Latest / Integrate This! Ed Tech Podcast / Always in Draft: Authentic Assessment and the Writer’s Room with Jen Ivers

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Always in Draft: Authentic Assessment and the Writer’s Room with Jen Ivers · Integrate This! Ed Tech Podcast

0:00
Welcome to Integrate This, your go -to EdTech
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podcast where curiosity meets classroom innovation.
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Join your hosts, David Berner and Jeremy Mikla,
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as we explore the rapidly evolving world of educational
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technology. From game -changing tools to insightful
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conversations with today's top EdTech voices,
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we're here to help educators stay informed, inspired,
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and ready to innovate. So tune in, level up,
0:25
and let's integrate this. Welcome to the Integrate
0:39
This podcast. I am Jeremy Mikla and I'm joined
0:43
as always by co -host David Berner. And we're
0:47
bringing a special guest with us into the conversation
0:50
today. Her name is Jen Ivers. Jen is a teacher
0:55
and instructional. coach and instructional technology,
1:01
you know, I'll let you elaborate on exactly what
1:03
that role is in Orono Public Schools, which is,
1:08
you know, for those of you not from Minnesota,
1:11
it would be a metro area school. And we're just
1:16
We heard some great things that Jen was presenting
1:18
at a network meeting for a group called Mingaya,
1:23
the Minnesota Generative AI Alliance, that Jen
1:27
had shared some amazing things with what she's
1:30
doing both in the classroom and working with
1:32
her fellow teachers that just I think sheds a
1:37
very important light onto the conversation of
1:41
assessment and authentic assessment in the age
1:43
of AI. So Jen, Jen, really welcome to the program.
1:47
We're super glad to have you. Thanks for having
1:50
me. So Jen, why don't you kind of give us a little
1:54
bit of the background story of you, you know,
1:58
like how you got, you know, in your role in education
2:02
and how you kind of progressed from the classroom
2:04
into what it is you're doing today. Well, so
2:09
I went to the University of San Diego where I
2:12
got my teaching license and I actually started
2:14
teaching out in California and I started teaching
2:17
at a school that had actually received a SIG
2:20
grant in order they had been considered underperforming
2:23
for 10 years and so I was hired as a part of
2:26
a turnaround team and I just had incredible mentors
2:30
and an amazing administration and I sort of entered
2:33
teaching in a time where we were really thinking
2:36
about a like what is an authentic assessment?
2:40
How might we approach standards based grading?
2:44
So even from my first teaching experience, I
2:47
sort of had the privilege of entering a system
2:50
that was starting to question our assessment
2:52
practices in a way that I think was really helpful
2:55
as a young teacher. And so. I taught there for
2:59
a few years, and I moved back to Minnesota, where
3:01
I'm originally from. And I have three teaching
3:05
licenses. I've taught English language arts.
3:07
I've taught English language learners, and then
3:09
reading intervention. So I have a passion for
3:12
literacy and teaching students to read and write
3:15
and create. And then over time, I started to
3:19
step into roles in our building, like our instructional
3:22
leadership team, and supporting teachers in their
3:25
PLCs. And so it's in that process that I made
3:28
my way sort of out of the classroom. I'm still
3:30
a little bit in. I just don't really know if
3:33
I can give it up. So I teach two periods of the
3:36
day. And then the rest of my day, my building
3:39
calls me an instructional development facilitator,
3:42
but I kind of just wear a lot of different hats.
3:44
Like I support some of the work of our digital
3:47
literacy specialists. I support some of our MTSS
3:50
processes. I help in PLC work and professional
3:53
development. sort of like a multi -purpose tool
3:57
in the other part of my day. And so, yeah, so
4:01
that's sort of how I made my way. And then, you
4:04
know, I've been really lucky to be nurtured by
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our technology department. Just kind of any time
4:09
they've had professional development or opportunities
4:11
to travel and learn, like going to ISTE, Sean
4:16
Beverson, who's our Director of Technology, has
4:17
just been like an amazing mentor. And so that's
4:21
sort of how I came to work. more closely with
4:24
our technology team but I always sort of joke
4:27
like I have no background in technology so in
4:30
terms of like my expertise it's just been learned
4:33
on the job and not an expert but like all of
4:37
that all of what I bring to my classroom is really
4:40
a gift from the experts around me so yeah. Well,
4:44
and if her last name sounds a little bit familiar,
4:47
if you have followed the podcast for a little
4:50
while here, Jen's husband, Paul, was a previous
4:53
guest on our show. And so we were glad to extend
4:57
the invitation to you and to bring your own unique
5:02
perspective to this, right? Because like you
5:04
said, not coming from necessarily the perspective
5:08
of technology, but yet we're... where they integrate
5:11
this podcast, right? So we want to find out how
5:14
can technology be brought forward in a very practical
5:18
way to help improve the learning environments
5:21
for all of our students. And I think definitely
5:23
the instructional practices that you use and
5:26
the assessments that you bring definitely, you
5:29
know, companion or pair really well to make good
5:33
companions with the technology pieces here. So
5:36
one of the things though that you kind of touched
5:39
on here a little but maybe you can go into it
5:41
a little bit more. Like you had mentioned, like
5:43
you entered into teaching at a time when assessments
5:47
already seem to be broken, right? What do you
5:51
think were some of those frustrations? And do
5:55
you see a role for technology in some way to
6:00
do something to help bring about a necessary
6:02
change? That's a good way to describe it. I do
6:07
think prior to the acceleration of AI in our
6:12
workspace, I think that assessment practices,
6:16
there were so many that maybe we can reflect
6:19
back on now and say like, wow, that was probably
6:22
not best practice, right? Or we were doing the
6:24
best we could with what we knew. But that idea
6:27
of like, once we know better, we should do better,
6:29
I think was really where I began my teaching,
6:33
kind of where I had mentors saying like, we're
6:36
sick of the multiple choice test that goes with
6:39
this beautiful work of literature, or I don't
6:43
want students to regurgitate exactly what I thought
6:46
about this book in an essay that's five paragraphs,
6:49
right? Or even practices like giving a lot of
6:53
feedback after an essay is turned in where like
6:56
the writing process is over and it's like an
6:59
autopsy versus being able to help along the way.
