AI with Intention featuring Tony Frontier
Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in, everyone. You are listening to the Authority Podcast here on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks as always for being with us. This is a conversation that I'm sure is going to resonate with a lot of you out there. It's on the topic of AI, but specifically Being intentional with it, the handful of episodes we've done previously on a, I related topics.
It certainly is something that we try to talk about, right? Is the purpose, the intentionality, really thinking through what are the meaningful limitation look like? And that is exactly what this guest is here to talk about. My guest is Tony frontier. Tony is an award winning educator. He works with teachers and school leaders nationally and internationally [00:01:00] to help them prioritize efforts to improve student learning.
He has expertise in classroom assessment, student engagement, curriculum development, meaningful feedback, technology integration, and strategic planning, and emphasizes a systems approach to empower leaders and teachers to serve others. He has a wealth of experience across all kinds of roles in education, so he's bringing that to this conversation.
He was a classroom teacher. in Milwaukee Public Schools, an associate high school principal, director of instruction for the Whitefish Bay School District, and a college professor who taught Ph. D. candidates in statistics research and learning theory. So we're getting a lot of expertise here. Previous books include teaching with clarity and five levers to improve learning.
And the new one is AI with intention, principles and action steps for teachers and school leaders that's published by ASCD. And that is what we're talking about today. Tony, welcome to the show.
Tony Frontier: Thanks, Ross. Great to be here.
Ross Romano: So let's set a little bit of groundwork here, and [00:02:00] I think a great place to start is about the topic of change.
And so you've done a lot of writing about change, and you talk about the importance of acknowledging what's different, what remains the same. Always a really good question to be asking ourselves in education when we're talking about new ideas and innovation. So within this topic of AI, And education, what should educators be keeping in mind about what's changed and then what has,
Tony Frontier: Great. Yeah. Great question. Thank you, Ross. I think anytime we're looking at leading schools, leading districts making decisions in the classroom the world is never static, right? So we, we're always navigating change. And sometimes that change is fairly transactional. We know what the that the course of action is, or the solutions are, or the resources.
It's just kind of a matter of how do we trade one set of [00:03:00] time and resources maybe for another. But when we're faced with a challenge and kind of a once in a generation shift like AI represents there aren't easy answers and, we need to be comfortable with that as leaders, as teachers, sometimes it's the questions when we're engaged in transformational change.
It's the questions that we ask that are more important than the answers. So with all the change that's going on out there in the AI space, especially since November of 2002 when, or 2022, when chat GPT 3. 5 was released. Things are changing quickly and the idea that anyone can keep up with the latest and all of the innovations.
It's just not realistic. So. We need to take a broader view on the AI front, but we also need to think about what what [00:04:00] stays the same, right? What remains? And, your kids, kids are the same. Um, the processes and the research base around learning, effective learning, effective teaching.
All those elements are intact and what I think is really important is that as we make decisions about how we might use AI or as we respond to how we see our students using AI we've got to keep it rooted in AI as a tool it's a resource But we shouldn't be surprised that kids use that tool as humans have used tools for thousands of years.
And that's to make work of value easier, put forth less effort to do more work. The challenge is, Learning is effortful good teaching is effortful. And I think that's really the crux that we need to confront [00:05:00] and be responsive to is how do we use these tools and how do we help students use these tools in ways that doesn't just.
Create, efficiencies, but actually creates more effective opportunities to learn. (ad here)
Ross Romano: I'm certain that part of that, like you said, November, 2022 at this point is barely more than 2 years ago. Things have changed really rapidly since then. So we'll see how it evolves over time. But a big part of it being continuing to go back and ask these questions again, right?
And reflect and say what we thought was meaningful or going to be meaningful. Has that proven to be true? Do we need to change and that understanding that. It's not necessarily going to be linear. I mean, we're making, like, best efforts to make decisions around trying and implementing tools that seem [00:06:00] to have a good purpose.
And there is building on that. Okay, the tools are evolving student the demands of the workforce are evolving. We want students to level up their skills, but also potentially. Things to remove before moving forward and saying, you know what, we had a good idea behind this. It didn't work out the way we thought and or there are hopefully more tools that are being purpose built for teaching and learning environments that are really addressing specific objectives and challenges that are happening in classrooms and schools that.
Hopefully we'll replace maybe a a prior tool that wasn't specifically built for that environment and those kind of things. Right. But maybe you can speak a little bit more toward what you see as the ongoing process. For asking those questions, re [00:07:00] asking them, right? On appropriate timelines but making sure that the strategy evolves in a way that is taking evidence into account, right?
