Latest / IB Unplugged / Empowering Student Agency & Voice in the Age of AI w/ Rita Bateson

Transcript

Empowering Student Agency & Voice in the Age of AI w/ Rita Bateson · IB Unplugged

0:00
Welcome to IB Unplugged, a Kognity podcast for IBDP educators
0:04
that tackles your submitted questions and challenges by connecting you with
0:08
experts and peers who share their ideas and stories from real classrooms.
0:12
Hi, everybody.
0:13
Welcome to this week's
0:14
episode of IB Unplugged, where we get to talk with Rita Bateson,
0:17
and we are so excited about this episode because basically, John and I,
0:22
when we were at the global conference, we went into this session,
0:25
we heard her speak and we just look at each other.
0:27
We're like, we're going to get her on the show.
0:29
So afterwards, we, waited in line patiently
0:33
to talk to her and we said, hi, Rita, thank you so much.
0:36
Let's talk about everything you just did. But even longer.
0:39
So we luckily she agreed for it.
0:42
And we are. Yeah.
0:43
Really excited about this episode.
0:45
Absolutely. Yeah.
0:46
I mean, Rita,
0:47
it doesn't take long of talking with her before you realize, like,
0:50
this is somebody who's at the top of her game.
0:51
She's got such a really deep understanding of education and the IB.
0:56
And now looking into kind of stepping outside of the classroom briefly
0:59
to just say, like, what do educators need to do?
1:03
What do they need to know?
1:03
How can I navigate this space of ethical use of AI, principled use of AI,
1:08
how to center students as agents and learning their own voice,
1:11
and that sort of thing in this new developing space?
1:14
I think what I really, really appreciate about Rita is she recognizes
1:19
how much work educators are doing and how impossible it can be
1:22
to do that deep work to make sure that you're prepared for students.
1:26
And she's done it.
1:27
And so, yeah,
1:28
we really wanted to chat with her so that she can share some of these,
1:31
these strategies and these ideas with, with teachers
1:33
so that we can implement them in our classes now. Yeah.
1:35
And she is the classic person who has walked the walk.
1:39
She's done every element of working in the IB.
1:42
And now she gets to go into schools all over the world and really help them
1:45
with this transition period and really making teachers and staff feel confident
1:50
and really aware and reflective on really good use cases.
1:55
So it's a great balance
1:57
that we are hitting here on talking about these really important topics,
2:01
but also having really practical, sound ways of moving forward.
2:06
So we're super excited for you.
2:07
Thanks for joining us again here at IB Unplugged.
2:09
And let's get on to the show with Rita Bateson.
2:18
Hi Rita.
2:19
Welcome to IB Unplugged. We're so glad you're here.
2:21
Hi both. Thank you so much for having me.
2:23
I'm excited.
2:24
Absolutely.
2:24
We're really looking forward
2:25
to diving into a conversation about ethical AI and education.
2:29
You know, I came across you my first interaction with you
2:32
is at the IB global conference and and seeing you in a panel.
2:35
And I just thought, we have got to chat a little bit more with Rita,
2:38
and share some of this knowledge that you've got.
2:39
So I'm really excited for our listeners and for anybody else,
2:43
who might come across this episode, because I think you get some
2:45
really valuable stuff when we start talking about ethical AI.
2:48
But before we get into the deep dives of of what we're talking about,
2:51
can you just give us a brief overview? Let's get to know you a little bit better.
2:54
Why did you get into education?
2:56
Sure thing. I am an IB educator through and through.
2:59
I've been in this world now for about 20 something years.
3:02
Originally, I was, fourth generation teacher,
3:05
so I tried to buck the trend and not do it for a long time, but it did not work.
3:09
It pulled me back in because there's something different, right?
3:12
There's something special about being in the classroom
3:14
and that moment of, like, effervescent ants
3:16
that you get when you're doing really well and the kids are really with you.
3:18
So that's my that's my addiction and my temptation into this world.
3:22
I have been in very many IB schools around the world, but also at the
3:26
IB global headquarters in The Hague, where I was senior curriculum manager,
3:30
a job that I was so good at, it doesn't exist anymore.
3:33
The senior strand manager in science,
3:37
I worked myself out of the job.
3:39
They retired that jersey when I left.
3:41
So they, working through PYP to DPCP for math and science.
3:47
And then I wrote some IB textbooks.
3:50
The, the last framework for MYP, and then opened an IB
3:54
school here in Dublin as head of secondary for Nord Anglia.
3:57
So living that whole IB continuum life, dream world, whatever it might be.
4:03
So yeah, so loving it, love the IB’s philosophies.
4:06
I get frustrated of course, sometimes
4:08
with things that everybody gets frustrated with.
4:10
But a couple of years ago
4:11
when AI came along, it was time to think, okay, how does this impact the classroom?
4:15
How does this impact school leaders?
4:17
What does it mean to curriculum itself?
4:19
And most importantly, I guess, what does it mean to teaching and learning?
4:22
And so that's where we end up today.
4:23
So I spent the last two years pretty much trying to figure out
4:27
what is really important to think about and know,
4:30
and what's essentially a distraction, a hype for waste of time.
4:33
And because I have the time and capacity to do that,
4:36
then I want to share that with IB schools. Nice.
4:38
And I think, I love effervescence as, the experience in the classroom.
4:44
But obviously, after all of this time, you've
4:46
kind of had to step out of the classroom.
4:48
And what is, what is effervescent about your current job?
4:52
That's a great question.
4:53
I like the fact that you can bring together the common sense knowledge
4:58
of what happens in a school, that that realistic approach
5:02
with an idealism of what pedagogy really should still be,
5:06
no matter what AI either tries to do for us or tries to take away from us.
5:10
But that's really important
5:12
that there's, there's this phenomenon of coalescence, effervescence, right?
5:15
When you bring the right people into the right space with the right intentions.
5:19
I think that's really exciting.
5:20
And so as we're working on an AI curriculum,
5:22
as we work on professional learning opportunities for staff, the question
5:26
always comes back to the the idea that the idea always sounds right.
5:31
My favorite line in the mission statement
5:33
is other people with their differences can also be right.
5:35
And that's never been more important than right now with the AI,
5:38
with pedagogy, with edtech, with tech bros, you name it.
5:41
We need to hold on to our values.
5:43
We need to redefine where necessary.
5:46
And I think we need to protect knowledge and learning and what that actually means
5:50
for that. That's the effervescence, right?
5:51
When you know you're doing
5:52
the right things for the right purposes, at the right time, that's really special.
5:57
Really got me pumped already.
5:58
I mean, obviously you've ticked every box on the bingo card of IB and,
6:02
you know, talking about what's important when it comes to education
6:05
and navigating the space.
6:07
Let's get into it. Let's talk about kind of the key things here.
6:09
And I guess the first part, you know, ethics and principles for AI
6:12
in education and, and how schools could be navigating this.
6:15
So maybe let's just start with a basic fundamental,
6:18
what does ethical AI actually mean.
6:21
And specifically in IB schools.
