We’ve seen exciting developments in unique community partnerships that impact school models, apprenticeship programs, career exploration starting in elementary school, client projects, but there is also a huge, scale-friendly opportunity in tech innovation. 

Why Technology Solutions?

Traditional educational pathways (trades such as HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and construction) often require significant time and financial investment, which can be barriers for many potential learners. Many career academies provide students with the foundations of these trades, but frequently these academies have access challenges — namely, they can only serve so many of the districts’ students at one time and transportation can often be a hurdle. To accommodate this, many workforce development experts have been optimistic about the rise of virtual and augmented reality — online training programs that offer immersive, hands-on learning experiences. These radically accessible tools have the potential to provide learners with the practical skills and certifications needed to enter the workforce quickly and confidently.

While this technology has, perhaps, grown slower than many forecasted, new partnerships are forging a pathway for learners and members of the workforce looking to upskill from anywhere. These partnerships highlight the collaboration between educational institutions, industry partners, and community organizations is essential. 

One example of this is Interplay Academy, an initiative of Interplay Learning. This solution empowers other organizations to implement trades certificate programs, enabling learners to gain skills in their chosen field, earn industry certifications, and connect with employers to take on in-demand entry-level roles confidently. 

“We found that many community and workforce development organizations were searching for streamlined, scalable programs to help people enter in-demand trade careers. They had incredible, dedicated program managers serving their communities, but several did not have access to technical experts in their region or access to experts with enough extra time to serve the needs of both the community members and future employers,” said Ariana Dugan, VP of Product at Interplay Learning. “We created Interplay Academy to bridge that gap.”

Industry Skills

“Interplay Academy’s Job-Ready Certificate Programs represent a significant leap forward in skilled trades education where there is a shortage of qualified skilled labor,” said Doug Donovan, CEO and Founder of Interplay Learning. “Our holistic approach provides a direct pathway to job-readiness, empowering educators and workforce development program administrators with the tools needed to pave the way to future careers for learners. We believe these programs will play a pivotal role in developing a pipeline of talent for the skilled trades workforce of the future.”

Industry Certification

Interplay Academy has partnered with several community and workforce development organizations, including those that help unemployed or underemployed at-risk youth and adults, and is also available for use in secondary CTE programs. 

Interplay Academy’s Job-Ready Certificate Programs in HVAC, Electrical, Plumbing, Residential Construction, Multi-Family Maintenance, Building Maintenance, and Appliance Repair feature a flexible, expert-led curriculum, recognized by the Department of Labor, to effectively prepare today’s digital-first learners to enter the workforce. 

Our courses were submitted to the DOL as part of our Registered Apprenticeship Programs and were approved, which ensures they align properly with industry standards. Using that same content as part of our Interplay Academy gives learners confidence that as they pursue a career in the trades, they are receiving knowledge from a quality program. 

In addition to earning an Interplay Learning Job-Ready Certificate, learners enrolled in Interplay Academy’s programs can earn industry-recognized certifications, including NATE Ready-to-Work certification, OSHA 10 or 30 certifications, and EPA 608 certification, enhancing a graduate’s employability. 

Career Exposure and Exploration

Learners, who may need additional assistance choosing a career path, can take advantage of the programs’ career exploration tool to align their chosen path to their interests and career aspirations. When a learner completes the program, they can connect with employers through Interplay Learning’s partnership with BlueRecruit, a leading job platform for skilled trades professionals.

These partnerships ensure that training programs are aligned with current market needs and that graduates possess the skills employers are looking for. Moreover, connections with local businesses and job placement services can facilitate smoother transitions for graduates into the workforce, addressing employer needs more directly. To date, Interplay Academy has served more than 15,000 learners.

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What would it look like to make a commitment that come graduation every senior will have at least basic AI literacy? This includes an appreciation of AI as a creation engine and learning partner but also an understanding of the risks of deepfakes and biased curation. We’re entering a time where to quote Ethan Mollick “You can’t trust anything you read or see ever again.” Whether formal or informal, it’s time to start building AI literacy.

In a recent article for EdSurge, teacher Mike Kentz provides tips for how he engaged his students in learning about and how to use AI,  

“When I introduced the HoldenAI project to my students, I explained that we were entering uncharted territory together and that they should consider themselves explorers. Then I shared how I would monitor each aspect of the project, including the conversation itself.

I guided them through generating meaningful, open-ended interview questions that would (hopefully) create a relevant conversation with HoldenAI. I fused character analysis with the building blocks of journalistic thinking, asking students to locate the most interesting aspects of his story while also putting themselves in Holden’s shoes to figure out what types of questions might “get him talking.”

Next, we focused on active listening, which I incorporated to test a theory that AI tools might help people develop empathy. I advised them to acknowledge what Holden said in each comment rather than quickly jumping to another question, as any good conversationalist would do. Then I evaluated their chat transcript for evidence that they listened and met Holden where he was.

Lastly, we used text from the book and their chats to evaluate the effectiveness of the bot in mimicking Holden. Students wrote essays arguing whether the bot furthered their understanding of his character or if the bot strayed so far from the book that it was no longer useful.”

This kind of curriculum can be brought into any subject and not only teach the students about AI but also about themselves, the importance of asking the right question and much more. 

Emerging Programs and Resources

Several organizations have released useful AI Literacy courses applicable for high school students including: 

• aiEDU has a 10-week project based intro course and quick challenges 
• SkillsBuild from IBM offers a suite of free AI courses 
• Amazon Educate has an Intro to Gen AI. 

Sector leaders have published useful guides for school adoption:  

• XQ published a guide to Incorporating Generative AI in High School Classrooms
• AI for Education from Amanda Bickerstaff offers helpful guides and prompts to get educators in the sandbox
• ISTE released valuable AI resources and Standards for Students 
• Michigan Virtual released a roadmap for upskilling their teacher force.
• TeachAI summarized guidance in a toolkit 

The Middle States Association recently announced Responsible AI in Learning (RAILS), a framework for safely and effectively deploying AI in schools. RAILS is a series of self-study modules that result in a series of endorsements that will allow schools to signal their progress. 

We’re excited to be supporting the forthcoming ASU+GSV AIR Show, an exciting opportunity to gather with those on the cutting edge of AI and education, including many of those mentioned above.  

We Have a Civic Duty

We’re at an inflection point — a moment where information and trust are some of the most fragile (and essential) elements of society. Without developing the necessary critical thinking and literacy skills, AI will undoubtedly play a wedge role in the continued fracturing of truth.  

A great new book, Verified: Discerning Truth in the Disinformation Age, authored by Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg suggests implementing the SIFTing technique as a fundamental building block of AI literacy:

• Stop: What do you know about the argument and its source?
• Investigate: Is the source trustworthy?
• Find: What do other credible sources say?
• Trace: What’s the original context of the claim?

