your hand if you think AI won't be here in five or 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

The genie is out of the bottle. Oh, it's out. It's out.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

So we need to learn how to interact with it.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

All right. So today we're going to talk about five responsibilities of an AI leader. Uh, we're going to talk about building shared literacy, talking about design for equity first, revising the learning mission, establishing ethical guardrails, and modeling adaptive learning. So we're going to cover those steps. And uh I think we're going to have a part two to this where we're going to have the teacher perspective.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Perspective, yes. I mean, they're on the front lines of it. So I think I think bringing in a teacher perspective on I don't know, the pros and cons of AI is uh is a critical piece.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

All right. So why don't we begin by, you know, just talking about the building shared literacy. What is it that AI can do and can't do?

SPEAKER_03 8:27

I I think one of the things that AI has has become heavily used for, and I can speak for that personally, um, is automating routine tasks. There's so many things that normally would would take us a little bit of time to accomplish. It's not necessarily a heavy thinking task, but um, you know, drafting something or coming up with interview questions or coming up with uh, you know, something that that was part of our normal routine before that might take an hour or two can now be done in in 10 seconds. Uh and so it's really um just kind of revolutionized the way that we get through some of the we we talk all the time about not having enough time, not having enough time, especially in these leadership roles. AI can help immensely in taking some of those daily routine things and and pulling them off your plate or getting them done a thousand times faster than we would.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Yeah, I know, I know in my position, you know, uh developing the interview questions off job descriptions. Um, you know, coming up with those questions, while it's not a hard thing, it's just time consuming. Right. Um, you know, I know there's been some uh testing with uh appraisals as well, of you know, where the AI can listen into the lesson and help with the appraisals as peak as well.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

We've seen some of that technology lately, and it is incredible where the where you've got a recorded lesson. Um, and and certainly you don't want to lose the human element of that. I don't think anyone's saying that, but like it can recognize trends, it can recognize how often the the teacher speaking versus the student speaking, you know, what depth of questions, all of these stuff, it just what it was able to spit out in a matter of seconds was phenomenal. Um, and again, it doesn't replace your own judgment, but having some of that data when you're talking to a teacher about things to focus on was really cool.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah, another thing that AI can do is personalize the learning. Yeah. Uh we've seen that in early software programs where they're designed that if a student gets the question wrong, it'll give them another question of the same concept. Those were the early stages of AI. And I think now with the large language models that they're using, it's only gonna get better where uh the program is going to be able to target specific concepts and reinforce those until mastery.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

Well, I mean, I think going back to the conversation about appraisals, you know, one of the probably hardest things for teachers and for administrators has been the idea of differentiation. You know, that's that's part of our T test model. Well, what a great tool to allow for differentiation. You know, like you said, Gilbert, that you know, they get this math problem correct. How does that program or, you know, if you design a lesson using it, can differentiate for kids who maybe didn't get it the first time or did get it the first time.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

And that's creating access for kids that are in a different spot. And along those same lines, think about real-time translation, speech to text, captioning all these things that that can happen in a matter of seconds through AI for our multilingual learners, students with disabilities, giving them access to the content of what you're trying to share.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

You know, I think it can also, you know, provide immediate feedback. Students can receive those instant hints, you know, if they're stuck somewhere. Hey, you know, I'm here, what are my next steps? It's not it's not solving it for you, but it's helping you kind of work through it. And once again, it's a it's a tool to get that uh feedback.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

We've used that a ton this year with that that immediate feedback with our writing. You know, we saw from from accountability measures last year that writing has got to be an area of focus for us. The challenge is in an English class, when you have kids write a lengthy essay and you've got one teacher and 160 students, and you want to give them meaningful feedback, that can take days and days before you can actually get them their paper with the red ink on it, you know, uh at a later time. But now you've that was our old experience, but but now they can get feedback, you can get an entire class feedback seconds after they submit something. Now, again, you don't want to lose the teacher component of it. You they want to know that that my teacher is reading what I'm writing and giving me their their insight. Uh, but how helpful is that to get such quick feedback on something that you're trying to improve on?

