Published by XQ Institute, Emerson Collective, and MeshEd with support from Betaworks.
PUBLICATION DATE: October 18, 2023. For more information or feedback please contact [email protected] and [email protected].
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This wiki compiles insights from experts in education, ed-tech, venture capital, and design thinking, aimed at understanding AI's role in education. The summit, produced by the Emerson Collective and XQ Institute in partnership with MeshEd and Betaworks, served as a platform for diverse stakeholders. It focused on actionable insights, and navigating ethical complexities and opportunities in AI.
PRE-EVENT POLL AND SENTIMENT ANALYSIS RESULTS
Between August 20th and September 30th, 2023, we conducted a comprehensive poll and sentiment analysis among attendees and various communities in our network, inviting Education and AI professionals to share their knowledge and interests. The survey was designed to be optional and anonymous, safeguarding participants' personal information. It covered a broad range of topics, segmented into six main sections:
- Professional Background: Participants identified whether they were part of academia or education and further specified their roles, such as teachers, researchers, or technologists.
- Critical Factors for Change: Attendees ranked what they perceived to be the most urgent issues in the U.S. educational system, from teachers' responsibilities to AI tools.
- Technology Familiarity: Participants rated their understanding of various technology topics, such as AI development and educational tech tools.
- Education Familiarity: This section gauged attendees' knowledge of education-related topics like project-based learning and data management in U.S. public education districts.
- AI Concerns: Participants expressed their level of concern about different aspects of AI in education, including data privacy and algorithmic bias.
- Interest and Outlook: The final sections assessed participants' interest in various AI deployment strategies in education and their overall optimism about the direction of the U.S. educational system.
The poll aimed to tailor the event's discussions to the interests and expertise of the attendees, ensuring a more focused and productive gathering. It also sought to capture the diverse perspectives on critical issues and emerging trends in both AI and education.
STAND-OUT INSIGHTS AND OVERVIEW
Optimism for the Future: We hold a hopeful vision for the future of learning, where AI plays a pivotal role in driving transformative change.
Key Factors for Change: Several elements are crucial for reshaping the U.S. educational system. Foremost among these is the emphasis on a quality curriculum, complemented by a rising interest in leveraging AI tools to support students holistically.
Challenges in Implementation: While our understanding of education and its necessary changes is profound, the actual process of procurement and deployment of AI tools into school systems presents challenges. It's imperative to ensure that only the most effective and beneficial AI applications are integrated.
Desired Outcomes: We advocate for AI tools that are unbiased and tailored to cater to the diverse needs of all students. Efficacy is built on equity, and equity is centered around access.
Alignment with Educators: Our mission is informed by the feedback and needs expressed by educators. Their priorities, such as high-quality curriculum materials, project-based learning, and effective student feedback mechanisms, resonate with the expertise of the technologists we collaborate with.
Optimism Exists
When contextualizing the current state of US Education, our audience showed there is optimism about its direction. Overall, our audience was not as concerned about AI replacing the role of educators as much as they were concerned about equitable access or algorithmic bias. About 65 percent were either neutral or not concerned about job displacement. In addition, those who identified as educators indicated high levels of interest in professional development, high-quality curriculum materials, and PBL training through the deployment of AI tools.
Interests in AI
Our audience identified curriculum, teacher capacity, and AI tools as the most critical factors to change in the U.S. education system today. Most of our educators identified in the survey showed a remarkably high interest in high-quality curriculum and AI professional development. There is a prominent gap between what teachers aspire for and what’s available. AI can be a powerful tool for educators who are well-trained in implementing these tools within their instructional practices. Over 72 percent of our audience shared that they were either extremely or moderately familiar with Generative AI tools when combined. However, over 56 percent of educators were only slightly or entirely unfamiliar when combined.