You know, in the same way that it is staying abreast of new innovation and evolution.
Tony Frontier: Yeah. And what that really does come down to is going to be the intentionality piece. I mean, these tools are. Incredibly powerful and they obviously make mistakes they're not omniscient, they're not omnipotent with a little bit of understanding about how to prompt large language models effectively, it's pretty astounding the roles that they can play or the work that they can accomplish and, I think what's really important for educators to keep in mind, right, is these tools have been designed largely to, to generate and produce, right, to get work done [00:08:00] to, for scientists or businesses to accomplish huge volumes of work with as little, in as little time or little people power, right, as necessary.
A tool at that capacity in a learning environment, right, can suddenly kind of flies in the face of everything we know about learning. Learning is purposeful. It can be slow. It's intentional. It's making mistakes. It's adjusting course. So we I know there's some books and heard some presentations and that.
Notion kind of the AI classroom and no we have to be the active agents in this process, right? How are we going to use these tools? Not simply what will the tools do?
Ross Romano: Yeah, I'd love to kind of almost zoom, zoom out or zoom up and zoom back in kind of looking at some of the [00:09:00] big picture considerations and then coming back down to the ground level. And I guess 1 of the ways to do so is. Asking kind of about the hopes and fears and risk rewards and what happens if it heads in a direction where maybe there's not that planning and intentionality and what happens if it does let's start maybe with the fear piece that might speak to listeners, like, what is the greatest fear you have around how AI May change education.
Tony Frontier: I think there are A couple that I have there Greatest fear and it's happening already Would be that Teachers use AI tools to create assignments or assessments, kids use AI tools to complete those assignments or assessments, teachers use AI tools to grade or evaluate those assignments or assessments kids receive the grade through a content management system and then everyone moves on to the next thing, right?
And [00:10:00] it's Kind of looking from afar, looking at the grade book, it's like, okay, yeah, teachers are assigning work and kids are doing work. And, but in reality, we're just training large language models. Right. That, that, that would be an example of automaticity. Of the teaching and learning process with no fidelity to what it means to learn or what's most important to to learn.
So, so that's a great fear. My, my other great fear is that students come to school with misconceptions about how learning occurs. A lot of students believe that if you have questions, it means you're not smart or you don't get it. If you have to work hard at something, it means you're not smart.
There's some age old psychological principles around. We tend to be really poor self assessors. When we're asked to assess [00:11:00] our understanding of something that's somewhat new, if we're exposed to a very limited amount of information, we typically think, okay, I know those four things.
Therefore, I understand whatever that topic may be, where in reality, we've just kind of scraped the surface. So when kids middle school, high school kids sit down and type a prompt into chat GPTEDU or, right, some age grade appropriate large language model or tool, and that answer comes back typed at 100 words per second. It looks like, wow, that answer was obvious, or the computer's really smart. The challenge there, though, is that process Completely, hides any strategy, right, any effort that was required to teach and train that computer to come up with the answer. You know, when people think [00:12:00] that certain skills or abilities are magic, it's really easy to fall into the trap of, okay, that skill is this special, amazing thing.
That some people or some tools have that I don't have. And since I can't see the strategies that are being used and can't explain how it came up with that answer or that picture or that music or whatever it may be, well, I guess that's something that computers do rather than something that humans do.
And I think that's a piece that we have to confront. Again, if students think That to be quote unquote smart is to be able to produce answers immediately typed at a hundred words a minute. I fear that they're not going to be willing to or not think they have the capacity to engage in the productive struggle necessary to learn.
Ross Romano: Yeah, that certainly [00:13:00] can become a challenge if it if it goes on for any amount of time, right? I mean, how rapidly students brains understanding of what learning is supposed to look like and what they're how quickly that would change to Adapt to the expectation of what technology does versus what they know, or if they're not engaging and meaningful.
Conversation in classroom discourse or with their teacher about what are the outputs of these tools. And in reality, we certainly can think about, okay, well, the outputs are going to be as good as the input. So there, there certainly is a case to be made for. If you really learn really well, if you really understand what you're trying to do and what you're going for and how to prompt and how to articulate that and how to ask the right question, you can get some good stuff out of it.
But if students haven't really engaged in that. Do they have the [00:14:00] information literacy and media literacy to even understand if the answers they're getting are any good, or it seems impressive because of the speed of it. And it has the veneer of respectability, right? But I'm sure we've all seen instances of generative AI answers to things that had been.