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Well, and I think I think the final thing really is kind of analyzing those large data sets. And you know, I know in in my role, for example, when we do exit interviews or stay interviews or our employee engagement survey to be able to take that large data set and instead of spending all day reading, highlighting, um, you know, coming up with trends, etc., being able to use an AI generator to kind of show trends of, hey, you know, the employee engagement, they're really pleased with this, but here are some concerning trends that that's being pulled from it.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yep. Also, you know, just looking at it from your point of view, Michael, is what are those trends that are occurring in, say, English language arts? What uh district wide, where are we weak? AI can be great in identifying those weaknesses.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

It's phenomenal. You know, I mean, it's like it or not, there's a rubric that the state uses for to assess our writing, and it can make it feel kind of formulaic that that tested writing sometimes. But knowing that those are kind of the rules of the game that we're playing by, you know, when when we submit our student writing alongside that rubric, and rather than just seeing what our kids normally score, seeing why if our kids are have a deficiency, what is it? So we can focus our instruction on you know overcoming that deficiency instead of you know throwing a dart in the dark.

unknown 13:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

So so we've kind of talked about, you know, some of those early benefits that things we have seen, you know, and and Michael, you've mentioned it a couple times about, you know, not taking that human element out of it. So, Gilbert, you kicked us off with some of the teachers' thoughts on no, no, no, or yes, yes, yes, or kind of in the middle. So, what are some things that we have concerns about what AI can't do?

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Well, I think the one thing that AI should not do is those final high-stakes decisions when it comes to grading, when it comes to discipline, when it comes to admissions, those should be left to humans.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

The human element, yes, yes, absolutely. And as helpful as that AI feedback is, AI can still hallucinate, it still sometimes tells you what it thinks you want to hear. And I know it'll get better and better over time, but but even at the point that it's perfect, you know, to your point, uh, I talked with a teacher earlier this year that made a really great point because we started seeing how effective this AI feedback was on writing, and teachers were really like, This is great, I'm saving so much time. But then she she mentioned a student who had spent all of this time writing a paper for their teacher and got AI feedback, and then they were able to revise it based off that AI feedback and eventually get a better grade, and they could even revise it again. That's from a from a student feedback standpoint that saved so much time, and from a teacher standpoint, so much time. But what that student felt like they were lacking is like, I did this hard work and my teacher never even looked at this. Yeah, it was a a computer looked at it and shot it back to me, and I appreciate the feedback, but but I did this for my teacher, and they never even looked at the paper. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

And and if you think about the discipline element, I mean we all know when we issue consequences, we look at more than just the offense. We're gonna look at the kid, we're gonna look at his circumstances, previous um infractions. And I think AI can sometimes miss that human element that that we take into account when issuing consequences for any kind of discipline.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Well, and and something that AI definitely can't is really help and manage that classroom culture piece of it. You know, we've talked for probably every episode somewhere, we mentioned the idea of relationships. And, you know, building those relationships in your classroom and and really setting up that strong classroom culture, you know, that that is something AI will never be able to replace.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

Yeah, when you think back about fond memories of school and and what made what was a powerful moment for you, or what made you love a class, or it's always a person, it's always uh a human being and the and the way that they saw you as a fellow human being that made you you know enjoy that experience.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Yeah, you probably don't we probably won't see uh thank you notes written to Chat GPT like we did, you know, teachers that we had over the years.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Imagine getting Chat GPT uh Amazon gift cards. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

One of the things too, you we like to promote innovation. And ironically, AI, you know, from an innovation standpoint, can struggle to think outside the box. AI operates at, you know, at least in present day on existing data sets and things like that. When you're looking for new ideas or new concepts or different angles, and you've got AI that that it really is constructed around looking at everything that's out there and and consolidating it, it it can struggle to guide students toward real originality or creativity or new thoughts that didn't exist out there in the universe somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah, because it's AI is only um making inferences based on the data sets that it has. And so there's no thinking outside the box, really.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

And I think one more thing that we have to be careful with in with AI is guaranteeing data privacy because you know they're gonna have vast amount of student information. Some of it may be uh private information that's not disclosable, and so we have to ensure that whatever model is used has the security measures in place that those um that data is protected.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Well, and I think that's you know, valuable technology department. I mean, I'm sure those guys, I mean, just trying to keep up with everything, it's wild.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

Well, and I remember one of the first uses I heard suggested was man, how how much faster would this make completing all of this RD paperwork uh for, you know, as you go into a meeting on how you can provide IEPs for students? And and one of the warnings that came out is be be mindful, you can't be putting all of this personal data about a student. Yes, it would make our day easier to to just have it fill this out, but you can't put all that personal data out there, not fully comprehending who has access to it and where it can go.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Right. Yep. All right. So we talked about building shared literacy. One big thing that I see with AI is in regards to equity. Sure. How are we going to ensure that all of our students have that access to the benefits of AI?