6:24
Well, I think because the IB has such high ideals
6:27
and really positive intentions, I think we feel every school feels as.
6:32
But we feel especially I think we want to get it right.
6:34
And at the moment when there's no clear definition of what right
6:38
actually means in this context,
6:40
we know when we come to ethics, we know there are certain things
6:42
that we have to worry about with AI, right?
6:44
We know that it hallucinates or well, it doesn't.
6:46
Humans hallucinate.
6:48
But we know that these errors happen. So suddenly
6:51
we have a threat, an existential threat to knowledge acquisition.
6:54
We know that it's biased because it's built on flawed data.
6:57
And those two things are commonplace to discuss with students.
7:00
And I think that's really important.
7:01
And what's not being discussed enough is the mediocrity
7:04
sometimes of the output that students are accepting convincing answers.
7:08
The teachers are sharing
7:12
blah or
7:13
predictable or less inspiring resources than they would have done
7:16
maybe 2 or 3 years ago because of the convenience.
7:19
But also, I think ethical use of AI is knowing when to use it
7:23
and when not to protect students learning.
7:26
And then there's another dimension, which I'm
7:27
sure people are tired of hearing me go on about.
7:29
But it's the sustainability
7:30
to the sustainability of the power consumption, the energy demands of AI.
7:35
Those are incredible.
7:37
And I shared just before we came on that I'm worried constantly
7:40
that we're going to experience a power cut here in Dublin
7:43
because we are so overwhelmed with AI demand for the data centers.
7:47
So they're actively having
7:48
to divert power to make sure the data centers don't go down.
7:51
So that is always first and foremost in my thinking.
7:54
When we use AI in education,
7:57
is it making our classroom environment richer?
8:00
Is it serving our kids in a way that we cannot previously or couldn't
8:05
for whatever reason, whether it's resources or intention or time?
8:09
Is it making our interactions with one another richer as well,
8:12
or is it reducing the struggle, the productive struggle for students?
8:16
And I think if you we are using ethically, we're considering before we reach for AI
8:21
and we're evaluating afterwards, and if we're doing that process,
8:24
then we're much more grounded, then we're much more ethically
8:27
positioned to say, okay, this is a really valid use case,
8:31
or this is a complete waste of my time and I'm just doing more memes
8:34
and I'm just arguing with the AI and I'm just doing ridiculous
8:37
like, you know, the things that we all do is experimentation.
8:40
What we're trying to do is have schools consider what ethical experimentation
8:44
looks like
8:45
as opposed to reckless experimentation, which is where we find ourselves kind
8:48
of understandably, for the last two years. I remember one of the key things
8:51
I actually wrote it down when you mentioned it in the seminar, too.
8:54
You said, you know, over
8:55
50% of Dublin's power grid right now is kind of go into data centers.
8:58
And then you said it's not going to hospitals, it's not going
9:02
to, you know, our grocery stores and food and that sort of thing.
9:05
And it just stuck with me so much to recognize.
9:08
Like when we say ethical, we don't just mean academic integrity.
9:12
We don't just mean,
9:13
you know, am I doing things the right way
9:15
in terms of sourcing knowledge and that sort of stuff, but also like,
9:17
do I really need this because it is taking a bunch of energy
9:21
that could be otherwise utilized in really effective ways. So,
9:24
yeah.
9:25
Thanks. Thanks for outlining that for us.
9:26
And now I thinking long term too. Right. Because that's the other thing.
9:29
Am I thinking what it's doing to my cognition?
9:31
But we as adults we already notice the impacts
9:33
because we know we noticed the difference for students who are developing,
9:37
if they don't have time to develop their own voice,
9:39
then they can't compare it to the
9:41
AI output and say, okay, this doesn't sound like me.
9:44
They don't have time to build those thought processes that they offload AI.
9:49
Then we're doing the mysterious disservice long term.
9:51
Yeah, I think that's one that's really interesting to me is,
9:54
like you said, that mediocrity piece and that fear of that becoming the norm.
9:59
And what from your side, what do you think that schools can do to ensure that AI
10:05
is enhancing and not replacing the human learning and really fighting back
10:11
on that temptation of mediocrity being enough and like, okay, this is good.
10:16
Let's just keep going.
10:17
I think ideally because we've been dealing with this
10:20
for like two, two and a half, nearly three years now.
10:22
I think it's a really good time to take stock. Now.
10:25
We focused on AI literacy because we have to
10:27
we want to students to use it wisely and well.
10:30
And we were very worried about assessments
10:32
like what does it do to academic integrity?
10:33
And I think that was the right place to be in for the first year or so.
10:37
And then we started to grapple with ethics.
10:39
And I think that is such a sinkhole race.
10:41
That is a black hole of needs
10:43
that we have to worry about and that you could easily lose yourself in despondency.
10:47
So I think our responsibility now, in this kind of third, fourth
10:50
year of academia with AI is to make sure
10:53
that people have the tools that they need so that they can go a little bit deeper
10:56
so they understand how the mechanics of AI works.
10:58
They understand how it's impacting students lives,
11:01
so that we can then free up bandwidth to think about what it's doing to student
11:05
well-being, to think about sustainability, to think about safeguarding,
11:09
to think about the deeper, sometimes darker topics that we need to
11:13
so that we can lead them with confidence so that we can say, okay,
11:16
we don't know everything,
11:17
but now we know enough to make really good choices going forward,
11:21
to say we now want a culture of
11:24
like deliberate AI use or discerning AI use because our goal is to maintain
11:29
a standard, because our goal is to be responsible for learning itself.
11:33
One of the kind of one of the nicest moments I ever had
11:35
in development meeting at the IB was when we were stuck with a learner profile,
11:39
and we all left the learner profile right.
11:40
Especially risk taker for some reason is far and away the most popular one.
11:44
I think it's just because it's the only hyphenated one.
11:47
I think it's because this is one that lesson
11:48
to be a little, just like it just sticks with the kids.
11:52
You're like, oh, can I be risky?
11:53
Fantastic. One of the participants, he said.
11:56
We always talk about caring as if it's for people,
11:58
but shouldn't we be caring for the subjects?
12:00
You know, for which we represent to the students, our passions?
12:04
And I thought,
12:04
that's a good way of thinking about how we need to care for education,
12:08
as it's kind of facing this onslaught
12:10
of AI, diminishing it or demeaning it or replacing.
12:14
You said there, Courtney replacing. That's it. That's a huge risk.
12:17
We see that in kids work at the moment. We see it.
12:19
Let's be honest, an adults work at the moment.
12:21
I don't have to look long on LinkedIn to see a huge amount of AI slop.
12:25
I'm getting it in emails.
12:26
I'm getting it in the frequency and volume of approaches by companies.
12:30
So it is it's hyper accelerating.
12:32
And we have to then as educators say, okay, but not in that direction.
12:36
That's part of the reason we chose Eblana as our company name.
12:39
Eblana is the old name for Dublin, and it's where they sent out
12:42
missionaries and scholars to establish educational institutions around Europe.