Bad information hallucinations, all those kind of things. And you know, a lot of times they're used as the comically to sort of make fun of, see how dumb these tools are,
Which can be funny sometimes. But also it's you know, not always the case and they'll continue to improve. And even If the case is that they're spitting out a lot of questionable, responses, a lot of people wouldn't pick up on that and especially kids who are [00:15:00] still learning.
They're not familiar with the content and if they're Because they're natives with these tools now, and they just think this is the way it works. And it seems to process the information, right? The way each of us gets used to whatever technologies are developed in our youth, or even if not after we've been used to them for a certain amount of time.
It's, you just trust it. And this is just how it works. And why would I do it differently?
Tony Frontier: Yeah. Yeah. And there's obviously risks, right? When we respond to technology without without question. And the information issue, right, kind of the is Google making us dumber? You know, conversation that's been a challenge for many years now. It's that.
That kind of new layer of students not even needing to take the time to sift through and maybe select an article or a resource that seems [00:16:00] most useful where you're just, you're given an answer and again we need to give kids windows and ensure kids always have windows into the classroom.
Our thinking right through things like think louds, but just that we're always modeling strategies and always talking about productive struggle and AI tools are kind of the antithesis of that. So that's definitely a piece we need to be aware of and attuned to. But the flip side, right? The. You know, you asked about the challenges, but also the possibilities and the best case scenarios.
And as I've been working with teachers on this last couple of years and writing the book AI with intention I definitely went in been following AI space and given presentations on AI since 2018. But I, yeah. Was very hesitant. I mean, my jaw dropped when I saw GPT 3. 5 for the first time, and I was concerned and skeptical.
But as I've worked with teachers, as I did the research for the book, as I [00:17:00] consulted others and research base and some of the emergency emerging research. I'm much more optimistic, very optimistic about the potential of AI tools to transform education in positive ways when used again, when used intentionally, when used effectively.
I've seen and Pulled together a lot of prompt protocols where I think that potential of students having access to a 24 7 tutor I think that's incredibly important. Powerful. And I would just add to that when I make a statement like that, when I talk about some of these positive elements, it can't simply be go use AI to figure it out, right?
Or you just type in any kind of random googly prompt, that you just end up using AI as a crutch. So we've got to be really intentional about, Using AI as a conversation partner, using AI to pursue learning goals, not just accomplished tasks. We can talk more about that. [00:18:00] But, a lot of the education research last 50 years has been kind of in pursuit of Benjamin Bloom's two sigma problem, which is essentially how do we get the effects of one on one tutoring in a classroom of 30 students?
Or Case load, or 5 classes with 30 students, right? 150 students. And I really am optimistic about the potential of AI tools to be that, that one on one tutor. The opportunity for students to be able to learn beyond the school day. When I was growing up, I had a dad with a PhD and a Mom with a bachelor's degree.
Most kids don't go home right to that. But to have an AI tool that could serve in a similar role in answering questions. And I mean, the potential is absolutely massive. And I'm very optimistic that [00:19:00] those who use these questions. Tools well are taught to use these tools in intentional ways are going to have opportunities to learn that generations prior have not.
Ross Romano: Who's the, like the first mover in schools to making that happen? I mean, who has to be the is it at the leadership level? Is it the teacher? Is it student? I mean, yeah who kind of.
Tony Frontier: leadership. Yep. Leadership. It has to begin with leadership and that can be formal roles that can be principles or. Instructional coaches or anyone anyone who's willing to take the helm. I do think it's something that is interesting that is happening. I think part of what makes the current iteration of technology tools that we're talking about in education different is because large language models, Respond to natural language.
The role of the technology specialist I think is different or is going to need to be different. Really the limiting factor when sitting down and [00:20:00] working with an AI tool or teaching a child ways to, to use an AI tool in a discipline, it's not technological expertise. It's really the language Of that discipline and domain.
So I think someone with expertise in teaching and content knowledge in a discipline can do. And teach amazing things using AI tools, but the leadership piece, some things I talk about in the book actually, I talk about four guiding principles for for leaders. And the first is to lead by learning.
Again, leaders can't know all the answers and all the ins and outs of which model and. Why and how and all the technical specs but they do need to demonstrate an openness to and willingness to just know some basic form and function of AI tools and what they are and and how they work.
I think acknowledging some of the misconceptions, right, that exist about [00:21:00] AI tools, and a lot of people talk about them kind of like they're a monolith. you know, different tools have different strengths, and different models have different strengths. A few other elements of the guiding principles.