It’s time to build, select or pilot an AI literacy strategy and sprint to the end of the year. One option might be to invite a couple of upper-division students to make campus-wide AI Literacy a capstone project. Let’s make sure that every student and faculty member heads into summer AI literate.

The post AI Literacy: A New Graduation Requirement and Civic Imperative appeared first on Getting Smart.

Ben, a high schooler in Los Angeles, is an avid gamer. He is always coming up with imaginative storyline ideas, but he’s never known anyone with design experience to help him create original games. 

When Ben attended a summer program in 2023 to explore his career interests, he had access to an AI assistant, a resource built in just 20 min by the Reinvention Lab at Teach For America using Playlab. Ben prompted the tool with the broad topic of game design and the assistant asked: “Are there any topics, genres, or themes you might be interested in?” He responded: “I really like Marvel and DC comics. And fighting games.” After some back and forth, the AI tool recommended Ben make a Marvel versus DC Comics fighting game on Scratch, a programming tool designed for young beginners. 

Even though none of the on-site instructors or peers had gaming experience, Ben was able to pursue his passion during the program. AI helped him refine the idea, narrow a topic, pick an approach, and decide where to start, while Ben remained in the driver’s seat to choose what he took from the tool.

By harnessing the intelligent assistance, personalization, and real-time interactions of generative AI, students are independently following their curiosities and learning new skills more easily than ever before. In order to help realize the full potential of generative AI as a tool for youth agency, learning, and leadership, education leaders need to unlearn assumptions about adults as gatekeepers of knowledge. 

Education isn’t just what happens when adults assign coursework in a classroom. One potential power of AI is that young people aren’t bound by or reliant on adults to drive their learning. Young people can ask questions of chatbot tools and get direct, synthesized responses tailored to their age, grade, or level of understanding. For example, a student can ask: “I’m a 6th grader and an introvert. I want to stop the cyberbullying at my school, but I am scared of becoming a target myself. Can you help me think about what I could do?”  

The accessible, actionable responses from AI, whether written, verbal or visual, shift power to young people in unprecedented ways. Izzy, a first-generation college student in San Francisco, explored financial literacy information that had not been part of her high school curriculum. She started with a simple prompt: “What are the basics I should know about financial literacy, but without any confusing jargon?” After learning more through the AI tool, she created a card game for other first-generation college students to share resources in a playful, low-tech format.

Alexandra, a 5th grader in Denver, was curious about animal psychology and asked a conversational AI app if animals could choose a favorite color. This launched her into a discovery process about how some animals have color preferences based on what is beneficial to their survival, such as birds who see ultraviolet light to find ripening fruits and insects. Both Izzy and Alexandra were able to initiate learning beyond the required content and curricula already available in school.

For this wave of innovation to be deployed for greater student agency, adults need to reject assumptions that they are and should be gatekeepers for learning. Not only are today’s young people tech natives, they will likely utilize AI tools before their teachers. And they are doing so with incredible results.

Students from Delhi, India used AI to build a boat that can monitor water quality and help identify clean water sources for villagers. A Nebraska college student leveraged AI to make a major breakthrough in deciphering language on 2000-year-old scrolls. Students can use AI to simplify tasks, such as producing professional presentations or social media content, and then build interest and momentum among their peers. The newest advancement with Sora’s text to video capabilities shows that an activist-minded teenager who wants to create art or film will need significantly less equipment, software, and training to advance their vision of social change. AI is taking youth initiative, ingenuity, and impact to the next level.

Young people are already at the forefront of addressing the serious issues and racial biases that remain with AI. Encode Justice, a youth movement for ethical AI, thwarted a California proposition to use surveillance software in criminal justice settings and has pushed for more federal regulation and oversight of AI. 

To be clear, teachers, experts, and peers remain critical partners in education and should never be fully replaced by AI. Learning is an inherently relational act, and students need support that positions them to engage critically and cautiously. 

As educators, we believe that if used responsibly, this wave of advancements in generative AI has the potential to transform education and youth leadership. Let us dream up and build a future of AI where students are in the driver’s seat.

Michelle Culver is the Founder of the Reinvention Lab at Teach For America. She serves on the board of RISE Colorado, a non-profit that works to put families most impacted by the opportunity gap at the forefront of the movement for educational equity. She is an advisor to Playlab, aiEDU and The Circle in India.

Tiffany C. Taylor is a Partner and Chief People & Impact Officer at GSV Ventures. She serves as a director on the AI Education Project board, a non-profit that creates equitable AI literacy learning experiences.The ASU+GSV Summit is hosting the inaugural AIR Show, an April 2024 exposition on the transformative future of AI and learning.

The post The AI Revolution Should Foreground Youth Agency appeared first on Getting Smart.

It’s a hub for learning new skills, experiencing technological advancements, and networking with leaders and peers in the field. Keynoted by Bill Nye, this event will feature numerous Getting Smart regulars such as Tom Vander Ark, Erin Mote, Amada Bickerstaff and Sabba Quidwai.

Additionally, the program is packed with education leaders, entrepreneurs and difference-makers including:

• Yusuf Ahmad, Playlab
• Aaron Cuny, AI for Equity
• Jhone Ebert, Nevada Superintendent 
• Bodo Hoenen, NOLEJ
• Alex Fortran, aiEDU
• JD Larock, NFTE
• Maria Langworthy, CampusEvolve
• Jeff Livingston, EdSolutions
• Jason Raush, PLTW
• Jeremy Roschelle, Digital Promise 
• Taylor Shead, Stemuli
• Katrina Stevens, The Tech

Sessions to Look Forward To

Tom Vander Ark and Sabba Quidwai are going to be tag teaming a number of sessions at this event including:

Irrelevant or Irreplaceable: The Superpowers That Will Shape Your Contribution in an AI World

As the lines between human and machine capabilities continue to blur join us to help answer: 

What are the skills and mindsets that define our human advantage? This isn’t just a technology question, it’s a human question that gives everyone the opportunity to redefine their role and impact in an AI world. We’ll share where AI is now, where it is headed in the future, and the qualities that will make you irreplaceable. 

Is There a Different Way: A Design Thinking Approach to AI Integration 

How might we design systems that are human-centered and technology-driven? In this session you’ll learn how four organizations used a design thinking approach to AI integration to turn information into innovation. Learn how they fostered an environment where teachers, students, staff, and leaders cultivate the mindset and skills to embrace AI as a collaborative partner, enhancing creativity, building trust, and amplifying their human advantage. This session not only invites you to envision deeply human-centered systems—where technology strengthens empathy and connection—but also encourages you to bring your questions and engage directly with the transformative potential of AI in education.

Supercharging Real World Learning With AI. How gen AI helps learners co-author community connected projects.

