Can school survive if students no longer need to learn on the system’s schedule?
In this episode of Your AI Injection, host Deep Dhillon speaks with Dr. Taylor Wrye, Director of Technology and Innovation at Nauset Public Schools, about how artificial intelligence is entering K–12 classrooms and what it means for the structure of schooling. Wrye explains that teachers and students are often learning how to use these tools at the same time, working through questions about their role in everyday instruction. Drawing on his work supporting educators across the district, he discusses how schools are approaching AI in ways that maintain teacher guidance while opening space for more flexible learning. The conversation considers how schools might adapt as technology changes how students engage with information and with each other.
Learn more about Taylor Wrye here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorpwrye/
Dr. Taylor Wrye is also the author of Leading the Next Era of Public Education.
Check out our related episodes:
2. AI-Driven Innovations in Occupational Therapy with Karen Jacobs and Alyson Stover
Get Your AI Injection On The Go:
xyonix partners
At Xyonix, we empower consultancies to deliver powerful AI solutions without the heavy lifting of building an in-house team, infusing your proposals with high-impact, transformative ideas. Learn more about our Partner Program, the ultimate way to ignite new client excitement and drive lasting growth.
[Automated Transcript]
Taylor: I would say starting off with dystopian bad news first is that we don't change. We keep doing the same thing, what we're doing now with the same standards, same expectations, and having students, and experiencing things for the first time in college when they should be experiencing it through their entire K 12 education system.
Taylor: But my optimism, and this is what really has driven me to write my book, is, what schools can be. And I started my dissertation on distance learning. I was gonna change the world, we're gonna use online learning pandemic hit and I wanted to know why we weren't utilizing it.
CHECK OUT SOME OF OUR POPULAR PODCAST EPISODES:
Deep: Hello, I'm Deep Dhillon, your host, and today on your AI injection, we'll be exploring the ethics and implementation of AI in K through 12 education with Dr.
Deep: Taylor Wrye, director of technology and innovation. At now set public schools, Taylor holds a master of arts in teaching from a Manuel College and an EDD from Drexel University and has positioned Nelson as a quote, recognized AI innovator district while overseeing new ed tech and AI implementations.
Deep: Taylor, thank you so much for coming onto the show.
Taylor: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Deep: let's get started a little bit. Tell us what did students do before you integrated AI into their curriculums and what's different now? Maybe walk us through a scenario.
Xyonix customers:
Taylor: Yeah, so AI is the latest and greatest thing that teachers are [00:02:00] experiencing in their classrooms.
Taylor: And it's very unique in that the students and the teachers are learning AI at the same rate at the same time. And really it's teachers are trying to build the airplane while we're flying it. Um, incorporating AI into the classrooms to support teaching and learning. And one of the things that we're noticing is that, there's a lot of misconceptions out there as to what AI can and can't do.
Taylor: And, a lot of knee jerk reaction is, and it's very similar to what. I'm dating myself now, but when Google first rolled out everybody in the education world thought Google was going to people aren't gonna research things. People aren't gonna memorize things anymore, but in reality it revolutionized education and we are at another turning point in which AI is going to do the same exact thing.
Taylor: But it's really, really important that the teachers have the [00:03:00] tools necessary that make that support their pedological approach to uh, in the classroom, I should say. And then, um, with kids wanting to use it, trying to use it, and then supporting the all different components of basically ethical and responsible AI use within the classroom and then also in their everyday lives.
Taylor: So,
Deep: yeah,
Taylor: it's. It's not just a matter of like, yes, we're using it and we like it. There's so many different layers to, to this and I appreciate you having this conversation.
Deep: So why don't we start by what are the different dimensions that you think of when you think of AI and education? If I had to kind of guess at some slices that are sort of like the teacher facing component to like kind of prep teachers, get them ready.
Deep: There's maybe, you know, along that lines there's probably some subcategories like grading assistance, all of that kind of stuff. And then there's probably a student facing component. Probably the thing to prevent is blatant plagiarism. Probably the thing to encourage is like thinking deeper, like going [00:04:00] deeper.
Deep: Maybe like homework assistance, tutoring, that kind of thing. So maybe walk us through, like what do you kind of consider to be the categories, within which, AI's essential in sort of integration into the curriculum?
Taylor: Yeah, that's a great question. So the, definitely the different categories is the, teacher component and then the student component as well.
Taylor: But then also as the technology director it's also the student data privacy component. And really helping the, students understand that the information that is being put into the large language model is not always going to be private. And we are trying to teach our, our students how to be responsible users of ai when they do use it. The teacher component of it is supporting teachers. Yes. With the everyday work and, you know, helping [00:05:00] crafting quick lesson plans or differentiated instruction in which they can take multiple, they can take a text and then produce multiple different grade levels version of that.
Taylor: And so that definitely helps the teachers in that world for the students organizational finding things. But also we really, one of the things in education that I, I'm noticing is we need to really look at what is it that we're doing in our classroom. And if it's something that a student can uh, let's say a worksheet that a student can put into a a chat GPT or an another AI model like Gemini, and it spits out an answer, is that really an effective lesson or an effective activity that that the students are doing?
Taylor: Or should we then go, maybe dig a little bit deeper and you can create conversations with historical figures? I actually watched in a class the other day where students [00:06:00] were talking to George Washington. And asking him his perception on, and it brings from like what was his favorite food to you know, what are his thoughts on having to cross the Delaware in the middle of the winter.
Taylor: Was it, was it cold? Like, what did you do to stay warm? And it really, just listening to those kids and giving the opportunity to engage with a historical context is really something that, that I've never experienced when, uh, in my learning pathway. So really it's a complete change the way we approach teaching and learning and ensuring that we are.
