WEBVTT
Jen: Your introduction.
Jeff: I am. I prepped
Jeff: Hello, happy June.
Jeff: and welcome to Ed Tech. Talk's continuing discussion of Dave Cormier's new book, learning in a time of abundance this week.
Jeff: Chapter 4.
Jeff: It's a doozy.
Jeff: This is at least partially an education problem where Dave takes us into the formative versus summative assessment of pasta sauce
Jeff: tells us that learning is not always a good thing.
Jeff: asks 5 questions in a row, and then thanks himself for asking.
Jeff: I give him a quantifiable 11 out of 10 for bringing us to the brink of giving up in this world of abundance. But then, in the last chapter, he throws us a lifeline and says we have a fighting chance, so buckle up, stay tuned for one heck of a chapter as we begin the second half of learning in a time of abundance. This is Jeff Lebo in Poussin Korea.
Jen: This is Jennifer Madrel, in Laval, Wisconsin.
John: This is John Shinker in Stowe, Ohio.
Dave: And Dave Cormey in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
Jen: Wow, like.
Jeff: Here. Marketing is really important in this new world. So I'm trying to really sell it. You know.
Jen: That will teach me, I will never again ask you, are you ready to do the introduction.
Dave: I think.
Jen: Ruben. That was a good.
Dave: And beauty that was.
Jen: It was.
Dave: I was on the edge of my seat, and I wrote it.
Dave: What happens next?
Jen: Oh, man!
Jeff: As usual. Fortunately Jen has prepared
Jeff: an awesome set of questions.
Jen: Well, I don't know. After that I'm really, really nervous, because before I launched in, I was just gonna ask if anyone else had any like
Jen: segue. That could be what Jeff said, or even if you would just wanna like have a segue that you know exactly. It's good.
Jeff: I do just want to point out that if people do check the posts for this at Ed Techtalk Com, they can find show notes, including some information about solar panels.
Jeff: Our our poor author was having some issues.
John: Is, the.
Jeff: That information. So, like.
Jeff: you know, I I led into the water. I didn't drink it for him, but there are might be some useful resources.
John: The answer. Jeff, should he get solar panels or not?
Jen: Cloud.
Jeff: In a short term. No, if he's gonna have him for more than 1520 years, it'll more than break even a little bit.
John: Dave, when was the last time you lived in a house for more than 15 or 20 years.
Dave: When I was a child.
Dave: the one I grew up in.
John: So Teresa should get solar panels.
Dave: But you see that only that's only a question of whether or not I'm buying them for financial reasons, which is not.
Jen: Thank you. I was just gonna say the same thing. What if he has different motivation.
Dave: My motivation. My values are different to that, Jeff.
Jeff: Well, then, just do.
Dave: We'd be down the garden path here.
Jeff: Then save the blah blah blah! If you want to save the earth, save the earth.
Jen: Let's remember this as an example. When we talk about value. Sure.
Jeff: Jeff.
John: Just playing the role of of chat Gpt today, or if you wash out a panel by the stupid solar panels, come on.
Jen: Oh, Jeff, we are gonna jump all over your answer in about 20 min.
Jeff: As usual, I am concerned.
Jen: Oh, that did sound kind of negative for you, Jeff. I thought you'd be more upbeat about it. So
Jen: I don't think no.
Jen: okay.
Jen: So alright, let's jump right in. So I have. For those that are on the call. You can see my questions here, and you're probably cringing. We've had many a conversation over the year years, defining what learning is, and comparing and contrasting that to what happens in the education system. But I think it's and, Dave, I will not make you try to define learning, as it was very prominently discussed in your chapter, that those can be really long and drawn out conversations without a lot of conclusion. But
Jen: can you help us understand the way help us frame for the discussion to follow in the chapter. The difference between learning and education.
Dave: Sure. I think it's wise of you not to let me try to define learning. I think you've clearly known me a long time, and know when not this, to to play into myself
Dave: worse or tendencies just.
Jeff: Get a lot of questions.
Dave: So simply put learning is this thing that humans do when they change
Dave: and education is the system that we've built as a as our different cultures to try to
Dave: shove a certain kind of learning onto our population.
Jen: And how does that? Oh, sorry! Were you done, or were you.
Dave: So one of them is the system.
Jen: Yeah. The other.
Dave: The thing that happens to a person so
Dave: I can learn that.
Dave: I'm not rewarded for doing a good job.
Dave: for instance.
Dave: But there's no education system that teaches that
Dave: right? We don't. We teach with the the way our systems are designed. We have like objectives, and we have clear things. We have these paths of things we wanna do. Whereas a student learning sitting in the classroom learns all kinds of things.
Dave: They learn that they can distract the teacher and not have to work that day. They learn all like learning is something that is constantly happening. And we have this system that tries to teach a very narrow
Dave: piece of thing which students may or may not learn.
Dave: They sometimes learn the opposite of what we're teaching, what the education system is interested in.
Jen: So I have as my next question. I'm gonna ask it now, but you don't have to answer it so. But to me the the kind of rest of the conversation hopefully, then becomes framed around this idea of what are the implications of the differences then, between learning and education. There's a lot of times they're commingled. In fact, I pulled up a definition of education that actually had learning in the the definition. So it's a structured process of teaching and learning and institutions.
Jen: So it kind of becomes a Tad bit circular when we're saying, you know, they're different. Yet learning as part of the definition of of education. So we'll we'll kind of keep this. Let's just keep this as a floating thing off of the side, as we typically do when we talk about learning and education.
Jen: But how does that? 1st of all, how does it say with John and Jeff.
Jen: are you guys? Okay, if we do this like kind of like, like Dave did in the chapter that we aren't going to try to have put nice little lead bows around a definition of learning, and then education.
John: I I think if you try to define learning, we'll just be here forever.
Jeff: You could write a book about it.
John: You could, no one would read it. But you could write one
John: and and I see, yeah, I I like education as a system. I I sometimes talk about credentialing as separate from learning.
John: And and that's kind of a similar idea. And one of the struggles that I've had is, is, I separated those 2 things, and so I then lost interest in credentialing entirely. So I stopped. You know that's why I don't have a doctorate, because I I see that is hoop jumping and not necessarily tied to learning useful things, which
John: I got from the 3 of you more than anybody else.
Jeff: Concur. Dr. Jen.
Jen: Yeah, it was a. It was a thing to do.
John: She was well on her way to finishing before she encountered the miscreants on this call, so I I think she had to finish it by that point.
Jeff: I did have a follow up for Dave. At 1 point in your definition of education. You talked about the things we sh forced them to learn, or something like that. Who is we.
Dave: In our
Dave: cultures, the ones that we grew up in North America.
Dave: It is. It comes out of a mixture of tradition and our education, our departments of education. But
Dave: having worked inside of one of those, it's super funny how these things come together.
Dave: You know you end up with. I personally work with some amazing educators inside the system who had very specific things they wanted kids to learn.
Dave: And then they worked very, very hard for 3 years to develop a curriculum that
Dave: would very specifically teach that
Dave: in a hundred 50 page document that probably no one ever read
Dave: and then what you get is a trickle down from that right where, by the time you hit the education system, you might get a textbook, a lot of the a lot of these courses are assigned at the last minute. People don't have an idea of. They're gonna teach them whatever else they go in.
Dave: And then they basically replicate tradition.
Dave: So there's the plan.
Dave: But by the time it gets to the classroom.
Dave: a lot of what a teacher ends up doing is what was done to them.