SPEAKER_03 18:49

So speaking of those benefits, who who does benefit uh from an equity standpoint from AI as we look at the state of education right now?

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Well, I think you have to look first at those affluent districts. And we all know that there's controversy about you know state funding and school funding. Uh definitely those districts that have uh excess funds are going to be able to have access to AI first. And uh they're going to be able to train teachers with the latest methods. Yeah. So uh definitely those affluent districts are going to benefit.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

You know, I think I think students with disabilities can benefit from AI, definitely. You know, it can improve some accessibility and inclusion. You know, looking at tools like speech to text, real-time captioning, uh, maybe the ability for teachers to be able to really tailor the needs of some of our students. And and I think all ends of the spectrum, the upper end and perhaps the lower end of our students can benefit from it.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

We always say one of the most important supports a student can have is help at the house. You know, is someone reading to you in the home, is someone helping you with your homework? And the same thing can be said for having AI literate parents, and and parents who maybe use AI more frequently in their day-to-day can actually help support their kids with what's happening in the classroom with personalized tutoring and translation and school communications, managing assignments, because they've got that background that some other parents may be lacking.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Yeah, when when my kids got to a certain level of math and wanted help, you're on your own. That's right. Yeah. You know, I remember one of the first tools kind of playing around with Wolfgram Alpha.

unknown 20:27

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

And you could put you could put, you know, questions in it and it would kind of help you, you know, particularly for math.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Um, and just kind of playing around with that and and using that to tutor myself to help my own kids on math.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

Your kids thought you were a math genius.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

I was a genius.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

All right. Another group that's gonna benefit is teachers, you know, especially in terms of automating those tasks that are kind of redundant and weakly. Uh, I mean, when we were talking about before we started recording Crow, you mentioned uh your first exposure to Chat GPT and and lesson planning.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Yeah, you know, this was probably two years ago at this point, and it's when I had never even heard of Chat GPT. And my wife comes home from work and she goes, Hey, check out what we saw at work today. Uh, and it was an early model of Chat GPT. She's like, give me a subject. All right, eighth grade social studies. Give me a give me a topic you'd like kids to learn. All right, causes of the revolution. Um, what do you want the lesson to be structured like? How long do you want it to last? Do you want kids to work in groups? And I answered a few questions. She's typing as I do, and she clicks enter on her keyboard, and seconds later, a lesson pops up, and I'm like, this is really good stuff. And that was two years ago. Mind blown. Yeah, it's insane what it can do to help from a lesson planning standpoint, from a student feedback standpoint, and so on.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

It gives teachers more time for those important tasks, such as spending time with kids.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Yeah, yeah, that relationship piece. Yep. So I I guess, you know, where we kind of looked at who Benefits from it, you know, who who right now is being left behind in kind of the AI world?

SPEAKER_03 22:06

The flip side of what Dr. G said earlier, we you know, we have low-income schools that still don't have the same kind of digital infrastructure. They don't necessarily have the same level of high-speed internet or one-to-one devices like a lot of districts have. And so to our point earlier about this being a resource that equips people for the future, when they don't have the same access to that resource, they can be falling behind.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Another group that definitely may not benefit is, you know, marginalized groups, such as your uh different ethnic ethnic groups. Yep. Yeah. Lower income perhaps. Exactly, because AI is using predictive behavior. And if the data out there says that, hey, if you're a student of color, you are disproportionately behind, it has the potential to put to track students, which is what we want to get away from. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

And I would say then the kind of that passive learner as well. You know, sometimes it's used for repetitive drilling or passive learning. Uh, why students in more advantaged settings use it for kind of high-level critical thinking?

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Um because you don't want it just to AI to be just doing math facts.

SPEAKER_03 23:12

Right, right, right. And that comes back to how equipped is the teacher. You know, how how well have we trained our teachers to to model for our students the the ways in which AI can and should be used?

SPEAKER_00 23:24

That's right. AI should not be technological flashcards.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

So how do we close that gap? Knowing that the disparity exists, what what can we do to solve the problem?