Discover how generative AI is revolutionizing real-world learning by enabling students to co-author projects that deeply connect with their communities. Hear how two schools are using technology not only as a tool for learning but as a partner in creating meaningful, impactful work. We’ll share how it empowers learners to design projects that reflect their skills, ideas, and aspirations, enabling them to build dynamic portfolios that showcase their unique contributions to real-world challenges. We’ll explore the ways in which generative AI amplifies students’ abilities to innovate, collaborate, and make a difference, preparing them for a future where their education directly contributes to college and career readiness, and the advancement of their communities.

Supercharging Teaching With AI. How gen AI can help teachers design and support powerful learning experiences 

More than just a tool, AI can become an integral member of your educational team, freeing up your time to focus on what matters most: building meaningful relationships and rediscovering the art and joy of teaching.  With your new Educator’s AI Toolkit, designed to infuse generative AI seamlessly into your workflow we will practice innovative strategies to elevate assessments from papers to engaging project-based experiences and turn traditional lessons into dynamic learning adventures. Your take-home toolkit will make AI a collaborative partner enhancing both your professional skills and your students’ learning experiences.

Why This Matters

This event couldn’t be coming at a better time. A survey from EdWeek shows that most educators are still not using AI despite it being an increasingly accessible and powerful tool with radical potential.  

Sites like Teach.AI offer resources to introduce AI into schools and districts, and organizations like Michigan Virtual are creating helpful resources and roadmaps for upskilling their teacher force. We’re living in a new world and it’s time to get in the shuffle and start playing. AI for Education from Amanda Bickerstaff offers helpful guides and prompts to get educators in the sandbox.

The post There’s Something In the AIR: The Brave New World’s Fair appeared first on Getting Smart.

At this year’s TRETC Conference AI was on everyone’s mind. According to Bard, the AI tool from Google: 

This summary is a good example of the strength and weakness of AI. For example: The conference did not “culminate” with the Innovation in Education Awards; the conference kicked off with the awards. However, Bard did a fine job providing a one paragraph summary. 

My colleague, Rich Platt, decided to see how ChatGPT 4.0 with Bing access would summarize the event. ChatGPT 4 with Bing access performed a little better.

Here’s a more complete summary using postings on X and LinkedIn from participants at TRETC plus my own observations as a key planner and workshop leader for the event. The variety of voices shows a key difference from AI which is flat and lacks a point of view. 

On January 14 and 15th over 530 educators from more than 200 different entities sampled workshops, presentations, an eSports competition, panel discussions, featured speakers, an author’s fireside chat, award ceremonies, and a visit to a local Robotics factory. The Pittsburgh Technology Council sponsored the event that has become for more than 25 years the premier educational technology gathering for educators and educational leaders in the Pittsburgh region. 

According to Matt Friedman, the Superintendent of the Quakertown School District outside of Philadelphia, “So amazing to have @EdHidalgoSD kicking off #TRETC2024 talking #RIASEC and thinking about student voice, student interest and common language to build a connection within your schools, district and community.” 

“Unsurprisingly, AI took center stage in our discussions. Joseph T. Yun, Ph.D, one of the featured speakers,  reminded us that AI is not just here; it’s here to stay and progressing faster than we might anticipate. His call to action resonated deeply — how can we empower students to be leaders in a world entwined with AI? Human leaders in a world with AI,” Katherine Rettura, the Director of Technology and Innovation for Teamology commented. 

Marie Pelloni, the Coordinator of TRETC, invited onto the stage a team of K-2 students from South Fayette Primary School led by their STEAM teacher, Melissa Ungar. According to Marie, “This was one of my most favorite parts of the day. They gathered over 300 pieces of data coming out of the keynote. And … so fitting, and speak about their results. It was AWESOME.”

Like Katherine, I found everyone talking about AI. With my colleagues, Rich Platt, the Director of Technology for the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, and Ed McKaveney, the Director of Technology for the Hampton School District, we facilitated an Edtech Forum for Education Leaders. We shaped our session around CoSN’s Driving K-12 Innovation project for 2024, especially the Tech Enablers. When we divided the group into three working groups, AI became the common theme. Steve Ritter from Carnegie Learning joined me for a look at Adaptive Technologies and Analytics. Each group that joined us talked about AI in some fashion. We discussed some of the pros and cons, especially how AI can provide a tool to adapt to individual learners and provide opportunities for student agency. One group talked about using AI as a way to assess student prior knowledge. According to the group’s note-taker, “In addition to prior knowledge, learning is mediated by a host of other factors—motivation, engagement, teacher efficacy, contextual factors outside of school, etc. Meaningful learning occurs in the active integration of to-be-learned material with existing knowledge and experience. In other words, learning that is meaningful—worthwhile—is an active process (which assumes engagement, motivation, requisite prior knowledge and skills, and proper scaffolding).”

Tom Lauwers, the founder and CEO of Birdbrain Technologies, and Zee Poerio, the Technology and Latin teacher at St. Louise de Marillac School, shared in a session how the Finch Robot can be used to introduce students to AI. According to Tom, it’s critical that students understand the underlying principles behind AI or Machine Learning. Zee shared her experiences running the Finch activity in her classroom, as well as her students’ reactions to the activity.  In the learning activity, students learn how to use image recognition software to program the Finch robot to respond to a prompt. Key to the project is Teachable Machine, a tool developed by Google a number of years ago. A modified version of the activity for Hour Code allows teachers to test it out even if they don’t have a Finch Robot.  

Phil Martell, the superintendent for the River Valley School District and the winner of the 2024 TRETC Leadership Award, moderated a panel discussion on Cybersecurity with experts that included a teacher – Ms. Melissa Milanak, superintendent – Dr. David McDonald, higher education instructor – Michael Pry, and director of technology – Dr. Ed McKaveney. According to one of the participants, The Panel for the Leaders in Cybersecurity Education Inside of K-12 Classrooms was excellent. At the end of the day, the goals are simple: Safety and Security.”

TRETC had a special track on the World of Work coordinated by Ashli Detweiler, the Regional  Coordinator for a special project in the Pittsburgh region funded by the Grable Foundation. Pittsburgh – World of Work started as a cohort of four partnering school districts that include Avonworth, Duquesne City, Elizabeth Forward, and South Fayette Township.  These four districts partnered together during the 22-23 school year where the focus for implementation fell in the grade bands of second through fifth grade.  A common language around RIASEC was introduced and included in daily conversations and instructional delivery.  Once students had an understanding of RIASEC and were able to make personal connections to each of the RIASEC themes, students were exposed to six careers in each grade level.  As the cohort shifted into the second year of the pilot, all teachers in grades second through fifth grade were implementing what was created from the previous year.  The work has grown from 11 classroom teachers in Year One to over 150 teachers in Year Two.  As Pittsburgh – World of Work continues to grow, so do the partnering districts who want to be onboarded and supported.  