Another piece that I think that's important for leaders to know is that the Gartner Hype Cycle, and that's just, it's A framework for thinking about how does technological innovation kind of predictably roll out? A new gizmo, right, gets announced or suddenly available and the expectations tend to go off the chart about for better and for worse.
You know, this thing is going to save everything or this thing will ruin everything or, and then there's some time where there's some You know, adjustment of expectations, and, I don't think there's any advantage in being kind of the first, the very first school out of the gate to make a huge capital investment.
We've seen some districts in the news kind of get caught with some of these but to encourage the [00:22:00] pioneers and to be intentional about some professional development so teachers can start to see. The strengths and limitations of these tools and what they are, the 2nd principle for leaders that I talk about is taking a transformational approach.
We talked a little bit about that at the. At the beginning but when we're engaged in more type one or more transactional change. Leaders know here's what we need to do. Here are the skills and strategies to do it. Here are the incentives to get it done. Right off you go. But we are in a period of transformational change, more questions than answers.
We need to reconsider. Maybe some of the roles or the way we've done things in the past. We need to challenge assumptions. I think there's a lot of assumptions we've made over the years about academic integrity and cheating. And I think AI is going to give us an opportunity to confront [00:23:00] some of those some of those pieces that leads to the third the third guiding principle around emphasizing integrity and specifically taking a humanist rather than a behaviorist approach to to academic integrity.
And maybe that's something we can jump into a bit more later, but I'm. Hearing a lot of concerns in those areas and given a lot of presentations and talks about that distinction between cheating and integrity. So let's, I think we can spin back to that in a minute, but then the fourth leadership principle is fidelity before efficiency.
And again, yes, these tools can create efficiencies. Yes, these tools can automate processes. But we've got to be really intentional about fidelity and fidelity kind of has A negative meaning in some circles. I don't mean curricular fidelity, like you have to be teaching out of the the teacher's math.
That's not what I mean by fidelity. I simply mean, are we intentional about here's the purpose for this lesson? [00:24:00] Here's the assessment evidence that's most important. And then are we giving kids the opportunity to learn? So in that example I gave earlier create an assignment using AI. You.
Assign it. Upload it. KID does it with AI, right? There's no fidelity there. The work was done. It was turned in. But there's no fidelity to the purpose for why that assignment was given. (ad here)
Ross Romano: Let's go back to that cheating and integrity piece, because I do think that's a topic that comes up a lot. It's an important topic. And we'd love to hear your thoughts on it. You know, one of the things, especially when it comes to these AI tools and the fears around cheating or which is the question I've been trying to ask is like, we have to think about it in terms of who is being cheated.
Right. And how they're being cheated with the use or misuse or non use of the tools. Right. And what does that look like? And I [00:25:00] think in some ways it's probably the way we, always largely should have thought about cheating in schools, but certainly it is a little different than what the cheating conversation used to be.
But I would love to hear what your thoughts are around that issue.
Tony Frontier: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've gone through in the last year and a half, about 50 Districts, academic integrity policies some of which they made a first attempt at making some changes. Some we're shepherding through some changes in academic integrity policies, and what I see very often the policies entitled academic integrity, and there's a couple of sentences at the beginning of that policy about why academic integrity is so important.
Then There's a whole list of things to do or not to do related to cheating, right? So we kind of talk about these flowery reasons for why integrity is important, [00:26:00] but then they define the opposite of integrity, right? It'd kind of be like having an employee integrity policy that just talked about theft and embezzlement and right.
You you need to. actually define and describe and teach people students what integrity is. So I, cheating, the essence of cheating is when someone uses a tool or resource to misrepresent their own knowledge and skills in order to receive credit, right? Undue credit for a task. And what that means then is, The burden of proving cheating really falls on the teacher, really falls on the person who's making the accusation, as is widely accepted now.
There are AI detectors out there, but they aren't. They aren't perfect. They're a tool that should be used to combat cheating, but in and of themselves, again they're not perfect. So, do we [00:27:00] need to talk to kids about what plagiarism is and what cheating is? Absolutely. We also need to talk about what integrity is, and the pathway forward around this conundrum is integrity, not just focusing on cheating.