Dave: So they there's this mixture of what's going on now, whatever materials happen to be nearby. And then this sort of long arm of tradition that we replicate whenever we go ahead and teach
Dave: and so
Dave: that is the that's the system, right like it's we say when I say education system, I don't just mean the people who are locked in an office somewhere designing curriculum, because for the most part nobody actually reads their stuff.
Dave: But rather the way that all this stuff comes together like the way we get locked in. So one of the things in the in that chapter is about the Harvard Business Review. 10,000 h thing.
Dave: So
Dave: guess it's 10 years or so ago.
Dave: I mean 15. Now.
Dave: everything is so much longer ago that I think now every time I go and check. How long ago was that? Oh, that was 20 years ago.
Dave: it said that
Dave: directed focus practice, or whatever the term is
Dave: of 10,000 h is what makes expertise.
Dave: And when you really look at the claim they're making, they're making a slightly lighter claim than the one that was pulled out by some popular authors. But at least 10,000 h gets you accustomed to something
Dave: right. And we all have this sort of amazing. Well, those of us who ever get to the point of teaching certainly have made it through those 12 years of school
Dave: and have this habituation right, this built in deep down understanding what it means to be in a classroom.
Dave: and most of that is terrible.
Dave: I remember again going through with my kids like how many hours they spend just sitting there doing nothing
Dave: but we're habituated to it. There's an expectation that we should
Dave: right, and we're habituated to the practices of it.
Dave: whether it be
Dave: a
Dave: worksheets or like whatever that practice is repetition, all this stuff. It's we're accustomed to it. So it's okay. Regardless of how dehumanizing it might be.
John: So the education system is largely cultural. Tradition.
Dave: I think so. Yeah.
John: Yeah.
Jeff: Very cumulative. We.
Dave: I definitely a cumulative web.
Jeff: Not gonna fit into a 60 second clip. But that's okay.
Dave: That's so bad.
Dave: It's funny I don't that we
Dave: is. I am an anti conspiracy theorist in so many ways. I just. I don't think anybody can control these systems. They're gigantic.
Dave: and you could push it all you want. It's just gonna stay right where it is.
Jeff: Conspiracy sort of imply a level of organization that doesn't seem to apply.
Dave: There's no way.
Dave: There's no way.
Dave: Every time it was like brainwash. The kids, are you? Have you ever tried to brainwash a kid.
Jen: This is such a segue for our next section.
John: This is not what we would be filling their heads with if we actually had the organization in power to
John: troll their months.
Dave: They'd be so much nicer to each other.
Jen: So, yeah, so this is very much on on point and and topic for your your chapter, where much of it is covering bureaucratic nature of the system, and that the resistance to change, and all the things that are baked in and
Jen: kind of prevent that change from happening. So you know. Certainly we hear, and we've talked a lot about over the years, you know, pushes for educational reform, and everything is going to be the great disruptor. And yet at the same time there's
Jen: this resistance to either radical or in some cases any changes in education. And so I put an example in our, in our, in our notes today, is cursive. I just love the one when the cursive comes up like we have to keep teaching that cursive, you know, for maybe I don't know.
Dave: You know what's happening again here in Ontario? Right?
Dave: Grade 4. It's been brought back in. It's been put back in the curriculum for this.
John: Yeah, there are lots of movements to do that. And it's that's back to the tradition things. I you know, I saw a curriculum director once talked to the Board of Education, and they were talking about math, and the way we teach math, and
John: and a parent was speaking at the meeting and and complaining about. You know how we're teaching students to be problem solvers instead of just procedural. You know. Here's how you do this. Here's how you solve this kind of problem? Here's how you do this computation. And the curriculum director was the parent, and said.
John: Why do you want your children to hate math as much as you did.
John: And then, just
John: yeah, just like the the parent was speechless and sat down. It was, you know.
John: I need you to learn how to do. You know, square roots by hand, because I had to learn that. Well, we don't need to do that every time you try to take something off the list. People get really upset about that, and cursive is great example of that.
Jen: Oh, yeah, common core. I mean new math. I mean, those are all. Oh, my God!
Dave: The cursive example is a good one.
Dave: the. There's a bunch of people who have a lot of research on it, but evidence that suggests that students who are, who do stuff incursive when they're younger, pay more attention to their work
Dave: and have longer staying power
Dave: on their. They're more resilient, they're more relentless in terms of their approach to problem solving.
Dave: I'm not sure that isn't true.
Dave: I just don't think it has anything to do with writing and cursive. I don't think there's some magical connection between swirly lines
Dave: and your ability to be to stay on task.
Dave: I think there's a there's a connection to anything that's hard
Dave: and learning how to do a hard thing. And I don't care if I've seen people become different people learning how to shovel a ditch
Dave: because they're learning how to do a hard thing and learning to persist in a hard thing. I think that's really important.
Jen: And I think there is this whole undercurrent of if they don't do what I learn or don't learn what I learned, they won't be prepared for life because this this prepared me. And so now they're not going to be prepared. This whole generation will be.
Dave: Obviously I'm prepared.
John: You're gonna.
Dave: Therefore everything I did is part of the preparation.
Jen: So it's okay. We've got all this resistance baked in here yet as we talked about last week, and yeah, and you kind of alluded to a moment ago. Most in the education system have a limited agency really to do anything we talked about last week or a couple of weeks in a row about higher education
Jen: filled with adjuncts. There's only a certain amount you can really do tweak and change things. So anything you want to be involved already talked about some of the consequences of this resistance. In terms of education and learning. But any anything else that you really wanna highlight
Jen: just in terms of consequences
Jen: of the of this of this kind, of the the butting of heads between kind of the need to change or the the
Jen: talk of change all the time, yet the resistance within the within the system, and then the lack of agency.
Dave: I think the biggest consequence is that mid career teachers stop
Dave: trying to be innovators.
Dave: I think that's the one that I've I've it's been on my list of things to track down for years.
Dave: but anecdotally.
Dave: that point at which a teacher has been in there for long enough
Dave: that they remember the last time you tried a thing.
Dave: whatever that number is. 1012 years, maybe it's 15. Maybe it's 8 just depending on, like, how engaged and all involved they are when they start being able to say, yeah, I know we've tried that before.
Dave: Once that comes in, I think that's the piece where you lose your best professionals
Dave: often like the ones who have the perfect combination of like
Dave: currently engaged, and whatever else, and not to be ages, because I think there's lots of different places where people are good in their career. But I find that group, particularly
Dave: suffer from this from a lack of connection between things people try to do with the results they get.
Jen: You've said a lot of smart things over the years, but honestly, I had that just gave me the biggest I had kind of chill kind of facing that with
Jen: AI and teaching it's like, Do I want to go to battle over this like I'm just tired like I I don't know if I can. I know what it's like to try to to to
Jen: change things within a system. And is this something I even want to try? Because it's exhausting, and you're just gonna get beaten down, which I think is kind of aligned with what you're saying in some ways as well.
Jeff: Can the priorities of learning? And can the methods of teaching ever really change unless the ultimate assessment changes
Jeff: like? If the goal is still to get a good score on this kind of test, or to do well on standardized tests? Doesn't everything sort of
Jeff: flow to that? And unless that changes significantly.
Jeff: What's the point?
Jen: Did you read my next question? It was, how does this resistance to change per change perpetuate with Dave terms the game of school.
Jeff: Can you say it so much more academically.
Jen: And I think that's very much a line. Yeah, go for it.
Jen: What do you say?