Taylor: Basically delivering the best possible engaging content to our students because this is their world. This is where they live. Yeah. Um,
Deep: So
Deep: before, before we kind of dig into it I wanna ask kind of a couple of higher level questions. So, like, one of my questions is. To what extent, when you talk about ai, are you talking about, teachers or students sitting in front of [00:07:00] an LLM directly, like GPT or Gemini or Anthropic or whatever?
Deep: And to what extent are you talking about tooling that you use in the districts to like facilitate curriculum development, to facilitate lesson development and those tool providers integrating AI into their tools and you sort of leveraging it? Or in the, the example you gave with George Washington, is that the teacher prompting, you know, Chad GPT to act like, you know, George Washington and everyone talking about it?
Deep: Or are there tools that specifically like, you know, render historical figures and, and play this kinda stuff? So how do you think about the tooling versus direct student teacher AI interaction?
Taylor: That's not a black and white answer unfortunately, but it is definitely one that all educators need to become familiar with the, with the tools. Just like when they had the good old fashioned overhead projectors and that beep when you had to turn the slide. It's modern technology. And so once people become more familiar and [00:08:00] comfortable with this technology, they'll be able to use it almost second nature.
Taylor: So really from my, uh, from my department is supporting the teachers and showing them what is available and what it can do because it's, you don't know what you don't know. And so, with a lot of perspective is how is this going to make my life easier? And sometimes it's just a matter, I have fantastic, um, technology integration specialists and co uh, tech coordinators in each building that.
Taylor: Support our teachers and show them effective ways that they can use it in their prep during the prep period or planning period or, uh, designated
Deep: But whats "it" in this case. Is "it" chapter GPT in your sitting 'em in chat GPT or is "it" a lesson planning tool that has been around for a while that now has AI integrated into it?
Taylor: Yeah, so it's actually, we use Magic School ai, which is a company that was rolled out, designed for [00:09:00] teachers by teachers is their, um, slogan. And it has a lot of pre-made prompts, within its interface and it, it is intended for student use as well. They did sign a, a data privacy agreement for the secondary level.
Taylor: But it's really Intuitive for the educators because it has the, I need an email that says X, Y, and Z, and so it has those basic prompts. And then if as you become more comfortable with it, you can dive in deeper. And as you know, it's limitless,
Deep: so I, I don't actually know, like, tell me more about Magic School ai.
Deep: Like what were they before they had the AI in it? Is this a startup? Do? Where do they come from? From the academic credibility standpoint? Um, did they always exist and they were always assisting with curriculum development and some kind of student interaction and then they augmented certain functionality with ai, or is this like kind of a brand new thing that's maybe more heavy on the AI and um, light on [00:10:00] all of the historic tools like teaching strategies and other, other tools that folks have used?
Taylor: Yeah, so it, the big thing when AI first came out, and as you know, New York City Public Schools, I think was the first one to put an absolute ban on any AI models or u utilizing in the classroom. And so what what Magic school AI did, was it, it was a, I believe a data scientist partnered with a teacher and they came up with this magic school ai and it really to, to support teachers and really, find that specific area to help them with the specific needs.
Taylor: And, as you know, there's different levels, but right now, the, the big level that they were really pushing for the teacher side, right now they do have for students and teachers, but for the teacher side, it's getting them familiar with what it can do, what's possible, and then it keeps pushing to show you all the various other ways from the paperwork that teachers all [00:11:00] educators have to do to lesson planning, to even giving ideas or creating like little chat bots for, um, students to engage with in their lessons.
Taylor: One of the important things with Magic Tool AI is actually was teaching the teachers how to utilize ai, uh, effectively. So it's, I keep going back to that analogy. We were building the airplane while we're flying because students were already using it. We had some schools not in my district, but districts throughout the country that were locking it down like, we're not using it.
Taylor: It's just because people didn't understand what exactly it was and what it was doing. So, I think Magic School was very innovative in the fact that they were one of the first, and they recognized that the, uh, public education world, or education in general was an area that, was an area of growth for them and uh, the way that they could support the teachers
Deep: may maybe why not?
Deep: Can you just enumerate some of the use [00:12:00] cases? 'cause I feel like this is a bit too high level for me. I'm trying to read between the lines, but I'm not following, like, what are the exact things that a teacher sees when they look at magic school? Ai. So I'm an AP history teacher in a high school. Is it appropriate for me?
Deep: Or is, are we talking about elementary school kids? Are we talking about something in between When I go in there, what am I doing? Like, do I just have a blank text field and I'm just like, hi, I want a grade homework, help me. Or are is there like, like what am I looking at and what, what are my decision points and what exactly is happening in this tool?
Taylor: So basically when a, a teacher logs in they see, it actually asks you to identify what grade level do you teach, what area are you looking for, then if you're in the secondary level, let's say I want to focus down to social studies or science, and you then can compare that down to science and then it'll say
Taylor: and even like, it'll ask you your state standards, um, that you are looking to identify. So it's prompting you to really dig down [00:13:00] into what exactly you are getting at. And so if you go into the Massachusetts State standards, you're looking at, let's say the pilgrims coming to, Plymouth Rock, and then you wanna, you have ideas, you can prompt them in.
Taylor: It'll ask you what exactly are you looking for? Are you looking for an independent activity, class activity, an activity they can share with the class type of thing, and all the, all the different versions that you would want. And then you just keep asking.
Deep: So is a curriculum tool then, or is it a curriculum augmentation tool?
Taylor: I would say it's a supplemental tool to be honest. It helps teachers pare down exactly what they need and what they're looking for because then at the same time you can say, I have a a student that is, has dyslexia and I want that to help this student. With this passage or this type of reading, can you give me some ideas to help with the [00:14:00] student?