So, What I mean by integrity, it's really what is our level of commitment to ensure that one's completion of a task actually represents the knowledge and skills that they own, right, that they possess. So a claim about integrity, that has to be supported by the learner, right? So. In the past I think we've assumed that as long as a student isn't caught cheating or doesn't blatantly appear to be cheating, that their work has integrity. But if I did my work because I went home to a parent who could help me, or if I did my work because I've got a circle of [00:28:00] friends who have a text messaging group for that night's math work, and it's never apparent that there might be a lack of integrity, everything appears to be okay.
Kids get the credit, kids get the the grade and we kind of move on. So, What's really important to ensure integrity a few things, the teacher's obligation is to ensure kids know what the boundaries are for what resources and tools can or can't be used and they need to be really upfront about that.
But for the kids, it's really two pieces. Transparency and explainability, and this is our way out of this conundrum. We need to be really clear with kids that they're transparent about the processes, the resources, the tools they use to get their work done. And that should include AI tools, but it also should include I got help from my parents last night.
I needed help from my [00:29:00] friend group last night, right? If teachers are receiving work and assuming this kid gets it I can't adjust my teaching if that work lacks integrity. So we need to work on that culture and create those opportunities where we're kids have to be very clear about the resources and tools they use, not just when we think they're cheating all the time.
Then the second piece is explainability. And that's really just that good kind of summative, formative, reflective assessment. So you know when a student turns something in or a student is engaged in a process to ask questions offline, what are the three most important ideas? That you wrote about in that paper you just turned in, or at the end of that assessment what are what are three things you learned this unit that you didn't understand prior, right?
Those types of probing questions where kids [00:30:00] always know that they will be held accountable to explain that. Their work. And I think a bridge to the real world is, because yes, kids need AI literacy. They need to know how to use these tools. They need to prepare for a world where these tools will be put to use.
But if I'm out there on the job. And I use AI to do something, right? And now that thing is posted on the Internet or included in a quarterly report or becomes something that's part of the product, right? I'm 100 percent accountable to say, Yep, here's how I came up with that. Here's how I verified that.
Here's what it means. So, yeah the notion of transparency and explainability, again, not just because I think I caught a kid cheating, but just because it's good, effective practice needs to be something that we're all much more attuned to as we move forward.
Ross Romano: Yeah, and then a very, a non punitive approach, which is saying this is part of how [00:31:00] we do it. We know that there's all these various resources that you might be using. Let's talk about how you completed the work so that we can then evaluate understanding and I think in a lot of ways, I'm sure what a lot of People working in schools would feel it easier said than done on some of these, particularly in the high pressure around grades and assessments and all that kind of stuff.
Right? Because the. The ethical question, the question of cheating and all of this or completing assignments using tools and resources that aren't within the parameters or used in other ways, even with AI detectors, even with, I mean, I would imagine. It's still not exactly provable, even if you have a high degree, this is, this seems, and so it's really hard to do much with that other than to have a strong thesis, right?
[00:32:00] But it, but beyond a reasonable doubt, I don't think so. But so for the most part, I think kids would feel like they can At least in terms of escaping punishment get away with it, so to speak, right? So the, so then the burden on the educator is what we have to make it so that they don't want to, like, so that they actually want to complete the work, want to learn the knowledge and see the value in it.
But in an environment where. The, what your grades are, your GPA and ends up rising above all, like, how do we put the attention and the focus on learning and growth and development and not just on, I can take a shortcut here and make sure I get the a even if I would learn a lot more if I did the work myself and got the B and that's not it.
Not an easy question, and that's why it's important to have these conversations, right? And talk through it is [00:33:00] to say, to kind of paint what the challenges and why it's challenging and determine different ways of going about it. Different solutions to have a little bit of each right?
Because whereas an individual teacher, or even a principal, would love to probably live in an environment where that wasn't so, right? Where, where students long term outcomes, the college they'll be accepted to, or whatever down the road, is not going to be negatively impacted by a little bit of struggle here, or getting one bad grade here, and then everybody would maybe see The actual benefit of that perseverance and that working through things that we can't shortchange students in the sense of not acknowledging that reality and that that matters to them, but also not shortchange them in letting them skate by without really learning.
Tony Frontier: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had an article in the February [00:34:00] at leadership about student agency and I, and AI and I talk about some of those exact pieces right. How, oftentimes kids are kind of conditioned to see school from a very transactional. Perspective, right?
And we can actually undermine that, that agency, that interest in, how can I have some control over my learning and my learning environment and make some decisions about strategies and resources that I'll use. When kids feel like the purpose of school is passive compliance, and my job is to get points, and here's how school works.