TRETC was the kick-off for a two-day professional development with teachers, counselors, principals, Directors of Curriculum, and Superintendents.  Participants were engaged from the start of the two-day learning experience as Ed Hidalgo led the session by showcasing how RIASEC can be introduced and incorporated into conversations with students.  Unpacking the overview and resources of World of Work was shared with all participants as each person started to think about how this would look in their respective school districts.  Team work time was offered as Detweiler, William Battistone (Avonworth Principal), Tom Kaminski (South Fayette Township Principal) and Kristen Johnson (South Fayette Township Assistant Principal) facilitated the work sessions and helped to guide the participants in a roll-out that made sense to each of them.  The following day allowed the participants from TRETC to come to see World of Work in action in the Avonworth School District.  Battistone utilized his building, staff and passion to continue to guide districts as they develop what World of Work can look like for each of them.  

Liz Peek joined the WOW track to share her experiences with the Beable software. Liz related that a new career has been added to the @onet_center for Instructional Coaches, an SEC career, and accessed via Beable. According to Ed Hidalgo: “I think the benefit of Beable is personalized lessons, nonfiction, that connect student interests and  RIASEC/reading at the students’ lexile level. Exploration is unlimited. And can be used in different approaches/integrations.”

Another session for the WOW track was led by a team from the River Valley School District. According to an observer of the session,  “Creating Career Interest and Exploration K-5 was well attended by a diverse group of educators and Tech Ed participants. Brian Higginbotham, Principal at Blairsville Elementary School, joined by River Valley elementary teachers Jessica Scardina and Stephanie Stroup, delivered strategies for integrating and embedding RIASEC language through a proven, methodical approach. Audience members gained a unique perspective on how to effectively harness student strengths, interests and values to develop career pathways as early as Kindergarten.” 

TRETC had several opportunities for students to showcase their talents. Dr. Janeen Peretin, the Director of Communication, Innovation, and Advancement for the Baldwin-Whitehall School District, led a session with her student team around their award-winning Drone project. According to Janeen, “Feeling incredibly proud of our FLAG team as they soared at #TRETC24 today! These bright young minds are not just representing our program but also embody our vision for future-focused programs in our schools. Our Fly Like a Girl drone academy presentations were met with great enthusiasm, highlighting the growing interest in aviation in our region. We are incredibly grateful for the unwavering support from our partner districts and Remake Learning as it is only through a Moonshot Grant that we are able to take these bold steps toward a new future for learning. Looking ahead, we are excited to announce that applications for schools to join our second cohort are now open and can be accessed here: https://forms.gle/G8FimnW2RmnirYAXA.

For the first time, TRETC included an eSports competition. This year 5 high school teams joined the competition. The winners were from Trinity Area SD and the second-place team represented South Fayette SD. 

In addition to educators and students, TRETC this year had a great number of corporate and non-profit partners demonstrating their technologies as part of a vendor exhibit and an Innovation Zone. 

Kashif Henderson, the Executive Director for the Neighborhood Learning Alliance in Pittsburgh, shared his thoughts about the impact of the conference, “The TRETC 2024 Conference was a great opportunity to highlight the innovative workforce development opportunities happening in the Pittsburgh region. The most rewarding aspect of the conference was being in a collaborative space with industry, out-of-school-time, and school leaders to brainstorm how we can work together as a collective to further this work beyond the conference. “

Katherine Rettura shared her reflections about the conference and the importance of connecting both in the classroom and in a conference like TRETC at the South Fayette Township School District: 

“…I had the privilege to connect and reconnect with dedicated educators passionate about embracing technology and the dynamic innovations unfolding in education.

“Contemplating the prospect of students assuming leadership roles in a world with AI, the theme of connection emerges as a necessity. In a world where AI is ubiquitous, Ed Hidalgo emphasized the vital role of human connection. Connecting with students, and understanding their interests, values, and beliefs. Educators can amplify student learning by forging connections on a personal level, empowering them to recognize the value in their unique strengths and interests. Every RIASEC personality type, he highlighted, has a meaningful contribution to make.

“Recalling my classroom experiences, the magic unfolded when students connected, collaborated, and utilized their unique strengths to create, innovate, and learn together.” 

Norton Gusky is an educational technology broker and uses technology to empower kids, educators and communities. You can find him on X at @ngusky.

The post TRETC 2024: Revolutionizing Technology and Work appeared first on Getting Smart.

The brief departure and return of Sam Altman as CEO of OpenAI underscored the need for stable, trust-based leadership in the rapidly evolving AI sector. This episode, not rooted in technological or financial challenges, highlighted how the absence of a strong, value-aligned culture can destabilize even a leading $90 billion tech enterprise.

There’s a valuable reminder for all of us as we reflect on these events. 

A culture of innovation should not depend on any one company; rather we need an approach to integrating emerging technologies into our organizations using a systems approach that prioritizes the interests of the community. 

Critical to this culture of innovation is developing lifelong learners, who can critically evaluate ideas and trends, and use their analytical skills to think creatively about the future in collaboration with others. Central to this approach is the concept of deep learning, a principle that manifests distinctively yet interdependently in AI and education, and it forms the basis of our approach to learning and teaching.

This paradox highlights the need for agility in adapting, not reacting, to the rapid developments we’re seeing with AI.  At Designing Schools, Stefan Bauschard and I have spent the past year working with organizations to examine AI integration using a design thinking approach to create a sustainable and scalable culture of innovation that begins with empathy, and incorporates deliberative decision-making centered around trust and alignment toward a shared vision. 

Deep Learning in AI and Education

Since 2010, AI has seen rapid advancements due to the development of deep learning, and it’s no coincidence that the term is used in both artificial intelligence and education.  In AI, deep learning refers to machines’ ability to learn and evolve from vast datasets, mirroring the complexity of human neural networks. In the educational sphere, it signifies a profound, experiential learning process where individuals delve deep into subjects, not merely to absorb information but to apply knowledge ethically and innovatively in real-world scenarios.

What binds these two facets of deep learning is the indispensable foundation of trust and shared values. In AI, trust ensures that the technology develops in a way that aligns with ethical standards and societal values, preventing misuse and guiding responsible innovation. In education, trust fosters an environment where learners feel safe to explore, question, and challenge, thereby cultivating their ability to make informed, ethical decisions in ever-changing circumstances

Deep Learning at San Ramon Valley Unified School District

San Ramon Valley Unified School District (SRVUSD), identified deep learning as integral to their learner profile. Their #SuccessReimagined initiative exemplifies the core qualities that help people develop skills, awareness and mindsets needed to thrive in an AI-world. Through this shared vision they have created a thriving culture of innovation built on trust and safety. It is important for today’s learners to not only use these technologies, but to engage in the process of deep learning as part of their educational journey so that when they are tasked with making essential decisions, whether they be personal or those that impact the world, they do so with effective communication and critical thinking skills, masterful collaboration, creativity, and character that reflects strong citizenship in the community. They cannot outsource their own abilities to do these things to AI. As a result, developing these skills and mindsets is essential to succeeding in a world driven by a rapid rate of change. These changes will continue to accelerate, not just in AI but in biotechnology, robotics, 3D printing, nanotechnology, renewable energy technologies, drone technologies, and quantum computing.