Taylor: And then if, and once they come up with it, it, we can take this step further and say, okay, here's the passages that the class is gonna read. And then here is the passage that is written in a way that supports a dyslexic learner. So,
Deep: so one of, of the things that comes to mind there is like one of the problems I see with sort of naive AI users is they don't know what to ask and they're just, they have no idea.
Deep: So how would a teacher even know to ask that? Like, usually they just look at the blank text field and they just walk away. Um, or they ask really naive brain dead questions. Like they don't even know, most people don't even know the simple thing to ask the AI what to ask. Um, which is a really powerful template.
Deep: So how, um. And like, how does that happen? Like, because that feels to me like somebody's duct taping an interface onto GPT that can be handled directly with GPT. I thought what you were gonna say is that you upload your curriculum or you say, Hey, I'm teaching fifth grade science and math.
Deep: I'm on [00:15:00] lesson 13, subsection 12. I'm working on this particular passage. I'm teaching it today. Um, this is the homework assignment I'm giving. What are you gonna do for me? Like, I thought it was gonna be like, the thing is bootstrapped on an incredibly specific curriculum as opposed to plop in a teacher in front of an LLM prompt.
Taylor: It's yes. And, but also at the same time, one of the things that we're also noticing is that specific curriculum companies like that own you know, the big, the big name educational companies, they actually have kind of pigeonholed their own ai. That that one thing that I'm noticing is that like a lot of companies are saying, we have AI now for an additional fee that you should use our version.
Taylor: And so, that was very big within like the last year, that was the shiny, we have the a AI version. Please use it because of [00:16:00] this. And then some are good, some I was expecting more, but, um, but when it comes to really teacher, like having their own autonomy and really like their creativity magic school AI really helps with that.
Taylor: It pulls, and again, all the state standards are there, the curriculum, like you can find the curriculum as well. And then the teacher also has that, the freedom to, to tailor it as they wish. But yeah, so. Overall, there's, there's different versions. And some teachers like Chate, some teachers prefer that blank screen and, and run with it, and they have the comfort with it.
Taylor: Even administrators as well. And then there's others like with Magic School, it provides those specific prompted questions geared specifically for the education world.
Deep: So those prompted questions that you're describing, those are based on a specific scenario that a teacher is in. Like, I'm [00:17:00] teaching X topic to y student grade students right now, and now it, it knows to like, kind of how to coax them into a conversation about that.
Taylor: Yes. Yeah. So it's, it provides the support and guardrails, um, for people that aren't. Familiar with, a blank chat, two screen, um, and, and running with it. And and we can even, it's not just curriculum you can look at like, I need you to, you know, review whether it's a document to help me pull out the main points, or I need this student, um, needs a specific accommodations.
Taylor: What are some ideas or what are, what should I be doing type of thing to really, um, cut down on, on, all the extra paperwork because teachers only have prep periods during the day, which are 40 minutes in length to prepare. So it's creating, it's allowing them to be more efficient.
Deep: I see.
Taylor: Um, and, [00:18:00]
Deep: and, and that efficiency kind of translates into things like grading assistance and like helping with the essay analysis, that kind of thing.
Taylor: Yes.
Deep: And the teacher's always presumably in the driver's seat
Taylor: yes. Yeah, they definitely you can put it through. And one of the things too that I'm noted, there's another company that actually allows teachers to, monitor the students when they're writing it. Like if they're submitting a paper it shows the real time.
Taylor: And it, it'll look at it the large language model will look at it and say, the student copied and pasted a big chunk of the page three. And then so the teacher then can go in and, and take a look at and read it, read it and it'll provide an analysis. And of course, the teacher's always in charge and can, and provide that, teacher touch to the review as they begin to revise their papers.
Taylor: It definitely streamlines everything.
Deep: Yeah, I mean, like, there's a couple of really popular critiques of. Not [00:19:00] even ai, but like just tech in the classroom in general. One of them is that we know there's a massive cognitive drop simply by having the presence of a screen. Yeah, so I would ask is it wise?
Deep: Does it make sense for us to shove everybody in front of a screen when we know it's like a 60% cognition drop just simply by having the presence of a screen and a, and a cell phone nearby, or even not a cell phone, just there's just something about the screen, the lights, the stuff effect on our eyes, the kids' natural distractions.
Deep: Like, why are we entering this arena? It seems like we know this stuff doesn't work. We still have phones in the classrooms. That seems like completely ridiculous to me, but, you know, Seattle School District is probably the last district on planet Earth to realize it. What, why, why are some of these obvious negative aspects of technology still like overlooked?
Taylor: So I think I would disagree with you about, about the cell phones. I, I think it's really [00:20:00] important, and we have, there are a lot of districts, there's even states that are banning, um, cell cell phones outright, the bell to bell. And so it's really important to understand what exactly we're using the screen for.
Taylor: Is it, are we consuming or are we creating content and consuming? Yes, I agree with your sentiment that, it is distracting, it's draining. But if we are looking at creation like engaging, enhancing, perfect example is my son was creating a stop motion with, with his Legos using his iPad. And that's iPad time, his screen time.
Taylor: But he is using it to create a stop motion using the creativity. So it's really important to really to have, and especially for like administrators and district leaders, we need to be purposeful with that technology and we need to be really cognizant of are they creating a, an image, like, are they [00:21:00] drawing on them or are they just looking to see what the new gossip is in Hollywood type of thing?
Taylor: Or who's on social media? And so, that really the, the, the screen time question really I feel like it needs to go like a little bit deeper and look at what exactly is it being used for? Is it content creating or is it consuming? Because if it's consuming, yes, but I don't want to. Really limit or prevent people from accessing like a tool.
Taylor: 'cause that's what basically a cell phone is tool.
Deep: Well, I mean, students are creating content when they send their friend a text message about what their other friend said. That doesn't mean that creation in and of itself is good. So, um, and I think there's probably a difference between personal cell phones and like, a computer lab or something more guided and constrained.