Dave: I don't know if you're asking me that question. Yeah, but
Dave: I think assessment. Like, like all these things. We're into a wicket. We're into a wicked problem, right? So every time you look at one piece of the puzzle
Dave: you push another one out of the way.
Dave: and this is why educational reform never works.
Dave: or part of the reason why is that? Let's say you do phonics.
Dave: because the struggle you're seeing is that kids can't read
Dave: right? And so what you're saying is that if you combine letters and combine structures and get them doing in that way, they can actually make the sounds when they read, and the idea being that if it's more comfortable for you to read, then you're going to be more willing to read, you're going to do it more often there'd be better outcomes for reading
Dave: problem is is that's not what I think. It's
Dave: some people just don't want to read.
Dave: Some people get headaches when they read. Some people are bored by the material they're given. Some people are too young or too old, or some people just
Dave: don't like to conform.
Dave: People have different Lds. There's all kinds of cross sections here.
Dave: Some of the teachers just suck.
Dave: I mean, there's all kinds of pieces. But whenever you take one solution and try to use it to clear everything out.
Dave: you end up breaking a whole bunch of other things.
Dave: So assessments a good example. So I've had any number of curriculum coordinator, particularly the Kate 12 level in my career. Say, if you don't put a grade on that, nobody's gonna do the work, and the teachers are not gonna teach it, cause they'll never be able to fit into their program. They'll never be able to rationalize getting it fit in
Dave: right? That's.
Jen: Do this, do this won't take it seriously.
Dave: Because their understanding of, take it seriously is that there's a grade on it.
Jen: Right. It's the game of school, right.
Dave: The game of school.
Dave: But
Dave: so in the transition, if you decide that you're not going to grade something.
Dave: then they don't understand what they're supposed to focus on.
Dave: And so things go.
Jeff: We equating, grading, and assessing.
Dave: Hey? I was.
Jen: I was when you said that you meant something different. What did yeah, go for it, would you.
Dave: I thought we were talking about evaluation, the putting upgrade on a thing.
Jeff: No, I mean, like taking phonics. Okay, maybe some people don't like to read, but most people learn to read, and phonics can be a useful step along that way, and
Jeff: it's demonstrable whether someone can read or not.
Jeff: I don't have to give them a number. But okay, mission accomplished, they can.
Dave: No cause, no cause. The Mission's not learned to read the mission is like to read.
Jeff: No, no, not my mission. I want them to be able to read. I don't care like you know.
Dave: You don't care if they like it or not.
Jeff: Not in, not in 1st grade. No, I just want them to be able to read.
Jeff: or you know, that's that's part of the mission.
John: But if you want to accomplish that in 1st grade, the best way to do it is to get them to like to read.
Jeff: Okay.
Jeff: And more of that.
John: And we.
John: as kids get older, we tend to decouple
John: the motivation.
John: And and we we lean more on the extrinsic motivation, which is where the grades come in. I'm going to do this because I need to do these 7 things to get the grade that I want.
John: and that's where the motivation comes from. If they are intrinsically motivated, because they're interested in learning the thing because they want to do the thing.
John: then the grades become less relevant to getting them to do it. And that's where it becomes more useful as a measurement.
John: And I feel like.
Jeff: Kids have an intrinsic motivation just to learn. There's a lot of those.
John: Yeah, we work really hard to beat that out of them.
Jeff: Yeah, like, that's the system's problem. And you know, maybe too much of it is forcing them to learn things they don't wanna learn. But I think most kids wanna be literate.
John: You're and.
Dave: Going back around here so like
Dave: forcing them to do things they don't need. Phonics is not fun.
Dave: Phonics is repetitive, I mean, unless you like the chanty shouty Audi business, which can be fun with a really good teacher.
Jeff: Raiders do.
John: And then what happens if they're not good?
John: Phonics!
John: We pull them out of music so they can do more phonics because they need to pass the test. We give them more of the stuff that they're not good at, and that makes them like scroll less.
Jeff: Okay. But like, that's the kind of
Jeff: changes that needs to happen in the system. Is that okay? Here's a method that works for some, but not all. And the the human role in this is saying, oh, phonics isn't working for Johnny. Let's give him this alternative method, or let's
Jeff: play a physical game that helps him learn to read, or something like.
Dave: What the top 20% of teachers have been doing since the dawn time.
Dave: The problem is the middle 60.
Dave: So there's a bottom 20. Let's not even discuss them, but the middle 60, so they only have 2 approaches or one approach
Dave: to teaching, so they don't have like a toolkit of 7 or 7 different ways, and we have no way of training them.
Dave: Right? There's no.
Dave: there's no yeah.
Jeff: Ways of getting rid of them, replacing them with AI.
Dave: You could do that.
Jeff: I think AI could be really effective for helping kids to learn to read in the way that they want
Jeff: crickets.
Jeff: Okay, thanks for watching.
John: Very good.
Jen: Actually chat you you I mean, you kind of help. People do this like describe that, describe it like what you, how you see that working.
Jeff: AI. I think in terms of instruction
Jeff: game over for humans, I think we should be asking, What is that.
Jen: Well, what are we paying for? We should.
Jeff: For the social component of learning for the the interventions.
Jeff: But in terms of you know, sitting a kid down with his AI tutor
Jeff: who says, Hey, Johnny, how are you doing? And and le adapts to that kid about how they wanna engage with material and is constantly like, Okay, here are, you know what we wanna learn this week, and what are you in the mood for right now? And and.
Dave: You are.
Jeff: Developed assessment.
Dave: Buy movies in the last 100 years like this is where.
Jeff: AI. This week.
Dave: I
Dave: like. The thing you described is the most terrifying thing in the world to me.
Jen: Oh! Like.
Dave: I have.
Jeff: Happening this year. Next year, it's happening.
Dave: I know I just couldn't agree more.
Dave: Why, so.
Jeff: Terrifying, though.
Dave: Cause. It's it's the somcon like version of education, like all we need to do is sit a kid down. They're totally, socially adjusted to this. They're totally fine. All they, every kid is trying to find an answer to a question, and all the questions make sense
Dave: so like
Dave: that
Dave: the the whole. This whole chapter is about how the education system only works. If we already know what all the questions are, and we already know what all the answers are, we want them to have.
Jeff: You're saying. That's how it works. Now.
Jeff: that's how we're living.
Dave: Your version works under that model.
Dave: But that's the version. So there's 2 models of education that have been running side by side since at least the 12th century. We have the scholastics, and we have the humanists. Right? So we have those people who believe that there are truths, and our job is to teach people those truths. And there are people who believe that
Dave: the humanists who believe that
Dave: learning is something that you come and become and discover, and it's not a bunch of single things that you want to accumulate. You can say constructivism and objectivism. However, you want to separate it. We've been doing the same thing over and over again. Education system has a mixture of both right now.
Dave: right? There's a mixture of bits and pieces of both. So what I just described as a good teacher is the humanist. That was the person I. They've got all these different ways of thinking about things. You're looking at each kid individually, and they're sort of mapping out how they're gonna try to help each of those kids through it.
Dave: Those kids are all going to succeed in different ways. Success is going to mean something different to each of those kids, and a good teacher is going to be able to get a sense of what? Of tracking, what that's going to be.
Jeff: A a good teacher is not gonna be able to do that. The way I AI is gonna be do it. And I said, AI is really good for instruction. I didn't say learning. I think humans still have us an important role to play in learning, social learning values, learning, but in terms of instruction. AI is gonna be able to
Jeff: sense what
Jeff: you know. There, there are certain things that we we can accept as as facts or as
Jeff: being literate, or that
Jeff: one plus one equals 2
Jeff: and AI.