SPEAKER_00 23:34

I think transparency, first of all, I think we have to be up front about where our weaknesses are and any vendor that district uses are not exacerbating those gaps.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

Sometimes, you know, one of the things I think is prioritizing that universal infrastructure, you know, really kind of closing that gap uh and and putting in policies that really help to ensure the students and all communities have uh, you know, high-speed internets or or devices. We are in a world, a technology world. I mean, whether we like it or not, you know, we we talked uh last week about those simpler times, you know, technology is here. So what are we doing to ensure that everybody has equal access to technology? You know, and I think it's also, you know, invest in that human in the loop. Do not take that human element out of what we do every day.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

So already I'm seeing, based on what we've talked about, that we are going to have to revise our mission to include AI.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

So, you know, when when we think about that idea of kind of revising that mission piece, what are skills and habits and knowledge that really matter when AI can just pass the test? What are those things that we as leaders in education need to look at to ensure that it's not just AI, AI, AI?

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Yeah, well, I think we've got to focus on what AI can't do and hone those skills in our students. And I remember I joked about it earlier, but back when Google first came around, well, the kids are gonna have all the answers. And that takes me back to school when calculators were used. Well, if you you think you're just gonna always have a calculator in your pocket. Yes, I am. It's on my phone. I use it every day. Right. Um, so it's not a we've got to stop being afraid of something that feels new because we think it can give all the kids all the answers. If it's giving the kids answers, a lot of times it's doing that in terms of like level one questioning at a base level content, it's not doing that creative thinking, that innovative thinking. That's how we've got to gear our instruction is is shift it toward having the kids do the innovative parts that AI is not doing.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

You know, one other thing that uh we need to take into account is you know, a lot of times we learn through the struggle of not learning. Yeah. And I think with AI providing the answers in seconds, you don't have that struggle. And so I think that's going to detract from our slow learners who build up that grit and perseverance through the struggle of learning.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, oftentimes you you learn more by that failure. That's right. And and taking the time to work through that. Now, could you use AI to help give you some of those steps to get there where it just doesn't become frustrating and you quit, but you're still grinding through the process.

SPEAKER_03 26:25

You know, some of the deepest learning that students do also has to do with metacognition and not just coming up with an answer, but thinking about their own thought process and reflecting on the learning process and understanding how and why they got to where they got. And that's something that we can still emphasize that really is is operating at a deeper level is is having kids target that metacognitive learning.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

That's right. And an AI cannot reflect on its own learning process. Not yet, anyway.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Maybe tomorrow. And and I think one of the things that that we have to look at, and we've talked about it previously in this episode, is the the human element, that interpersonal and those soft skills. I I mean, I don't see anywhere where AI will take the place of that human component and that emotional piece of it.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yeah, many times. I mean, I don't know how many times during this season we have your used the word empathy.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Yeah. And and I don't think AI does that.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Right. Yeah. There is not that empathy that comes through and you know, it it can't read the room like a teacher can.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

Yeah, you touched on this with discipline earlier, Dr. G. Like when when you sense a student is frustrated or having a bad day, that's some of the most powerful teacher moments in education when you support a student in that moment. And AI just doesn't have that same level of empathy or ability to read the situation with a student that a teacher can.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Yeah, the kid walks in the room with the hoodie on and the hood up, and AI would say, Well, it must be cold, you know, and and maybe it's because that kid had a bad day, and your human element understands where that kid is coming from. You know, I think another thing is with that with that kind of human element is the conflict resolution. Being able to listen and to hear and have those conversations, that that social intelligence and and the ability to go kind of beyond the pattern matching of things. How are you reading body language, tone, etc.? Um, AI cannot replace that.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

AI also doesn't have ethics and morals necessarily. It's you know, it's operating and making decisions based on data, but it doesn't have that moral compass that human beings have applying values or putting heart into a situation to realize maybe what should be done in a scenario instead of just what can be done based off some prior data set.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah, another thing that AI may struggle with is cognitive and creative mastery. I mean, we talked about earlier thinking outside the box, you know, how creative can AI be? It doesn't have that human intuition that's so important when it comes to creativity.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

Yep. I think something too that that's a little bit more of a human component is the idea of navigating ambiguity. And what I mean by that is, you know, AI operates on rules and data sets. And so it's it's identifying what may be the single right answer or hallucinating what may be the single right answer. But but some problems we face are complex, and there's not just one right answer, and with there's some nuance involved, and we've got to take into account, you know, different dynamics and historical context and the specifics of the situation we're in, and it's just trying to spit out that that one right answer when maybe it's the challenge we're dealing with is a little bit more complex and a little bit more gray, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Yeah, I mean, we've talked for many times on this podcast about educational leadership, and and I would argue leadership in general is the idea that it's not everything's black and white. Yeah. And and most things are. No, they're not. And so we have to work in the gray, and and I would argue that AI often has a hard time working in the gray.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

