Took me ages to get to reading this - but YES .... WTF have we been doing in classrooms for so long?
It sure is time to radicalize teaching methods back to the roots of learning - but it doesn't seem to be happening around this country at this point . Keep at it Ryan! - And btw - I like your AI disclaimer.
Carol, thank you for taking the time to read my article. I agree that change is happening too slowly. I think people are resistant to change unless a degree of unsettling discomfort is involved. It could be argued that pain is the mechanism by which change is provoked. I believe it will come, but a problem is that people largely react to pain, rather than respond; I'm not sure that reactionary reform will get us where we want to go.
Hi Ryan, loved this post. After having recently been able to see and name the way current approaches to education de-risk curriculum, I’ve been toying with the idea of ‘re-venturing’ education - playing on the word, adventure and putting something at stake. And your suggestions here tie nicely into this approach. I quite like the first option - and the second - I’ll have to give them a go. Thanks Ryan.
I've been pursuing an MALA (Masters of Arts in the Liberal Arts) through the SJC Great Books graduate program since the end of the pandemic - getting back to Socrates, Aristotle, and others through seminars and tutorials is definitely a different kind of learning. We all struggle with these texts together. I have some issues with some of it, but for the most part it's been exactly what I was looking for and certainly an antidote to the typical classroom experience we give our kids. I've been able to offer up a HS minor in the Great Books for my students which has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my teaching. Great post!
Thank you, Steve. Your course in Great Books sounds wonderful. It makes such a difference when we are able to teach the stuff that fills our hearts. I'm so glad that you've found expression for this, and can share it with your students.
Powerful writing, Ryan. Is that rubric actually used in practice? You have a gift for creating emotional resonance. The course you describe as a space for introspection ought to take place in the first year of a full year course in high school called Writing with and without AI. The second semester should be on learning to prompt and meta prompt and meta author (distant writing as Luciano Floridi terms.
Omg! That’s incredible! I’m so curious to see after that AI year what they think about brain enhancers and meta writing. I suspect your challenge will be twofold: teaching them to write project-based meta prompts and then struggle to squeeze every ounce of data from deep search before it erupts and then teaching them to get and use targeted human feedback during curation with voicing. Yeah, and the logging and the documentation. You are a pioneer. What is the admin perspective? Are you public?
No, we're private but teach satisfy the national curriculum requirements. I'm working closely with school leadership, who are excited and supportive. We like to lead in innovation so this is an important domain for us.
We'll run the first term as a soft launch, then iterate with student and leadership feedback in-stream to fine tune for the remainder of the year. I may run two classes, one which is only writing (complete a book), where the other is 'other challenges'. The cement is still very wet, but if everything goes to plan it will be fun to be at the front of this transformation in ed. Once I get the green light then I'll draft a Post on the course design and ask for some input from the Substack community who are interested in such things. I look forward to your notes!
Thank you, Terry. Yes, this was part of the Cambridge iGCSE Geography rubrics from my previous school.
Yes, I run the course (The Dojo) as part of the core curriculum in our high school. It's a year-long programme for first year students. I do some AI work with them, but not a lot.
I'm working on the launch of a new year-long course this September where AI is at the centre. Students will decide upon a project for themselves according to their interests that they would not normally be able to achieve by themselves. There are no disciplinary boundaries, so I will facilitate students across subjects and applications. Students will then leverage AI to try to realise the work. The premise is, if AI can leverage human potential 10/100/1000x then we should also increase the difficulty of the challenges by the same degree. I will also provide 'Critical AI skills' throughout the year, and I just built out a really cool AI assessment tool that I'm pretty chuffed about. I'm still working out the details with our school leadership, but it look likely that it will go ahead.
DM me or email at tlunder@csus.edu if you need feedback or a thought partner on something. You’re light years ahead of me in a lot of ways but I can contribute to things like a curriculum for teaching students to write prompts, modifying rubrics for getting feedback for revision vs editing, different approaches to outlining, AI prompts for content area reading, etc. like you the concrete is still in bags I don’t have my name etched in any sidewalk yet. But I find this work fascinating
Took me ages to get to reading this - but YES .... WTF have we been doing in classrooms for so long?