7:02
So I think about all of those practices and many
7:06
of which I experienced as a student myself and
7:10
really started questioning like What is the purpose
7:14
of assessing the skill in this way? And do I
7:16
have to assess these standards in this way, right?
7:19
Because the standard will say like a student
7:21
can trace a theme across a text, but there are
7:25
a lot of ways for a student to maybe describe
7:27
how a theme comes across a text and maybe working
7:30
alone or collaboratively. So I think some of
7:33
this idea of the brokenness was really asking
7:37
like, what? will these students need to be adults
7:42
that are engaged and effective in our world?
7:45
And how can assessment encourage foster and help
7:49
develop those skills, the aptitudes, the dispositions
7:53
of those highly effective adults? And so it's
7:58
sort of in that reflection that we asked, like,
8:01
how do we need to change the format of this test
8:03
or this assessment, I should say, in order to
8:07
to get there, to get to that meaningful work.
8:10
And I think also when I started teaching we were
8:12
we were sort of saying, like, we don't know what
8:14
jobs our students will have, right? We think
8:16
about, like, how careers have changed. And for
8:20
some, that felt really overwhelming, like, well,
8:23
if I don't know what job they're going to do
8:24
or have, how can I prepare them for that? And
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I think that's where we started to say, like,
8:29
we may never know, but we do know the skills
8:32
that employers are looking for when it comes
8:33
to collaboration and communication. And those
8:36
are things we can foster with our assessments.
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So it's sort of in rethinking that design and
8:41
thinking about how our practice could really
8:45
meet the demands of the students of the the world
8:48
the students were going to enter and just like
8:51
help them rise to those demands as they leave
8:53
our building. So I think when I think about how
8:56
technology plays a role in that. I think about
9:01
how some of the work with AI has just accelerated
9:04
our work. And maybe it's accelerated our need
9:08
to revisit old practices and rethink them. Maybe
9:11
it's accelerated how we can reinvent assessment.
9:15
And so I think both of those things are really
9:18
exciting work. And it's the work we're going
9:20
to continue to do. I think we're sort of on that
9:24
precipice of really seeing this continue to unfold
9:27
in powerful ways for students. Yeah, and I think
9:31
along with what you're saying there, I think
9:33
AI brings about this ability to be able to kind
9:36
of like... shine a light on some of those practices
9:39
that like maybe we had taken for granted or maybe
9:43
kind of put too much credit into, you know, it
9:46
could be on either side of that or at the same
9:48
time to really help us broaden what it means
9:52
to do authentic assessments that are more personalized
9:56
to each individual student because I think AI
9:59
can really help bring about some of that personalization
10:03
that could go into it as well. Absolutely. And
10:07
when we think about those kind of the career
10:09
trajectory and that personalization is so important
10:12
because then students can see relevance in what
10:14
we're doing here. It can be connected to that
10:17
kind of where they're aiming to go, right? They're
10:20
going to end up in different places. And that
10:22
personalization piece helps to bring about the
10:25
relevance. And it can be almost cyclical because
10:29
that relevance and that might even lead to more
10:32
engagement from that student and they'll feel
10:35
more agency in their own learning. And then it
10:38
just kind of the cycle can kind of keep repeating
10:42
itself. Absolutely. Jane, could I have you focus
10:46
on the authentic piece for just a bit? And because
10:50
one of the things that we found over the last
10:51
couple of years is there are people are approaching
10:54
AI in so many different ways. And so the way
10:58
that they partner with AI, how would you say
11:02
that you can, what does authentic mean when you're
11:07
partnering with AI? And maybe if it helps just
11:10
to focus specifically on student use for right
11:13
now, but when they step up to a computer, the
11:17
biggest concern is the loss of their own voice
11:19
or the... you know, giving everything over to
11:23
the machine so that it produces everything. So
11:26
how do we maintain authenticity when we're partnering
11:29
with AI? That's a great question. When I think
11:34
about my students stepping up to their computer
11:37
and engaging with AI, I think about their agency.
11:42
and their discernment being so important to that
11:48
question of how are they engaging in a way that's
11:50
authentic or that they don't lose their own authentic
11:52
voice. So when we began this school year in order
11:57
to kind of... preemptively prepare for that moment,
12:02
I decided to begin the year by teaching students
12:05
more about how their brains develop, how are
12:07
the neural pathways developing, why is it that
12:10
learning is initially hard? Because so often
12:13
when it's challenging, it's like, okay, well,
12:14
what tool or what resource could I outsource
12:16
this to if needed? And I wanted to make sure
12:19
that they were able to make decisions about what
12:22
they outsource and really strategically so that
12:25
they weren't outsourcing opportunities to share
12:29
their unique idea in a beautiful way that's creative
12:32
and totally their own. And or to say, you know
12:38
what, the goal of this task I'm doing is this,
12:41
so I can use AI in this way without threatening
12:45
my autonomy and my agency. We spent time talking
12:49
about how the brain develops, how their neural
12:51
pathways connect. And then when we approached
12:54
AI, I simply asked them for each task, when we
12:59
brought AI as a thought partner, I said, what's
13:04
the skill you're developing or the neural pathway
13:06
you're developing? How can AI help you in this
13:10
moment? And then in what ways do we need to do
13:13
some of this work independently or with a partner
13:15
that's a human versus AI so they could be really
13:20
strategic about not outsourcing the most important
13:24
part of their learning or the most beautiful
13:25
part of their experience or their creativity.
13:28
I really think about pulling the curtain back
13:31
and helping students to become more discerning
13:34
users of really any technology. It doesn't have
13:38
to just be AI, but asking what is my goal? What
13:42
is my learning goal? What do I care about here?