Gaps in Knowledge
Our audience reported that they were either moderately or extremely familiar with the latest education technology tools, with over two-thirds reporting roles in academia or education. Similarly, they were more familiar with the constraints of the school system—acknowledging that the top three most critical factors facing U.S. Education are curriculum, educator capacity, and mental health support. Interestingly, despite their familiarity, they seem more unaware of how products go to market and get procured by schools and districts, having a large unawareness of data management and compliance in the US education system. Surprisingly, less than half of educators (41.5 percent) reported understanding how AI systems work as a level of concern for them.
Lack of Professional Development
Most audience concerns were centered around the impact and usage of AI within their school systems. However, while concerns about data privacy were high, most within our audience did not identify local, district, school board, or federal policies as critical factors that need to change in the U.S. education system today. In fact, educators had a lower rate of concern when compared to others in all topics except for professional development, indicating that they may generally have a more favorable view of AI-powered EdTech tools. Amongst our educator respondents, they identified teacher pay, curriculum, and mental health as the three most critical factors for change.
PBL is the Pathway
Undoubtedly, the focus on student learning experiences and outcomes garnered significant attention from educators. A notable 82 percent of our audience indicated a high level of interest in mitigating the risks and unintended consequences of deploying AI in schools. Interestingly, fewer than half of the total participants indicated they were familiar with K-12 plans for implementation. However, a high level of familiarity and interest in pedagogical models, like project-based and experiential learning, coupled with an even higher interest in a competency-based system, pinpoint the convergence of many findings at the intersection of pedagogy and AI-powered tools. The feedback from our audience underscores that educators desire proper training to develop and implement meaningful learning experiences centered around improving student learning experiences.
PHOTO GALLERY
Building with Ethics and Efficacy: Guiding the Implementation of AI in Educational Solutions
Synopsis:
Educational technologies (EdTech) powered by artificial intelligence (AI) systems hold great potential to significantly transform our educational systems by improving the learning experience of students, our educators' capacities, and the efficiency of our institutions. As we engage further in this evolving landscape, the principles of ethical implementation and ongoing enhancement are vital to the successful integration of these tools into our educational landscape. To avoid unforeseen repercussions, we must avoid a laissez-faire approach by establishing a structured framework for evaluating the impact and efficacy of EdTech resources is necessary and essential. This segment outlines such a comprehensive strategy.
This year's AI summit aimed to delve deeper into the realm of EdTech effectiveness, a subject that has driven a lively discourse amongst experts and industry leaders. Over the years, the sentiments of educators and stakeholders echoed the pressing need for data-driven evaluations to inform EdTech purchasing decisions. Experts emphasize that the effectiveness of EdTech tools is intricately tied to the context of their use; traditional research methods may lag behind the rapid advancements in EdTech, rendering the findings less actionable over time. In addition, the National Institute of Health reports one voice consistently missing from this conversation is that of the students who will use these tools on a routine basis.
With these insights, our summit's second-day generative workshop was designed to acknowledge these challenges in order to propel us toward a path of responsible, human-centered design. The workshop aimed to bridge the gap between ideal usage scenarios envisioned by EdTech developers and the actual implementation in schools. By holding space for these critical discussions, we sought to foster a deeper understanding and consensus among participants on the importance of aligning EdTech design and evaluation with the real-world educational context.
The goal was to emerge with a shared language and vision about the actionable strategies that reflect a commitment to responsible design, ensuring that EdTech solutions are effective, equitable, and accessible. Through a collaborative effort, we aimed to contribute to the broader discourse on EdTech efficacy, aspiring to influence a more informed and conscientious approach to EdTech development and implementation in the educational ecosystem.
The dynamic landscape of EdTech presents a fertile ground for innovation aimed at enhancing learning outcomes and educational experiences. However, with the burgeoning integration of AI in education, it's imperative to navigate this terrain with a compass of ethics and efficacy. Insights from the Overdeck Family Foundation (Ed Tech Context Inventory Report) and EdTech Genome Project underscore the importance of methodologically sound research, user-centric design, and contextual understanding in deploying EdTech solutions. As entrepreneurs and stakeholders endeavor to weave AI into the educational fabric, adhering to a principled and evidence-based approach is quintessential to realizing impactful and equitable solutions.