Deep: So in your district, like [00:22:00] how do you guys draw? Are they interacting with these things via apps on their own phones or are there like, you know, machines that are shared in the classroom or like what's the scenario? You described that scenario where they're, where you're tracking like how they're entering essay, content
Taylor: so our district is a one-to-one district in which every student is given a device that is a school device, and that is the device to be used within school, can be used at home as well. And we provide hotspots for families that have non reliable internet connection at home or when they're outside of school.
Taylor: So, we, I would say our middle school has a strict policy on cell phones or high school a little bit more, but it also goes back to like best practices and like the way the teachers expect, I mean, some people have the put it in your pouch type of thing upfront, like in that old tool rack.
Taylor: But but back to what you were saying is, on the Chromebook [00:23:00] devices, we ensure that it's only district approved software. It's only software that is compliant with student, um, data privacy. So Magic School AI is one of those and one of the few that actually does, whereas Google Gemini offers it in its workspace package, but it unfortunately does not adhere to the student data privacy below the age of 14, I believe.
Deep: Let's talk about, the obvious kind of elephant in the room that I think a lot of educators misunderstand, but the plagiarism question is sort of prolifically on college educators minds and, um, you know, and there's a genuine concern, I call it the Homer Simpson ification of ai.
Deep: Like that AI's making us all dumber. There's a lot of studies pro, you know, like, um, putting data that, that proves this. I think anecdotally we've all seen examples of this. I recently read an article, an HBR calling it Work Slop. [00:24:00] Um, this is the work version of this, but I'm sure there's a school version where you're too lazy to actually write the thing or, or review the essay for the kid yourself.
Deep: So you put it into an AI thing, you get some stuff, and then you pass it off as your own and you claim to be a genius. And the person getting it scratching their head going, why are you sending me this? Are you, seeing this as a, like, how do you see, how do you address these, this kind of perspective, right?
Deep: Like, the, yes, I, any kid that's motivated can take, GPT or Gemini or whatever and knows they're writing an essay and can really use it strategically to get deeper, to dig deeper, to make a more coherent argument, to like really formulate things and any insanely lazy, you know, college kid, you know, or a high school kid in your case can just have it generically write essay from A to Z.
Deep: What's the,
Taylor: yeah,
Deep: what are these guardrails that you're describing? Because the one about like [00:25:00] how you entered in that seems trivially circumvented, like type it in, like, you know, every student's gonna figure that out pretty fast. There's no real way to police it directly. That's coming as somebody who builds these models every day.
Deep: So,
Taylor: yeah. I think one of the things, guardrails are definitely needed, and I think states are starting to take steps to put in those guardrails. I know a lot of districts, um, are looking to the state ed tech departments to say, what are our policies, like academic dishonesty policies that, we have like plagiarism and there was just a, lawsuit in, a town in down the road in situate in which a, a teacher gave a student a zero because the teacher stated that the child used chat GPT and was able to, prove it.
Taylor: Actually the court sided with the school and said it violated academic dishonesty. But but going back to it is, but. [00:26:00] It's the kids, the students are absolutely brilliant. They, they're very creative, they're innovative, and as you said, you know, the students that are putting in those very clear and specific instructions to right, like a 11th grade student and, and is able to do that and produce the work.
Taylor: There are different platforms brisk is one of them enrich and Grammarly is, is another big company as well that, will monitor the, student use and then give the teacher a dashboard to say the sentences structures are very similar to what a large language model would produce.
Taylor: This student, um, wrote. Only one page and the rest is copied and pasted and printed into the document. And there's a lot of additional analytics that it provides which is helpful for the teacher. You know, when you're going, let's say you're talking about what is a verb or a noun and really sentence structure it'll provide, it'll identify it [00:27:00] and say the student is having a tough time writing a complete sentence.
Taylor: And so there are guardrails in place, but, uh, there's definitely a lot of room specifically in K 12 education to grow in supporting our students. And then also, and one last point is that teaching the students how to use it correctly is definitely a, a big component. Is being like a good digital citizen in that when you use a large language model, like, we're not saying an outright ban, but make sure you cite it, make sure you, you put that you utilized or however the specific citation is in your paper.
Taylor: Even if you say, I just had put it in to do a quick edit or a quick review.
Deep: Yeah. I mean, all of that seems to me like it misses the point. Like honestly, um, as somebody who builds these models and has for decades I was on, I'm on the, uh, advisory [00:28:00] board at my university's, um, electrical engineering department.
Deep: And we were talking about this and you know, I'm kind of the AI guy, so they're asking me like, what do you think you know we should do about this? And I said I think there's really two, two big shifts that need to happen. Um, from my vantage, like I'm definitely not the person that says don't use ai.
Deep: I say the opposite, but I said, the only way this is gonna work is if you do two things very differently. One thing that you have to do very differently is you have to radically raise the expectations of what you're producing. So a bachelor's degree should be akin to a PhD. A PhD should be akin to a tenure track, faculty's production level, tenure track faculty, production level should be akin, you know, to a senior professor.
Deep: Like all the standards need to go way the heck up. At the same time, all the assessments need to move from out of class to in class. You know, and I, the example I used was like my daughter, you know, she, she's like, yeah, they've started giving us in class Blue book exams for finals at she's a university student.[00:29:00]
Deep: I said, how did that go? She's like, well, I don't know. I mean, I went from getting like 93, 90 4% to getting like high score on everything. And I said, well, why do you think that is? And she's like, 'cause everybody else cheats at home and everybody knows this. This is like, why, like a lot of folks are having a hard time hiring Gen Z kids.
Deep: That kind of came about during COVID. Everyone knows remote education is like extremely flawed. None of us in the working world really trust this stuff, which is why we throw people at the whiteboard and hammer the crud out of them for like three days before we hire them, because we know that, that if you standing behind your degree, and I'm using college 'cause I'm just less familiar with K to 12, but I think the analogies are there.
