by Scott McLeod | Jun 3, 2025 | Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Podcasts |
[I realized that I am way behind on posting recent podcast episodes, so I am catching up!]
Krista Leh was kind enough to invite me on her SEL in EDU podcast back in February. Krista is a widely-acclaimed expert on social-emotional learning (SEL) who is doing really great work with schools and educators (she also has an ed tech background!). Krista and I talked about how deeper learning experiences are excellent vehicles for helping students build relationships, grow their self regulation skills, and deepen their SEL competencies. This idea also is the theme of the phenomenal book, Pulse of PBL: Cultivating Equity Through Social Emotional Learning, and a blog post that I wrote for Getting Smart, Deeper learning requires deeper relationships? Additionally, Krista and I talked a little bit at the beginning about being an introvert when you are up on stage a lot, and about stepping out of our comfort zones…
Krista and I had a fun chat and I hope that you’ll check out the episode and her entire podcast.
Happy listening!
by Scott McLeod | May 19, 2025 | Learning and Teaching, Tech Integration |
Here is an excerpt from today’s New York Times article, How Miami Schools Are Leading 100,000 students Into the A.I. Future:
Her class at Southwest Miami Senior High School had already read about John F. Kennedy and discussed his campaign for “new frontier” economic and social policies. Now Ms. Lowd asked two dozen 11th graders to open their laptops and type a prompt into Google’s Gemini chatbot: “Act like President Kennedy. What was the new frontier?”
The chatbot quickly spat out paragraphs of Kennedyesque text, including phrases like “my fellow Americans.”
Then Ms. Lowd asked her students to analyze whether the chatbot simulations accurately reflected the Kennedy speeches they had studied. The teenagers’ verdict: The simulations were “awkward,” “weird” and yet still credible.
“It did a very good job of impersonating J.F.K.,” said Ashley Acedo, 17.
In some recent AI workshops for educators, I’ve been doing quick Great or Gimmick? scenarios. One of them happens to be about AI chatbots impersonating historical figures. Leaving aside teenage Ashley’s ability to discern whether or not AI did a good job of impersonating President Kennedy (are they a JFK scholar?), what do we think about these historical figure AI bots? I confess that I’m skeptical…
Great or gimmick?
by Scott McLeod | May 8, 2025 | Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Tech Integration |
Colorado educators! (and anyone else within reasonable driving distance… looking at you, Nebraska, Wyoming, Kansas, New Mexico, and maybe Utah and Oklahoma!)
We hope that you will join us for our June 2025 Teacher Leader Summit in Denver. On Thursday, June 5, we will be leaning into instructional redesign for deeper learning. On Friday, June 6, we will fold artificial intelligence into the mix. Individuals are invited but teams are encouraged. Register soon!
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THURSDAY, JUNE 5. Redesigning Lessons for Deeper Learning and Student Engagement
As much as we’re worried about ‘learning loss,’ our students aren’t going to learn if they’re not first engaged. Let’s create reasons for students to come to school and opportunities to do things that are interesting! In our Day 1 workshop, we will use the free 4 Shifts Protocol to redesign lessons, units, and other instructional activities for critical thinking and problem solving, greater student agency, more real-world authentic work, and robust technology infusion. In the afternoon we will connect a number of blended learning and ‘science of learning’ strategies to this redesign work. We also will peek inside some deeper learning schools around the country to see how they’re approaching this instructional design work.
Participant Outcomes
Participants will walk away with the following knowledge, skills, and resources (based on empirical research from 90+ deeper learning schools, not just anecdotes, and design work with tens of thousands of educators):
- The ability to use the 4 Shifts Protocol to redesign lessons and units for higher student engagement and deeper learning
- The ability to use the 4 Shifts Protocol as a curriculum planning resource, not just an instructional design tool
- Numerous exemplars of deeper learning in action
- On-ramp strategies to help schools and design teams get started on their new learner profiles or graduate portraits
- Techniques and suggestions for navigating instructional, curricular, and organizational speed bumps and roadblocks
- Key instructional mindsets and design behaviors
- Discussion questions for teaching staff, leadership teams, and families
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FRIDAY, JUNE 6. AI, Schools, and Deeper Learning
Artificial intelligence (AI) – particularly generative AI – is rapidly transforming how we learn, work, and create, while simultaneously sparking grave concerns about the ongoing balance between humans and machines. In our Day 2 workshop, we will explore a multitude of instructional, productivity, and ethical considerations related to AI and teaching, and we will connect everything back to what we did in Day 1.
Through a series of practice-based scenarios, we will explore day-to-day implementation considerations, and see if we also can maybe make the lives of students and teachers a little easier and more productive. There will be ample opportunities to explore and share together throughout the day. Let’s roll up our sleeves and pe into both the possibilities and pitfalls of these powerful digital tools. Participants will walk away with a number of useful resources and ideas for sparking conversations in their local communities. Please bring your own examples and use cases of how you’re using AI!