Humanity Amplified

We provide a comprehensive look at this approach and what it means for an AI world in our report: Humanity Amplified: The Fusion of Deep Learning and Human Insight to Shape the Future of Innovation.

View Publication

As education organizations plan for the 2024-2025 school year, here are three strategies to consider as you nurture a culture of innovation built on trust and safety where deep learning can thrive.

Strategy 1: Create with People, Not For People

Bringing the community together to share ideas, questions, and concerns, is one of the many reasons SRVUSD was able to accelerate their vision for deep learning. It’s why when examining AI integration in your organization, a key strategy we advocate for is the practice of empathy interviews. This approach validates how we design educational experiences, shifting from assumption-based to data-driven development.

Through empathy interviews, we directly engage with those for whom we are designing for. This engagement isn’t just conversation; it’s a gateway to discovering the real challenges, aspirations, and needs of our educational community. 

I first learned this lesson a decade ago, while serving as Director of Innovative Learning at the University of Southern California Physician Assistant program, we were launching a 1:1 iPad program. We had been very focused on faculty training, however, our empathy interviews quickly revealed that faculty were incredibly optimistic, yet students did not want to learn a new technology, alongside content in their first year. As a result, we were able to redesign orientation and give every student a confident start to the program. At the end of the year, 98% of students said the iPad enhanced their engagement and understanding of content. 

A decade later this approach is just as critical. 

Our collaboration with the Orange County Department of Education illustrates the power of this strategy when leadership teams evaluate how best to support their community. We brought together a cross-functional team for a 3-day design sprint to answer, “How might we support schools to prepare K12 students in Orange County for a future shaped by AI?” 

This collaborative effort focused on human-centered solutions to support education leaders during rapid technological changes based on their needs. One outcome was establishing a year-long cohort of district leadership teams cultivating a culture of belonging and psychological safety, identified by Harvard professor Amy Edmonson as critical to building a culture of trust. 

By engaging in empathy interviews, we don’t just integrate new tools; we co-create ideas that lead to impact with the very people who will use and benefit from them. This approach has consistently led to more effective and meaningful integration that is human-centered and technology-driven.

Strategy 2: Create an AI Values Agreement and Framework that Aligns to Your Vision

The unfolding events at OpenAI have highlighted a crucial lesson for all of us: the imperative of aligning our technological advancements with our core values and vision. This alignment is not just a philosophical ideal but a practical strategy for fostering a sustainable and ethical culture of innovation.

Take, for instance, Santa Ana Unified School District. They have adopted a visionary statement: “Every graduate to be an architect of their life and learning, experiencing autonomy while persisting in the development of their life’s goals.” This powerful vision forms the cornerstone of their decision-making process and has empowered educators and students alike, fostering a sense of ownership and clarity in their educational journey. At a time when the arts are uncertain about their future in a world with AI, the Santa Ana Arts Department embraced being architects of their life and learning and turned challenges into opportunities by asking, “How might we…” a mindset they embraced from having spent the past two years immersed in design thinking practices. 

Another exemplary model comes from Michigan Virtual. They have crafted an AI framework that the entire state’s educational system can adopt. This comprehensive framework encompasses three critical stages: investigating, implementing, and innovating. It covers a broad spectrum of areas, including Leadership & Vision, Policy Considerations, Instructional Framework, Learning Assessments, Professional Learning, Student Use of AI, Business & Technology Operations, and Outreach. What makes this framework so effective is its holistic approach, integrating AI into the fabric of educational strategy at every level.

The creation of an AI Values Agreement and Framework is more than just a procedural step; it’s a commitment to ensuring that every technological advancement we embrace is in service of our educational goals and ethical standards. It’s about ensuring that AI tools not only advance our capabilities but also resonate with our educational ethos.

For educational organizations looking to navigate the complex landscape of AI integration, developing such a framework is a crucial step. When we align our vision and our values we establish a strong criteria that grounds us in a rapidly changing world. It provides a clear roadmap for technology adoption, ensuring that AI serves as a tool for enhancement rather than disruption.

Strategy 3: SPARK Ideas for Using AI By Identifying Use Cases

In a world where AI’s speed and scale are both exhilarating and daunting, understanding its practical applications becomes crucial. Our SPARK method is designed to “prompt the human before you prompt the machine,” encouraging a human-centered approach to AI integration.

The cornerstone of SPARK is curiosity, collaboration, and experimentation. We encourage groups within educational organizations to come together, explore AI’s possibilities, and share their experiences. This collaborative process allows for a comprehensive understanding of where AI can be most effectively utilized and where it may not be suitable.

A prime example of this strategy is shared by Jenith Mishne, Director of Technology, at Newport-Mesa Unified School District. In early 2023, their high school educators engaged in a project to document their experiences with AI tools like ChatGPT. This initiative not only provided valuable insights into practical AI applications in an educational setting but also fostered a culture of innovation and continuous learning among educators. 

Embracing a human-centered approach is key when deploying generative AI tools. As Don Norman shares, “A brilliant solution to the wrong problem is worse than no solution at all. Solve the right problem.” This philosophy is at the heart of our SPARK method, where we emphasize the importance of understanding and addressing the real needs of individuals before deploying technological solutions.

To enhance AI literacy and capacity, we have also collaborated with the San Bernardino County Office of Education. County Superintendent Ted Alejandre initiated the SPARK Your Leadership series, a program designed to equip district leadership teams with the skills to effectively navigate and lead in an AI-driven world. Bringing them together for a workshop series reinforced a culture of trust and collaboration. Creating opportunities for teams to have the time and space to reflect, critique, discuss, and learn with one another when dealing with a topic as complex as AI in education is essential. As Microsoft shared in a recent report, digital debt is costing us innovation as 68% of people say they don’t have enough uninterrupted focus time during the day to spend time on the creative work that leads to innovation. 

The experience of Wichita Public Schools is a testament to the transformative power of AI when you make the time and space. By leveraging tools like Microsoft Copilot, they have not only achieved significant time savings for teachers but also enriched the learning experience for students. CIO Robert Dickson shares, “We’re not just ensuring the importance of our jobs for the future; we’re giving kids important 21st-century foundational skills that they will build upon for the rest of their lives.” 

You can learn more about their enterprise approach in this interview with CIO Robert Dickson.  

By identifying and sharing these use cases, we not only discover the most effective ways to integrate AI into our educational systems but also ensure that these integrations are aligned with our educational goals and values.

Looking Ahead: The Future of AI and Education

As we witness the acceleration of deep learning in AI, it’s essential we create a paradigm where machines do not just learn from data but do so under the guidance of human ethics and values, and where learners are not just educated but are empowered to navigate and shape the technological landscape responsibly.

 When we design schools that give every individual a human advantage in the age of AI we create a future where technology is enriched with human insight and leadership. This combination, based on trust and shared values, is essential for fostering responsible and innovative progress. It’s about guiding AI with ethics and empowering learners to shape technology thoughtfully.