13:46
Then how can I engage with this tool in a way
13:48
that's really strategic so I don't lose who I
13:51
am in this process? I don't know if that totally
13:55
answers your question, but maybe I'm touching
13:57
on it. Yeah, I think, like, giving them opportunities
14:01
to, like you said, discern for themselves, like,
14:05
through use of it, what's good about it and what's
14:08
not. The one thing, if you could kind of connect
14:12
to this, is we've had a lot of different use
14:16
scales that have come out. And so, like, assessment
14:21
scales or like the stoplight is the one of the
14:24
most well known ones, but now it's kind of shunned
14:27
and but could you talk a little bit just about
14:30
like. The connection between students having
14:35
when they partner with AI. Any learning about
14:39
those different use cases? How much do the guardrails
14:44
that we set up get in the way of that? because
14:48
we do have a lot of these different models coming
14:50
out, and it's maybe a little bit hard to discern
14:52
what the right answer is, even though many of
14:56
us are searching for the right framework or answer
14:58
or things like that. Can you talk a little bit
15:00
about that and how much we should be investing
15:03
in those when it comes to student use? Yeah,
15:07
that's a great follow -up question. We did develop
15:11
a scale here with our kind of emerging technology
15:14
cohort of teachers. predominantly it was to give
15:18
teachers language to use with students, right?
15:22
So it was kind of this time of teachers feeling
15:26
really overwhelmed and not knowing how to nurture
15:29
student use and how to show them where boundaries
15:32
are and how to navigate which tool for what purpose
15:36
at what time and how much. And so I think of
15:39
it as a scaffold. But then as I used it, I realized
15:43
even for myself, I'm all over the scale. There's
15:47
a single project where I'm sort of in yellow,
15:50
and then I'm also in red, and then I'm up here
15:52
in green. And it was maybe not sophisticated
15:55
enough for how I really use AI personally, as
16:00
a professional. And that really made me consider
16:04
how I use it with my students, because I thought,
16:06
well, if I'm experiencing this, they may also
16:08
feel at times like the scale. is not really fitting
16:13
for the purpose or the task. So I would say I
16:16
don't have a good answer. I don't know to what
16:18
degree that scale will continue to be really
16:21
important or will diminish. I suspect it will.
16:25
become less important as we start to feel more
16:29
competent with showing and teaching students
16:31
the boundaries and the nuances and how we ebb
16:34
and flow between different uses of maybe our
16:39
LLM of choice, or maybe multiple, because often
16:42
I'm hopping between several. So I think we'll
16:46
gain competency in that, and maybe that competency
16:49
will help us to demonstrate more of the nuance
16:51
for our students. I spend less time worried that
16:54
they know the exact scale or that they know exactly
16:57
the boundaries of it. And I spend more time interested
17:00
in how they're thinking about their choices,
17:03
how they're articulating their choices and how
17:05
they're developing their own like internal sense
17:08
of integrity and competence with the tool. And
17:11
I think that that's maybe the ideal and the s
17:19
ticket there. So I suspect important. I hope
17:24
as our and are my students become about their
17:29
work. It sound here is to leave a lot of with
17:38
how complex a lesson could be and all the different
17:41
pieces that go into it, you almost have to allow
17:44
for that. I don't think that some of the frameworks
17:47
are necessarily trying to box us in, but I think
17:53
we could maybe do that to ourselves. I know for
17:57
myself, I sometimes can think rigidly so that
18:00
I'm like, okay, these certain things should only
18:03
be in this category and stuff like that. Absolutely.
18:08
Oh, sorry. Sorry. No, I do appreciate we've talked
18:12
to you and some others recently too that really
18:15
emphasize that need for the flexibility, which
18:17
I think is good for me to think about and talk
18:21
with others about. Yeah, I think as a teacher,
18:24
we sort of have to ebb and flow between the structure
18:28
that gives our lessons and our plans meaning,
18:31
right? Like, I know you're going to get to this
18:33
end goal. I know you're going to be able to demonstrate
18:35
these competencies and these skills. And I can
18:37
ensure that, right? Like, that's my job here
18:40
in this year of ninth grade English. And then
18:42
the flexibility to respond to their needs, their
18:45
need to know more about a tool and their interest
18:47
in this subject. And we ebb and flow between
18:50
kind of having to be extremely responsive and
18:53
flexible, and then having to still have enough
18:55
structure that you know you're going to make
18:57
sure all students gain the skills and competencies
19:00
they need. Teaching is so complicated. When we
19:04
talk about it in this way, I'm just reminded,
19:06
every time I work with an educator, how much
19:09
they're really managing and how flexible you
19:14
have to be in your disposition while also while
19:18
also maintaining an appropriate amount of structure.
19:21
That's hard, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want
19:25
us to pivot here a little bit because I think
19:27
we've been looking and talking about a lot of
19:31
big picture things so far, right? The theoretical
19:34
stuff. But I want to make this really practical
19:38
and purposeful at the same time. So I'm going
19:41
to read a quote of yours here. And it's a quote
19:46
in the form of a question. you say what would
19:48
happen if we transformed our classrooms into
19:51
a writing studio in which our students pitched
19:54
a coming -of -age television series to a showrunner?
19:58
And I think it brings in this idea of, you know,
20:04
are we focused on what that end product is? Are
20:08
we focused on the process that a student takes
20:11
in their learning journey to maybe get to that
20:14
point? And I think it brings us into that practical
20:18
part of you have this great idea here for this
20:22
writer's room to help students kind of develop
20:27
a comedy sketch or a sitcom type of a pitch,
20:32
which to me demonstrates their learning about
20:36
the theme of coming of age in a way that goes
20:40
way beyond what a five paragraph essay, for example,
20:44
could do. So can you elaborate a little bit on
20:47
this idea and the process? Yeah, absolutely.
20:50
I work on an incredible PLC. So I'll say that.