12:47
And in those monasteries they would replicate the sacred texts.
12:51
Have you ever been to Dublin?
12:52
Have you seen the Book of Kells?
12:54
It's an example of one of these.
12:55
Yeah, unless it was in the Guinness factory I didn't see it.
12:59
Definitely in the store.
13:00
You could definitely in the store.
13:01
So they would replicate these sacred texts of knowledge
13:04
and they would, you know, illuminate them
13:06
and illustrate them and make them beautiful.
13:08
And then as the dark Ages burned through, they protected the sacred texts
13:12
with their lives.
13:12
And some of the only copies of ancient Greek we have are because of these monks
13:17
protecting what was important and innovating while doing so.
13:20
And I think that's the message we have to hold on to while AI burns around us.
13:23
What's going to be still important for humanity?
13:25
What's going to be important for truth telling?
13:28
What will be really important to communicate?
13:30
We're an unbroken chain of knowledge
13:32
through the generations, and we as teachers
13:34
can't be the last stop on that train, right?
13:36
We need to be able to communicate what is still important to know,
13:39
to value, to have skills for the future.
13:42
And that's a tall, tall order on top of a full time job.
13:45
And concerns about social media and everything else
13:48
that we worry about in schools.
13:50
Yeah, I like what you're saying about it's so easy
13:53
to it's so easy to talk about as adults.
13:57
When you look on LinkedIn, for example, I always say, like, so much of
14:00
it is trash.
14:01
And but because we know better, like you said earlier,
14:05
with students like we know what looks like, AI saw it.
14:08
But if all content that they're consuming
14:12
is trash, as I eloquently said,
14:16
then they're not going to even realize what the good stuff is.
14:20
And I think that that's also really important.
14:21
I'm not saying that good stuff can't have
14:24
AI use.
14:26
It's just it can't be poorly done and they have to know how to use it
14:31
well and when to use it too.
14:34
But I also I thought that we had a greater degree of AI sensitivity.
14:38
Right. I thought that we sell through that quicker.
14:40
And then over the last couple of months, I hear from schools
14:43
that students are starting to really push back on teacher use like they
14:47
they recognize AI in their reports, they recognize AI in their feedback.
14:51
And I've heard a couple of students say to me,
14:53
you know, if I want a chatbot feedback, I could have done that myself.
14:55
I wanted a human to read it.
14:57
I wanted the expert to tell me what they think, and that gave me hope.
15:00
I that really did.
15:00
I thought, okay, great. There.
15:01
Sensitivity is also finely tuned.
15:03
The irony, of course, that we're giving them AI feedback on their
15:06
AI work didn't escape them either, you know, so that's important too.
15:11
But I think we need to have a very realistic, honest
15:14
conversation and be much more transparent in our AI use.
15:17
I think that's what the ethical
15:18
parts really comes down to, we’re modeling for students,
15:21
and if we're modeling that, it's a shadow tool.
15:23
If we're modeling that, it's a secret hack that everybody knows about,
15:25
but not everybody knows that everybody knows as as Pinker t would say.
15:29
I think there's something really important in that,
15:31
that we need to have a very different conversation.
15:35
Becoming a better IBDP
15:36
educator is a daily practice informed through reading, research,
15:40
personal experience,
15:41
and episodes from IB Unplugged like the one you're listening to right now.
15:45
But sometimes the show can go a bit too quickly,
15:47
or we simply forget some of the key points once
15:49
we're out of the car or back from our walk.
15:51
So to revisit the content in a condensed version, you can download
15:55
the episode summary at kognity.com/ibunplugged.
15:59
You'll find useful links to other resources and exciting
16:02
bits of information that you can use immediately in your daily practice.
16:07
So now back to the show.
16:09
Now I know we'll get into like specific classroom strategies,
16:12
but as we're there to try to navigate that as educators, there are
16:16
there are specific frameworks or questions we should be asking, like I'm
16:19
very familiar with, like the, you know, traffic
16:21
light system, for example, we try to use that with like, okay, Red,
16:24
you can't be using AI right now, you know, Amber bit more.
16:27
But are there specific frameworks that you've come across that you feel like
16:30
these are things that are going to really help educators guide that ethical use
16:34
and that ethical consideration before diving into AI?
16:38
I think so, and I think, as you said, most of the focus has been on the output
16:42
or the assessment model really thinking about what
16:45
should be allowed and not allowed in certain circumstances.
16:48
And I think we're in a much more nuanced place than that may have this year
16:52
in terms of actual reach for AI.
16:54
And and teachers will tell me this.
16:56
They'll say that their teams groups have gone really quiet since the pandemic.
17:00
There,
17:00
the Google Classroom chats have gone really quiet
17:02
because kids don't ask each other for help anymore.
17:04
They're asking AI straight away.
17:06
So there's a little bit
17:07
of having to get in the framework, having to get down stream of assessment.
17:11
It needs to be in the pedagogy, it needs to be in the curriculum.
17:13
And I think one of the things that I find most useful is,
17:17
unfortunately, setting up
17:18
an account on TikTok to see what students are being bombarded with in terms of
17:23
go to this humanizing AI and go to this humanizing
17:26
AI and the kids who are being constantly kind of told how to hack the system.
17:30
That was really interesting.
17:32
And then all these other counter cultures that I thought are going to impact
17:35
how students view
17:36
AI how they are kind of experiencing Courtney, like you said, that, you know,
17:39
the volume of things that they're seeing poluting what they consider as normal and,
17:44
you know, all of those things.
17:45
So one of the frameworks
17:45
that I try to give with schools is bookending those, that system.
17:50
So here is a deliberation station.
17:52
Before you reach for AI have you consider the following things.
17:55
And of course they might still go and use AI anyway,
17:57
but it's given them a reflective moment beforehand.
18:00
Like when we reach for single use plastic or something recyclable.
18:03
You know that that moment of of agency and autonomy is really important.
18:06
And then after the fact and evaluation stations say, okay, you did use it,
18:11
what did you notice?
18:12
Did it take more time to to free up time?
18:14
Did you use that time wisely?
18:16
Could you have found the information another way?
18:18
Did it undermine your memory?
18:20
Did it, you know, affect your work? Are you proud of your work?
18:23
Because that's a question we don't ask enough.
18:24
Like do they still feel ownership on what they're creating?
18:28
And having that framework
18:29
because I find it really helps students to be much more on teachers,
18:32
because I have one for teachers too it, helps people to be a lot
18:36
more cognizant of when they're using it and where they're using it.
18:38
And also underlying all of that, like the energy consumption, you know, did
18:41
we really need to generate for images when that stock photo already existed.
18:46
And it would have taken one quick Google search,
18:48
you know, just a moment to think, okay, is there an alternative?
18:50
Is there an alternative approach that abides better with my values
18:55
that supports our sustainable development goals and that doesn't deny
19:00
the opportunities?
19:00
Because sometimes AI opportunities are incredible, right?
19:03
For students and for teachers.
19:05
It can genuinely save us time.
19:06
It can give me a resource in any language that I need.
