Publicly Learning in Schools in the Age of AI

Yesterday I was reading posts on AI and, in one, a term was used that I couldn’t immediately define. Instead of asking the colleagues I was meeting with a few minutes later, I turned to Google and searched the term to mask my lack of knowledge. And at that moment, I asked myself, “Why didn’t I ask a human?”

The answer wasn’t expediency,

but that I didn’t want to reveal what I didn’t yet know.

And that struck me because I’ve always been incredibly comfortable learning in public and being transparent about deepening my own learning. I design teams and meetings on that very principle - that we build knowledge together and that we can comfortably ask what we might feel is an “obvious question”. 

So, what’s changed?

For one thing, I’m now an entrepreneur and the need to lead with my expertise feels stronger than it has before. I know I want to stand out professionally and be seen as someone to turn to who “has it all covered.” However, in this case, I think the answer was more about habit. The habit of privately seeking information constantly on our phones and any host of apps and it is starting to replace asking those around me. And it’s only supported by the ease with which we can privately pursue answers to our questions (private to real humans, but not necessarily to the data sets). 

In this current moment, the AI revolution or evolution, it’s incredibly important that we continue to learn in public and to foster both the skill to do so and the culture to sustain.

Intentional invitations to learn and modeling of learning in public in a supportive culture isn't created by accident. And with the sheer volume of tools and information available to us it can become the norm to search, process results and retain information in isolation. That’s problematic for two main reasons:

1. We are humans who need to continue our human connections. We need to center our connections and relationships in schools for both students (teaching and supporting them to interact) and for the adult communities surrounding schools (building healthy, diversified communities). Connection benefits our mental health, strengthens the resilience and health of communities and creates conditions for us to amplify creativity, compassion and solutions to complex challenges that we all face. 

1. AI generates information that is not the “absolute truth” and needs discussion, application of multiple perspectives, and routine checks for bias, misinformation and misrepresentation. Creating a culture of public learning and of engaging in the questions we have, presenting the results yielded from AI queries and products, will build some human safeguards against the imperfect parts of the evolving AI landscape. 

The two reasons above reflect two distinct priorities that I, personally, hold close. I operate from the stance that schools ARE community and within the rhythms and routines of schools we can positively foster deep and connected communities. The benefits of these thriving communities are innumerable from basic joy and humanity to providing perspectives to stretch learning, to understanding, evolving social mores and “what’s expected”. We can have divergent views learn how to communicate and co-exist in search of a healthy, robust solution not yet realized. We can amplify joy in community, and we can heal and mend in times of sorrow. 

I also operate from the stance that technology is best when tempered by humans. Yes, we will always have our own unrecognized patterns and pitfalls, but humans who are critically curious and responsive to the outputs of technology can assess the second and third order effects (this was what I searched in private and led to this entire blog post) of any result.

Humans interacting with technology can cull out stereotype results, remedy lack of representation and check accuracy.

The multiple perspectives of humans with differing expertise, identity markers and positions invite discussion and discourse on the results of technology when there is a community of publicly learning.

The alternative is many diverse perspectives are individually sifting through results without any additional perspective or validation/negation of what came out. In the absence of a culture of learning, a teacher could utilize examples in a lesson plan drawn from AI that are outdated culturally or exclude populations. In another classroom, generic information from a lower “Depth of Knowledge” (Norman Webb’s DOK explained via Edutopia) could be passed out to students as a worksheet and the opportunity to engage and apply the DOK pedagogy is missed. 

We are in an evolution of practice for education that hits everything all at once - data privacy, productivity, curriculum design, differentiation, assessment and feedback, performance review, ethical use, bias, digital literacy, future-ready schools and topics that go on and on. During this evolution of education, it’s important to lean into how we model and foster cultures that will keep learning alongside, in front of and behind us as we move ahead into a world intertwined with AI in Education.