20:56
I believe so much in the power of teachers coming
21:00
together and sharing what they're uniquely gifted
21:02
at. So our PLC came together and there is just
21:05
a lot of trust and a lot of expertise on that
21:08
PLC. And so we sat down and part of the impetus
21:13
for this unit was that we got rid of a text from
21:16
our curriculum. And we needed to change this
21:20
unit. And we felt that the old version of assessment
21:23
was falling into some of those traps we've already
21:25
mentioned, and just felt less inspired. So together,
21:30
we just asked, in the world, where will our students
21:34
really experience coming -of -age storytelling,
21:38
and where will they... kind of how will these
21:42
skills resonate with them as adults? And so we
21:45
thought about how popular coming of age television
21:48
is and just how much we've enjoyed it as we came
21:51
of age and even as adults, the kind of series
21:53
that have been really compelling. And we said,
21:57
wouldn't it be cool if we just thought about
22:00
our classrooms differently for the next three
22:02
or four weeks and created kind of a writing studio
22:07
where students would come together and would
22:10
essentially develop a coming -of -age pitch for
22:13
us for a series. So they develop that pitch.
22:16
They storyboard the pilot episode. They pull
22:18
together casting and costumes and filming locations.
22:22
They make trailers and they even add a script,
22:26
a reading of that script and a persuasive pitch
22:28
at the end. I wasn't gonna say, speech would
22:33
be too dramatic. Like it's shorter than that.
22:35
But we... got so excited about this idea. So
22:40
like when you ask kind of where did this start,
22:42
it's like all of a sudden, it wasn't the kind
22:45
of drain where like, oh gosh, I have to write
22:47
a multiple choice test and you dread it because
22:50
it's just not inspiring at all. And it's not
22:52
fun for you. And it's not fun for them to take
22:54
it. And then when you grade it, you kind of wonder
22:56
like, was this the best way to show these skills?
22:59
And instead, I think we just felt so inspired
23:04
by the idea that all of a sudden we're pulling
23:06
exemplars from the real world. We're showing
23:08
them television trailers from shows they currently
23:13
watch and looking at it more analytically. Sorry
23:16
about that, Belle. But when you think about this
23:21
unit and this assessment, it really was just
23:24
a question of like... do we feel that we could
23:28
change the format? And we felt we had permission
23:31
to do that. We felt we were trusted as a PLC
23:34
to make a really good decision about how we could
23:36
assess them differently. So that trust was there.
23:39
We had each other to come to the table and to
23:41
bring unique ideas about this project. And then
23:46
from there, we curated resources that would help
23:49
us to make our classrooms into that writing studio.
23:53
then bringing it into the classroom we learned
23:56
more and more each time we did it about like
23:58
you know what worked and what didn't and how
24:00
we would tweak it and so I think over time it's
24:04
it's felt like more inspired than than that first
24:07
iteration and that's exciting too because over
24:09
time you don't want that curriculum to get stale
24:11
or dry you want to keep innovating and making
24:15
sure it's meeting their needs but this has been
24:17
one that I look forward to every year as a teacher.
24:21
And how different is that than feeling maybe
24:25
the stress over having to grade a bunch of essays,
24:27
right? I think about how excited I am to see
24:30
their final pitches and how special it is to
24:32
watch them collaborate and then really show us
24:35
what they can do at the end there. I know one
24:39
of the things when I present to teachers about
24:42
AI that I always try to make sure is at the forefront
24:46
of everything, every discussion that we have,
24:49
is that the human intelligence is always greater
24:51
than the artificial intelligence. And I really
24:55
see that in how you discuss how this was a PLC
25:00
project with fellow teachers and how the coming
25:04
together of this human intelligence has really
25:07
led to something that's really been able to develop
25:11
and expand. And something, obviously, I could
25:14
see a lot of passion that you have for this as
25:16
well. Yeah, absolutely. And even the examples
25:19
that we bring in are like. Pixar, right? They're
25:23
like television shows that are on network television
25:25
now. And something that's beautiful about that
25:28
is like think about the the human intelligence
25:30
that came together and the creativity to make
25:32
those. And so I think like it is really celebratory
25:36
of assessment that asks like how can we how can
25:41
we nurture human intelligence and creativity?
25:45
And then how can we bring the tools to the table
25:48
that help us to do that without losing what's
25:51
uniquely human or what's really special about
25:54
that work in collaboration and the interdependence
25:57
of the teamwork, right? Yeah, perfect. You're
25:59
going exactly the direction that I want to follow
26:02
up here with that. What is the role of AI? Where
26:06
does AI fit in and where doesn't it in this type
26:10
of a project? or for process. Yeah. So we, one
26:14
of the things we do is we show them a clip of
26:18
the writer's room for the office. And they learn
26:21
about the blue sky period. And this is a period
26:24
in writing or in a writer's room where like anything
26:27
goes, right? They're just throwing out ideas.
26:29
They're brainstorming. It's really early days
26:32
in the project and this is a time where we ask
26:38
them to think about bringing AI because it's
26:40
so good at generating ideas but they're so good
26:43
at discerning like what's really gonna hit their
26:45
target audience you know and so many of them
26:48
build television series that are really for teenagers
26:51
which is heartening like because they know themselves
26:53
they know their audience and I think it's fun
26:56
to see them use AI, certainly at that point,
27:00
to generate ideas and then to sit and hash out
27:04
which were quality, which do they want to build
27:08
on, and which of those ideas should they absolutely
27:10
abandon. That's one way that they engage AI early
27:14
in that process. I would say that also later,
27:18
they do some AI image generation and learn a
27:21
little bit more about like character consistency
27:23
on their storyboards. And so that's a helpful
27:27
part of the process because we get to work with
27:31
them on how they prompt and how they think about
27:35
getting that story storyboarded well so their
27:38
audience can understand it or the show writer
27:40
can understand it and hopefully choose their
27:42
show. But I think of it really as a thought partner
27:46
and then at times a creative partner like with
27:48
that AI image generation. But they have each
27:52
other as well. And so there's kind of this mix
27:55
of students working with each other, students
27:59
working with AI, students working with me. It's
28:04
really organic. There wasn't one day where it
28:06
was like, today you use Gemini and tomorrow you
28:09
don't. It was so fluid and really based on the
28:12
task at hand and the purpose of that task. Did
28:17
anything majorly surprise you? about how a student's
28:22
use of AI made it into their pitch or into their
28:27
pilot? That's a good question. No, but there
28:32
were some funny moments. I went over to one student
28:35
and I just read this unit, and I guess to that
28:39
point, the scale. allowed me to really start
28:43
having conversations with them about how they're
28:45
using AI. Like we had a lot of trust. It was
28:47
no longer like, oh, she's coming. Let me hide
28:50
it. You know, it was like, they knew I was going
28:52
to ask them how they were prompting and what
28:54
they were doing. And so I went over to a student
28:56
and she had on her slideshow like four, four.