Yep. Because it doesn't think that we want gray. You know, it's we ask it a question, it's like you want an answer, here you go. Uh, but but it may be a little bit more nuanced than what it's spitting back out at us.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

So we we've talked that there's lots of ways that AI can be misused in education. So, so we need some guardrails out there, so ethical guardrails, because we're dealing with humans, we're dealing with the human element. So, what are some of the things that we should think about in terms of ethics?

SPEAKER_03 30:38

Aaron Powell Going back to that privacy and student security piece that you talked about, you know, I it we're still at a place where students' full names and birth dates and student IDs and identifiable information like that really shouldn't be AI inputs at this point because I don't think that we know enough about where that information's going and how it's being used.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

You know, I had a a really good friend of mine that I grew up with, and and he uh he is involved in some technology, et cetera, and and he had invested and worked with a group on a uh dating app, and I don't remember which one it is, and and you know, he he told me at one time, and this is God, this is probably four or five years ago, and he said, you know, Dave, we're we're not really worried about if you find a match. What we're looking at is information. Yeah. And, you know, hey, you know, Dr. You know, G is wearing an underarmor shirt, so he must like to shop at Academy or Dicks, and and well, guess what happens all the time? Now all your advertisement is coming from that because information is being sold. So I think we have to be very careful on on vetting those vendors to ensure what that data is being used for and where it's going, and particularly those those personal personally identifiable um pieces for students and teachers.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Think about your own Facebook page and your algorithm and how much at this point that every you you have a conversation and something pops up in front of you, and and the only posts you see are now those tailored to to your way of thinking and the dangers that come with that, uh the the same is now extending potentially into the world of education. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

That's right. And then another thing we have to take into account is at what age is AI appropriate? And you know, parents are gonna have to have input on this. Do we implement AI programs to kids under a certain age, under 12, under 13?

SPEAKER_03 32:31

Yeah, there have already been scenarios where um unfortunately, you know, young people have taken their own lives and things like that, and they've identified that that they were having conversations with chat bots that aren't even real human beings before this happened. And so just not yet having the the cognitive skills to know how to appropriately interact with some of those AI pieces, and that's a that's an extreme scenario, but it also shows that some dangers can't exist if there's no guardrails in place.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Yeah, and and we know that parents are going to be uh highly concerned about how AI is used in the classrooms. And so some districts have even come up with a green, yellow, and red light uh terms, and whereas green is, you know, it's it's great for everyone. Yellow maybe requires parental permission, you know.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

So Yeah, I mean it's a scary thing. I mean, I'm thinking of my own kids, of they're older, but what they could be exposed to and using some of these things like you talked about, Michael. Um I think where we all came in was kind of the golden age of getting one-on-one and and technology in the classroom, just computers in their hand and us having to work with our kids about digital literacy. What are we searching? What are we looking at? I mean, AI opens a whole new box of digital literacy.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

Yeah, I think the internet itself is a really good kind of comparison here. Sure. Because do I want my, I think about my own children as a parent, do I want them to have the skills they need to navigate the internet? Well, of course, because it's gonna create opportunities for them to be more successful, for them to have more fun experiences, all this kind of stuff. Do I want them to be exposed to everything that exists on the internet? Absolutely not. No, not a chance. So it I think AI really it becomes the same sort of thing where we want them to have the skills to use it appropriately. We also see the potential danger when it's used inappropriately. And so we have to help them navigate that.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Well, and I I think that is going back to what you said, Gilbert, about that kind of age restriction, you know, looking at where is it truly appropriate and and looking at some of those curriculum limits of you know, some of the younger age probably don't need access to the to the AI piece.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Right. As a matter of fact, in the research that we did we did, uh experts generally either say either restrict or prohibit kids in the K3.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

Maybe even argue older than that, but it's also important for schools to be transparent with what AI they're using, how they're using AI, so that that families know what are my kids being exposed to. And it's exposed, it kind of has a negative connotation, but but what platforms are my kids interacting with? And do we have an easy to understand explanation for our families about what their kids are doing?