You assign tasks, I do the tasks, I get the points, we move on to the next thing. If that's the mental model of schooling, and if teachers, parents, principals are intentionally or unintentionally kind of supporting that view, we're back to What I alluded to earlier, AI is a great tool to get work [00:35:00] done more efficiently.
And if the goal is get her done, AI is perfect tool. You're not going to learn anything, but get her done. So we need to. Shift some of that conversation, right? A lot of that. The most important decisions that will make about AI will happen away from AI tools, right? How do we talk about the purpose of our courses?
The purpose of the assignments that we give? Do we emphasize learning goals or just tasks? You know, do we say this is important because it's on the test on Friday or whatever. This is important because give a relevant example. Do we start the school year with You can accumulate 2, 000 points in this semester, and here's how it works, and at the end of the semester, if you get this and this combination, you get the A, and if you don't, you, we kids follow our lead and I've seen a lot of classrooms in high achieving, high pressure schools, where teachers instill in their students, their belief, [00:36:00] this is about learning, this is about quality work. This is about asking good questions. And not just about this is about points and grades. And I think it's to be more important than ever. Talk about that is one of the guiding principles for effective teaching. Knowing your purpose and establishing a classroom where learning goals are what drive everything we do rather than simply compliance.
So,
Ross Romano: Yeah.
Tony Frontier: and that's an age old, right, challenge. We talked about that in Teaching with Clarity. And yeah, I've got some good advice rooted in good research in the AI with Intention book as well.
Ross Romano: So at the teaching and learning level I'd love to hear about the guiding principles that you've developed there. And then if within as you're talking about those you can build the context for how [00:37:00] leadership. Needs to approach that to communicate those to build capacity for those.
Right? And so the primary listenership of the show here is those leaders and thinking through that lens of if I need. My teachers to be doing these things. How am I facilitating that? You know, what is the capacity building? What is the clarity of vision? The communication that I am ensuring that it's actually happening without me just, of course, counting on the teachers to do it on their own.
Tony Frontier: Yeah, great. Great. Yeah. And back to the leadership principles quickly. That notion of emphasizing integrity and it really does need to begin with kind of the school mission vision and that academic integrity policy or kind of that fair use of AI tools policy and being sure that you're clear about, how those elements, Line up in [00:38:00] ways that are supportive and again emphasize integrity and not just kind of a don't cheat approach. but I talk about four principles for effective teaching. The first guiding principles stand in their shoes, take an empathetic approach, empathetic design to how students perceive school and. AI tools and talk about this a bit in the beginning, but to really have those open conversations about what are some misconceptions that kids have about learning and how learning occurs and confronting those and confronting how AI could exacerbate some of those misconceptions.
We need to get all teachers on board especially at the high school. Kids are using AI tools. I've had conversations with. Principles and teachers. I think there are some principles and teachers. I know there are who are kind of taking a
I've told my kids not to use them. Therefore, they aren't, but I'm not [00:39:00] going to ask questions. So we've got to confront this head on. It's almost impossible to open up a word processing. Doc or a PDF or an app without an AI assistant asking if I want some help kids are seeing those prompts as well.
So we've got to work to see AI through student size. So we can then take action to it. To address some of those misconceptions again, that clarity of purpose action. Step two. We've got to be really intentional about ensuring kids understand that the purpose of school is learning, not compliance.
We have to be very intentional about designing units, lessons, right? Where kids really do have the opportunity to learn what's most important, have the opportunity to get some feedback. The research out there on why kids cheat Pretty consistently comes back when kids think it's hopeless, when [00:40:00] kids think that the value of the points exceeds their capacity to attain them, they're more likely to cheat.
When kids aren't clear about what directions are, what boundaries are, why they're doing the work, they're more likely to cheat. To cheat when kids don't feel like they have a relationship where their teacher where they can go to that teacher and say, I'm stuck. I need help. I don't understand. Kids are more likely to cheat.
So the clearer we are about ensuring opportunity to learn the. The less likely we are to paint kids in that corner have kids feel like they've been painted into that corner. The third guiding principle for teachers that I talk about in the book is to prompt A. I. tools intentionally. Talk about the process and a series of protocols that can be used to ensure that if we're using AI tools to develop instructional resources or assignments or assessments or lesson plans or unit plans that importance of being clear [00:41:00] about.
What are the learning goals? What are standards? Providing some context to the AI tool. What grade are my students in? What are some skills or concepts they've already been taught? What are some misconceptions they might have? A really solid prompt. That's going to result in something that is very useful to you and your students.