29:00
squares and she was trying to add something to
29:02
it and I said hey can you tell me more about
29:05
like how you just prompted Gemini here and she
29:07
wrote oh I asked for four big ideas um because
29:10
I have four spaces on my slideshow and I kind
29:14
of giggled because I was like hey you know one
29:16
thing you could do is ask for like 10 ideas you
29:18
know so you can find the ones that might be worth
29:21
exploring or and she was just blown away by my
29:25
suggestion so it was very endearing like I you
29:29
you just come to see like how they're engaging
29:32
with that tool and how they're thinking about
29:34
its use. And then when you kind of tell them
29:36
like, well, actually it could do this. It's like,
29:37
that's not a, it wasn't a great suggestion by
29:40
me, but it really blew her mind to think like,
29:42
oh yeah, of course. Like I should ask for more
29:44
so I can be the one to, um, to do some of the
29:47
curating. Oh yeah. She, I mean, it was like,
29:52
I blew her mind, but I was, I laugh because I
29:54
was like, that is That wasn't my highest quality
29:57
prompt there for her. Or like I had one student
30:00
who put the rubric in at the end and had Gemini
30:03
kind of assess where they were on the rubric.
30:06
And it gave some bad feedback or just like feedback
30:09
I wouldn't have attended to. And when she explained
30:13
it to me, she was like, well, I guess I have
30:14
to change the project. And I was like, no, no,
30:16
of course you don't. Like, if you don't think
30:18
that is sound feedback, like by all means, like
30:22
you can ask it to elaborate or give examples
30:24
of why, but you don't have to commit to that
30:27
change because it suggested it. I don't know
30:29
that anything surprised me in what turned up
30:33
in their final project, but I think that the
30:36
conversations we had at times were so illuminating
30:40
about how they're thinking about the tool and
30:42
just being able to nurture their thinking about
30:44
AI. Can we dive in a little bit more to that?
30:50
At first here, I guess just looking at what are
30:53
you finding with uh students and prompt writing
30:55
because well you know one of the things that
30:58
comes out constantly especially when new models
31:00
of ai tools come out uh they'll there's prompt
31:04
frameworks that um you can use to really design
31:09
your prompt and have a a fully fleshed out prompt
31:12
and you know my thing with that is i always i
31:14
always when i do my trainings i kind of talk
31:17
about how that's it's helpful to you because
31:19
you can get out a lot of details of where you
31:22
want the AI to go, and then you don't end up
31:26
wasting a bunch of time because you're trying
31:29
to get it to do what you want, but it's not quite
31:32
getting there. I work with adult learners a lot
31:35
more, but from the student aspect, what are you
31:39
seeing with their first exposures to prompting,
31:43
and then maybe even touching on, if you have
31:46
a specific example, that'd be great. a student
31:50
that maybe started really with short prompts
31:54
or something and kind of moved towards more complex
31:57
prompts. Have you seen any of that or can you
31:58
talk about any of that? Yeah, I can see that
32:03
it has. most often illuminated their understanding
32:07
of the task at hand. When I see them prompt,
32:11
sometimes I can spot right away that they maybe
32:13
have a misunderstanding about what the final
32:16
product should look like or what they're going
32:19
for. That's been helpful because then I can do
32:21
some reteaching about the objective of that lesson
32:24
or the learning goal for the student and then
32:26
they can go back to it and iterate. That has
32:29
been one way that I've seen prompting provide
32:32
me quick feedback about whether they understand
32:34
the task or not. In terms of engineering prompting,
32:39
there is such a great connection to what we do
32:43
when we write. I think about students reading
32:45
and writing and thinking about rhetoric and understanding
32:48
audience and context and purpose and tone and
32:51
So one of the things that's been helpful is they,
32:56
like Raft is a strategy we use, and maybe you've
32:59
heard of it, but it's so students can analyze
33:01
the role, the audience, the format, and the purpose
33:05
of a text or something we're studying. That has
33:11
been a really helpful transfer skill when it
33:15
comes to prompting, just helping them to consider
33:18
what they can provide to get a better first response
33:22
from the LLM that they're using here, Demini.