19:09
It can help me find the right intervention and the right resource for the
19:13
right student at the right time.
19:14
And all of those things are worth exploring.
19:16
So it's not a don't touch, but it's before you reach for it.
19:20
Do I really need it right now?
19:21
And if so, yes, then absolutely go first and let's get the maximum benefit we can.
19:25
But if not, let's just think about it beforehand.
19:29
And I think that's not a culture we've had time to embed in schools yet.
19:32
So I think that's a framework worth considering.
19:34
The assessment framework side will keep developing because we know that
19:37
with the traffic light system, sometimes teachers are scared to go anywhere
19:40
but green and red, or students struggle with the definition of what?
19:44
Like when is it brainstorming? When is it actually writing?
19:46
You know, when is it generating and editing?
19:48
When is it just finishing the whole thing for me.
19:50
So the definitional problem exists there too.
19:53
But I think as educators, we're the ones who get to define those parameters.
19:57
Now, I feel like this is the year where we can build a moat around students
20:00
and we can decide, okay, this is what it means for cognition.
20:03
This is what it means for dependency.
20:05
This is what we actually want our students to continue to know, with or without AI.
20:09
I think this really ties into the next theme that we want to go into,
20:13
which is about centering students and agency.
20:15
We've talked about. You have the literacy part.
20:17
You talk about building that moat around the students,
20:20
and then kind of the expectations and the framework.
20:23
But then if the students aren't on board with it, like you said,
20:27
they're just going to do it anyway.
20:29
And that just then becomes a conflict rather than a partnership.
20:35
And like, we're doing this together and these are our frameworks.
20:38
And I'm wondering if you have advice on kind of what
20:42
this conversation can look like when you bring students into it
20:46
and kind of have them be founding members
20:50
of this kind of structure, of how you guys work together in the classrooms.
20:56
I think we always in the IB world, right?
20:58
We always value student voice and then our processes
21:02
and our policies have a really good way of quieting that voice, voice down.
21:05
Once we've gone through the process of listening to them,
21:08
we don't always hear them.
21:11
You know.
21:14
That hit home for John.
21:16
It definitely did.
21:19
John, do you want to unpack that for us?
21:21
Double click on us. Like I said the other day.
21:22
Do you want to double click on that?
21:23
You know, I don't I don't think I, I don't think I do actually know just this.
21:28
Yeah. The idea of yeah, we want your voice.
21:31
We want your voice. Okay. No, no, no, I just I just do the thing now.
21:33
Thanks so much for your input.
21:34
Yeah, I like I had a school.
21:36
I did that like I tried to build the most, you know, empowered student council.
21:40
And then I had to get on with my day and I was like, okay, that's great.
21:42
Thanks, kids.
21:43
You know. And that was that was really not for me.
21:45
I saw how very systemic it is that we cannot really
21:50
that mean they're also still kids, right?
21:51
And we're the grownups and their voice is important
21:54
and they don't have the parameters and context that we do.
21:56
So I think there are certain points.
21:58
There's a value transmission that's really important.
22:00
We know what they value. But
22:04
they are extremely anxious about.
22:06
AI in a certain level.
22:07
Some are very dependent on us and are aware of that dependency.
22:10
And it worrisome, but not right now.
22:11
Like the conversation I visit
22:13
and meet with students in every school that we work in, in a blended learning.
22:17
And because it keeps me connected to the classroom
22:19
and that's the bit I miss the most.
22:20
So they will tell me
22:22
not what they're doing, but they'll tell me, tell me what their friends are doing.
22:24
And that's really interesting.
22:26
They can tell me, you know,
22:27
which are the best humanizes and who uses it and who doesn't.
22:30
And over the last six months, the conversation has very much turned
22:34
to, well, I don't use AI, but the kids who do are doing better than me.
22:37
And that's not fair.
22:39
And I think that's a really interesting topic.
22:41
And other students have told me I don't like AI
22:43
because it has ruined the game for everybody,
22:45
and they're the kind of kids who would have done well before anyway.
22:48
You know, they're the kids who,
22:49
you know, figure out what the code is and they figure out how to hack the system.
22:53
And they're annoyed that everybody else can hack the system.
22:55
And I think that's really interesting. It's a phenomenon.
22:58
We have students who tell me they don't want to use it
23:00
because they're artists and they're creatives,
23:01
and they really disagree with what it's done
23:04
to the world of intellectual property and creativity.
23:07
And I think hearing those voices, taking all that input in
23:11
and then making the best possible choices for those kids is where we're at now.
23:14
Because up to now we were AI police and to some extent, or we were AI cheerleaders,
23:20
but we have to have a much more reasoned and rational perspective now.
23:24
But I think it is important
23:25
the students we often feel to the students have leapfrogged us.
23:28
So we want to hear from them and learn from them.
23:30
But the more I speak to students, I realize that they have only
23:33
leapfrogged us in a very narrow,
23:34
specific way, like they are very, very good at using AI for that one
23:38
or 2 or 3 things that they want to do, and they don't have a wide angle lens.
23:42
So that's our responsibility is to say to them, yes, but
23:46
you know, have you considered using it this way?
23:48
Have you considered using it this way?
23:49
Have you considered the dangers of using this one and the benefits of this way?
23:52
So I think we get to bring that seasoned kind of veteran old person
23:57
perspective to them.
23:58
But their opinions are so varied, their opinions are more varied than ours,
24:03
which is really interesting because they're living it more distinctly.
24:06
They're living it fresh for the first time,
24:08
and we're seeing it with much more kind of mature eyes.
24:10
I guess we've lived through Google
24:12
and Wikipedia and the internet, but it's all coming to them at once.
24:16
And they've also it's really interesting. They've all kind of not all of them.
24:19
That's not a fair thing to say, but most kids that I speak to under 12
24:23
have homogenized the whole world to just the AI.
24:26
It's not computers or CGI or Photoshop.
24:28
Everything to them is AI, and that is an interesting phenomenon.
24:31
I don't know what to make of that yet, but that's really interesting.
24:34
As you were talking, it reminds me so much of a lot of educational theory
24:37
that's been here for for years and years.
24:39
I was just reading this morning again, can refreshing on like student motivation
24:43
and the difference between like,
24:44
you know, motivated learning for performance versus for mastery.
24:48
And we established well back in the in the 80s with this idea
24:51
of you know, education systems that are more about mastery.
24:55
You see so much more come from students, both in terms
24:57
their skills and their knowledge and what they can do down the road,
25:01
whereas it feels like AI is just sort of taking that spotlight
25:05
and put it straight on mastery at least, or excuse me, straight on performance
25:08
when it comes to, to the mind of the student
25:11
and the kind of see, like, well, I have to perform on this task
25:13
or I have to turn in this particular piece of work.
25:15
And so I will use AI to then give this perfect version of myself
25:19
for this perfect performance, if you will, on this particular assessment,
25:23
and almost makes it harder for us as educators to stay
25:26
in that mastery element of like, the whole point here is that you develop
25:31
not just that you perform perfectly
25:32
every time, we want to see development, we want to see you grow and assist
25:35
in that growth.