Dave: Give us an give us an example that's deeper than one plus one equals 2.
Jeff: 2 plus 2 equals. 4.
Jeff: The.
Jen: The chemistry, and.
Jeff: And I mean all the sciences.
Jeff: you know, history is much, much more subjective and humanistic.
Jeff: And I think the humans would, you know, play a role in the social part of that. All right. Here's some information. Engage with this information, you know. Go to your virtual reality, talk to George Washington or whatever. And then let's come back and discuss this and what was going on. And like that there, I'm not saying there's no role for humans. I'm saying, in the acquisition of
Jeff: knowledge information.
Jeff: the customized
Jeff: real time feedback that AI can provide and the customization humans cannot compete.
Dave: But in all of those cases we're just assuming we know what George Washington was like.
Dave: Blake.
Jeff: But we can present the multitude. Whatever, however, a human could present the multitude, AI can present the multitude of George Washington's.
Jeff: There's nothing AI can do that. Humans can do better in in that regard.
Dave: Yeah, you can have judgment.
Dave: That's what AI doesn't have as no judgment.
Jeff: But we can. I mean, we're not just letting.
Dave: The George Washington.
Jeff: We prepare a textbook right like that has certain constraints. The AI, the educational AI tutor, would have those same human constructed constraints.
Dave: So what you're saying is, the AI is a better textbook.
Dave: Yeah, is that what you mean by instruction?
Jeff: You know, textbook is a, I think, a
Jeff: a limiting metaphor, but instructional tool.
John: AI is better at delivering content to students in doses.
Jeff: Offering, interacting, assessing, analyzing, providing feedback.
Jen: Okay, can I? Okay.
Jeff: Told you it was gonna be a doozy.
Jen: This is a duty.
Jen: Okay, in my notes separate from the notes that you guys are all looking at. I had put in. This idea, the distinction between
Jen: remembering acquiring knowledge versus exploration, creativity. And so like the first, st is it, you know, that's more with recall. It's easier to measure. It's easy to assess.
Jen: in in Jeff you had your one plus one. We could come up with other things. But to me that's the distinction, like. Maybe there's differences in subject matter or things that maybe one is
Jen: AI is going to be more helpful with. But I don't know, Jeff.
Jen: Across the board, all subjects, all topics.
Jeff: I didn't say all subject to all topics. I said a lot of subjects. I didn't say it, but I what I mean is a lot of subjects, a lot of topics, certainly, for language learning like, for language learning.
Jeff: There's so many benefits, whether it's pronunciation or grammar, or listening comprehension. There's so much practice and learning that can go on there and then you can have interaction, real life interaction that's exciting.
Jeff: Or you can go to the virtual environment and interact there as well.
Jen: And I think you said something, you know, in Jeff or Dave covers it to the difference between formative and summative assessment piece, too, like a lot of what you're talking about is like the practice and affirmative, and like catching little mistakes as they occur, or whatever
Jen: faster to make, maybe able to do it in an individualized debate basis versus when I learned math in class of 25 students who knew the teacher and any idea Jennifer, in the back row could
Jen: do the algebra problem or whatever. And I think your point is, AI will help us on those types of things right.
Jeff: Yeah, lots of things.
Jen: Yeah, I I can. I can sign on to to that.
Jeff: I'm sorry I'm still on team human. I'm just saying.
Jen: Yeah, I feel out of sorts, cause
Jen: you seem like you're not on team human. I I don't know how to respond.
Jen: Were you done, Dave.
Jen: are you thinking.
Dave: I still think that
Dave: I think I'm willing to agree with Jeff that there are many scholastic
Dave: style like objectivist types, tasks that
Dave: you can go through
Dave: reasonably. Well there.
Dave: I the language learning for sure, definitely like
Dave: I haven't spent as long doing as Jeff has, but I certainly spent a long time in that in that business
Dave: definitely.
Dave: because it's exactly it does exactly what it is.
Dave: The the challenge that I have
Dave: is that
Dave: these systems were designed
Dave: with right answers in mind.
Dave: All of the designing for these things for
Dave: 60 years has been about problem solving about finding right answers.
Dave: I think of that as detrimental to the culture
Dave: to teach with right answers, where people are trying to find the right answer, and getting to know and acquiring knowledge in that way. I think it's problematic generally.
Dave: and I think that there's a lot of mixed in human stuff that gets brought into the way that we teach a lot of learning that happens. It's not part of the education system.
Dave: Some of that's really bad. So, for instance, I have a a kid whose teacher constantly talks about how
Dave: our government is terrible, and has a whole sequence of extra learning bits that she includes
Dave: that are probably not great.
Dave: But I think there's a lot of nuance that happens inside of a classroom, a good classroom that gets lost inside of these systems. And I I'm here to defend that nuance, regardless of whether or not we're talking about the sciences.
Dave: or oh, so here we go.
Dave: So book I just got it in the last couple of days.
Dave: It talks about how
Dave: the way that we've taught problem solving in medicine, for instance, is really problematic for doctors.
Dave: because when they are faced with not knowing what the right answer is.
Dave: they think that it's because they haven't found the right answer yet.
Dave: and I think it's a deficiency in themselves, and often there is no answer to the problem that they're dealing with.
Dave: or there's such a huge complexity of answers, but it's it creates this really weird sort of expectation that any question has an answer.
Dave: and that that makes them bad doctors, because the biggest part of a doctor in in most cases, unless you're a surgeon or
Dave: somebody who deals with people who can't talk back.
Dave: The biggest issue is trying to work with your patients. And a lot of that right answer, business actually impedes that. So the way that you take in the information actually matters the fact that you use AI to learn the names of all the drugs actually impacts the way you think about them.
John: But that doesn't mean there's never a right answer. Right?
John: I mean.
Dave: Like ever, but anything, ever.
John: Well, no, there are lots of things that ha! That are very well defined, I mean, how does it plant convert sunlight into energy? There's a great answer for that.
Dave: There is a.
John: Of the.
Dave: And that we currently use
Dave: but if you want to get fussy about it, like all of those things that we teach, people are like approximations of what's actually happening. There's only so much of it. We understand.
Jeff: But, like you don't think AI or virtual Rea reality would be useful for a doctor and doing diagnostic role play
Jeff: presenting. I'll be here like.
Dave: I couldn't imagine a a scenario that I would like less.
Dave: I've done. I've actually organized those workshops for Med students at the school.
Dave: and it's the awkwardness
Dave: that is the most important part of the process, the awkwardness of the patients.
Dave: So we do. We hire well hired, I guess when I work there
Dave: hundreds of standardized patients who come in and we teach them
Dave: what their medical issue is. But the real point of it has nothing to do with the medical issue. They're given sort of be awkward today, or be Redis or be just whatever. And it's that
Dave: relent. It's that's the whole part of the diagnosis. All of that training is about dealing with people.
Dave: It's all about the human.
Jeff: Okay, i i i totally agree, like the human social interaction part should be
Jeff: more important in medical schools. I'm talking about a doctor's diagnostic skills.
Jeff: presenting them, putting on their virtual reality. Gog, or it doesn't have to be virtual reality. But here's here's a patient presenting with these symptoms. What are your tests? How are you gonna approach this? And it could be based on a real life
Jeff: case and database of cases like that's useful way to for them to practice diagnosing things. Don't you think.