Deep: So to me, I feel like. That's more important than like trying to micromanage an interaction with how a student puts their essay in because they're gonna cheat and there's no way for these model companies to detect it, even though they lie and say there is, they're wrong. I build this stuff, I know how it works.
Deep: It's impossible because at the end of the day, a student really [00:30:00] can write like an LLM. Why? Because an LLM is based on everyone on the, in the world's writing. And it's dent, generally biased towards high quality writing. And at the same time, it's very trivial to make an LLM appear like it's writing.
Deep: Like you, all you gotta do is like I write with a lot of semicolons and like, I never use double dashes. I just have to train it. I'm done. So that's totally the wrong approach in my opinion. I think you gotta get more clever, like if you wrote an essay about X, Y, and z. Don't give, don't the essay that you write at home is not the thing that you get your grade on.
Deep: The thing that you get your grade on is your ability to defend the essay that you wrote at home in class, you know, like these are trivial things. I don't know why it's so difficult for teachers to figure them out, but it seems to be a challenge for people to just, and I feel like the high level rule is very simple.
Deep: Assessment happens in class with no devices, period. And if kids can't write, teach them to write physically again, it doesn't seem that difficult. [00:31:00]
Taylor: Yeah. So you, you touched on a, lot of good things and a big thought shift that's gonna, that is happening is looking at what is it that we're really trying to teach our students and what is it that we want to see from our students, and we really need to be cognizant of if it's something that they can put into chat, GPT.
Taylor: And produce and say, here are they learning? Are they understanding? And so we, and I say we, even myself as well, need to have that like reflection to think about what worked five years ago before the pandemic doesn't work now. And to be able to really keep revising and innovating. But it actually brings me to my, and I'm gonna point that actually, um, so I'm actually writing a book about the next generation or the next era, public education.
Taylor: We have so [00:32:00] many I. Affectionately call it red tape, but like expectations and laws and rules and regulations. Students have to sit in a specific seat for 40 minutes and learn a specific subject when in reality we have artificial intelligence, we have vr, augmented reality, and we have all these tools, but yet it's, people put it silo, like in places, various places, but as a whole, as a public education system, the momentum to be able to shift into that.
Taylor: Really redefine what is schooling? Because schooling has taken up this huge definition from feeding, learning to type of mental supports or with, with, uh, medical support as well. And so there's all these resources within a school that the school is responsible for,
Taylor: and so there's so many things that we can do, but we are [00:33:00] unfortunately confined to being able to only do those things within the 180 days, within the six and a half hours that students are in, in that building. So, to kind of go back to it, it really, I believe that we are at a point in education where we need to really sit down and think about what exactly is schooling?
Taylor: Why do we want students to come and learn science for 40 minutes at 10 o'clock in the morning when we have all these ways that we can engage students and really look at like, what is it that we, we want them to learn? And it goes back to what you were saying, how, you know, if they're just. Copying and pasting and printing out materials, like is that an effective lesson?
Taylor: And so I think it's really important from, you know, all the way from the ground up to really look at what, what are the lessons that we are delivering? Because what we did five years ago can work, but we really need to percent [00:34:00] overall.
Deep: What do, what do you think is different now, in this AI world?
Deep: Because I think you're right. I think we have to completely reassess things. When I look out, like I see a couple of really deep flaws in our education system. I mean, I, I was trained as an engineer and it's really like my biggest critique of the engineering education was that it's not until graduate school that you learn how to ask questions.
Deep: And even then, it's not until you're kind of on a research track. That you learn how to ask questions and nobody teaches students how to, how to like tickle their intellectual curiosity because we're so standards and curriculum driven that tarnishing of a natural intellectual curiosity. If anything, I think it's more suppressed, particularly at the high school level and the college level, less so at graduate school and elementary school levels.
Deep: And that to me is like essential because if you wanna l know what to learn from an AI machine that's only getting smarter you have to know how to ask [00:35:00] questions. And I don't mean like only the high level. I mean how to drill in and drill down and really understand things. That's not really something that is taught, at least not from my vantage.
Deep: The other thing that I think we've failed at generally that I think is essential and the analogy I'll use is programmers, but I'm sure there's another one that's better and maybe you can think of one, but. When a junior software engineer graduates, you know, with let's say a bachelor's degree in computer science, historically, they were given these really well encapsulated problems and they would have years of giving, being given an encapsulated problem.
Deep: And before they eventually, you know, maybe managed two or three people and then maybe managed five or six people or 10 or whatever. Yeah, nowadays, like on day one you're managing 15, 20, 30, 50 different things. They're agents, they're not humans. But you have to be able to do that encapsulation. You have to be able to, I was chatting with a CTO, a friend of mine the other day and you know, both of us has have played that role quite a [00:36:00] bit and we're like, you know, like CTO is kind of the only role that I can think of or one of the, maybe not the only one.
Deep: I think like a professor is a similar, but there's certain executives play this, but there's like a natural ability to formula to compartmentalize problems and dole them out and take the result in, assimilate them. That's, but that's something that like, you don't get to be like, you know, an exec and at year 16, but I think that's the skill.
Deep: Those two skills are the two skills that I think really matter in this new era. And I don't think either of those are even slightly being taught even in an MBA school, you really don't learn how to manage.
Taylor: It's just looking at like, and in my book I talk about like what are, what were the job expectations or what did jobs or employers look for from their employees at even in 2005?
Taylor: And then we looked at, today and then what is it like 10 years from now? Because the students that enter kindergarten, [00:37:00] they're gonna retire around 2080 if I did my math correctly. And we are providing them with the tools that are supposed, they're supposed to be successful in a world 2050 2060
Deep: You don't know what it's gonna be like.