25:37
So like, how are we?
25:38
How can we be empowering students a bit more?
25:41
I guess with that mindset first, like we want you to develop mastery here.
25:45
And that's going to lead to more responsible
25:46
use of AI, more reflective use of AI, more sustainable use of AI, as opposed
25:50
to just being so focused on the performance aspect.
25:54
That's a great question.
25:55
Let me think about that.
25:56
I think probably the place where I source hope from is the undeniable truth
26:01
that really good writers can get really good writing out ChatGPT.
26:06
And that incredible artists can describe and get the best results.
26:10
So you need that expertise so that part is still valuable.
26:12
So demonstrating
26:13
and communicating that part to students I think is really valuable.
26:17
The mastery part is very different.
26:19
The performative element of education, especially in the IB diploma years.
26:23
Right.
26:23
We know they feel the treadmill of expectations.
26:27
We know they feel the high stakes of that educational environment
26:30
so strongly in the later years of MYP, certainly in DP
26:34
that if AI were to come for some of those elements of assessment,
26:38
I would not cry myself to sleep at night.
26:40
I would be okay if we could get rid
26:41
of some of those tick boxes for students that they are performing in that way,
26:46
simply to get through to the next step, to the next step, to the next step.
26:49
And I think that is the opportunity of AI. That would be incredible
26:52
if we could do genuinely valid and reliable group assessments,
26:56
or if we could find ways that introverts can express themselves better.
26:59
And actually,
27:00
we could understand what they truly know
27:02
as opposed to how well they respond to stressful environments,
27:05
I think that would be incredible.
27:06
So I think that that idea of unlocking
27:10
a variety of ways of demonstrating mastery and demonstrating proficiency,
27:14
I mean, when I think about the potential futures of assessment,
27:18
one of the things I'm most optimistic about
27:20
is that it would genuinely clear all of the weeds of assessments
27:23
that we have to go through, the mechanisms that we do, just to be able to test them
27:26
reliably and validly, that that would be really interesting.
27:29
Like what I'm watching some of the 16 plus developments in the diploma,
27:32
for example, with excitement for this reason,
27:35
because it is going to force us to think about what truly matters in education
27:39
and which really doesn't.
27:40
And we've been saying this for a very long time, right?
27:42
Sir Ken Robinson has been saying this forever.
27:44
We've all been saying we need to rethink education.
27:47
And we were given a golden opportunity in the pandemic, and we all chose not to.
27:52
We chose to go straight back to what we were doing before
27:54
because we wanted to be together. We wanted to learn together.
27:57
And then I have to ask myself, okay, well, is the scale of change too big,
28:02
or is maybe education not that broken?
28:04
And that's a really difficult question to wrestle with.
28:06
Like, I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I am excited about the opportunities.
28:10
I take an analogy from.
28:12
There was a company that allowed people to send their AI avatars
28:16
to meetings, and it could represent them and I could speak for them.
28:19
And within two weeks, nobody was attending the meetings.
28:21
They just sent their avatars.
28:22
So maybe meetings are less, or maybe emails are exposed by AI
28:28
as not being our bill mental.
28:29
Maybe we have to go back to meeting in person, having conversations,
28:33
you know, having a human relationship because the AI can do the tedious work.
28:36
So if we could get rid of the tedium of educate, of education,
28:39
but of assessment, I'd be okay with that. I think
28:42
I spend a lot of time now thinking about what
28:44
AI proof assessment can look like, and it's very, very challenging work.
28:49
I think anyone will tell you that right there.
28:50
There is no answer right now.
28:52
We haven't had our turn in moment.
28:54
Not really.
28:55
And something will give.
28:57
And I think that's fascinating and terrifying in equal measure.
29:00
But I think for the moment that doesn't really answer your question.
29:02
But essentially that's I think that's where we have to have an
29:05
honest acknowledgment of where we are right now.
29:07
And that's kind of where we're where we're at.
29:09
There's an excitement element there too,
29:11
like this sort of disruption that AI is causing.
29:14
You know, recently the Unesco report on AI and education, that sort of thing.
29:17
There's one article where I was reading in there
29:19
where it was like 90% of our assessment strategies right now are at risk of AI.
29:24
Like they are vulnerable, rather vulnerable to gen AI.
29:27
So it it's kind of it has to force us to rethink what's valuable, what's useful,
29:32
that sort of thing.
29:32
And even as I was kind of walking into my office this morning,
29:35
I was thinking back to my days in school and thinking like,
29:38
how did how did we actually cover all these sort of issues
29:41
that are going on in my head with school right now?
29:43
Like, how do we cover those without tech the way that we have it right now?
29:47
And I'm not saying, oh,
29:47
we have to like revert to dark ages or something like that,
29:50
but it just seems like this disruptive moment from
29:53
AI is a really great opportunity, as you just described with the pandemic
29:56
before, to then rethink what are we valuing and education.
29:59
And because obviously, you know,
30:01
what we assess ultimately is kind of what gets taught and what we end up valuing.
30:05
And so how can we be shifting that assessment model?
30:08
How can we shift like the performance element to to stay in that mastery thing?
30:13
There's an element of this that is exciting,
30:15
even though I know like it's just got to be so difficult to think of.
30:19
Like, how do you AI proof an assessment to really understand a person?
30:24
Because our current models are definitely vulnerable.
30:27
But I think what's interesting with
30:29
it is, like in so many of the episodes that we've done in the past, we've talked.
30:32
Nobody likes the assessment that way.
30:34
It's not like,
30:35
oh no, how do we save this precious thing that we love about education?
30:39
It's something that nobody, like you said, Rita,
30:42
like you're not going to miss it when it's gone.
30:45
And I think that's why it is a good opportunity. As well.
30:47
It's so many times the teachers we bring in here like, no,
30:50
we want to be looking at skills and we want to be looking at
30:56
the learner profile and all of these other pieces
30:59
and the mastery to a certain extent as well.
31:02
But I think that it's a really good way of looking at it, of
31:07
this is our opportunity
31:08
to get rid of the thing that none of us actually like to begin with.
31:13
And I think that even like,
31:17
when we talked with Matt Glanville from the IB, it's like he, he's
31:20
the director of assessment, and even he is not happy with the way
31:23
things are right now.
31:24
And he's excited about the way it can go.
31:27
And I think that being really clear in the value of why you're using
31:32
gen AI, what are you actually trying to achieve with it?
31:35
And then what do we want to assess on the human part?
31:40
It's the is the shifting way of looking at it rather than trying to protect
31:46
or prevent generative
31:49
AI from taking away from the broken thing
31:52
that nobody really wants to keep the way it is anyway.
31:55
And that's really interesting, because I've spent
31:57
probably the last eight months trying to figure this out in terms of
32:00
where is it going to, like, what does this truly mean for pedagogy,
32:02
and what does a training mean for assessment?
32:04
And everybody else has to rest.
32:05
But I think you get to the edge of the cliff
32:07
and you get quite nervous when you back off.
