A veteran of the edtech world muses on teaching, special guests, and why we’re entering a new phase in the ever-unfolding realm of learning with technology.
GUEST COLUMN | by Mark Gura
CHANWIT YASAMUT
Recently, Thomas Friedman (three-time Pulitzer Prize winning commentator and author) stated he sees us as having arrived at a Promethean Moment, a special time in which absolutely everything changes. He explained that a great deal of this is driven by technology, amplified now by the AI that we’re putting into everything from our wristwatch to our toaster to our F-35 fighter jet to our computer; impacting our ability to absorb digital content, learn from, share, and act on it.
‘…a great deal of this is driven by technology, amplified now by the AI that we’re putting into everything from our wristwatch to our toaster to our F-35 fighter jet to our computer; impacting our ability to absorb digital content, learn from, share, and act on it.’
As we move into 2025 with just two years and a little change behind us as AI-aware Educators, this weighs heavily on my mind. The upcoming Spring semester begs a pause to reflect on our trajectory and plot an effective course forward.
A few weeks back I crafted a special session for the ‘Technology Integration for School Leaders’ class I teach for Touro University’s Graduate School of Technology.
Offering students some insight and perspective required to face the relentless advance of an AI dominated instructional landscape is a dimension of my course that has grown in urgency this past year.
A Very Special Guest
Accordingly, I invited in a colleague, Rachelle Dene Poth, a middle and high school teacher who also writes and speaks extensively for educators on the evolving role of AI in the K-12 classroom.
Rachelle joined us as we were completing a discussion of the relatively recently established (2020) NYS Standards in Digital Fluency. I feel there’s much in this document to inform and guide what needs to be taught to today’s students about the place and significance of AI in the world they are growing into.
This document predates the release of the free ChatGPT resource, which heralded the AI tempest we find ourselves ever deeper in. Of the 5 concept areas it covers, one that stands out as especially resonant now is “Impacts of Computing.” Sampling this, we see explored such prescient themes as:
“Describe computing technologies that have changed the world, and express how those technologies influence, and are influenced by cultural practices.”
NYS DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Rachelle’s arrival was a perfect segue into what proved to be a very full and rich discussion.
She shared that what started out for her as a single blog post 7 years back mushroomed into a full-on fascination with AI in the context of teaching and learning. Persisting, she uncovered the potential and the availability of a deep vein of resources, starting well before that Earth-shaking release of Chat GPT.
Entering the Mature Phase
As I see it the classroom integration of AI has had several distinct phases. First came Shock and Awe – “OMG, the kids have a resource that will write an essay for them… we’ve lost control!”
That was eclipsed by Phase 2, in which teachers began to see AI as a labor saving resource – “It’ll create the quiz I need, freeing me up to work closer with my! Students!”
Rachelle agreed that we are past this honeymoon phase. Moving further into the mature phase, more educators will view AI not only as a teaching tool but as a learning tool. We’ll be putting AI-supported resources in the hands of the kids, creating a better learning experience for them.
‘…more educators will view AI not only as a teaching tool but as a learning tool. We’ll be putting AI-supported resources in the hands of the kids, creating a better learning experience for them.’
One of the things I took from Rachelle’s recent book, “How to Teach AI” (published by ISTE) is that it’s increasingly important that teachers teach students how to use AI, as well as benefit from it in their learning activities.”
Rachele shared that she uses AI-enabled instructional resources in her Spanish and STEAM classes. For instance, she might give her students a choice of a body of projects to work on. Seven of the 10 of them she might have created herself traditionally and the other three using AI. She added that her students generally can tell the difference easily.
Further, in her STEAM class Rachelle spends a lot of time with the students in understanding What AI is, How it works, and Where it shows up. She has students use AI in a way that doesn’t take away their learning by doing all the work for them. The point is for them to learn to use such tools as a way to enhance, not replace, learning opportunities. She pointed out that she vets such resources, tests them out before giving her students access.