The AI landscape is ever-evolving, with the potential for impacts as significant as historical innovations like electricity and the internet. As AI capabilities grow, so does their influence on society.

Sabba Quidwai, EdD is the founder of Designing Schools.
Stefan Bauschard is the founder of DebateUS.

The post Innovating with Integrity: Building Trust in an AI-Driven World appeared first on Getting Smart.

For the two of us—educators born almost 60 years apart—it’s a marvel to see what generative artificial intelligence (AI) can do. One of us, Professor Edmund W. Gordon, was born in 1921 and has served many roles throughout an 80-plus-year career: from psychologist and minister to civil rights leader and public servant. The other, Eric Tucker, born in 1980, is a parent of school-age children, a special educator, a former superintendent, and a technologist. Despite our different perspectives, this new reality of AI leaves us pondering: If AI can produce something that takes the typical student years, even decades, to master, what does it mean to be educated? 

As the launch of ChatGPT marks its first anniversary, we’re not the only ones asking these questions. Tumult at OpenAI, the non-profit AI research and deployment shop and publisher of ChatGPT whose mission is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence—AI systems that are generally smarter than humans—benefits all of humanity” creates something of an Overton window to consider what broadly distributed benefits for AI might look like in the field of education. 

A Biden administration executive order and report highlights how educators and schools might navigate the rapid expansion of AI, arguably one of the most significant transformations since the War on Poverty, of which Dr. Gordon was a key architect during the Johnson administration.

Dr. Gordon’s scholarship has considered what it means to be human and how technologies amplify learning and development over a career that included contributions to numerous presidential administrations, including Kennedy’s desegregation efforts, Johnson’s creation of Head Start, and Obama’s Promise Neighborhoods. To paraphrase Gordon: Being a learner for life is not about filling a pail but lighting a fire.

In the wake of the public debut of ChatGPT, Claude, and Bard, it’s clear that AI’s influence is here to stay. So while it’s worth understanding the risks—including the potential for AI to disrupt human jobs, metastasize bias, reproduce mistakes, undermine privacy, and cause unintended consequences—it’s also important to understand AI’s possibilities for enhancing human potential and informing educational processes. 

As educators, we’re interested in how these technologies could help students learn in a manner that honors learner variability. How can educators and caregivers orient our work regarding these tools to ensure all children thrive in an uncertain future? While the technology is different, educators have considered these types of questions before. We’ve gone from encyclopedia sets to Google workspaces, from one-room schoolhouses to Zoom seminars. As the storm of AI-fueled transformation makes landfall, we believe educators should understand the emergence of AI as an opportunity to take stock of what matters most for learners in the period ahead. 

What It Means to Educated for the Future

In the face of emerging technological advances, Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia (2013) considered human competencies that matter in an uncertain world. They elevate the ability to create knowledge, find real-world applications for abstract ideas, understand and operate within complex systems, sustain focus amid multiplying distractions, and engage in collective work.

Similarly, the XQ Institute has identified research-backed goals, or learner outcomes, that students must develop to be successful in the future. These include agility in their ways of thinking and making sense of the world, building collaborative capacities such as self-awareness and social awareness, and cultivating curiosity to become lifelong learners.

Studies show too many U.S. high school graduates need remedial courses in college and don’t master the skills employers increasingly prioritize. XQ is working to change that by redesigning the high school experience. XQ’s Learner Outcomes help educators identify how to engage students deeply in their learning to master the knowledge and skills necessary to meet the challenges—and opportunities—they’ll need for college, career, and any other future success. Within these outcomes are numerous competencies aimed at developing skills such as critical thinking, social awareness, and self-management.

For example, when Eric Tucker co-founded the Edmund W. Gordon Brooklyn Laboratory High School in 2017, the curriculum emphasized the practice and presentation of applied research. For each year of high school, students completed interdisciplinary year-long seminar courses sponsored by the College Board, investigating pressing issues of social concern in various disciplinary contexts, writing research-based essays, and designing and giving presentations as teams and individuals. Students completed research projects on topics they chose—from environmental justice to gun control, affirmative action, and economic mobility—gathering and combining information from various sources, viewing an issue from multiple perspectives, and crafting arguments based on evidence. 

Such competencies are human competencies—abilities that, at present, technology cannot fully replicate. In the face of AI, we, as educators, are the ones who must help all learners cultivate these competencies. We must shift education to focus on human potential, to develop students’ breadth and depth of knowledge, as well as their ability to navigate diverse ideas, people, and cultures. This is not a job a robot or algorithm can perform.

Focusing Education on Human Potential

Instead of practicing tasks that AI will increasingly perform (such as producing a first draft of an essay outline, generating initial lines of code, or preparing a range of preliminary visualizations of a statistical analysis), educators should shift our focus to enhancing uniquely human capabilities—amplifying human potential through technological advancements and beyond. Schools should embrace generative AI and similar tools to increase time spent honing competencies such as framing meaningful questions, contextualizing arguments, and evaluating multiple perspectives.

Dr. Gordon’s scholarly work explores two competencies that are particularly important for educators to focus on: 

Human agency. Agency is the ability to recognize and act in the best interest of yourself and others. Another way to think about it is the ability to hold onto a sense of efficacy and enact your values. Ana Mari Cauce and Gordon (2013) define human agency as the propensity to take action and to be goal-driven. 

Human agency is significant because it enables people to act for the collective good. As Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor and psychologist, captures so beautifully in “Man’s Search for Meaning” (1954), fulfillment ensues “… as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.” In an era of AI, we can amplify agency by using tools that enhance the ability to act meaningfully in the surrounding world. 

This is particularly true when confronted by complex existential threats like climate change. Educators focusing on student agency can work with students on how to use AI to address environmental challenges. Students might explore how AI can support campaigns to lower energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, monitor deforestation, or track carbon removal. The International Society for Technology in Education’s guide, for example, proposes students research and identify a local environmental or sustainability challenge, define the problem in detail, explore how an AI-powered solution might fit into the more extensive solution, and create and test a working prototype. In this example, an agentic learner can practice setting authentic goals and using AI to help solve a real-world problem.

Intellective competence and character. Dr. Gordon coined “intellective competence” (2013) to describe the ability to use knowledge, technique, and values to engage and solve novel problems. He uses the term “intellective character” to reflect that what we want learners to know and be able to do must be instrumental to achieving what we want learners to be and become. Intellectual character implies becoming a good citizen and creatively using imagination to address challenges and improve circumstances.

The ability to make sense of and address such problems sets humans apart from our ever-evolving technological counterparts. For example, Chris Terrill from Crosstown High highlights schools worldwide where students work together to address environmental challenges, big and small. Educators can strengthen intellective competence by engaging students using AI tools for sustainability challenges. Platforms such as Wildlife.ai, Restor, and Zooniverse suggest how AI might help provide insights into environmental challenges such as climate change, protecting ocean ecosystems and wildlife, water and plant conservation, or air quality. Intellective character orients a learner’s urgency, values, and commitments toward environmental justice.