Guidelines:
To ensure AI tools are both innovative and grounded in ethics, we've outlined ten action-oriented steps:
- Assess Educational Needs:
- Conduct thorough market research to understand the educational needs, challenges, and contextual variables affecting students and educators.
- Engage with educators, students, and other stakeholders to gather insights on the real-world educational environment.
- Build an Ethical Framework:
- Develop a robust ethical framework that addresses data privacy, security, consent, and inclusivity to ensure the protection of all users.
- Ensure that the AI tool is designed to provide equal access and benefits to a diverse user base.
- Focus on User Experiences:
- Employ a user-centric design approach, ensuring the AI tool is tailored to meet the needs and circumstances of the target user base.
- Involve educators and students in the design process to ensure alignment with educational goals and contextual realities.
- Create with Evidence-Based Decisions:
- Utilize frameworks like the EdTech Context Inventory to inform your AI tool's development, implementation, and evaluation.
- Incorporate insights from evidence-based research to ensure that the tool addresses identified educational challenges effectively.
- Conduct Effective Evaluations:
- Design a robust evaluation framework to assess the efficacy and ethical alignment of the AI tool in real-world educational settings.
- Ensure that the evaluation framework encompasses diverse metrics reflecting academic achievement, user engagement, and ethical compliance.
- Support and Build Educator Capacities:
- Offer professional development and support resources to educators to ensure effective implementation and integration of the AI tool.
- Provide training on not only how to use the tool but also on how to navigate ethical considerations associated with its use.
- Engage in a Continuous Improvement Cycle:
- Establish continuous monitoring mechanisms and feedback loops with the user community to gather real-time feedback.
- Utilize this feedback to make iterative improvements to the AI tool, ensuring it remains relevant, effective, and ethically aligned.
- Be Transparent and Accountable:
- Commit to transparency in sharing evaluation findings and maintain open channels of communication with all stakeholders.
- Ensure accountability for the ethical and effective deployment of the AI tool, taking corrective actions as necessary based on feedback and evaluation findings.
- Engage Deeply With Your Networks:
- Collaborate with educational institutions, governmental bodies, and other stakeholders to broaden the impact and reach of the AI tool.
- Seek partnerships with research organizations to continuously evaluate and enhance the ethical and efficacious deployment of the AI tool.
- Plan for the Future:
- Plan for the scalability and sustainability of the AI tool, exploring grants, partnerships, and other funding opportunities to support its long-term deployment and impact.
By centering these steps around the design process, entrepreneurs and stakeholders can significantly augment the likelihood of deploying AI tools in education that are not only innovative and efficacious but are also grounded in ethical principles, thereby contributing positively to the educational ecosystem.
Day 1: AI & Education 2023 Synopsis
On September 30th, 2023, an AM symposium entitled "Can we trust AI with our kids?" was held at Betaworks, 29 Little W 12th St NYC, as part of the opening of the weekend activities. The event, attended by 200 people, aimed to bridge the gap between ed-tech developers, educators, policymakers, and students, fostering a collaborative environment to explore the potential of AI in education. It showcased a variety of AI learning products through curated demos, spanning early childhood to adult learning, facilitated by leading ed-tech designers, educational leaders, and students among others. The interactive nature of the symposium, enriched by real-time polling and an afternoon reflection session, encouraged insightful discussions on the merits and risks of AI deployment in classrooms. The diverse attendee list encompassing students, educators, AI builders, and investors, alongside a wide spectrum of AI-for-learning companies, enriched the dialogue. The continuous engagement, from pre-event information collection to post-event polling, highlighted a concerted effort to harness collective insights for thoughtful integration of AI into educational systems, embodying a blend of curiosity, creativity, and community engagement. For Full Report click here.