32:08
And and then we develop some structures to hold us in place for the moment,
32:12
like the traffic light system or the AI.
32:13
As you know, all of these things.
32:15
And I just kept trying to look over the cliff and think, okay,
32:18
Google and Wikipedia and the internet came for knowledge.
32:21
So we pivoted to skills, right?
32:23
And we really invested in transferring of information
32:26
and constructing new knowledge and we really did pivot to skills.
32:29
And AI came for skills.
32:31
So what does that leave us with in terms of what is truly valuable now.
32:35
And I keep landing back with like attitudes, values, competencies,
32:38
all of those things. But competencies are also very vulnerable.
32:41
So as we developed we've spent, you know, the last however many months
32:44
trying to develop an AI curriculum so schools can embed it quickly and easily
32:48
with AI friction.
32:49
And that's quite challenging and assessment of AI.
32:52
So eventually we are going to have to assess how
32:54
well kids can actually interact with AI and the ethics therein.
32:57
And I keep coming back to these ethical dilemmas,
33:00
these ways of embodiment.
33:03
I mean, embodied learning is going to be huge now
33:05
because we know that there is screen time issues and we know that
33:08
there are attention regulation and retention issues happening in schools.
33:12
So we have a ton of problems that are all coalescing together at once,
33:15
which is really, really exciting in terms of the hard and important work
33:19
that we do as educators.
33:20
But when I look at the assessments, I think we're going to see a rise in
33:25
like micro internships or SIM turn ships,
33:29
or there's going to be a modeling in education that we've never been able
33:32
to do of the real world, that students will find themselves in,
33:35
the fact that we can all join together and have a podcast and develop ideas,
33:38
and nobody's going to grade us at the end of us.
33:40
We're just going to enjoy it. We're just going to learn from each other.
33:42
I think there's something in that,
33:44
that the fact that students
33:45
will go into a world where they are constantly interacting with others and
33:49
their experiences are shaped by others, and we don't value that in isolated
33:53
learning opportunities like we give them all the time.
33:56
And I think there's also something, and I keep testing the edges of
33:59
AI to see how good it's getting at sentiment analysis and power dynamics and,
34:03
you know, the opportunities to equalize educational experiences for students.
34:07
And it's getting scary good, like scary good.
34:10
So I think that's really interesting as well.
34:12
It's because you're training it, aren't you?
34:17
Well, I like it would be really interesting.
34:18
We can record meetings and it can tell us, you know, like
34:21
who spoke over whom the most, who spoke the most frequently,
34:25
whose ideas were the best quality, whose ideas were stomped over.
34:28
You know, those are really interesting phenomenon.
34:30
And it's and it's getting particularly good at that.
34:32
And, and it doesn't even need the tone analysis.
34:35
It doesn't need the eye contact like we humans do.
34:38
So I think there are exciting opportunities there to, to model
34:41
in the classroom and in education what kids are going to genuinely do
34:44
once they finish third level education.
34:47
It's probably your definition of fourth level education.
34:49
What do we need them to do beyond university,
34:52
not career readiness because who knows which careers will still exist?
34:56
That's a different thing, right?
34:57
That's a very different conversation.
34:58
But we need them to be life ready.
35:01
And we've always focused on life worthy learning.
35:03
Now we probably just have to think about life learning,
35:05
but that's going to look like. It's a different way of thinking
35:07
about AI literacy.
35:08
Like so far, whenever I talk with colleagues or other educators
35:12
about AI literacy, it's kind of in that assessment model.
35:15
It's like, how can I be literate and safe with using AI?
35:20
You know, in in terms of integrity, but what you've just
35:23
described is a very different way of thinking about AI literacy.
35:27
What are
35:28
ways that, you know, teachers can be integrating that definition
35:31
of AI literacy into, like our inquiry based
35:34
learning or our skills development stuff we're doing in the classroom?
35:37
Well, I think it's a great time to be able to rethink, especially for PYP
35:41
and MYP teachers, where there is an opportunity for development
35:44
and there is a moment
35:45
where the curriculum is being revisited, or some of the criteria are changing,
35:50
or some of the learning progressions and PYP invite us
35:53
to now embed AI practices in there a lot more easily.
35:57
You know, we're not dealing
35:57
with a rigid structure of a 7 year curriculum review right now.
36:01
We have a really nice opportunity.
36:03
The IB is saying we are looking at two elements here, here and here.
36:07
So why not embed some of those literacy things.
36:09
So come on over to the eblanalearning.com website.
36:12
We have lots of free resources on there for teachers.
36:14
As a as teachers ourselves,
36:15
we just like to give away things for free as much as we can.
36:18
And in there you'll find things like the stations that I talked
36:21
about, the evaluation, deliberation, but more importantly,
36:24
informing ourselves of the risks and opportunities
36:27
when we have precious little time in our working day.
36:30
So trying to micro dose some of that educational practice,
36:34
the the sharing out of what's really, truly working into in terms of ethical,
36:39
you know, containment or ethical developments.
36:43
We have tons and tons of courses for people who do have time and resources.
36:47
But more importantly than that, it's it's a mind shift in terms of
36:51
let's have a much more balanced, ethical consideration here.
36:54
Let's think about the fact that the first year was dominated
36:58
by ethics and literacy, and neither of those two camps spoke to each other.
37:02
It was either everybody, doom and gloom and compliance and terror
37:05
or shiny, shiny tools and we need something that that straddles
37:10
both of those worlds, you know, that really is thinking about, okay, we as
37:14
educators are actually the best judge.
37:15
We are the adjudicators of taste.
37:17
We are
37:18
now the ones who exemplify what we want, the quality and standard to look like.
37:21
We are not sycophantic like AI.
37:23
Therefore we have a role to play in this.
37:26
And I think that's that's much more helpful for students to understand.
37:30
AI can do the work if we let it, AI can do the supports
37:35
if we train it and we then as teachers are much
37:38
more guiding and mentoring when they should or shouldn't do that.
37:42
So if if you want some kind of insight into practices or languages
37:47
or ideas that you can embed in classroom, come on over or contact us on LinkedIn.
37:52
Feel free to reach out with questions.
37:53
We love just helping people kind of along this journey from somewhat,
37:58
you know, anxious to very well informed because there's no antidote to anxiety
38:03
like action, right? We really want to know what we need to know.
38:05
And sometimes no more than that.
38:09
So my name is Nathalie Forte.
38:11
I work in Montreal
38:15
I’m a PYP cordinator and,
38:18
working there since the last 23 years.
38:21
And, a small change I made in my teaching
38:23
is understanding conceptual understanding.
38:26
So more mapping with student, more thinking
38:30
and more also visible thinking.
38:35
I really like what you're talking about, about this
38:36
feeling of empowerment by having action that you can take.
38:40
And that's something that John and I have always tried to make sure
38:42
we have in each of our podcast episodes is this feeling of,
38:45
I now have something I can take with me that's like,
38:48
I have all these ideas and all of these things to think about,
38:51
but then I also want to do something because then I feel like
38:55
I can apply it somewhere.