Students Are Going to Need to Know How to Use This
“Students are going to need to know how to use this,” she asserts. “In a lot of careers hiring will be contingent on knowledge of AI. And knowing how to use it ethically and responsibly, as well, will be crucial. We used to talk about media literacy; now our students will have to be able to distinguish what’s real from what’s fake. From elementary to high school to higher education there are opportunities to have students learn these things in a progressive way so that when they leave our schools they will be prepared in this area.”
Rachelle pointed out, too, that AI has been embraced and incorporated into a great many instructional resources, even those that in their earlier iterations were without it. One example she offered is a resource that she’s been a fan of for quite a while now called Quizizz that has added AI as one of its enhancements, I was reminded of a crucial statement made years and years ago by Sir Arthur C. Clark, popular author, social commentator, and early advocate for computers in education:
“Any teacher who can be replaced by a machine, should be!”
In other words, teachers who simply deliver information without engaging students on a deeper level, for instance, the higher order thinking skills on the upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning, could be replaced by technology that can provide the same basic knowledge delivery.
Reassuringly, this conversation with Rachelle left us understanding AI in the classroom in ways guaranteed to avoid this pitfall that Sir Arthur cautioned about.
One of the very hopeful things that I suggest to my students will come out of this maturing phases of AI adoption is that teachers will be empowered to foster Student Creativity. The support that AI can give users in generating original can leapfrog students’ development as Creatives past the need for talent and, especially, the learning curve to acquire the necessary skill sets like drawing or photography or writing or videography and on and on.
Dismissing my students for the evening, I chanted my mantra one more time: “No matter how much the hyper-powerful tool set of AI changes the instructional landscape, the eternal, gold standard truths of teaching and learning still apply, perhaps more so now than ever.”
~ ~ ~
And before hitting the “End Meeting for All” button I offered my students the following:
Some 2025 Moving Forward Take-aways – Guidelines for Classroom AI Use in 2025 (and beyond)
1. Put AI in the hands of students to use as a part of their daily learning activities Fully embrace extending and improving the student learning experience as a prime use of AI.
What can you offer students with AI that engages them through enriched opportunities to satisfy their curiosity as they develop skills in self-directed learning and meaning making? Some thoughts…
a) Personalize simulations – How eye-opening, cool would it be for students to experience things that are impossible in the analog world and that reflect their own, personal slice of it? Say, time travel to student-chosen events?
b) Oral history of personalities important to them – Perhaps a panel of sports and entertainment figures past and present?
2. Shifting to a far greater focus on Higher Order Thinking Skills, especially the top of Bloom’s pyramid, Student Creativity (curiosity, exploration and discovery, imagination) – Student as Content Creator has been a long-standing goal of technology using educators, still far from fully realized. Let’s view Generative AI as a path to eliminating even more of the skills acquisition and classroom management barriers to fostering Student Voice. Learning about the evolving world through participation in it is a progressive shift in Education that is long overdue, waiting for a technology to support its emergence. We are at the threshold IF we want it (see image).
3. Have students reflect on the info stream and info products that AI generates. It’s crucial for them to compare what they might do on their own as opposed to employing AI.
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Mark Gura is Editor-at-Large for EdTech Digest and author of Creative SEL: Using Hands-On Projects to Boost Social-Emotional Learning and of The Edtech Advocate’s Guide to Leading Change in Schools (ISTE), and co-author of State of EdTech: The Minds Behind What’s Now and What’s Next (EdTech Digest). He also authored Make, Learn Succeed: Building a Culture of Creativity in Your School (ISTE). He taught at New York City public schools in East Harlem for two decades. He spent five years as a curriculum developer for the central office and was eventually tapped to be the New York City Department of Education’s director of the Office of Instructional Technology, assisting over 1,700 schools serving 1.1 million students in America’s largest school system. In addition to his role at EdTech Digest, he is currently a professor at Touro College Graduate School of Technology.
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Original Article Published at Edtech Digest
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