33:26
So I don't have a super concrete example right
33:29
now of where it started maybe short and it ended
33:33
more. In depth, they're more purposeful. I can
33:37
say that that transfer skill has made it so much
33:40
easier for me to help them understand why we
33:43
are maybe going to think more carefully about
33:45
our prompts and then get something of much better
33:48
quality when we do that. So I'm grateful that
33:54
that skill is really transferable from English
33:56
language arts text analysis to engineering a
34:00
prompt. Yeah, and that's great. too that's a
34:04
great example like the we are still you're you're
34:07
communicating with these these programs and the
34:09
more information you can give it the better off
34:11
it's going to perform and then i would say too
34:14
like this kind of goes back to our other conversation
34:16
about the assessment side where you have nuance
34:19
with even the frameworks because some frameworks
34:22
are going to lend themselves to certain tasks
34:25
and others are not and you know you can as a
34:28
student or just any user really you I mean, you
34:32
always kind of have to discern, right? Do you
34:35
need to include tone or anything like that? You
34:38
almost have to figure that out as you are constructing
34:42
it. Yeah, I do share with them. I try as best
34:46
I can to model what we're talking about with
34:49
students. So if I go and prompt it the first
34:51
time, kind of showing them and talking to them
34:52
about what I'm thinking as I'm doing it, one
34:55
of the things I have noticed, though, is I will
34:57
share with them. If I have a pretty good idea
34:59
of what I want, I am going to spend more time
35:03
engineering that prompt so I can get what I want
35:05
and get going. If I am in an exploratory, maybe
35:08
uncertain place, sometimes I start with some
35:10
shorter prompts and sometimes I abandon them.
35:13
I'm like, oh, no, that's not where I wanted to
35:15
be. That's been helpful to show them as well.
35:19
It's really, again, metacognitive. It's like,
35:21
what do I know about this? How much do I know
35:24
about this? What place in my learning process
35:27
am I? Am I just brainstorming, and I'm in that
35:29
blue sky period? OK, then maybe it's a little
35:32
more exploratory. Maybe I have a lot of clear.
35:36
I've got clarity on my direction, my purpose,
35:38
my tools. OK, now it's probably worth it for
35:41
me to spend more time engineering something that's
35:44
going to be a higher quality. So it's interesting,
35:47
too, how much this relates to their executive
35:50
functioning. They're a sense of prioritizing
35:52
tasks, breaking them down, understanding time
35:54
management and task complexity. But again, these
36:01
are such worthy things to be addressing in your
36:04
class. I mean, of course I care about English
36:06
language arts, but my goodness, if I'm fostering
36:08
students who have a greater sense of whether
36:10
tone is appropriate to address in this prompt
36:12
or not, or how much time and expertise they have
36:17
in something and therefore how they're going
36:19
to go about using the tool, I feel a lot better
36:21
about sending that future adult into our world,
36:25
knowing that they're going to have a disposition
36:27
of a of an adult who can be reflective and then
36:31
be extremely purposeful. And I have one more
36:33
question too on that. What have you noticed in
36:37
terms of student to student collaboration? Maybe,
36:42
have you seen any organic student to student
36:45
collaboration? Like if, for example, if a student's
36:50
trying to work with something and trying to construct
36:53
a prompt and then. just naturally it happens
36:56
that one student will help another with maybe
36:59
a different way to approach a prompt to get a
37:02
different answer. What have you seen as far as
37:04
that goes with organic collaboration? Well I
37:06
can say like there's a very endearing memory
37:09
I have of using a chat bot for the first time
37:11
in my classroom where I had a student who spoke
37:15
French and he was a very much a level one EL
37:19
and I didn't really know how the chat bot was
37:23
going to go in general. It was very new to me.
37:26
This was maybe two years ago now. And a student
37:31
just sort of hollered across the classroom, like,
37:34
hey, so and so, tell it to speak French. And
37:37
then the student did. And then suddenly, he was
37:40
engaging with this. It was like William Shakespeare.
37:42
I made a chat bot of William Shakespeare before
37:44
we read Romeo and Juliet. And now, all of a sudden,
37:46
Shakespeare is bantering with my student in French.
37:50
I was just so heartened by the one student just
37:55
saying like, oh, like this, it can do this. this
37:59
would really benefit my friend over here who
38:02
as an English learner and as a level one is already
38:05
facing some challenges with communicating with
38:08
the students and feeling like a part of our community.
38:12
So I think like that's probably one of the ones
38:14
that stays with me in terms of like the most
38:16
organic way they've just like been able to look
38:18
out for one another and said, hey, try this and
38:21
and seen that be really successful both then
38:23
for the student and just in building a really
38:26
safe and welcoming learning environment. Yeah,
38:31
and I think you're, I think you're definitely
38:33
talking about, you know, these experiences that
38:36
you're helping to create for the students, you
38:39
know, kudos for that and I think it's just. That's
38:42
what a student is going to remember long after
38:45
the class is over, is they're going to remember
38:47
a lot of what took place in the process of that
38:52
learning. And it's really amazing with, I think,
38:56
what you're doing in your English language arts
38:59
classes. So how can this be more scalable? How
39:04
can this become more doable for non -ELA teachers?
39:10
The social studies teacher, the health teacher,
39:13
the third grade teacher, that wants to bring
39:16
these types of experiences to their students.
39:21
What would you recommend that a teacher do that's
39:24
wanting to embark upon that? beliefs I hold very
39:31
strongly here about this and the first is that
39:33
like your PLC can be a powerful source of creativity
39:39
and ingenuity and so I think like and and hope
39:44
you know hopefully people can find a community
39:46
even if you're working in a small district but
39:48
maybe you know getting on a google meet with
39:50
a teacher working in another district but like
39:52
collaborate with your colleagues. even interdepartmental
39:56
right or cross -departmental so that you can
39:59
hear what other people are doing and maybe go
40:01
and see it right like go in and watch have them
40:04
share their lessons with you talk about it debrief
40:07
but i really think that because we already see
40:10
the plc model as a vehicle for like you know
40:13
highly effective tier one instructions certainly
40:15
like this is a great place to collaborate like
40:18
that's a collaborative group like collaborate
40:20
and work together um to to assess where are the
40:27
parts in our curriculum or in our student experience
40:29
that we just feel could be more engaging, more
40:32
inspired, more lively for us and, most importantly,
40:35
for the students. And the other is ask for help.