Dave: Well, and it
Dave: maybe
Dave: I think it could be part of the puzzle. Certainly. This book argues
Dave: that that's a problem.
Dave: she talks about the few medical schools where they teach great cases which are cases that don't have answers, and how
Dave: that has had a huge impact on the doctors that come out of those
Dave: programs because they're a little bit more ready for real life.
Dave: The problem with the system that presents you, a bunch of cases that have answers
Dave: is that it teaches you that there are answers to cases.
Jeff: 9 in 90% of the cases of with patients who presented this, this is what it was. But 2% was that and 3% was this. And like, like all that, data is, there.
Dave: Yeah, doesn't even define. You're not like.
Jeff: Answer.
Dave: You're only ever getting a couple of the things that are actually present, right? Like, no matter how many tests you do or whatever else, if you're not we. We had the same conversation, like 3 weeks ago, where you have a fundamental idea that as long as we get enough information in the system. It's gonna make the right answers like it's the problem is a lack of enough
Dave: decision-making power enough.
Dave: And the more we put in there the better and the more closer it's going to be to perfect.
Dave: And to me those extra bits of information don't help.
Jeff: I'm just saying the ability for an individual to interact with this huge set of data
Jeff: and is, can be more useful than one professor in front of a classroom full of doctor saying, Okay, Mrs. Jones presented with this symptom and that symptom. What do you think? What do you think? What do you think?
Jeff: There's still a role for that? But I think for the individual practice, just like for Johnny learning hit to read.
Jeff: I think the modern. The current technology is pretty awesome and.
Dave: I disagree in those in those sessions. If you talk to like med students coming out of those sessions the 1st time they do those?
Dave: They're blown away, not by the content of it.
Dave: but by
Dave: what it means to take up a doctor's position.
Dave: because that's really what they're learning. They're learning the social
Dave: modality that's at least thought of.
Jeff: But like they're interacting with real humans, right?
Dave: Yeah, you have the doctors did. They did exactly. We just described. Are there a patient? That thing.
Jeff: But they did it with humans as opposed to their unlimited practice of virtual reality.
Jeff: I feel like we're we're just repeating ourselves. So we can move on.
Jeff: I I did wanna mention one thing cause I feel like in this chapter. You talk a lot about how like
Jeff: forever education has been, you know, built on teaching them the right answer. And this is the right answer.
Dave: One half of it. Yeah.
Jeff: Yeah. And what occurred to me is, you know, Jen mentioned her Aha! Moment earlier, and I always said a teacher's favorite sound is
Jeff: that moment a a student realizes something, and that is not fact based. That's based on, you know, when a connection happens or when they figure out how to do something so like that's been present in education forever as well. Right.
Dave: Yeah, for sure.
Jeff: So it's not all
Jeff: doom and gloom and write answers.
Dave: It is not, I agree.
Jen: I have no segue for that, though, Jeff
Jen: again, nothing on that one. But I do have a segue for what you guys are just talking about that actually ties into what we talked about at the very start of the thing. So we, my question actually originally was talking about values as they are embedded in our current education system. But I think this conversation is leading down the path going our education system. We might not really quite understand what it is like if we have the. If we had the same question and answer 18 months from now, it would probably be even more AI focus as it is right now. And so this idea of
Jen: values and so
Jen: you know where you talked them a moment ago. They were kind
Jen: pigeonhole and Jeff saying, If you give this, if you give the beast enough information, it's gonna pick.
Jen: keep pushing out better and better information within that there are these, you know, kind of value judgments. For in, for example, like your 1st question tonight was like, Should I, or should not buy a solar panels? And he made a determination that, based on a set of
Jen: and an understanding of what your values were and what was important to you.
Jen: and I don't know where Jeff and your
Jen: AI simulation that you were putting together
Jen: climate change came into. You know, you know you want to be a good human on this planet that you know, we're slowly destroying those types of things which then become the bottom values that are embedded in the system. So
Jen: again, I'm trying not to make this whole conversation about AI, but I think it does tie into certainly want to think about it as an education system. So.
Jen: Dave, you wanna kind of riff on that a little bit. This idea of the values and
Jen: how those are are embedded in the system. And
Jen: again, how this can help
Jen: us overcome resistance to change, and things like that.
Dave: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that
Dave: that keeps coming up for me is the sense that students
Dave: think that someone somewhere knows the answer to the question.
Dave: and the that being smart is having access to those answers
Dave: right? And that is
Dave: what they're rewarded for in their testing. That's something that
Dave: the dozens and dozens, dozens of kids. And again, I'm only can speak to the at this age. I'm only talking about kids here in in Canada, because I've not worked with groups at 20 years old for a long time and other places.
Dave: But
Dave: the kids coming in here are really resistant to uncertainty. They're really resistant to
Dave: situations where they have to apply their values to a decision
Dave: right? Because they've been taught that
Dave: work is to do the task a lot in the way that it was done, and every kid will look at you and go. Just tell me what you want me to do. Just if you would just tell us
Dave: what it is you'd like to do. Give me a nice, strict rubric
Dave: that I can do that nice rubric that I can hand that back to you. You're gonna be happy. I'm gonna be happy. I can go home
Dave: right. That's the sort of
Dave: the process of learning and the conversation that we're doing as part of the conference that we're doing in 6 weeks
Dave: is how for work. Integrated learning, for instance, has become a real struggle.
Dave: because no matter how much we talk to people about teaching it, and no matter how we talk to students about taking it.
Dave: There's always this resistance cause they just want to be told like, so I've come to this training. Just tell me how to do the thing like, well, it's question of judgment. We want you to kind of read this stuff and get a sense for these different contexts and other stuff. Yeah, yeah, okay. But what am I supposed to do?
Dave: Right? Because the context doesn't matter. It's just the answer that matters.
Dave: And I think that is
Dave: where our system has drifted.
Dave: As a system, I mean, does everybody teach that way? No, of course there are lots of people who are in there who don't
Dave: But increasingly, that's what I hear from people teaching in the system. It's what I hear from people who are coming out of that system and coming into the university system for sure.
Jen: Okay, Jeff, I mean what you have a crack at the same type of question. I just said, Let's let's focus it on AI in your example of this of the solar panels.
Jen: so like well.
Jeff: Want to 1st push back on the characterization that I'm all about the big data and information
Jeff: you are.
Jen: That if that, if we get enough.
Jeff: Data and information. It's about interacting with the information. So in the analysis of solar panels, I did not include environmental concerns or anything.
Jen: What's just a cost analysis.
Jeff: But then I just added another question, please provide an analysis of the environmental impact of each option.
Jeff: Now, that's not gonna make the decision for me. But it's gonna provide me with information. Is it reliable, is it not? I'm gonna check perplexity also because their citation links work better than chat gpts. But like the information is out there. So it's helping me
Jeff: acquire information. How I make that value. Judgment is still my human decision.
Jeff: unless I want to say, Okay, here, I care 40% about the environment and 60% about cost based on that.
Jeff: What would you know?
Jeff: So I think AI is a a tremendous tool for
Jeff: gathering information and for instruction.
Jen: And actually, Jack, that is what I was thinking as you were talking, that you really are. You view it as a tool, and I
Jen: I'll step back a little bit on my critique.
Jeff: That's okay. I'm bringing on. I'm ready.
Jeff: I'm gonna break Omni out soon. I need a defender.
Jeff: Have you guys talked to Omni.