unknown 35:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Yeah, I think as we as we move down this road, um, we will see more probably state mandates, policies, um, you know, handbook suggestions um from things like TASB of what to include about AI. Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Right. Another thing to consider also is some of our students are over 18 years old. Yeah. And when you turn 18, they have the right to make their own educational decisions. So parents have to understand that if they restrict AI use to uh one of their children, when they turn 18, that child has their right to the gates are open.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 35:58

I think too, especially in these early days of of AI, you've got to have some human alternatives. You know, you're gonna have some families that do have concerns, especially maybe at those middle ages, about which AI tools you're using, and they're gonna want some kind of alternative. We've got to create that and provide that for them without any kind of academic penalty.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

So, Dave, going back to what you said earlier about policies, what are some of the things that we need to see out there or what that we do see out there?

SPEAKER_02 36:24

I think some of the things that you see right now, I mean, some of the images, some of the videos that come out, and you go, is that AI or is that not AI? And so kind of some of those deep fake responses. Um, there's some new regulations like the Take It Down Act, uh, which schools then, you know, are kind of required for addressing some, you know, non-consensual images. Um, you know, like I said, there are there are many a times, you know, someone will send you a video or you know, a picture, and you're like, yeah, that that is not real. Um, and you know, how do we discern that?

SPEAKER_03 37:00

I mean, that's the hard piece. Well, and and bullying has been a part of of schools, you know, since the dawn of school. And the take it down acts, you know, specifically is looking at how that's happening right now with our kids using AI. So I think we've got to, in addition to the educational piece and what's happening in the classroom, we've got to recognize AI is gonna be part of some of those other disciplinary things, the bullying and uh and all of that as well.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

But I think that also goes back to education and ensuring that we educate our students, our staff on the responsible use of AI.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Yep, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Okay, so we've talked about building shared literacy and we talked about designing for equity first, revising the learning mission, and we just finished talking about establishing ethical guardrails. So, what about modeling adaptive learning? What do we want to say about that?

SPEAKER_03 37:50

I think you see a really dramatic shift here because you know, even 20, 30 years ago, kids show up to school because the teacher has the knowledge. The teacher is the oracle, the sage on the stage. They're the ones with with all of the information that you're trying to receive. But we're past that now. You know, the knowledge is readily accessible to the kids, just like it is to the teacher or anyone else. So we've got to make a shift from the teacher being the purveyor of all information to really someone who is a public learner modeling for the kids how to interact with this new data that is so readily accessible.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

So, you know, for our teachers in the classroom, what are some of those, you know, adaptive AI features that you could really put into play tomorrow that could be successful for your students?

SPEAKER_03 38:41

When kids are working independently, one thing that's difficult, we've really tried to focus on aggressive monitoring this year, where the teacher is moving around the room and providing instant feedback as much as possible as kids work, but we simply can't do it as quickly as AI can. So I think real-time error analysis, where AI, you know, especially when students are working independently, can recognize where those struggles are, where those misconceptions are. And it can give them, to your point earlier, Dave, it can give them a hint in the moment that gets them back on track while the teacher is still on the other side of the room. So it really expedites that process.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Also, I think the scaffolding piece where we talked about that, yeah. Yes, where AI is going to be able to adjust the level of difficulty based on your skill level, allowing you to get that steady progress.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Yeah. And I think, you know, one of the things that that's mentioned in here is Khan Academy has been kind of on the front edge of that for a long time, of kind of scaffolding and and creating that differentiation uh based on your successes and your errors.

SPEAKER_03 39:43

Being able to just detect student struggle. One one shortcoming of us as humans is we don't see all the things. Um, you know, we can't be expected to, but it's uh, you know, analytics can help detect early on when there's patterns of hesitation or repeated mistakes, and AI can just catch on to that quicker than we can sometimes. And I think from another standpoint, on a broader scale student struggle, how often do you have a student that, and and it's really tragic to see that's that's a 10th or 11th grader before you realize maybe there's a challenge with dyslexia, maybe there's something else. And some of these patterns, if we can use resources to catch them much earlier, we can give students supports much earlier.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

So, what can we do as leaders of a department or of a building to really help foster a culture of kind of that safe experimentation for our students and our staff?

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Well, you know, I think we have to expose our teachers by providing maybe those sandbox classrooms where they can have time to go and experiment and try these tools out.