38:56
And so for this last segment, I do want to get
38:58
more into this practical side of classroom strategies and implementation.
39:02
And you've gone into a lot of different schools,
39:04
you've worked with a lot of different teachers, and
39:08
are there some themes of things that you feel like
39:11
teachers are doing well when they're introducing AI tools,
39:14
and actually aligning that with IB pedagogy?
39:19
Absolutely.
39:19
I think one of the first things that I would mention is the fact
39:22
that we really value
39:23
critical thinking, and we rarely give them enough time to practice it in depth.
39:27
So I think allowing students to understand what your thought processes are around
39:32
your attitude to different models, because we have the ability
39:37
to test different models in real time with students
39:39
and then talk about the output and model that evaluation process for them,
39:43
so that we can move them from critical thinkers
39:47
and that's a big journey.
39:48
So what I would say to teachers is if you are using AI visibly
39:52
and modeling it for them, have a very clear structure in mind.
39:55
So one thing that I say to people who are,
39:57
you know, kind of early on in the journey is model for the students,
40:01
your choice of of whatever the LLM is, choose it,
40:05
show them and demonstrate to them something like ask you something
40:09
you're really good at and something you're bad at.
40:11
And if the thing, let's say, for example, for me
40:12
is always write a statement of inquiry because I can know when it's good
40:15
and I'll be able to recognize, okay, this model could help me work faster.
40:19
I can rely on it for this thing.
40:20
And then I ask it for something I'm really bad at,
40:22
like birthday present ideas for a ten year old.
40:25
So those to like.
40:26
And then I can say, okay, if it can help me with something,
40:28
I'm bad at, then it's going to help me with efficiency.
40:31
And having students understand
40:32
the difference between productivity and efficiency is really important.
40:35
And then having the confidence to say, do you know what?
40:37
That model sucked.
40:39
Because sometimes it's not, you know, it's it's it could be you.
40:41
It could be the model. It could be your prompt.
40:43
And students don't know how to pick those three things apart.
40:47
So if we can have that discussion with students and say, okay, maybe
40:50
it's you, maybe it's the model for slightly more advanced.
40:53
It's useful sometimes as well to kind of tackle the ethics things head on.
40:56
And I still in this from the MYP,
40:58
if you're testing a model for the first time, asking a factual,
41:01
a debatable and a conceptual question or a procedural question
41:05
so you can kind of get to the weeds of how well as a trained
41:08
it will expose some biases.
41:10
We know that if you ask certain models questions about geopolitical events
41:14
in China, for example, you'll get different responses.
41:16
If you ask them questions
41:17
about political events in the US, you'll get different responses.
41:20
So it can reveal a bias there
41:22
sometimes, ask it a conceptual question.
41:24
So you can see if it's
41:25
well tuned to explain to you so you can actually access that information.
41:30
Ask it a bit, the debatable question too.
41:32
So have some different framing mechanisms to make a decision on those.
41:35
And I think that's what I'm seeing.
41:37
Well, when teachers are modeling it well co learning and unlearning
41:40
and re learning in real time with students,
41:43
that requires a great deal of humility, though, and openness
41:46
to that kind of open experimentation and the ability to go to kids up.
41:50
I didn't like that. Let's try a different one.
41:52
Or oh, you like to did you like when you do an image generation?
41:55
And again, a little caveat, because every time you generate an image
41:59
that's 500ml of water and the same energy as charging your phone three times,
42:04
but when we do do an image generation, having a really good discussion
42:08
as to why, how well the prompt adhered to your output
42:13
so that they can use fewer queries and get what they need quicker.
42:16
And that's the energy efficient part, right?
42:18
If we can give them the skills to be able to prompt extremely quickly
42:23
now in six months time, prompting will probably be dead
42:26
because the models will be so intuitive and they will know us so well.
42:29
But for the moment,
42:30
prompt engineering and context engineering are really important.
42:33
So building those writing skills, valuing those critical thinking skills,
42:37
those are really important.
42:38
Other things I've done really well, I've seen done really well.
42:41
My my husband's an MYP coordinator and he will do,
42:45
three lane development, his design.
42:48
So he will allow students to do like a classic sketch,
42:51
a CAD design and an AI design, and then they'll do comparisons.
42:55
And he always takes a vote as to which one they prefer.
42:58
And it splits almost evenly.
43:00
A third choose each method so that having them, that diversity
43:04
of opinion and diversity
43:05
of thought and subjective values, I think those are really important
43:09
to make space for those in thinking, teaching and learning as well.
43:13
So I would say if you can have
43:14
a couple of tricks up your sleeve to be able to discuss the models
43:18
in somewhat confident or at least give me a can bluff confidence,
43:21
that would be really good to talk about things like tokens and things like that.
43:24
But ultimately the kids are looking to us for leadership on this.
43:27
You know, they they don't need to learn it from TikTok.
43:29
It would be better if we have a value conversation in class
43:33
and they can have the literacy conversation offline.
43:35
They can have AI teach a AI to them at another point.
43:38
That's not the valuable, important part.
43:40
The values, the attitudes, the disposition, the character development.
43:44
That's what's going to be important.
43:45
That's super, super useful and highly practical.
43:48
And you can tell like, oh yeah, as you were talking,
43:50
I'm like, I could use that idea right away.
43:53
And now I'm, you know, I'm not trying to promo it, but I'm like, oh, I actually do.
43:56
I just pop into a bot and let me see
43:58
some of these other resources here as well, because, yeah.
44:02
As I've kind of gone into this space as an educator,
44:04
there are those elements of just feeling a bit overwhelmed and as though, like,
44:07
I need to give this some proper think time,
44:09
but I'm not quite sure where to get going on it.
44:10
So I really appreciate that sort of.
44:12
Here are some very practical, easy ways to kind of get at it.
44:15
And I especially like that shift from critical thinking to critical discernment.
44:19
And then, you know, asking those conceptual,
44:21
debatable questions and really, you know, thinking through that,
44:25
through that deeply, I think that's quite useful.
44:28
Is there
44:29
any sort of like list of absolute don'ts like as an educator?
44:32
Definitely do not do this.
44:34
You know, when you're saying experiment a little bit with this
44:37
or try this thing with AI,
44:38
are there things that you would advise to to educators to just be like,
44:41
yeah, do these things, but don't do this stuff.
44:44
There's a few and some of them again are linked to my own Irish Catholic guilt,
44:48
so feel free to dismiss them or not accordingly.
44:52
But I think for me, in terms of the energy,
44:55
the earlier we can teach them the skills of very effective
44:59
AI use, the less they are going to consume and burn, because they'll be able to use
45:03
it wiser and teaching them not to argue with a hallucination
45:07
like don't try and fight the AI, don't try and bully the AI.
45:09
And this happens in a lot of schools where the kids try and correct
45:13
the AI and they're just burning energy as they go through.
45:16
So things like that are really important
45:17
to communicate with students.
45:19
If you are in a wormhole, if you're in like a,
45:21
if you are just getting deeper and deeper the rabbit hole with an AI conversation,
45:25
start a new thread like straight away. Just forget about it.