Taylor: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so I think that's one of the big problems is we are, we have the standardized tests, we have the pacing guides. We have all these in place because it's what we know how to do. And, and it goes to your point, like we have the ability to create learning environments.
Taylor: That are engaging to kids that are, we can tailor and structure, it's not. And so really have the teachers be the coaches to help guide them in their learning. And really just, you know, some kids love science and so you can learn math, you can learn history in science with that engagement string. Uh, [00:38:00] and there's no reason that they have to get up because the bell rang and go to the next period class.
Taylor: So there's a lot of opportunity there. But
Deep: are you talking about project based learning? You know, like is that a buzzword that fits with what you're describing or is it something else?
Taylor: So, yeah, so project based learning Uni, uh, UDL, universal Design Learning, differentiated instruction, those are all really big picket items right now in, or approaches, I should say, pedological approaches.
Taylor: Um, within the education system, it's, some teachers do it very well, and then others don't have the resources that allow them to do implement it with fidelity. Whether it's time, whether it is resources, funds there, there's a lot of inconsistency there. But I will say in Massachusetts, there is a really big push for project-based learning, UDL learning and, um, and so we're very fortunate that we have a, uh, commissioner that supports that.[00:39:00]
Taylor: But again, we, that's just a toe in the water compared to where we could be.
Deep: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's hard from somebody looking at like across the nation and trying to come up with assessments. You can imagine why it's hard, right? Be, I mean, you know better than way better than I do, right?
Deep: But I mean, I can, as a data geek, I can understand why it's hard because as I understand it that kinda one of the core ideas behind project-based learning is the student has something that they're really passionate about. Um, and then you kind of construct a project where maybe the rudiments and the mechanisms for how they dig in and how they explain it are sort of templatized to some extent, but the actual thing that they're learning and pushing on is the thing they care about.
Deep: But that's like a harder thing to do than I taught, subject X with, topic A, B, and C and you have to be able to get this particular little nuggets from it. And now you can like kind of test that all the way up to a national level
Deep: this feels like a huge opportunity to me because I [00:40:00] imagine, and I'm just speculating here, I don't know, I'm not an educator, but from the outside I imagine a lot of the pushback on project-based learning is that it's simply hard to do when you've got 36 kids to keep track of
Taylor: exactly
Deep: what the heck their projects are.
Deep: So AI gives us an opportunity to like maybe have the teacher more as a facilitator. This is like Sal Khan's kind of vision of Khan Academies. Is the teacher's more of like a facilitator? The students are able to like, kind of really dig in deep because there's like all this AI support to help them on a journey they care about.
Deep: But that sort of dots the i's and crosses the T so that we know that they can, you know, obviously if you're gonna do a thing, I don't know about whatever bicycle tires from the 16th century that you can read. 'cause we're gonna do that by giving you some descriptions of bicycle tires for 16th century.
Deep: And you've gotta read 'em like, yeah. So imagine like you still have to have the elements or the compositional elements of curriculum they have to make their way into the projects. All that [00:41:00] stuff was very tough to do. Before in a systematic way, but seems like very opportunistic. Like we, we could really, go from the world we're in today to, I mean, I always go back to Star Trek.
Deep: I don't know, I apologize to the audience. Like, I'm such a star trek
Deep: nerd.
Taylor: I love it.
Deep: But like you got, you know, in those Star Trek episodes, there'll be like a scene with like six or seven preschool kids. And the preschool kids are never doing the same thing. They're always off, like, I'm studying the galaxies, like blah, blah, blah.
Deep: And they're always talking at this dissertation level. I think that's the right way to think about this. Everybody now has the ability to talk to like PhD level experts on any topic they can possibly dream of. Once you have that ability, you have to, first and foremost as an educator, foster the desire to talk to that, right?
Deep: Like that doesn't seem to exist. And when I look at young people in a lot of young people. And then how to talk to it doesn't seem to exist because it's very, like, it's very [00:42:00] push pull oriented, like historic education. And this is very like, what does the student care about? Let's kind of adapt it.
Deep: Tailored curriculum.
Taylor: Yeah. and again, I, love that analogy because, if we go back to the standard metrics, the best scores are a smaller classroom. there's so much evidence out there that small classroom sizes produce the best results. Like students are engaged, students like teachers are able to create those lessons, specifically tailored to them.
Taylor: So basically we were doing that just by hand. And the outstanding teachers were able to move really good at, and it was called differentiated instruction, where you would tailor the lesson to the specific student need, give them options and choices. With ai, there's no reason that we cannot, we, that we can't do this.
Taylor: This is, this is differentiated instruction. This is like best practices like on steroids, [00:43:00] times, whatever. And so, it's really important, and again, for us especially from like in my role is supporting the teachers on how to use it because in grad school and some teachers have been in, uh, it's been a while since they've taken a graduate level class or even administrators.
Taylor: And so that continual training and support is really, really important because, you know, you don't know what you don't know. And so when you show them that you can create, that will engage eight to 10 different students in various different things, it's almost a no brainer.
Deep: I wanna go back to, your George Washington bot conversation example.
Deep: 'Cause I think, I think that's a really powerful metaphor. Or a powerful, there's a concept there that's very powerful. So a, again, again, going back to Star Trek, like, you know, there's, they'll jump into the holodeck and they're hanging out with Leonardo da Vinci. [00:44:00] Right. You know, and that like, that's like, that's like one of the captains does that a lot students do stuff like that on that show all the time.
Deep: This is a powerful thing, right? Like, you tend to, I, I believe that you rise to the level of people you spend time with. And if you're genuinely spending time with. Historic figures, philosophers, scientists, like whoever. Maybe you aren't hanging out with 36-year-old George Washington.