Educators and students in classrooms around the country are exploring future-leaning approaches that resonate with Gordon’s notions of agency and intellective competence. Notably, XQ schools such as Latitude High School in Oakland, Iowa BIG in Cedar Rapids, and the Purdue Polytechnic High Schools in Indiana demonstrate how meaningful projects in which students have a voice in their learning and collaborate with community partners can nurture these competencies. 

As technological breakthroughs, analytic methods, and artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly redefine what it means to be educated, they correspondingly transform how we can measure and inform learning and development. At the Gordon Commission Study Group, we believe that now is the time to accelerate measurement and assessment system innovation to maximize learning and thriving for every learner. We are working to study the best of assessment, data, and AI practice, technology, and policy; consider future design needs and opportunities for educational systems; and generate recommendations to better meet the needs of students, families, educators, and society.

The emergence of generative AI signals a sea change for what it means to be educated. Our challenge to fellow educators is to join us in rethinking what it means to learn and thrive, given AI-powered tools. Our combined 100-plus years of experience as parents, educators, and applied researchers lends us confidence. We can embrace agency, encourage intellective character, and foster the abilities that shape us as individuals and help us create a healthy, just, and sustainable world.

The post What Educators and Families Should Prioritize in the Age of AI appeared first on Getting Smart.

And oftentimes, they were doing this work with little cognitive and emotional support.

Dr. Carmen Garcia, president of CCSS, Superintendent of Morgan Hill Unified School District and an incredibly thoughtful and kind leader, welcomed the group with one sentiment; “being a superintendent is lonely”. Because no matter how big your team is, the high-pressure, highly-public, and highly responsible role of superintendent has little room for mistakes. 

In the education world, we’ve seen ad nauseam the ways educators can use AI to produce lesson plans, quizzes, and report cards. But I would argue, the most important potential of AI isn’t to enhance human productivity. It’s to enhance and support human thinking. 

So at CCSS, I chose to prepare our Superintendents to use AI as the thought partner they’ve always wanted, in a world where leading is a lonely job. 

This 2-part article is about AI’s cognitive abilities as a thought partner.

In my last piece of this series, I mapped AI’s capabilities to Bloom’s taxonomy, differentiating the competencies of AI from humans. My hope is that readers will see what humans can double down on as their unique advantage, while also identifying a new standard for quality of thought.

The second part provides ideas for how leaders can train an AI thought partner to represent whoever they want – a critic, a twin, a mentor, a philosopher, or a guide. 

In my last piece of this series, I mapped AI’s capabilities to Bloom’s taxonomy where we learned that AI’s splotchy cognitive competencies can help us: 

• explain the human advantage over AI 
• depict AI as a cognitive partner
• identify ways learners might use AI and be duped by AI
• narrate how AI will elevate our standards in education for the production of content, ideas, and discourse

Now, we’ll identify how leaders can finally have the thought partner they’ve always wanted. 

Leaders are often faced with complex decision-making. It isn’t easy to expect others in their ecosystem to be able to provide a full evaluation of the situation or the final decision, because the leader often has more information. Collaborative decision making is always an excellent strategy to involve more stakeholders, but that can also fail if the stakeholders are uninformed or the decision needs to be made quickly. 

So in the moments when a leader needs to make a decision, help her collaborators make a decision, or evaluate a decision she made, who does she turn to?

Imagine if every leader had a personal coach who was critical when she needed feedback, a twin when she needed efficiency, and a philosopher when she needed inspiration. Imagine that this guide knew everything about the leader, her ecosystem, her stakeholders, and her problems.

During my keynote at CCSS, the thoughtful Dr. César Morales, Ventura County Superintendent, said he had a lightbulb moment at this point. Although he didn’t feel comfortable producing content on ChatGPT, he realized he could have it critique his work. And that completely changed his perspective on AI. 

Breaking Down Complex Decision Making

So how do we do this? There are ways to literally create a digital twin using AI. In fact, my friend Bodo built two with his kids using my friend Dima’s AI platform. But let’s consider ChatGPT as our main tool.

Let’s start by breaking down complex decision making. 

To make a difficult decision (or write a letter to the board, advocate for a staff member, produce a business report, etc. etc.), leaders have to gather and analyze the appropriate information from various sources first. We can equate this to the “empathy” stage of design thinking. Without analyzing information from all sides, it’s impossible to conceive a wise decision or prioritize the components of the decision. 

As leaders brainstorm a solution to their problem, they should explore alternative perspectives and generate scenarios that assess the risk, trade-offs, and predict the response. If leaders are not considering what could happen if this decision were made, they may run into bigger problems. 

These components work much like Bloom’s in that they’re more of a spiral that volley back and forth between each other. In sum, complex decision making is made up of gathering information, clarifying complex concepts, exploring alternative perspectives, facilitating brainstorming, analyzing data, and generating scenarios and predictions.

But the reality is that leaders don’t always have time or the skill to make these levels of assessments before they execute.

Enter, AI. 

In addition to asking AI to brainstorm the decision for us, we can ask AI to analyze the decision we may want to make. Remember that AI cannot make meaning so humans must always make their own judgments. Here are my go-to questions for complex decisions.

These questions allow teams to quickly iterate and adapt their decisions before executing. They allow us to simulate outcomes and consider alternatives we may never have thought of. And most importantly, they equip us with strategies to improve our thinking that we can potentially learn from for future decisions. 

This, of course, is my main thesis across these articles: AI can help us become better thinkers.

Context Setting 

To set up a cognitive friend on ChatGPT, we first need to set clear context for our ecosystem using the four Ps, before you even ask my go-to questions. 

Place: Tell AI what makes up your ecosystem from the size of the organization to the history it’s had. 

People: Describe who your stakeholders are and be as detailed as possible. Try introducing a few personas that your decision impacts.

Purpose: Identify the goals and objectives of your organization, your own professional goals in your leadership role, and any KPIs that might be relevant to the short or long term.

Problems: Explain the obstacles your organization has had over the last few years. Explain what your team has been struggling with. 

By asking ChatGPT to remember these things, every new piece of information will build upon the last. 

To set up a critic, add the prompt: “You are an expert in complex systems thinking, conflict-resolution, and design thinking. You are also my critical yet supportive thought partner who helps me see beyond my blindspots.” 

To set up a philosopher: “You are an expert in philosophy, regenerative ecosystems, and moral theory. You are also my critical yet supportive thought partner who helps me see beyond my blindspots.” 

…you get the idea. Following this, present your draft solution to AI and then ask the aforementioned go-to questions.

There are oodles of prompt engineering resources out there that will show you how to increase the reliability of responses. Our Ed3 DAO community member Brian Piper recently identified prompts he’s used. Please choose your own adventure.