It's going to look more like a paragraph than a Google search. If we're doing those one and two sentence prompts in general, you, your results are going to be no better than grabbing the seventh hit on teachers pay teachers or the 14th hit. On Google, so we've got to be clear about our purpose and then intentionally prompt AI tools.
Then the 4th piece I talk about is using AI tools. Students teaching students to use AI tools for intentional intentional learning and it's really, how do we empower students right to. Be their own [00:42:00] best advocates, their own best agents for learning I share an anecdote, an anecdote in the book where a kid goes up to a teacher and says I didn't, I don't want to do the assignment that you've given me.
Because I know this all already, I'd like you to give me a different assignment. But there is one thing that I'd like you to clarify for me. I'd like some feedback on this and I'd like the feedback in the next couple of minutes. You'd look at that kid like, like they were nuts, right? I gave you the assignment.
But that's exactly the way you need to prompt AI tools, right? When kids learn. About December of their kindergarten year, they start to internalize this notion that, okay, this isn't about me, it's, there's 30 of us in this room, and I'm just one of 30. And kids need to internalize that at some point.
But as kids progress through school I think they, they can fall into that [00:43:00] state. I don't think I know. They can fall in that state of passive compliance, where. The notion that you could ask for another example, or ask for three or four more examples, or ask for another explanation, or ask for a different problem set, or ask for, right, a really highly agentic learner would do all those things.
Not possible, unless that teacher is going to work they're already working. You know, 50, 60 hours a week, right? We can't ask him to work 90 hours a week. So there has to be some compromise between what students need to learn and what teachers are able to provide. But I think that's where the, that's where AI tools can be such a powerful resource because that kind of intentional, purposeful.
No I need a different I need a different way to understand that. I need some different practice problems. Still doesn't make sense to me. I need you. AI tools are great at responding to those types of questions. Or those [00:44:00] commands. We need to empower kids, help kids understand that AI tools can be used in those ways, not just as a kind of glorified Google, not as a crutch, but as a resource that can provide exactly what they need precisely when they need it to best support their own learning.
Ross Romano: Yeah. I mean, I like that the approach and the essential question to leaders is around. Building capacity to ensure the tools are used effectively because I think it inverts a lot of the the typical positioning of the tools that like the AI tools are what builds capacity increases capacity versus looking at it as.
You know, we need to build the human capacity and make you referenced what is the expertise that will be most valuable in our technology support teams and the people who are in schools, facilitating the use and how are we [00:45:00] also, getting teachers centered around the guiding principles and understanding how we are going to best serve students, right?
That the capacity is in the people to to leverage it accordingly versus just saying, well, we're just going to use these and it's going to multiply what we're already doing or,
Tony Frontier: Yeah. Yeah. It, yeah, absolutely. And I think one way to think of AI, it's an amplifier, right? It's an amplifier and you know, you, you give that amp to same amp to two guitar players, right. And one who can really play that guitar well. And one who. Plays that guitar poorly. The amplifier is not going to make that lousy guitar player sound better.
In fact it's gonna, it's gonna make it even, bigger and more dramatic and worse So, yeah garbage in, garbage out, poor practice in, poor results it's about the human capacity that the [00:46:00] capacity of the AI tools is going to continue to improve and continue to blow our minds.
You know, set two teachers behind the same AI tool and the better teacher the more pedagogically sound teacher is going to get better results. The. The other teacher is just going to produce more clutter more quickly. Same thing with a learner. You know, show me a learner who thinks AI is an answer engine and I plug it in and I'm done.
They might get the work done, they might get the points, but they're not going to learn. Show me a kid who can sit down at an AI tool and prompt. Here's what I'm trying to learn. Don't give me the answers right away. I'd like to do some practice problems on such and such, or I've uploaded the the ten paragraphs my teacher asked me to read.
And I think I understand, but I have a couple clarifying questions. Could you help? AI tools are great at that, but kids need to [00:47:00] see the potential and possibility that they can be used in those ways.
Ross Romano: Amazing. And well, this is an amazing conversation and topics well worth diving into. I think a great place to sort of tie it together is one of the things that came up in this is. About not rushing to be the first school to go forward with the properly evaluating again, like with the AI tools, I think there is a unique pressure in a way to, or at least those who are mindful and kind of plugged into it might feel too. Move quickly because knowing how quickly it's evolving and that the the typical cycle of what might be considered a reasonable timeline for Testing, you know piloting adopting different technologies and schools over the course of years That's a significant chunk of a student's time in school.