SPEAKER_03 40:52

Professional development's gonna be a must. You know, that we've got to stay knowledgeable. We've got to practice what we preach and continue learning and stay knowledgeable about what new resources are out there and then share those through PD opportunities with our teachers.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

And and I think we have to set an expectation as a campus leader or a department leader that we need to ensure that the teachers or the humans in this situation are ultimately still the final decision makers. You know, that that we can't take that human element out of a human business like education.

SPEAKER_03 41:30

And I don't think it will ever be fully removed to go back to where you started, Dave, with that quote. You know, it's not gonna be AI itself that that takes someone's job. It's gonna be a human that knows how to use it. I I think that it we have to maintain that human connection even as we adopt new resources over time.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

One of the things that I think we have to ensure is that we have to make sure that we leverage uh some of the benefits of AI, such as time, the time that's gonna be saved. We have to make sure that that's used in a productive way. I think any time that is saved by AI should be devoted to where teachers are spending more time with students.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Another way that we can leverage AI in a positive way is empathetic communication. A lot of times things are misconstrued or misunderstood when we send that email and it can be difficult to analyze, you know, what was the actual intent behind some of those words or or am I reading this the right way? AI can really help support with that, and you can let it know through your prompt that uh that I want this to come across in a caring, empathetic way. And oddly enough, oddly enough, a computer can help us sound more human sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

You know, as we were uh preparing for this episode, uh we did not realize the scope and depth of AI and the implications. And the more and more that we dove into it, we began to realize, man, this is going to be huge.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Yeah. I mean, the future is here and it's only going to get bigger as we move down this kind of road. You know, I I think as we kind of wrap this up, um, you know, I think we've talked about, you know, what are some of the really positive things that can come about um with with the you know introduction of AI into the education setting, but there's also concerns, and I think we have to be mindful of that as well.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

So I think a big key, a big learning for me anyway, is to always remember that AI is a tool. And I think that's going to be critical because there are going to be times with this technology that we are we may lose that. Yeah we may think that it's more than a tool, it's an actual being.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

Yeah. You know, and I I I think, you know, it just listening in this conversation, I I think it even makes it more critical for us in you know, education and I'd say the workplace in general as leaders is the importance. That we've talked about over many of our podcasts is the relationship piece.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

You know, it's not going to replace that at all. And I think we have to be mindful of that. And I would argue you almost have to be more intentional about the relationship piece with AI being integrated.

SPEAKER_03 44:17

Yeah, so I think it's it's sort of opposite sides of the coin a little bit, because on one hand, we have to embrace the change. We'd be crazy not to. It's not going anywhere. We've got to equip our teachers, ourselves, our students uh for how to interact with these new resources. At the same time, we've got to really be ultra focused on preserving the human part of education, keeping humanity, keeping empathy, keeping care as part of that educational experience.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

So, listeners, we'd love your feedback on this very deep and controversial topic of AI.

SPEAKER_02 44:51

Yeah, we'd love to hear from any of our listeners about maybe how they've integrated AI in their everyday life, in their job-related life, and education, et cetera.

SPEAKER_03 45:02

I think, too, any challenges that you've come across, you know, that's something that those are going to continue to exist and something we have to collaborate on to work through.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

This is going to be kind of our part one. And as we said, part two. Um, bring in a teacher to uh discuss some of this on uh boots on the ground.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

You guys ready for some on tap?

SPEAKER_02 45:21

I'm always ready for on tap. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

All right, welcome back. Let's get started with this on tap. And since we did speak of AI, um our on tap segment for today, what two non-work related tasks would you have an AI robot perform?

SPEAKER_03 45:50

It's very Jetsons uh kind of concept here. I like it. You know, for me, if you were to walk through my house right now with with uh a teenage boy uh and busy work schedules, laundry is something that you would see in more places than you probably should. So if I if I could get, you know, some sort of Jetson-like AI robot to help me out with something, uh, doing the you know what, not even doing the laundry, because I'm pretty good at doing the laundry. You know what I'm not good at? Folding and putting away the laundry. Are you are you one that it sits in the dryer? Oh, yeah. It sits in the dryer, and then when I need to dry something new, sometimes I move it from the dryer back to the top of the washer to put that in. So it's just like this like continuous cycle of taking a pile of clean clothes and putting it in enough different places until eventually it has to be washed again.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

So you need a Rosie the robot from the Jetson. Give me Rosie the Robot.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

And sorry, Rosie, but you're gonna be doing some laundry.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