Jen: I have not
Jen: tell us about it.
Jeff: Why should I win? Omni cam.
John: Do you have an AI that can teach us about this.
Jeff: Yeah.
Jeff: Hey, Omni, I'm arguing with with some friends about the impact of AI on instruction. I think it's going to be very effective in some fields. Not all which fields do you think AI instruction would be best?
Jeff: AI instruction can be particularly effective in fields that involve a lot of data analysis.
Jeff: routine tasks.
Jeff: or where personalized learning can make a big difference. For example, in mathematics and the sciences, AI can help tailor lessons to individual students needs and provide immediate feedback language. Learning is another area where AI can excel offering personalized practice and interactive exercises. Additionally.
Jeff: what about the importance of teaching values and making moral decisions. Can AI play any role in that
Jeff: teaching values and making moral decisions involve a lot of nuance, empathy and understanding of complex social context
Jeff: which are areas where AI has limitations.
Jeff: while AI can assist by providing scenarios for discussion and helping to frame debates.
Jeff: The core of teaching values and morals requires human interaction. However, AI can support this process by offering diverse perspectives, encouraging critical thinking, and simulating ethical dilemmas.
Jeff: these tools. Okay? But who's right? Me? Or Dave.
Jeff: It sounds like both you and Dave have valid points.
John: Alright
John: And playing.
Jen: Role of Jen.
Jen: You guys are
Jen: right. Feel good. Point.
Jeff: Like there's a typo in the URL.
Dave: So putting typos in your yeah. URL, Jeff.
Jeff: Yeah.
Jen: John, you've been very quiet. Do you have any thoughts on any of this.
John: I'm I'm just.
John: I'm just amused by
John: every conversation. Goes back to AI.
Jen: It does go back, Dave.
John: And AI is really not even in the book. There are 7 references to AI in the book, and 3 of them are in the index
John: of.
Jeff: New kind of abundance, though
Jeff: it's a quantum leap of abundance.
John: It is different.
Jeff: Kind of a different.
John: It's a different kind of.
Dave: Brings the abundance together.
John: Right.
Jen: Well, the stuff that you know. We could sit here again and make it this whole conversation. You're saying, John. We we are, anyway. But
Jen: you know we were talking a moment ago, and I was thinking about it when we were saying that
Jen: Few people within the system have agency to do anything. But you know the person who is going to be rolling out the AI has a heck of a lot more agency than
Jen: you know. Then any individual teacher might. And so that's kind of the for me is the scary part.
Jen: Cool.
Jeff: And I think the rollout, especially in the West, is going to be
Jeff: slower than it certainly could be. But I think if we put Sal Khan in charge of education systems. Some really good.
Jen: Do you want to? Elon Musk is in charge of our education? Picture.
Jeff: That's an excellent point.
Jen: Yeah.
Jen: okay. That really brought the conversation to
Jen: close.
Jeff: But I think.
Jen: Cell clouds going like.
Jeff: Some excellent modeling of like how AI can be effect. Did you see his demo when Omni came out? And they showed how like, you know he does his AI tutoring, but the student can actually use their ipad, and so they can.
Dave: That doesn't work. By the way.
Dave: I tried some of the stuff he was showing in his most recent videos. I don't know if it was that exact one. But we tried the exact same things. It doesn't work nearly that. Well, so.
Jeff: Free version.
Dave: No premium.
Jeff: But it will
Jeff: like. If it doesn't work yet, it will.
Dave: You can see that.
Jeff: Technically. I mean, I don't think that.
Jeff: you know, we're still in the Altavista stage of AI like.
Jeff: and we're not even seeing the good stuff yet. So
Jeff: I think.
John: Yes, James has gone in any minute.
Jeff: Limitation. Yeah.
Dave: Newton. Was it the one that from that apple video from it for.
John: Apple Newton.
Dave: Was that it was I forgot.
John: No! No!
Jeff: Pre- Internet.
John: The 1984, one was a macintosh.
Dave: Yeah, I forgot there was something
Dave: the guy was talking
Dave: to his
Dave: to his display. I was doing his calendar. I was doing all kinds of crazy business.
Dave: I forget now. It's a classic commercial. A long time ago.
Jen: Alright. We have 10 min left, and I. We can certainly circle back on some of these other things. But I think this hopefully, this question will take us a little bit away from AI. But I think you made an interesting point, especially given
Jen: my interest in research, and
Jen: something that also you mentioned in the chapter has always nods it. May we encourage educators
Jen: all the time to follow evidence-based practices?
Jen: And your commentary is much of the research we do is so stripped down. So we understand the variables we're measuring and how we're manipulating them.
Jen: But they're so devoid of real world context that you? You question like.
Jen: how realistic is this helping us support what we're trying to do.
Jen: So this was kind of a side to me, anyway. Kind of a side thing you covered in the chapter versus some of the other things you talked about. Do you wanna take a stab at summarizing what your thoughts were on this, and if I did a good job of characterizing it or not.
Dave: Yeah, no, you you definitely did. I mean, I get I get into a lot of trouble for this one. But the particularly the cognitive literature in education tends to be
Dave: one. It's very prescriptive. All you need to do are these things, and I'll you'll get to where you want to. But they're measuring for memory right?
Dave: And there's a whole conversation around getting stuff in long term memory and
Dave: a whole bunch of stuff. But
Dave: behind this, and I understand lots of people put a lot of their lives into this. I'm not trying to be disrespectful.
Dave: but
Dave: my experience in the classroom at least. And my end of the educational research community would argue that each of these individual details, devoid of their context, is not representative of what they're like when they're in their context.
Dave: So
Dave: if I and I mean, the problem is always to me, is things like sports, metaphors
Dave: or chess metaphors, or whatever. So we compare things like learning to things that are games.
Dave: because games have ways of winning, and we assume that as long as we put markers on stuff.
Dave: then we can measure it later. And that means we're winning.
Dave: regardless of whether the thing that we're winning actually has any relationship to what we want.
Dave: Right? So in a game we both agree what winning looks like. I Kika Lebu and I put 3 in your net. You put 4 in my net and you win. And we agreed that putting balls and nets is what winning looks like
Dave: in learning.
Dave: We have to agree what winning is. And this is where the game of school comes in, and whatever else we agree that winning is
Dave: getting a higher grade.
Dave: Right? So some people argue that that's improved
Dave: reading ability.
Dave: let's say. And so we do a test. They read
Dave: 2 paragraphs, and then we take them away from the text, and we ask them a bunch of questions about the text
Dave: and the ways in which they respond to those questions are are
Dave: reporting on how well they're reading.
Dave: regardless of any of the other contexts that are involved in that
Dave: right? We do because it's a measurable test. I can see whether or not you did this thing. I can see whether or not you remember this thing.
Dave: and it reduces
Dave: the idea of being a reader to. Can you remember 6 words from the thing you just read.
Dave: which is not the same thing as being a good reader, I would argue, unless you think that's what it is, in which case.
Dave: I can't argue with you. That's fine, if that's your belief.
Dave: But that's the problem, right?
Dave: We study very small pieces of it.
Dave: But
Dave: those don't. So some kids are just good at remembering the 6 words from the thing and are able to put it in, doesn't make them good readers. And some kids are just bad at doing that
Dave: because they second guess themselves or whatever else doesn't mean. They could just be bad test takers.
Dave: But at the individual level is really bad for kids
Dave: because they're getting judged. They're neither getting rewarded nor receiving formative feedback
Dave: for the thing that's about them.