40:39
I have just never been turned down. This is kind
40:42
of how I ended up working more closely with our
40:44
technology department. But we have had digital
40:48
learning specialists here. And I just asked them
40:51
to come into my classroom. often as they would,
40:54
maybe to an obnoxious amount. But I just thought
40:59
to myself, we have resources. So hopefully, if
41:01
you have resources like a specialist on your
41:04
campus, reach out because. I mean, everything
41:08
I've shared here didn't start with me. It started
41:11
by being inspired by others and collaborating
41:13
with others. But having those specialists come
41:15
into my classroom, watch me teach, I watch them
41:17
teach, interacting with my students, opening
41:21
my door has transformed my teaching tremendously.
41:25
And I think especially at the high school level,
41:27
sometimes it can be really closed door. We're
41:30
overwhelmed. There's a lot going on. You're managing
41:32
maybe 120 plus students. And so I would just
41:37
say like lean on the PLC to help scale this work
41:40
because I think this is very possible if you
41:42
bring together like so much as possible and bring
41:45
together our teachers. They have so much to offer
41:47
each other. So that and opening your doors and
41:52
your experience with the PLC is fantastic. We
41:56
had a guest on Dr Fonz Mendoza who used the PLC
42:04
in his experience. to mean please learn compliance.
42:09
Oh, that's so sad. Very sad. Yeah, but I think
42:13
the second, so if you are in such a PLC, because
42:16
it's not always your choice which PLCs you kind
42:19
of get put into in every district, it varies,
42:23
right? But that second part of what you said,
42:26
if you're not getting what you need out of that
42:29
first group, find another group. You know, find,
42:33
you know, ask questions, seek out p that you
42:38
would like to, t know, and I think also be you've
42:44
been doing with ot or that window into kind of
42:53
your style, your way of teaching that can really
42:56
might be shareable or it might bring in something
42:59
brand new that that you haven't thought of before.
43:02
And I think making those connections and I think,
43:04
you know, I think as long as David and I have
43:07
been doing this now, I'm just nobody says no.
43:11
I don't have we had. David, you know, I guess
43:14
that we've approached that told us, no, I don't
43:17
want to come on your show. I just don't think
43:20
that that's the education world. At least the
43:23
people that we want to be associated with. Yeah,
43:26
I have never had someone say no to me when I
43:30
said, hey, I need some help or, you know, hey,
43:32
I want to just like get better at this or I want
43:35
to be more comfortable with this. Like I just
43:37
have never had a teacher or a specialist say,
43:40
no, I won't help you. Like we're asking our students
43:43
every day to be vulnerable, to work with people
43:46
they don't feel comfortable with, to sometimes
43:48
do activities that feel compliance driven. So
43:52
I think like maybe trying to live out in your
43:57
experience as a professional what you're asking
43:59
of your students, which is to stretch, be vulnerable,
44:02
and make mistakes. You're going to make mistakes
44:04
in the process, but that's the other piece of
44:07
bringing others to the table. When I'm going
44:10
to try something new, like that chat bot for
44:11
the first time, I didn't do it in isolation.
44:14
I talked to my PLC. I talked to a specialist.
44:16
I actually invited a specialist into my classroom
44:19
just so that I had other eyes, other hands, other
44:21
support in that moment. I know that not everybody
44:25
has the same experience of PLC or the level of
44:28
resources, but I think that there is so much
44:31
we can do when we share with one another. So
44:35
to whatever degree you can collaborate with others
44:38
and share, that's, I think, how we scale this
44:41
work. Yeah, that's great. And I think, you know,
44:46
reaching out to those people, you talked about
44:48
that, and you don't have to know all of the answers
44:51
to do that. I know you've talked, and after seeing
44:54
your presentation, which I know we will link
44:56
in the show description, but you even talk about
45:00
how you go into this... this idea of trying to
45:03
close feedback loops, right? And bringing technology
45:07
into that to help do that with things like Apps
45:10
Scripts, or Gemini Gems, or AI Studio. And I
45:15
can't imagine that those were, you know, like,
45:20
completely understood by you the very first time
45:21
that you looked upon them. And, you know, like
45:23
how, how seeking out the advice of the others,
45:28
or if you don't have that person that you can
45:31
immediately go to, you're not going to break
45:35
anything, right? Just by diving in and trying
45:38
something out, if it doesn't get you the result
45:40
that you want, well now you know you're going
45:42
to do something different next time. Totally.
45:44
And you're still gonna act with integrity, right?
45:48
Like, I think about this a lot, like, with our
45:51
students even engaging with AI, it's like, start
45:53
with your sense of integrity, start with your
45:55
sense of like, what you know to believe to be
45:58
good practice with whatever task you're doing
46:00
or whatever you're doing. And that's what I think
46:01
about with teaching, like, I believe I can act
46:04
with integrity as a teacher and I can, I know,
46:06
I believe I know best practice. So if I'm then
46:10
going to try something new, I start with that.
46:12
And then I bring others to the table to help
46:14
me when I'm doing something that's really uncertain
46:17
or really new to me. But yeah, to that end, some
46:21
of the early days of using Autocrat or Apps Scripting,
46:25
I mean, if you had told me 15 years ago when
46:28
I started teaching that I would be engaging with
46:30
any of these resources or in partnership with
46:33
my PLC, It just, it would feel insane at that
46:36
time. So I think like to that end, bringing experts
46:39
to the table, I can't tell you how much I've
46:42
learned from my digital learning specialist and
46:44
from Sean, our coordinator, so. I think that's
46:50
a good spot to kind of. kind of wrap things up
46:52
with here. I really love this idea of, you know,
46:55
the integrity piece and that you touched on there.
46:58
But let's move then into kind of our show ender
47:02
here, where we bring in the lightning round questions.
47:06
And if you've listened before, you maybe have
47:09
an idea of some of them that are coming. But
47:11
we like to encourage our guests to respond however
47:15
they feel, if it's a one word answer. then that's
47:19
great. Then we'll, you know, but if it's something
47:21
that you think like sparks a story or a conversation
47:25
that goes a little bit longer, you know, that's
47:27
totally fine too. So I think, David, are you
47:30
going to kick us off here with the first of the
47:32
lightning round questions? Yeah, yeah, we can
47:34
do that. So Jen, what's one assessment practice
47:38
you're officially done with? Timed assessments.