Deep: Maybe you're hanging out with 16-year-old George Washington. But, um, you know, that's something that we can do today. You know, we can formulate and render, you know, a fully realistic George Washington that you can talk to face-to-face the same way we are, you know, via Zoom right now. Mm-hmm. Um, you can have that George Washington simulate a George Washington, the things he would say, and you could make that pretty darn accurate.
Deep: And, you know, you can jump into the mind and the place of a Leonardo da Vinci or whatever. And that's a much more intriguing [00:45:00] way to like, wrap your head around AI being able to be valuable. And it's also like a really obvious way to say the New York City School district is being completely idiotic by banning all ai because, you know, they're like foregoing opportunities to like learn.
Deep: It's, it's a very kind of brain dead approach. I don't know. Tell me more things like that, you know, like, tell me more of these scenarios that, like what is the higher level concept that George Washington example is bringing out? Because I find that value, I actually started doing that a few years ago.
Deep: I, I, I do it with 'cause I, I have a side interest in philosophy. I have a side interest in like hedge fund management. I just set up these personas and I just talk to, you know, a Emanuel Kant, whoever, like, whatever philosopher I want. I'm kind of obsessed with the South Korean philosopher, so I talk to him all the time.
Deep: But I find the conversation gets shallow, you know, like 15 or 16 interactions in, but yeah. You know, and, and I feel like you have to really guide it to get it to go deeper and deeper, [00:46:00] but I think those are all solvable problems. But tell me like more George Washington more about this.
Taylor: Yeah. So, really tho those conversations were talking about, like how did he feel on a specific battle and, and things like that. And I will have to say that the Miller schools love the Arnold Schwarzenegger vo uh, voices. So, um, that, that's a whole different issue. That's a classroom management issue.
Taylor: But, um, but no to, and then to then produce a, like you are a news reporter, so you are learning the skills of how to ask effective questions and then how to, how do you take that information and then convey it to your audience. And so there's definitely different levels of approaches to that. Some just may be as simple as having that conversation and it's giving facts that on April, whatever, I did this.
Taylor: And then, if it was like Martin Luther King, I have a dream speech and [00:47:00] it. I'll go back to what we talked about with the cell phones is that tech textbooks, pictures are great, but when you have a phone in your hand that shows you videos or a laptop on your desk that you can see things, or to be honest, people are taking steps into direction with VR headsets.
Taylor: And you can see Martin Luther King giving that speech like that is a powerful thing as well. And so it's not just it's a culmination of all of those to be able to engage the student in that learning, learning experience. And again, like I am just one person and I like, I don't wanna oversimplify it, but there are so many great things happening in, in very the silo, like in one classroom, let's say in Louisiana, that that is happening, or one classroom here on Cape Cod.
Taylor: But I'm looking more at like, how do we move it all together? Like how does every student have access [00:48:00] to these fantastic opportunities?
Deep: One question I had for you. So one of my, one of my kids had, uh, like a middle school English teacher that gave a lot of essays and it wasn't until maybe a week or two before the end of the semester that they got a single essay back with actual commentary and feedback and grading on it.
Deep: And this was. To me, this was like a complete tragedy that should have I get that teachers are overloaded, but this seems to me like a com, like the worst possible situation. Now, I don't know what that teacher had going on, uh, in their lives, but it seems to me like that should trigger a complete, like either fire the teacher or intervene or put in a sub or something.
Deep: Because if the whole point is to write an essay is to get feedback so you know how to do it better the second time, but you never get a single essay back until the very end of the semester, then you've literally failed as a [00:49:00] teacher completely and you've relied exclusively on the teacher to get their feedback.
Deep: Now, of course, we are both thinking that like, you know, AI could have given great feedback here repeatedly, all the way throughout, most likely better than the teacher could. For an average teacher, maybe not for a great teacher. But at the same time, if those, if that feedback is fed through a teacher to like, approve or disprove, it seems to me like the teachers that, that we're creating a system where the teachers get lazier and lazier.
Deep: So we have to come up with, because they don't, because they know. Well, that's pretty good feedback. Yeah, that's good feedback. Check, check, check, check, check. And eventually somebody introduces a new checkbox that just says, just let the AI do all the grading. How do we like, engage teachers deeper so that maybe they're the ones coming up with the assessment rubric and maybe they're the, and maybe, maybe they don't even know, maybe they're not a particularly bright teacher, you know?
Deep: Like they don't actually write like a brilliant writer and maybe we've gotta fill in, like, I don't, you [00:50:00] know, like I feel like there's something in this concept of feedback to a student that's failing grossly without AI and has an oppor great opportunity with ai. But I also think there's a fear that these, that of the Homer Simpson problem, which is my fear of the future, is that we all get turned into, you know, idiots managing the nuclear power plant.
Deep: Like we're the la and my fear is that we're the last generation that actually knows how the world works and actually can fix things and actually understands things, and everybody else is just agreeing with a bot or twiddling a knob. I don't know. What are your thoughts based on that little mini random mind?
Taylor: No, I mean, I then Yes, I, I hear what you're saying. And there's some teachers that will stay till eight, nine o'clock at night, grading papers and, and writing feedback. Like I, when I was an assistant principal, I had to tell one English teacher, okay, it's time to go home. The custodians want to go home type of thing.
Taylor: We gotta lock up the building. But it also goes back to what we were talking about earlier, the guide on the, [00:51:00] like, so most education now is the stage on the stage where the teacher then tells the students the information that they know. And so we need to really start thinking about the guide on the side approach.
Taylor: Like almost like a coach in that you are, or even a conductor that you are, you are leading all these students and in the learning process, but a conductor has to keep everything in sync and organized. And so, AI definitely will help with the p ersonalization But again, it's really important to have that teacher component, the human component so that that if a student again says, I need this help, or can you, and, uh, the little intricacies, the human aspect of it.