Dave: It's against the test which has been approved
Dave: through some research process that says that you know, kids will remember point 5% more words if they do it this way.
Jen: I think this.
Jen: I encourage you to have an addendum on research and
Jen: section you you covered because I I think it's really potentially especially tying it like, I'm sorry I said I wasn't gonna talk about AI. But
Jen: if we're going to be building these AI systems to teach people and our research base. Or you know, you pointed out a really, I think, important critique of our research and our evidence based practices.
Jen: And do they sufficiently contemplate all this complexity that we
Jen: so I will leave
Jen: that for your your, the addendum.
Dave: Kind of what we're doing in the conference this summer.
Dave: There's the people who are coming in, but.
Jeff: Conference!
Jen: Plug it. Let's plug it for the next 10 min. Because let's let's talk.
Jeff: I have one question, but please plug.
Jen: Not yet plug away. And then Jess question.
Dave: So Shrugcon, it is
Dave: a conference about uncertainty and about uncertainty and education, but taking that uncertainty, neither necessarily is a good thing or a bad thing, but rather as the thing that it is
Dave: so, for, as related to this conversation, we may not know what a good reader is, but that doesn't mean we don't try to help people read
Dave: so rather than deciding, defining, clearly directing the path. Mastery, education.
Dave: sort of allow that
Dave: sort of space for that development, and most importantly.
Dave: for the stuff that I'm talking about, and the the group who are talking about the stuff I'm talking about in the conference, allowing people to still make decisions when there aren't right answers so dealing with uncertainty as it applies to the world.
Dave: But some other. But.
Jeff: Little bit about what's gonna happen? Is it face to face? Is it online.
Dave: So it's too.
Jeff: Are you not sure? Because that's an uncertainty conference?
Dave: 2 days online, the 16th to 17th of July. And then there's 2 days out of an after party after we're gonna take all the stuff that was pulled together online, and then put it into some kind of format that we can sort of report out with afterwards.
Dave: They're gonna be 5 to 10 min sessions but speaking pieces that people gonna do, maybe 2 sets of those depending on how things work out. And then a facilitated discussion after. So imagine Jeff standing up and going. I think we can confront all of this uncertainty with AI. It'll be great. Don't worry about it.
Dave: and then you'd have a facilitated discussion after where a totally fair and balanced person like me would go. Let's hear every side of this except Jeff's, and then we would go through a discussion. So it's it's. And then the discussions are really meant to be generative. So I'm imagining, sort of like a share. Google, Doc, where
Dave: I'm not imagining we'll do a shared Google, Doc or slides. I can't decide which one I like better.
Dave: Slides gives people out of people's messes a little bit better. The Google slides. You're a little bit more like you could take your own space.
Dave: but the docs.
John: On the tab docs.
John: I really really want tab docs.
John: you know, like, like sheets has tabs. Yeah.
Dave: I love dogs.
John: That did that, anyway.
Dave: Yeah, yeah.
John: Go ahead, but.
Dave: Jamboard did kind of something like that.
Jeff: Sounds awesome, Dave. How can people participate? And how much does it cost.
Dave: It's free.
Jeff: Free.
John: As we.
Dave: I know. What's that?
John: Who's we? He said. You keep saying we.
Dave: Me and me and some pals. So this comes out of a group at the university work, prepared learning people actually who are talking in lawn and social work. We're talking about their students getting ready for uncertainty whenever they go out and meet clients
Dave: and that's part of where this work started inside the institution and some of the people in my office, and then a group of other people who I've been having this discussion with on and off for a couple of years. Now we're all like we should all get together and have this conversation together.
Dave: It's as much about pulling together like. So we're building an annotated bibliography at the same time as we're doing this
Dave: but also hopefully pulling together some of the different perspectives that people have on this, so that if other people are interested in looking at uncertainty.
Dave: they have a place to start.
Jen: And it's not just educators, right? It's like all kinds of disciplines, right?
Dave: It's not just educators, though it probably will mostly end up being educators. Cause. That's the community that I have.
Jen: I'm not not. I shouldn't have said that right. It's not necessarily focused on education.
Dave: No, no, no, no! So like one of my favorite conversations. And I went to a conference about this a couple of years ago. And she's coming Olga is in an in architecture.
Dave: So it's a big thing in architecture right now, where you're trying to
Dave: figure out how to confront building new buildings without new materials.
Dave: and how a city has to integrate.
Dave: so that when you're taking something down it becomes part of something that goes up.
Dave: And just how all of this gets organized. And there's this
Dave: whole sort of uncertainty principles that attach to that that comes out of the wicked problem stuff from the seventies.
Dave: So there's a whole field there just in there. And it's same with the medicine stuff from these guys. And so there's all kinds of different people. Josephine, skilling. Who's
Dave: head of science, Canada research
Dave: journals. I was talking about uncertainty and journal publication.
Dave: and just how all the different pieces coming together now lead to so much more uncertainty than we used to have inside of those fields. So lots of different kinds of chats.
Jen: Sounds like lots of folks doing different design type things from different discipline.
Jeff: And that kind of segues. To my final question.
Jeff: most of this chapter was a cerebral academic journey through the history of learning with charming anecdotes about, you know
Jeff: pasta assessment and Samarian phonics and whatnot. And then I was struck by the last.
Dave: Fascinating.
John: Ha!
Jeff: The last page or 2 got pretty
Jeff: dire talking about consequences for society. And is there hope in this world of pain and whatever?
Jeff: And then the final paragraph, you say, but we do have a fighting chance.
Jeff: So can you talk at like. And I feel like there's this underlying thread to the book so far that okay, we're talking about learning. But we're really talking about the wellbeing of society.
Jeff: Please address that.
Dave: Yes.
Dave: was that not enough? That's right, that's all. Yeah.
Jen: A good.
Jeff: Yeah.
Dave: So. Yeah, I totally think that that's exactly what this is about. So for me, I care a lot more about people being good citizens than I care about them being good at math.
Dave: I care a lot more about people making
Dave: better decisions whenever they face things they don't understand rather than hate filled, or fear filled, or whatever else decisions when they hit those spaces.
Dave: I think the more we practice with these things inside of the one place where we're meant to learn how to learn.
Dave: the more that
Dave: is going to replicate itself out in the world. So
Dave: I've done a lot of
Dave: training programs with particularly 2021 year olds.
Dave: And it takes me, and I'm sure other people do it faster. But it takes me 3 months to get them to the point where they're actually able to face an uncertain situation without just wandering around looking for the right answer.
Dave: I think of it as workforce preparation. Also think of it as life preparation.
Dave: But it's really about breaking down the habits that you guys were talking about earlier when you're saying, you know, we bounce all that creativity and that curiosity out of people.
Dave: And it's that sense of curiosity and create no again. And it's it's actually in this chapter. Creativity is super annoying in the classroom.
Dave: I understand why people don't want it. It's unpredictable, and it is hard to manage, and sometimes it can be really troubling
Dave: but it's the way that we end up doing a good job in our lives, maybe.
Dave: who won't.
Dave: Yeah. So for me, it's always about citizenship. Jeff.
Dave: Vegetation's always about this, and.
Jeff: Is hope we have a fighting chance.
Dave: Oh, fighting chance come back next week.
Jeff: All right. If you want to have a little hope, come back
Jeff: whenever we have our next one. Stay tuned to the post show for information about that
Jeff: any closing words from anyone else.
Dave: But come on, John, there's been so few words from you today.
John: There has been few words for me.