The main goal with setting up a cognitive thought partner is to improve your thinking, not just the production of content. If used correctly, leaders having a thought partner who knows them can be game changing. 

Grasping our Self-Governance

Technology will outpace our ability to keep up with it. Expanding datasets and neural links will likely help AI get “smarter”. But if we want to stand a chance against the machine, we must retain our self-governance, AKA our ability to own our decisions and data. We need to continually evolve our cognitive abilities and explicitly recognize the nuances only humans know, from politics to pedagogy.

I’m grateful to the folks at CCSS for inviting me to share my ideas with them and commend their continued leadership across their school districts, despite how lonely leading can be.

Check out my newsletter for more thoughts on AI + Web3 and my website, www.vritisaraf.com. Join our community at Ed3 DAO to continue the conversation and to access AI courses for educators. 

The post AI is the Cognitive Friend We’ve Always Wanted appeared first on Getting Smart.

AI Integration Framework

Their AI Integration Framework breaks the progression of adoption into three distinct stages, investigating, implementing and innovation. 

Progression Stages:

• Investigating involves initial exploration and understanding, with limited AI applications.
• Implementing sees schools actively integrating AI, with a focus on ethical considerations, targeted learning activities, and foundational AI infrastructure.
• Innovating signifies a mature AI adoption, with advanced applications, comprehensive policies, and holistic assessments using AI. The innovating column also emphasizes how AI can support bolstering student ownership.

The framework then applies these stages across a variety of fields: Leadership & Vision, Policy Considerations, Instructional Framework, Learning Assessments, Professional Learning, Student Use of AI, Business & Technology Operations, and Outreach. Each is a great opportunity for innovating in new ways. 

Planning Guide for AI

Supplementing the framework, they have released a planning guide for AI which starts off with four distinct directives for school leaders to responsibly engage with AI: engage in planning, make it local, dedicate a team and address potential concerns. Throughout, they make the case for using AI as an augmentation tool, not a replacement tool, and suggest that it can support “uniquely human tasks,” “promoting student agency” and developing “new learning models.” We also appreciate the call for helping students to both understand and utilize the technology. Each section is then followed by a suite of potential risks of adoption and integration, which seeks to anticipate some of the potential pitfalls and roadblocks of the coming transition. 

Additionally, the team has announced a series of workshops, courses and trainings to support school leaders in their adoption, their understanding and their ability to form their own strategies for embracing the new learning landscape.

All of these contributions add to the great information emerging from orgs like TeachAI and AI for Education.

A Statewide Culture of Innovation

This is not the first time Michigan Virtual has led the charge toward innovation. For 25 years, the statewide virtual school has partnered with school districts. They sponsored The Future of Learning Council (FLC), a cohort of 40 unique school districts and learning organizations.

“The Council members are thought leaders who represent a powerful ‘coalition of the willing’ who embrace change and recognize the value of flexible, personalized, and competency-based learning systems that are high-touch and high-tech. We are excited to provide the administrative backbone and meeting facilities to support the Council’s functions,” said Jamey Fitzpatrick, President of Michigan Virtual.

For more on the transformational change happening in Michigan:

The post One State’s Approach to AI Integration and Rapid Reskilling appeared first on Getting Smart.

School systems across the nation face a common problem – how to use the vast amount of data available to them from various edtech tools to make informed decisions and equip educators with that data promptly. According to a recent LearnPlatform report, school districts accessed an average of 2,591 district edtech tools last year and about 1,379 edtech tools each month. However, much of this data is siloed, making it difficult for educators to use it to drive decision-making. 

The solution to this challenge is data interoperability – the seamless, secure, and controlled exchange of data between applications. Data interoperability makes it easy to exchange data between systems and combine it to be easily analyzed and made available through data visualizations and reports. This makes it easier for educators to get a holistic picture of each student and can help drive better instructional decisions.

Implementing data interoperability can be a challenging, multi-year process for school systems and edtech service providers. For many districts, the journey continues while moving to more sophisticated interoperability systems and leading educators through professional development in online learning and data-informed decision-making.   

Every year, Project Unicorn administers the School System Data Survey to help the education sector better understand current K-12 school system capabilities and infrastructure for leveraging education data. Questions are grouped into six domains: Leadership and Vision, Governance, Technology and Infrastructure Landscape, Procurement, Implementation Fidelity, and Impact on Educational Environment. Project Unicorn then analyzes the data and publishes the results in the State of the Sector Report. 

The 2023 report evaluated the responses from school systems across the United States, providing valuable insights into the state of K-12 data interoperability and suggested action steps to move the work forward.

Some key findings include the following:

• Consistent with all three years, governance was identified as the most significant challenge for school systems among the six survey domains.
• Consistent with findings from last year, school systems that reported having data teams scored significantly higher across all domains, and the size of a district’s IT team did not have a significant relationship with the size of a district’s data team.
• Many school system leaders still need to familiarize themselves with education data standards and/or how they might be used to benefit students. Although knowledge in this area is slowly increasing year after year, the buy-in for interoperability is high.
• Larger and more urban school systems tended to score higher on the survey than smaller and more rural ones. This is likely because larger systems have more resources to invest in infrastructure, which ultimately leads to better outcomes.
• School systems continue to indicate prioritization of data-driven decision-making but need more capacity for robust implementation and face obstacles.
• Funding continues to be a challenge for implementing data system modernization, including interoperability and privacy, even with increased federal dollars.

The State of the Sector Report indicates that school systems need funding and support to leverage data interoperability and use their data best. Despite the abundance of edtech tools, school systems need more infrastructure and human capacity to leverage this data at scale.

Fortunately, Project Unicorn provides support and guidance to school systems that want to use their data better. By signing the Project Unicorn School Network Pledge, school systems receive complimentary technical assistance from Project Unicorn interoperability experts to help them move forward. No matter where school systems are on their interoperability journey, Project Unicorn and our partners can help them move this important work forward to benefit students, educators, administrators, and parents.

Recommended Resources

• The First Three Steps for K-12 IT Leaders
• The Privacy Jump Start Guide
• The Better Edtech Buying Guide
• The K-12 Digital Infrastructure Briefs – By The Office of Educational Technology

Chloe Sanducci is the Project Director for Project Unicorn, an initiative of the non-profit InnovateEDU. This initiative is a coalition of 17 external organizations focused on advancing and implementing data interoperability in K-12 schools.  Project Unicorn helps school technology leaders and edtech solution providers integrate data interoperability standards into their data ecosystems by providing free resources, webinars, scholarships for professional development, interoperability certifications, and reports. Additional 1:1 technical assistance is available for signatories of the Project Unicorn School Network Pledge and the Project Unicorn Edtech Vendor Pledge to help them move forward on their data interoperability journey.Project Unicorn has released its 2023 State of the Sector Report, featuring insights from the field into the status of data interoperability in K-12 schools nationwide.

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