I Crow, I I put mine down too, and we didn't talk about this, but laundry as well. Um, I mean, just the sorting and the the I mean, the washing, I'm I'm kind of with you. I mean, it is what it is. It's the then folding it and it sits on the bed, and you're like, I so I I am a once I fold it, I put it away. I have to, or it would sit there. Um, but we have others in our house where you know it will sit in the dryer, um, particularly my 18-year-old daughter. Um, and then every morning she just turns it on to fluff it so there's no wrinkles.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

I think uh my robot would be doing yard work. Okay. I hate yard working. And you guys, yes, and you guys see I don't have a very big yard. I think it would probably take me 30 minutes to do the front and backyard combined. Yeah, yeah. But I hate it so much that I have someone do that for me.

SPEAKER_03 47:40

So one of my best friends from college actually invested in a business a few years back. And you know how you've got like the Roomba vacuum basically moves around in your house. They have that for mowing lawns now.

SPEAKER_02 47:51

I know, there's one that is, yeah, there's one in our neighborhood. You'll drive by and it's going back and forth in the yard.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

But you know what? I don't want to take the human element out of that. So I'll just pay someone.

SPEAKER_03 48:02

He's got the economy going strong here.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 48:05

Uh you know, mine, uh, the other one I came up with is very relevant to the time that I'm living in right now. We've got about a four-month-old yellow lab who's a sweet little pup, but he's less sweet at four in the morning when he wakes up and thinks it's time to eat and won't go back to sleep until someone has acknowledged him and cared for him. So um I'm I'm getting less sleep these days. So my other one is gonna be if if this, if if Rosie the robot, could deal with that puppy sometime between like 3 and 6 a.m. And if he needs to eat or be let out, go handle that business so I can get that those precious hours of sleep that I used to get that I'm not getting right now. It's like having an infant again, isn't it? Very much so, yeah. And and thank God uh for making infants and puppies their cutest when they're also their most obnoxious, because otherwise I don't know that that we'd make it through that experience.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

My my second one, and and I've seen you know many Instagram, Facebook reels about it, is no one tells us as an adult, once you become an adult and you're married and you have kids, that you have to decide what you're going to eat every night for the rest of your life. Oh Lord. And how many ways you can use hamburger meat or chicken or steak or pork? Um, so I would love that that robot that and and you could use it to do the menu already, but then to go to the store, pick it up, and cook it. Yeah. I mean, you you work all day long and you get home, you're like, oh, all right, I gotta cook dinner again.

SPEAKER_03 49:36

I don't even want to do the thinking about it either. I know it can help with that, but how often do we have that? Like, what do you want tonight? What do you want to bowl?

SPEAKER_02 49:43

How about uh Mexican food? No, I don't want Mexican pizza. No, no.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

Don't you guys get into a pattern of you know you're kind of repeating the same meal? I mean, I get I hate that.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

Yeah, yeah. I we're we're on the taco salad meal uh once a week. I love a good taco salad. We love it too, but it's kind of become repetitive. And like you said, Gilbert, you just get on this you know, roller coaster and it just round and round, it's the same meals.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

Mine is kind of related to yours, Dave, and and I kind of want to adjust it a little bit. I would the other job for a Rosie, the robot, would be going grocery shopping. But then I thought about it, I said, not not just grocery shopping, but anytime anytime I have to wait in line. Yeah. I mean, can you imagine Rosie at the DMV when you're renewing your license plate?

SPEAKER_03 50:33

There's something to be said for that. Like, you know, like waiting in line should be a thing of the past with with all the modern technology we have. There's there's got to be some different way to like correct, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:44

Yeah. So Rosie, you're gonna be waiting in line for me and doing the grocery shopping.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

We need to we need to develop this person for us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:53

Elon, get to work. We would love to hear what you guys have to say. If AI could take over some of your daily tasks, what would you choose and why? You can reach out and share that with us at info at edleadershipontap.com. That's info at edleadershipontap.com.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

And you can also share it on all of the socials on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

Or you could send us fan mail. I know in the past I've said you could send us a text, but uh Buzz Sprout, our podcast host, has implemented a new feature to the podcast page that says send us fan mail. You can actually send us a text or even a voicemail. So we'd love for you to send us a voicemail that we could play on our next episode. Just click on the button that says send us fan mail wherever you get your podcast from.

SPEAKER_02 51:51

We're pretty fancy. Until next time, uh keep leading.