John: I don't have anything to add.
Dave: Alright! Alright!
John: I shouldn't have read this chapter.
Jeff: I'm sure you did about 10 times.
Dave: Time too.
John: Hmm.
Jeff: Well, there is no test but tune in next week to find out how we do stand a fighting chance in this crazy world that is 2024. See you then.
Jen: So tell me about omni.
Jeff: I truly encourage you to download the chat. Gpt App. If you haven't already click the little headphones app.
Jeff: choose your voice. It's interesting. Most men choose women. Most women choose men
Jeff: and just use it instead of Google. Use it if you're pissed at your partner, use it for whatever you want to talk about. Tell it. To be brief, if you want, limit your answers. 2 or 3 sentences, because it can get kind of chatty.
Jeff: and
Jeff: it's it's certainly a step up in
Jeff: realistic conversational engagement. I have my students talking to it, and then it. And of course there's a transcript. And please give me language, feedback.
John: Is Scarlett Johansson, one of the voices.
Jeff: She was. Sky was the voice that was very similar to her.
Jeff: And
Jeff: She sued, and so they made some modifications, and they made it less flurry. Did you see the daily show clip.
Jen: No.
John: But I didn't.
John: And I also just point out that not only is Jennifer Dr. Jennifer
John: ridiculously well prepared, but she also let slip in that conversation that, in addition to the notes that she shared with us that are longer than the chapter itself, she has a separate set of notes.
Jen: No, they do.
Jen: I do have separate notes. Someday I'll delve into those. No, there's not that.
Jen: Yeah, like, well, what I yeah, I do have some commentary that I didn't cover.
John: I I really appreciate all of the work that you're putting into this Jennifer.
Jen: Well, you don't, wouldn't. Wouldn't be here.
Jen: Sounds like without your work, John.
John: No.
Jen: Where are your notes? You should be grabbing your notes from back in the day.
John: No, no, no, no cause be because all of my notes have been marked as resolved.
John: whether they were or not.
Dave: Not doing this again, Dave. No, you just can't.
Jeff: Can.
Dave: You can't do this. They're most.
John: Look, you don't have to say, I think
John: we know you think it's your book. Yeah.
John: we're much deeper level in this conversation than I wasn't any comments.
Dave: Hmm, not always.
John: So I'm realizing now that I don't recognize chapters by their titles because the titles came much later chapter, and it wasn't even Chapter 4, probably for most of the time.
Dave: No cause. The introduction was actually chapter one.
John: Right, so.
Dave: They didn't, and they changed it.
John: I don't know.
John: You know, chapter numbers or titles. It's just like, Oh, yeah, that's the one where he talks about playing soccer.
Dave: I've never.
John: That's the one where he talks about the Senate.
Dave: I've never adapted to the new chapter numbers. It still confuses me.
John: I was just realizing in this chapter. The footer
John: on each page differs from the actual title of the chapter.
Dave: That's it.
Jen: The what.
John: On every page in the footer.
John: Yeah, this is at least partially an education problem is what is at the bottom. But I think the title of the chapter.
Dave: No, you're thinking.
John: Oh, no, I'm on the I'm on the next one.
Dave: No, no, that's the old title of the chapter. It used to be at least a learning problem.
Dave: I got a change at the last minute.
Jeff: So we have 3 chapters left.
Jeff: are we gonna sprint and finish this before John hits the road or.
Jen: How I don't even.
Jeff: Unless we're doing the index. We could also do the index.
Jen: How
Jen: how much are we covering with chapter? If we do? Chapter 5 and 6 next week? Is that or.
Dave: I think we could do that.
Dave: Let's do that.
Jen: Let's do 5 and 6, and then.
Dave: And then we can fight about chapter 7, as the
Jen: Yes, 7 is.
John: Yeah, yeah. 7 needs to be its own.
Jen: It doesn't. That's the one that I was shocked that Dave wrote
Jen: prescriptive practices like with numbers and everything.
Dave: I know right crazy.
John: Okay.
Jen: Yeah, that can definitely be, oh, yeah.
Dave: Yeah, let's do 5 and 6, and then we could do 7, and then we could get it in.
Jen: Yeah.
Jeff: This time next week.
Jen: Works for me.
Dave: Should be okay. Yes.
John: Very good.
Dave: Okay, let me just check.
Dave: Well, I mean.
Jen: It is.
Dave: Calendar is a lot faster than I do.
Jen: Is anyone doing our Tesla? By the way, are you
Jen: conference.
Dave: It just went online.
Dave: so no bonnie is on the be on the board, or whatever.
Dave: So I wasn't gonna be there cause she was going.
Jen: I'm not. I'm doing the virtual one.
Jeff: I'm sorry. What is this.
Dave: So Tessa.
Jen: O Tessa.
Jen: Dave would know. It's very Canadian.
Dave: It is very Canadian.
Jen: But there are. There's been outreach now to the southern
Jen: neighbors
Jen: more. It feels like it feels like more outreach, because I've heard about it enough bit of proposal.
Dave: Open.
John: Technology and education, society and Scholarship Association.
Jen: it's been around for
Jen: so pushing a decade.
Jen: that'd be close isn't it.
Dave: Few. Yeah, it's been a few years.
Dave: I should know, but I don't.
Jen: It seems like it found a home that maybe it didn't have original like, right? Is that true? It seems like it was more homegrown, and now it
Jen: hold on! I would we should have on here. Tell her, tell you the story.
Dave: Well, it latched onto Congress.
Jen: Yeah, I don't know what that means, but I had to pay.
Dave: Congress is the big.
Jen: In the comments.
Dave: In Canada, for academics.
Jen: Okay.
Jen: I had to pay them a fee, and then I had to pay. It's still pretty reasonable. So I think it was
Jen: under 500 us.
Jen: but like that.
Jeff: You go to conferences a lot.
Jen: Used to go to a ton.
Jen: But not since the pandemic really
Jen: all
Jen: do you guys go, though?
John: Rarely I get to maybe one a year, and it's a usually a local.
Jen: I was going to like one a month. I felt like during this I was trying to get designers for learning. I was trying to meet Mingle and.
Dave: Sure.
Jen: Those types of things.
John: I went to the Graduate Education Research Conference this year.
Jen: That.
Jen: and that they did.
John: Dave School.
Jen: Bye.
John: Going to the conference. I got
John: my employer to pay for me to go to Windsor.
Jen: Oh.
Jen: so have you ever come back to the Us for any reason.
Jen: Kirk.
Jeff: I was back last
Jeff: winter
Jeff: like a
Jeff: year and a half, like a
Jeff: year and a half ago, and we're actually going to pass through the summer.
Jeff: We're doing a lap around the planet. We're doing London, Scotland, Ireland, New York, New Hampshire, and back.
Dave: Cool.
Jen: Errors.
John: Skipping all of us right from New Hampshire.
John: Yeah, straight back.
Dave: Where? Where are you going? In Scotland?
Jeff: We'll be staying in Glasgow.
Dave: Okay.
Jeff: During the Edinburgh festival, so we'll certainly pop over to Edinburgh cool.
Jen: Taylor Swift and I needed.
Dave: Bonnie's got 7 weeks in Scotland in the next year.
Jen: Weeks.
Dave: Yeah.
Jeff: What she.
Dave: Case.
Jeff: Got there.
Dave: Her Sabbatical starts on the 1st of July.
Dave: and somebody organized their Sabbatical to be
Dave: studying belonging in
Dave: Scottish.