[00:48:00] And and that's as, as everything is amplified, right? That's time to potentially fall behind and not get ahead. So. In trying to kind of find the balance there, I guess my question would be within the next three to five years, what do, what basically, universally, needs to have? Evolved in schools in order to be on track for where where schools are going to need to be as far as meeting the future needs of students.
Right? A big part of that being like the usage of these technologies. But really what it's all about is saying, like, have we gotten to where we need to be at the right time that we are serving student needs?
Tony Frontier: Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. And I'd go back and clarify. I'm not saying you don't want to be the first one to jump jump in for learning about the essence of AI and thinking about what are those implications for our mission, [00:49:00] vision purpose, culture, et cetera. The don't be the first one in the pool is there.
A lot of vendors out there, right? Selling their AI solution to everything. And that I think is the piece where you want to be very intentional. You know, am I buying a marketing? Strategy here. Am I buying an actual product? Am I buying a product that's actually been deployed in classrooms and field tested and right?
Because I think so much learning of what are these tools can be done just on the large language models that are out there. And obviously there are state and national requirements around student privacy and etcetera, right? That have to be navigated. But there are, free tools out there that schools, teachers, right, can start to learn the essence of these things.
But stepping back, right, the [00:50:00] foray into this, it's more big questions, I would argue, around what does it mean to understand? What do we accept as evidence of understanding? What do we mean by academic integrity? You know, how have we enforced, our, Policy on cheating in, in, in the past.
How do we clarify for kids what tools and resources they should or shouldn't be using? You know, those are all conversations that should be happening in very rich, deep ways as the tech end considers what are some of the solutions and so on that are out there. So I think the key is to be curious, but yeah.
But skeptical, right? Ask a lot of questions. But be somewhat skeptical about the answers. But in the book, I talk about some very specific things that can be done for creating parameters around acceptable use for. For teachers, acceptably used for kids around crafting an integrity [00:51:00] policy that is more than just a cheating policy and, a number of paths forward with with this work because the changes that have happened thus far, it's really, and this is an industry too, it's really been grassroots, it's Right the individual users are ahead of the organizations, but as this next round of agents come along that can do all sorts of sequences of tasks the change will be fast.
So the better we're rooted in. You know, just good sound assessment practices, good sound understanding of what academic integrity is rich, good, guaranteed, viable curriculum. Those pieces ultimately will determine the trajectory of what happens in the AI space moving forward.
Ross Romano: Well, Tony, I think this this conversation is going to be really interesting and helpful to a lot of listeners. And and you also have in addition to the book, of [00:52:00] course, your recent educational leadership article, which we can link to in the notes below any other resources or writings or anything that you want to point out or have listeners check out.
Tony Frontier: Yeah, thanks. Jay Mctai of Understanding by Design. Jay Mctai wrote the the forward for the book. Jay, amazing educator, obviously, but also just a great guy. I was fortunate to have John Hattie give some comments on some initial portions of the book. He gave a great a great line of endorsement.
I'll have an article in the Cult of Pedagogy blog coming up and I think for people to just keep reading keep that, that my best advice, and I talk about this in the book. If you're someone who has not spent, if you're an educator who has not spent a lot of time just playing around in Gemini or chat GPT, or I would encourage you to Invest some time in learning how to prompt and [00:53:00] asking questions and engaging in dialogue with those tools on academic topics.
Pick something that maybe you knew 20 years ago when you were in high school, or maybe it was confusing to you and try to enlist an AI tool as a tutor. Very very insightful about what the potential of these tools can be to just engage in a dialogue where you're assuming the role of a learner.
That'd be my advice.
Ross Romano: Excellent. Well, listeners check all of that out. We'll put the links below to where you can find the book AI with Intention from ASCD or wherever else you get your books and and the recent articles and other pieces that you can check out as well. And when all else fails, go out and learn and try and test things and become familiar with it as this is a rapidly evolving, but certainly high potential.
To to mean a lot for students and and what their futures are going to look like. So, we hope you've enjoyed this [00:54:00] conversation. And if you did, please do subscribe to the authority podcast. If you haven't already, it's available wherever you're listening now. And wherever you get your podcasts, we will continue every week to bring you.
Interviews with a variety of authors in education and leadership around all the topics that matter to you. You can also visit the podcast. network to learn about 40 plus more shows in education. A lot of stuff there. If you're in school leadership, if you're a teacher, if you're involved in some other way, there is certainly something for you.
So Tony, thanks again for being here.
Tony Frontier: Thanks a lot, Ross.
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