Participant Outcomes
Participants will walk away with the following knowledge, skills, and resources (based on extensive technology integration and leadership work with schools and educators):
- The ability to use AI to enhance our teaching efficiency and productivity
- Creative pedagogical uses of AI across all grade levels
- The ability to think about instructional and ethical concerns such as attribution, plagiarism, cheating, lack of transparency, privacy, bias, and erosion of critical thinking
- Understanding how AI works and expected advancements in the future
- Exposure to numerous AI tools and their potential capabilities, possibilities, limitations, and biases
- Strategies and suggestions for talking about AI with fellow educators, students, and families
by Scott McLeod | May 2, 2025 | Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, News and Events |
Colorado Innovates is tomorrow!
A FREE online conference featuring innovative, deeper learning schools across Colorado. No travel necessary…
Each interactive, online conference session will emphasize one or more of the following:
- hands-on, active, experiential learning by students;
- high levels of student agency, voice, choice, and ownership;
- deep, robust student creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration;
- students who are engaged in authentic, real-world work and problem-solving;
- students who are making positive impacts in local or global contexts;
- place-based, community-engaged partnerships; and/or
- creative and empowering student use of digital tools, learning technologies, and online platforms.
We have an incredible set of schools participating. The conference is free but registration is required. Hope that you’ll join us!
by Scott McLeod | Apr 29, 2025 | Learning and Teaching, Tech Integration |
Yesterday James Bedford reached out to me, noting that my AI vicious cycle was very similar to his AI Wheel of Death and asking me to give him proper attribution. Of course I was immediately horrified that I might have misappropriated James’ intellectual property…
Here’s the thing: I had never seen James’ image of last September until he sent me a link!
I said to James:
Thanks for sharing. I have heard a number of educators articulating [verbally] the ideas that were encapsulated in my wheel, which is why I finally decided to just make it. We all are struggling with how to keep the humanity in learning and teaching. I’m guessing that somewhere along the chain you helped spark those ideas that are now bouncing around the educational ecosphere. As Dean Shareski has noted, we are all derivatives of others’ brilliance and sharing.
I always want to give attribution where it’s due. I’ve changed both the blog post and the graphic. See if this will work for you?
In this post, I have included the new version of my AI vicious cycle, and I also modified my original blog post and image. Please use this new image instead of my old one (and give a shout out to James too!). I also encourage you to check out James’ articles and media. He is sharing lots of good stuff!
There are so many ideas and images floating around out there, and sometimes it is extremely difficult to know where something came from, even for those of us who consider ourselves savvy Internet and social media veterans. Mistakes and oversights happen. But if we have a chance to make it right, we always should do so.
Thank you, James, for the graciousness with which you approached me, and for sparking some great educator conversations that somehow, over the many months, eventually made their way to me (even if I didn’t know it!).
by Scott McLeod | Apr 14, 2025 | Learning and Teaching, Tech Integration |
Hey, y’all, I think I have this whole ‘AI in education’ thing figured out. Am I doing this right?
[this image has been REVISED; more info here!]
Inspired by James Bedford’s AI Wheel of Death!
![Depth of Knowledge and leading PD [NAESP]](http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/NAESP-Logo-Square-2-1080x675.jpg)
by Scott McLeod | Jan 23, 2025 | Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Podcasts |
Liz Garden, my co-Fellow for the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) Center for Innovative Learning (CIL), and I had a chance to sit down at the NAESP / NASSP UNITED conference last July and talk with Erik Francis. If you’re not familiar with Erik’s work, he is a Depth of Knowledge (DOK) virtuoso. He regularly stretches my thinking about how to use and think about DOK in schools (and many schools are using it incorrectly). That NAESP podcast episode is now available. Erik is extremely practitioner-oriented and practical. Be sure to also check out his latest books!
Happy listening!
Previous NAESP CIL podcast episodes
![AI in elementary and middle schools [NAESP]](http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/NAESP-Logo-Square-1-1080x675.jpg)
by Scott McLeod | Jan 22, 2025 | Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Podcasts, Tech Integration |
Liz Garden, my co-Fellow for the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) Center for Innovative Learning (CIL), and I had a chance to talk with Holly Clark about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in elementary and middle schools. Holly is a bestselling author and speaker who is in extremely high demand regarding AI usage in schools. That NAESP podcast episode is now available. Be sure to also check out Holly’s latest book, The AI Infused Classroom. She is a wonderful thought partner!
Happy listening!
Previous NAESP CIL podcast episodes
![Building a new, student-centered school [NAESP]](http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/NAESP-Logo-Square-1080x675.jpg)
by Scott McLeod | Jan 21, 2025 | Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Podcasts |
Liz Garden, my co-Fellow for the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) Center for Innovative Learning (CIL), and I had a chance to talk with Bryan Byerlee about school redesign. Bryan is the principal of Garden City Elementary School in Cranston, Rhode Island. He shared with us how redesigning a school is a unique opportunity to empower students, shape school culture, and improve overall learning. That NAESP podcast episode is now available.
Happy listening!
Previous NAESP CIL podcast episodes
![The power of children learning outside [NAESP]](http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/NAESP-Logo-Square-1080x675.jpg)
by Scott McLeod | Dec 17, 2024 | Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Podcasts |