Taylor: But it, you know, it's really important that the teachers are able to guide the process and like you said, with the, creating those [00:52:00] expectations of when the students finish the semester or the of the year, what is it that they are, that we have the expectation that they know and they've learned, and then how do we know that they learned it?
Taylor: How do, how do they convey this? And so. And it talks about like project based learning or, or the various different ways. And and it's important for the teacher to identify that product that shows that they students have accomplished what they, that the task that they were assigned.
Deep: Yeah, I think I, I take your point really well that, I, I've had like multiple guests on the show and I say like, how's the world gonna, like how are people gonna change as a result of ai? And I get kind of like one of two things coming back a lot of times. Like, one thing I get back is like, Hey, we're gonna, we're gonna end up being forced to inter interact much more with the physical world.
Deep: And the other one I get is we're gonna be forced to interact much more with the emotional world. And and I think a teacher [00:53:00] has a lot on their plates, and I don't know that like, grading an essay is the most valuable and important thing that a teacher can give. To a student? Yeah. Like when I think about the most valuable things I got from, you know, teachers or professors of mine, I think the probably the most valuable thing was motivation.
Deep: That was like one thing, right? Like I, I had a guitar teacher that was just amazing at getting me motivated to do stuff. And that's a very kind of like human emotional intelligence kind of a thing. And when a teacher is spending a hundred percent of their time standing up front and like, you know, broadcasting or grading stuff or whatever, that's less, you know, maybe one on three, one on five time less like human interaction time that they can have.
Deep: Where, and related to motivation is this, like as humans we'd like to be respected by those in a [00:54:00] position of maybe authority or something over something like over us. We, we want them to, you know, we want impress our teachers on some level. The more they have like a personal idea of how we exist and move in the world, you know, the better.
Deep: So that feels to me like a natural evolution here that, that coach scenario that you're describing, I'm on board with that. I think that's the right play.
Taylor: Um, yeah, I mean if you think about like any of your like favorite teachers, it's always, and this is more of a social emotional component. It's always how they made you feel.
Taylor: Yes. Yeah. You may, you may remember a lesson that they taught, but overall, like I think back to my seventh grade social studies teacher, Mr. Corcetti, he like, he made everyone feel like we were important, we were valuable, our voices mattered, and so everybody was able to look back fondly on him. Everybody remembers Mr.
Taylor: Corsetti, but [00:55:00] it's more along the lines of. Did I remember every single lesson that like he taught? No. And so it, there is that, that human component to it. But then also, I would even take it a step further is like, some students like the motivation component. Some students are driven by grades.
Taylor: They wanna they get validated by the aass or the s the
Deep: ification aspect. Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah. Whereas some are just, are excited by
Deep: maybe the
Taylor: material and then, but I think it's so important, like with the teacher and the AI combination, we can find that little thing, like maybe a student is really into, let's say hands-on, like activities.
Taylor: Like being a mechanic of some sort. Like, and that's their engagement. And so an AI then can then take that and run with it. With the teacher on the side, be guiding the AI and engaging that student in that way.
Deep: Listen, this has been a fascinating [00:56:00] conversation. I've really enjoyed talking to you.
Deep: I could probably talk to you for another three or four hours, but, um, I'm gonna just end with you know, the question I ask everybody, let's fast forward out five or 10 years out, and you're looking at the state of education, maybe in your district or maybe you know, beyond it, like in, in general. But tell us like , what's the utopian vision and what's the dystopian vision?
Deep: Like I, the utopian vision's, like stuff works out. This is kind of what I think it could be. The dystopian vision is like everything goes wrong and this is where we wind up. Tell us what those look like for you.
Taylor: I thank you for asking that question because this is such an important conversation.
Taylor: And I would say starting off with dystopian bad news first is that we don't change. We keep doing the same thing, what we're doing now with the same standards, same expectations, and having students, and like you said earlier, experiencing things for the first time in college [00:57:00] when they should be experiencing it through their entire public school education or K 12 education system.
Taylor: But my optimism, and this is what my book, it really has driven me to write my book, is, what schools can be. And I started my dissertation on distance learning. I was gonna change the world, we're gonna use online learning pandemic hit and I wanted to know why we weren't utilizing it.
Taylor: So, we really need to redefine what school is. What is school? School is a community center that students come together and they are able to access all these resources. And we talked about it a little bit earlier. But but really what the most important thing is, is students are able to engage in materials at a time and place that they want.
Taylor: Um, as the later teen years, like more sleep is, uh, really important, but yet they stay up to all hours. So why [00:58:00]
Deep: I know that one. Well, I have a, I had a teen daughter. It's like, why are you up? It's five in the morning. Why are you always tired? 'cause you're up at five in the morning.
Taylor: Exactly. Exactly.
Taylor: And so, um, to provide these opportunities and to, and to really look at the way towns and communities utilize their resources so they're not siloed into like specific departments. And so for me it's an augmented world in which students are able to engage that, motivate them to be engaged in
Taylor: multitude of ways, and then ultimately show that they're learning through ways that I, I would even assume aren't even created yet. And to not be tied down on these systems that they have to be in a specific place at a specific time. We have the tools, we have the technology. It's just now very important for us to, to take that step.
Taylor: Because when they go [00:59:00] into what we call the real world, the careers or post-secondary education we need to make sure that they have those tools to be successful, that they can be a productive member in society. And whether it's the workforce, whether it's civics, whether it is just being a good person we have the opportunity to engage the kids this way.
Taylor: And I think we are moving in the right direction. I think we have the tools. It's not gonna move tomorrow, but I'm very optimistic about the direction of public education.
Deep: Awesome. Thank you Taylor, so much for coming on the show. This has been a really fun conversation.
Taylor: Thank you so much for having me.
Taylor: Appreciate it.