Day 2: Advisory Workshop & Canvas Overview
In light of AI's rapid advancements, the static high school education system exacerbates existing shortcomings. The summit moved beyond theoretical discussions to focus on actionable solutions for making education more relevant to educators and learners alike. Utilizing an Impact-Effort Matrix, the event guided collective decision-making, enabling participants to rank solutions from 'Low Effort/High Impact' to 'High Effort/Low Impact.'
The summit convened a diverse group of 50 experts, including educators, design thinkers, and technologists, fostering multidisciplinary dialogue to identify overlapping areas of interest and concern.
Our AI Design Summit assembles experts from diverse fields to address the urgent challenge of modernizing high school education in the age of artificial intelligence. Employing an Impact-Effort Matrix, the summit focuses on actionable solutions while fostering a multidisciplinary dialogue. The theories of biologist Rupert Sheldrake and philosopher Charles Eisenstein serve as major sources of inspiration for this initiative. Sheldrake's concepts of "morphic fields" and "morphic resonance" offer a novel framework for collective intelligence, aligning with our aim to map solutions based on impact and effort. Eisenstein's philosophical insights provide a holistic lens through which we navigate the ethical landscape of AI in education.
This gathering served not just as a problem-solving forum but also as a diagnostic tool for the current state of AI in high school education, as observed by this discrete community. The aim was to use this collective insight to navigate AI's challenges and opportunities, refining our collective direction.
The Final Roadmap team report summaries, which you can read below, shed light on the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize high school education. Central to their insights is a student-centric approach, emphasizing personalized and tailored learning experiences. A holistic perspective on education was evident, with teams advocating for comprehensive transcripts that capture not just academic achievements but also life skills and emotional development. Equity and access were paramount, with teams proposing innovative solutions to bridge resource and opportunity gaps. AI was seen as a linchpin, with teams suggesting tools that enhance personalization, provide real-time feedback, and optimize learning. Despite the unique nuances of each team's approach, there's a shared vision: leveraging AI to craft a high school education system that's equitable, effective, and transformative for every student.
All workshop details and collected artifacts have been made publicly available in a spirit of open collaboration.
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The below ARE NOT in any rank order, merely numbered by solutions for ease of identification to the Impact vs. Effort axis above.
🔴 Red Team:
- Orchestration of Learning
- Description: A system where students craft their learning agendas based on experiences and competencies identified through their learning interests and goals. An AI system then analyzes this user-generated data, guiding school decisions to align with students' learning desires, creating a more personalized educational experience.
- Matrix Position: Very High impact, High effort
- Open Source EdTech Consortium
- Description: A collaborative platform where schools share and access developments with AI tools. This consortium allows institutions to contribute, utilize, and upload AI tools in a dynamic system, helping schools meet their specific and evolving educational needs in a shared innovative space.
- Matrix Position: Low impact, Moderate effort
- Engagement Map
- Description: A tool that tracks students' daily engagement with competencies, learning, and subjective experiences. Using AI, it gathers user-generated, subjective inputs. It analyzes them into objective data points to provide insights into learning patterns, helping schools and teachers plan more effective learning experiences aligned with key performance indicators.
- Matrix Position: High impact, Very High effort
FOR DETAILED ARTIFACTS & FINAL ROADMAP, See Links below:
🔵 Blue Team:
- Aligned Structures to Portrait of a Graduate
- Description: Envision a system where AI helps to create real-time feedback on student learning to guide them through their educational journey, ensuring alignment with a graduate's desired outcomes and profiles. This shift promotes a more personalized and student-centric learning environment where teachers transition from traditional roles to act as learning coaches.
- Matrix Position: Moderately High impact, Moderate effort
- New Funding Models
- Description: Challenge the conventional funding models based on seat time requirements. Instead, advocate for a more dynamic system that allocates funds based on individual student needs and their learning outcomes. This approach ensures that resource distribution is more equitable and effective, leading to better student success.