It sure is time to radicalize teaching methods back to the roots of learning - but it doesn't seem to be happening around this country at this point . Keep at it Ryan! - And btw - I like your AI disclaimer.
Carol, thank you for taking the time to read my article. I agree that change is happening too slowly. I think people are resistant to change unless a degree of unsettling discomfort is involved. It could be argued that pain is the mechanism by which change is provoked. I believe it will come, but a problem is that people largely react to pain, rather than respond; I'm not sure that reactionary reform will get us where we want to go.
Hi Ryan, loved this post. After having recently been able to see and name the way current approaches to education de-risk curriculum, I’ve been toying with the idea of ‘re-venturing’ education - playing on the word, adventure and putting something at stake. And your suggestions here tie nicely into this approach. I quite like the first option - and the second - I’ll have to give them a go. Thanks Ryan.
Thank you, Isaiah, it's heart-warming to read your encouraging words. I hope your classroom adventures yield fruitful results. Nothing 're-ventured', nothing gained :-)
I've been pursuing an MALA (Masters of Arts in the Liberal Arts) through the SJC Great Books graduate program since the end of the pandemic - getting back to Socrates, Aristotle, and others through seminars and tutorials is definitely a different kind of learning. We all struggle with these texts together. I have some issues with some of it, but for the most part it's been exactly what I was looking for and certainly an antidote to the typical classroom experience we give our kids. I've been able to offer up a HS minor in the Great Books for my students which has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my teaching. Great post!
Thank you, Steve. Your course in Great Books sounds wonderful. It makes such a difference when we are able to teach the stuff that fills our hearts. I'm so glad that you've found expression for this, and can share it with your students.
Thank you for reading my post.
Powerful writing, Ryan. Is that rubric actually used in practice? You have a gift for creating emotional resonance. The course you describe as a space for introspection ought to take place in the first year of a full year course in high school called Writing with and without AI. The second semester should be on learning to prompt and meta prompt and meta author (distant writing as Luciano Floridi terms.
Omg! That’s incredible! I’m so curious to see after that AI year what they think about brain enhancers and meta writing. I suspect your challenge will be twofold: teaching them to write project-based meta prompts and then struggle to squeeze every ounce of data from deep search before it erupts and then teaching them to get and use targeted human feedback during curation with voicing. Yeah, and the logging and the documentation. You are a pioneer. What is the admin perspective? Are you public?
No, we're private but teach satisfy the national curriculum requirements. I'm working closely with school leadership, who are excited and supportive. We like to lead in innovation so this is an important domain for us.
We'll run the first term as a soft launch, then iterate with student and leadership feedback in-stream to fine tune for the remainder of the year. I may run two classes, one which is only writing (complete a book), where the other is 'other challenges'. The cement is still very wet, but if everything goes to plan it will be fun to be at the front of this transformation in ed. Once I get the green light then I'll draft a Post on the course design and ask for some input from the Substack community who are interested in such things. I look forward to your notes!
Thank you, Terry. Yes, this was part of the Cambridge iGCSE Geography rubrics from my previous school.
Yes, I run the course (The Dojo) as part of the core curriculum in our high school. It's a year-long programme for first year students. I do some AI work with them, but not a lot.
I'm working on the launch of a new year-long course this September where AI is at the centre. Students will decide upon a project for themselves according to their interests that they would not normally be able to achieve by themselves. There are no disciplinary boundaries, so I will facilitate students across subjects and applications. Students will then leverage AI to try to realise the work. The premise is, if AI can leverage human potential 10/100/1000x then we should also increase the difficulty of the challenges by the same degree. I will also provide 'Critical AI skills' throughout the year, and I just built out a really cool AI assessment tool that I'm pretty chuffed about. I'm still working out the details with our school leadership, but it look likely that it will go ahead.
DM me or email at tlunder@csus.edu if you need feedback or a thought partner on something. You’re light years ahead of me in a lot of ways but I can contribute to things like a curriculum for teaching students to write prompts, modifying rubrics for getting feedback for revision vs editing, different approaches to outlining, AI prompts for content area reading, etc. like you the concrete is still in bags I don’t have my name etched in any sidewalk yet. But I find this work fascinating
Not just insightful, but provocative with some excellent suggestions about ways to begin to break the chains.