45:27
Just move on.
45:28
Getting kids to kind of organize their threads, their projects,
45:33
their gems, whatever the terminology is in the preferred schools, LLM,
45:36
that's something that's important.
45:38
There is a huge, huge element here in terms of safeguarding and students
45:42
wellbeing that we need to.
45:43
It's probably too big for the scope of this conversation right
45:45
now, but with teachers, I would just urge caution when they are.
45:49
If you define and design a chatbot for students, it can be really helpful.
45:53
It can also be a major distraction
45:55
because now they're in a new environment that they want to test
45:57
and see if they can get it to say a racist term
45:59
or see if they, you know, like they have certain things,
46:01
they have certain hacks that are quite amusing and quite
46:03
interesting, and also a complete deviation from the task at hand.
46:07
So, you know, judicious use where possible, if it adds value,
46:11
if it serves the kids in a way that you can't,
46:13
if it makes your classroom environment richer, then do it.
46:16
But if not, then it is a distraction.
46:18
It is a shiny tool that hasn't made learning any deeper or better
46:22
or more lasting, because we still need a productive struggle for kids.
46:25
So I think that's something from the energy perspective as well.
46:29
I would say it's very tempting to play with the video generation.
46:33
It's very tempting to play with the world model.
46:36
These immersive models,
46:37
but there's such high energy use that I would just say, wait,
46:40
let's not buy the first iPhone.
46:41
Let's just wait until the next, more efficient models come along.
46:43
So don't encourage students into those.
46:45
They're already in gaming environments.
46:46
They don't need to be messing around with world models yet.
46:50
Another thing
46:50
is that for school leaders and as a school leader perspective,
46:54
I think it's really important that school leaders are on top of this. Now,
46:57
they need to know what's happening, especially because of the EU AI act.
47:01
And, you know, China's K12 curriculum development.
47:04
And Saudi Arabia has an AI curriculum.
47:08
We need to be led from the front sometimes,
47:10
like policies should be coming bottom up and governance
47:12
should be top down because there's so many teachers.
47:14
If I were in school right now, if there is no way I could do this
47:16
level of research and reflection that I'm able to do that
47:20
I can distill for schools and I can say, listen, this is important.
47:22
This is not I could not do that if I were in a school right now.
47:25
So an honest acknowledgment of that and an ability
47:29
to say, okay, well, we need trusted sources of information.
47:32
And as you know, as we sometimes wait for the IB to release stuff,
47:35
the IB process takes a long time for translation and and publication
47:38
and things.
47:39
And in the meantime, people are filling that space with,
47:42
you know, advice from LinkedIn, which can change on the daily and,
47:45
you know, press releases and new models and everything.
47:48
It is massively overwhelming.
47:49
So choose less to do
47:50
and do it well, you know, choose fewer things to experiment with
47:54
because I think that is part of the overwhelm,
47:56
the constant bombarding of like, oh, try this, try this, try this.
47:59
We don't need all of those things.
48:00
We need a few things
48:01
that will genuinely help our students or give us time back as teachers.
48:05
And the rest are not important.
48:08
When it comes to grading
48:09
I would definitely put up a kind of a go slow flag on grading just to be careful,
48:12
for the moment.
48:13
It is too early at the moment to hand over
48:16
entire grading mechanisms to AI.
48:19
Because of the inbuilt bias and because of the desire to please.
48:23
Like I do a lot of testing with this, and I find that depending on the model,
48:26
it will either consistently be too harsh, to gentle,
48:29
or sometimes it will just trend to the middle to be safe, just like human markers.
48:34
So I think it's really important to go very slowly with that
48:37
and always have a quality check system of some kind.
48:40
If you're writing reports, make sure that human eyes are on those reports.
48:44
They don't leave the building without human quality checking.
48:48
That's really important, because we're responsible.
48:50
We now have a reputational risk. As teachers.
48:52
We don't want to be the one
48:53
who use AI too much or too little in our classroom.
48:56
We want to get it right, and we have no time to do that.
48:58
So that's kind of where
48:59
we come in, where we want to help schools with that.
49:02
Because I listen to 50 podcasts a week on on triple speed.
49:06
I watch you guys all the time.
49:07
I try and see who's thinking about things
49:09
differently, who's doing the hard yards here,
49:12
and how can they share that information with everybody else.
49:14
And that's the beauty of the IB community.
49:16
We always do that for one another.
49:18
Everybody wants the best for our fellow and sister schools,
49:22
and when something works, it's great to share.
49:24
And when something is a disaster, it's important to share.
49:26
So I think it's a really good space to find ourselves in right now.
49:30
You know, other national systems don't
49:31
have that level of cohesion and goodwill that we seem to be very lucky to have.
49:35
Yeah, definitely.
49:37
Rita, I just feel like I've just gone through
49:39
one of the most valuable PD sessions that I've been in in the last year or so.
49:43
There's been so much just really valuable thinking to go through with this,
49:47
and I think you laid out so many things really well, just,
49:50
you know, really considering, again, what's my ethical use here?
49:52
And how am I practically bringing this in?
49:54
What are the skills that I value?
49:55
But, you know, especially those practical tips and that sort of thing, I think
49:59
there's an element of fear that I've had with regard to integrating and teaching
50:03
well, and just as you say, being a leader with
50:05
with my students, with regard to like, how am I teaching
50:08
AI use ethically and responsibly.
50:12
And just even, just this conversation has kind of helped calm some of those fears.
50:16
And knowing that there's like specific things that we can do to
50:18
to make it better for teachers and for for students and learning.
50:21
This has just been a hugely valuable conversation.
50:24
Rita, I can't thank you enough for taking the time
50:25
to chat with us and and sharing all this stuff.
50:27
I'm sure that our listeners are also, pretty psyched right now.
50:30
Thank you so, so much.
50:32
Please do, you know, connect with me on LinkedIn.
50:35
I share a lot of, like, important trends to notice things, things to ignore,
50:40
you know, just kind of like, like I said, microdosing that PD
50:43
just in manageable amounts. And it's so interesting
50:46
human races at the engagement, you can tell the difference.
50:50
People respond to human racing.
50:52
Not right in a different way.
50:53
Definitely.
50:54
Great. Well, thank you so much Rita.
50:55
It's been such a pleasure to have you on here talking about all of this.
50:59
We're really, really pumped about it and hope we get to talk to you again soon.
51:03
Thanks. Thank you guys. I really enjoyed that.
51:05
Thank you so much for asking me to join you and let's keep the conversation going.
51:10
IB Unplugged is a Kognity podcast hosted by John Patton
51:13
and Courtney Marline and produced by Katilina Gaffney.
51:16
Be sure to subscribe or follow and share with your fellow IB educators.
51:20
If you'd like to submit a topic, request or a question, please do so
51:23
on kognity.com/ibunplugged.
51:26
Let's keep the conversation going
51:27
and support each other in teaching with confidence, creativity, and joy.
51:31
See you next time.