47:43
I just have no interest. I want to know what
47:46
you... how you think deeply and how you come
47:48
to understand or create, but I just have no interest
47:52
in some artificial sense that like something
47:54
needs to be done in 50 minutes and that's gonna
47:58
determine your proficiency. So I'm all done with
48:01
timed assessments. What's one AI use that actually
48:06
saved you time this school year so far? It's
48:10
hard to choose just one. I'm gonna choose two.
48:13
I'm gonna break the rule. Notebook LM. I am getting
48:19
my doctorate and Notebook LM is my hero of the
48:23
year. I don't know how I would do any of what
48:26
I'm doing without Notebook LM. So that for me
48:28
personally and for graduate school has been incredible.
48:31
And then Gemini to make the app scripts that
48:34
have helped us close the feedback loop because
48:36
the amount of time I'm saving myself on providing
48:40
feedback that used to take. I mean, so much time
48:44
is incredible. So both of those are home runs.
48:48
All right. So this next question involves your
48:52
husband, Paul, who's been on the show, as Jeremy
48:54
mentioned. But you work both in the same district,
48:59
and Paul is in the instructional technology role.
49:03
So we want to know, are your family dinners tech
49:05
-infused, low -tech, or no -tech? Yeah, I we
49:11
work very closely. In fact, I can see his office
49:13
from my office. We had a meeting earlier today.
49:16
So our lives are very meshed between work and
49:20
home. I it depends. We have a seven year old,
49:26
and so most of our dinners kind of revolve around
49:30
Pokemon and, you know, trying to get him to finish
49:34
his dinner. And I would say in few probably medium,
49:40
right? So sometimes we're tech -infused, sometimes
49:43
not. One funny experience just in our home of
49:47
late is we cannot get our son to stop calling
49:49
it a smart board. So every time he says something
49:52
about his teacher using the smart board, both
49:53
Paul and I almost in sync will be like, the ViewSonic,
49:57
you mean the ViewSonic? So our poor child, he
50:01
also got a book. It was like Adventures in the
50:06
Amazon. And when he opened it up, he was like,
50:08
oh, I thought this was going to be about the
50:10
internet. But it's truly about the real Amazon.
50:14
So Paul and I had to really take a reflective
50:16
moment at that point and ask if maybe we needed
50:18
to turn down the tech in our home. And don't
50:23
worry about the Pokemon thing. I have a 22 year
50:26
old, almost 23 year old, who's still very into
50:29
Pokemon. And I'd say he's turned out okay. It's
50:33
a real commitment right now in our house to Pokemon.
50:37
And it still is for the older kids too. Let's
50:41
think about the Writer's Room project for a moment.
50:43
What's one thing that you would hope a student
50:45
remembers from that project years later when,
50:48
you know, maybe they're at a 20 -year reunion,
50:52
say, and they bring up your class in that particular
50:55
project. What do you want them to remember from
50:56
that? We have so much joy in watching the trailers
51:02
that they make and in seeing how close they get
51:06
to something that can look pretty professional.
51:11
And just they've infused their personalities
51:13
and their humor. So I would say it's really that,
51:16
that kind of way it builds for us community.
51:19
It builds inside jokes that we use the rest of
51:21
the year. But just like. how impressive they
51:26
are. As ninth graders, they make things that
51:28
just absolutely blow my mind in terms of quality.
51:32
And I really think it speaks to their creativity
51:36
and their ability to collaborate. So I'm just
51:38
like, I really hope they remember the joy of
51:41
that. Does there happen to be a show called Six
51:46
-Seven coming out at some point? It did not turn
51:49
up this year. I fear that for our future, yes.
51:54
But luckily, not this year. All right. I was
51:58
just curious because it's pretty popular. The
52:03
next question, if you could drop into any teacher's
52:06
classroom for one day of co -teaching, who would
52:08
you pick and why? I've never even asked that
52:11
question before. I, as a teacher of English language
52:16
arts, I love poetry. And so Mark Doty, who is
52:21
an American poet and a professor, he does this.
52:26
His work is very much about precision in language
52:30
and attention. And we honor people, things, experiences
52:34
by using extraordinarily precise language to
52:37
describe them. And I think about that in contrast
52:40
sometimes with AI, that AI is often the average
52:43
of all of the sentences. And I don't think these
52:47
have to be opposing or really thought of as kind
52:50
of. It's just I use them to measure sort of how
52:53
I approach my work. Like, where do I need to
52:56
be precise and honor something with my own language
52:59
and my ideas, right? And I just think his work
53:03
is so inspiring to me. And so, yeah, Mark Doty,
53:07
I would join one of his college courses, and
53:09
then I would ask him a lot of questions about
53:11
what he thinks of AI. And one final one. So you're
53:17
walking into a staff development meeting or you're
53:19
walking into your PLC and you're just feeling
53:22
super pumped and motivated to get some serious
53:26
work done. What's the soundtrack playing in your
53:28
mind? Or maybe you would literally play it too.
53:32
I don't know. Oh, gosh. Oh, this is hard. Embarrassingly,
53:38
I think Victorious by Panic at the Disco. But
53:43
I probably wouldn't play it aloud here at school.
53:47
But yeah, I think that's what I would have on
53:50
my mind. That's awesome. Well, Jen, I just want
53:53
to thank you again so much for your time and
53:56
sharing your wonderful insights with us and with
53:59
the audience. And, you know, I wish you, you
54:02
know, we're recording here before the holidays.
54:04
So and you got a big break coming up here. So
54:07
I hope you have a safe and happy holiday time
54:09
period. And we look forward to catching up with
54:11
you again soon. Thank you both for having me.
54:14
I appreciate it. Thanks, Jen. Thanks for listening
54:18
to Integrate This. Want to take your learning
54:20
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54:26
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54:40
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