- Matrix Position: Very High impact, High effort
- ✅ Odyssey: An Open Architecture Queryable Learning Portrait and Evolution of the Transcript
- Description: A NATURAL LANGUAGE WHOLE PERSON EVALUATION: Rethink the traditional transcript and diploma structures. Introduce a more comprehensive system that includes human testimonials, capturing stories and achievements that speak to a student's academic and professional growth. This approach offers a richer, more complete view of a student's journey and accomplishments. Odyssey is an open-architecture framework that captures a student's learning journey beyond traditional transcripts, yielding three benefits:
- A more holistic representation of students.
- Enhanced decision-making for employers and colleges.
- Richer data for schools to refine curriculum. Beyond just grades or badges, that may not capture the nuance or storytelling of the whole learner as a diagnostic.
- Matrix Position: Very High impact, High Effort
BACKGROUND: Advanced machine learning models, trained on vast datasets, can now understand and generate nuanced text. This enables a shift from rigid educational transcripts to a more comprehensive depiction of a student's experiences. By processing natural language entries, these models provide a deeper insight into a student's skills and interests. This not only paints a truer picture of students but also assists employers, colleges, and educators in making better decisions and curriculum adjustments.
FOR DETAILED ARTIFACTS & FINAL ROADMAP, See Links below:
🟢 Green Team:
- ✅ AI as a Knowledge Documenter
- Description: Transform the perception of AI from a tool that assists to one that meticulously documents accumulated knowledge. Instead of AI formulating ideas for students, it should provide constructive feedback on the ideas they generate, acting more as a scribe and less as a co-pilot in the learning journey.
- Matrix Position: Very High impact, High effort
- National Laboratory Schools System
- Description: Establish a nationwide system of laboratory schools serving as innovation hubs. These schools would be dedicated to incubating, testing, and refining new educational models and pedagogical ideas, ensuring that the best practices are identified and shared across the educational landscape.
- Matrix Position: Incredibly high effort, Moderate impact
FOR DETAILED ARTIFACTS & FINAL ROADMAP, See Links below:
🟡 Yellow Team:
- AI Career Path Bot
- Description: Develop an AI-powered bot to guide students in their career exploration. Students can identify and build a career path filled with meaning, purpose, and understanding by showcasing relevant skills and courses. This tool bridges the gap between education and real-world career aspirations.
- Matrix Position: High impact, Moderate effort
- On-Request Community Model
- Description: Embrace the principles of the gig-economy to foster community involvement in education. By incentivizing participation and using an AI-embedded matching app, communities can flexibly offer their expertise and resources, enriching the educational experience for students.
- Matrix Position: Moderate impact, Very High effort
- Dynamic Visualization Platform
- Description: Create a vibrant, interactive platform that visually represents each school community's unique characteristics and dynamics. This tool would allow individuals to see their roles, contributions, and the intricate systems around them, fostering a sense of belonging and understanding.
- Matrix Position: Moderately High impact, Moderate effort
FOR DETAILED ARTIFACTS & FINAL ROADMAP, See Links below:
💗 Pink Team:
- Student Exploration & Lesson Plan Integration Tool
- Description: A tool that initiates and supports student exploration, capturing their learning styles, interests, and passions. Using frameworks like Ikigai, it identifies what students enjoy, excel at, and can contribute to the world. The tool then aggregates this data and insights from teachers to suggest lesson plans, balancing the competing tensions of student interests, school standards, and teacher planning capacity.
- Matrix Position: Moderate impact, somewhat low effort
- Rotating Spotlight & Engagement Contextualizer
- Description: A dynamic system that not only gathers information on student understanding but also tailors lesson plans based on individual interests within the constraints of the lesson's goals and through multimodal exploration. The aim is to augment and support the teacher's efforts rather than replace them, ensuring lessons resonate more with students.
- Matrix Position: Moderate impact, moderate effort
- Modular Lesson Plan Constructor
- Description: A tool aggregating student data from various sources, including hands-on activities and external experiences, to act as a recommendation system, suggesting modular components for lesson plans. For example, if students express interest in a particular topic, the tool can recommend related hands-on activities or external resources. The MVP focuses on optimizing learning through alignment with student interests and engagement.
- Matrix Position: Moderate impact, Somewhat low effort
- Adaptive Text Alignment Tool
- Description: A system that listens to student discussions, gauging their interests and skill levels. It then aligns texts to the appropriate level for students, ensuring they are engaged and challenged appropriately. The tool suggests various modular activities to guide students into reading complex texts, from reading sets of related texts to engaging in debates. It aims to address the challenge of student engagement and ensure all students, regardless of their level, are catered to.
- Matrix Position: Low impact, High effort
FOR DETAILED ARTIFACTS & FINAL ROADMAP, See Links below:
Team Summaries from Day 2 Workshops
The summaries of the different team journeys provide valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities within the high school education system, and how artificial intelligence can impact them. These summaries illuminate several common themes that emerged from the teams' work, showcasing their collective focus on reshaping and revolutionizing education.
A key theme that resonates across all team journeys is the student-centric approach. Each team recognizes the importance of placing the needs and success of students at the forefront of educational innovation. They propose solutions that prioritize personalization, tailoring the learning experience to individual student's interests, strengths, and aspirations. By empowering students to take ownership of their education, these teams aim to foster engagement, persistence, and agency in their academic pursuits.
Another common theme is the emphasis on holistic development. The teams recognize that education extends beyond traditional academic measures and should encompass the holistic growth of students. They propose ideas such as comprehensive transcripts that capture a broader range of skills and competencies, including life skills and social-emotional development. By considering the whole student, these teams aim to create a more well-rounded educational experience that prepares students for success in various aspects of life.
Equity and access are recurring themes in the team journeys. The teams acknowledge the existing disparities in resources, opportunities, and outcomes within the education system. They propose innovative solutions to address these inequities and ensure that every student has access to a quality education. This includes designing pathways and support mechanisms that cater to students with diverse backgrounds, abilities, and post-high school aspirations. The team's commitment to creating an inclusive educational landscape reflects their vision of equity and social justice in education.
Artificial intelligence (AI) emerges as a powerful tool for transforming education in team journeys. The teams leverage the potential of AI to enhance teaching and learning experiences. They propose AI-powered tools and platforms that support personalized learning, adaptive resources, and comprehensive guidance for students and educators. These AI-driven solutions aim to improve engagement, provide real-time feedback, and optimize educational outcomes. By harnessing the capabilities of AI, the teams envision a future where technology complements and enhances the educational experience.
While each team built product concepts within the nuances of their workshops, the common themes that emerged from each of their journeys reflect a shared vision of transforming high school education. Their efforts demonstrate a commitment to creating meaningful and impactful educational experiences that prepare students for the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. By reshaping the high school education system, and leveraging it through the advancements of artificial intelligence, the teams have collectively identified a frame for reference and guidance of future AI-powered solutions built on equity, efficacy, and open source practices. A framework where education through AI is not only meaningful but also transformative for every student.
Summary of Blue Team’s Journey
🔵 The Blue Team's Workshop Journey honed in on pivotal challenges and potential solutions within the high school education landscape.
They pinpointed three primary concerns:
- The prioritization of adult convenience over genuine student success in scheduling.
- The inefficacy of counseling and advisory support.
- Persistent disparities in access to quality curriculum, courses, and educators.
🔲 Through a process of reframing, the team pursued answers to:
- How can student success and needs be prioritized over adult convenience in scheduling?
- How can counseling and advisory support be made more effective for all students?
- How can equitable access to top-tier educational resources be ensured for every student?
🌅 Venturing into "blue sky" thinking, the team proposed harnessing generative AI to craft flexible schedules, developing holistic transcripts that transcend traditional grading, and introducing a diploma system that underscores life skills and holistic human development.
In response to these challenges, the Blue Team introduced "ODYSSEY: Your Lifelong Learning Companion." This AI-driven platform aspires to revolutionize the educational journey, acting as a personal life coach for students, guiding them through their unique academic and career trajectories. ODYSSEY transforms traditional transcripts into rich narratives, painting a fuller picture of students, encompassing not just their knowledge but their aspirations and identities. The vision is to make education more personalized and human-centric, opening up a world of possibilities for learners.
The Blue Team's journey underscores their dedication to a student-centric educational paradigm, leveraging AI and innovative tech to enrich learning experiences and champion holistic growth. Their proposed solutions not only address the challenges identified but also paint a picture of a more inclusive, adaptable, and impactful high school education framework.
Summary of Red Team’s Journey
🔴 The Red Team's Workshop Journey focused on addressing key problems and opportunities in the high school education system.
They identified three top problems:
- Challenges in adopting innovation and effectively using technology
- Student disengagement
- The need to modernize the curriculum for relevance.
🔲 Through reframing these problems into opportunity statements, the team aimed to:
- Streamline the adoption of innovative practices
- Enhance student engagement
- Align the curriculum with real-world applicability.
🌅 The Red Team’s "blue sky" solutions involved leveraging generative AI to create personalized learning experiences, implementing peer-to-peer teaching models for enhanced understanding and engagement, and re-evaluating educational standards for relevance. The team recognized the potential of generative AI in disrupting the relationship between school funding and educational quality, allowing schools with fewer resources to provide high-quality experiences.
To address these challenges, the Red Team proposed a digital platform that utilizes generative AI to analyze student engagement and performance data. The platform offers personalized learning paths, real-time feedback for educators, and a comprehensive view of student progress. It aims to transition from a time-based to a competency-based education model, focusing on mastery of skills and content.
By empowering educators with actionable insights and facilitating student-centered learning experiences, the Red Team's proposed product seeks to maximize student engagement and promote lifelong learning. The team's journey reflects a commitment to innovation, equity, and the transformation of high school education.
Summary of Green Team’s Journey
🟢 The Green Team's Workshop Journey delved deep into the intricacies of high school education, identifying challenges and brainstorming innovative solutions.
They spotlighted three main issues:
- The prevalent lack of student engagement and relevance in learning experiences.
- The challenge of capturing and maintaining student attention, especially in the age of technology.
- The complexities of scaling innovation within high schools without compromising individuality and curiosity.
🔲 In their reframing process, the team transformed these challenges into proactive questions:
- How can we craft learning experiences that resonate with students and that they genuinely care about?
- How can we harness the power of technology and AI to bolster student motivation and attention?
- How can we make innovative high school practices appealing to broader educational systems?
🌅 The Green Team’s exploration into “blue sky” solutions focused on the possibilities of establishing a system of national laboratory schools, empowering students through AI tools, and reimagining the core organizing principle of education to prioritize social connections in learning. These ideas were generated as part of the team's brainstorming session, where they aimed to think outside the box and push the boundaries of traditional education. The team recognized the need for innovative approaches and solutions to address the challenges and opportunities present in the education system.
In response to these insights, the Green Team introduced "IdeaGen," a groundbreaking idea generator designed to amass a diverse library of instrumented project-based tasks. IdeaGen seeks to unify the educational landscape, providing a platform where various educational frameworks can coalesce and evolve. Its features range from a dynamic task library and adaptive framework mapping to competency alignment and a collaborative workspace. The ultimate goal of IdeaGen is to elevate project-based learning, ensuring a holistic, competency-centric education for students across different educational paradigms.
The Green Team's journey is a testament to their commitment to reimagining high school education. By integrating generative AI, they offer a fresh perspective on learning experiences, setting the stage for a more engaged, relevant, and innovative future in education.
Summary of Yellow Team’s Journey
🟡 The Yellow Team's Workshop Journey delved deep into the intricacies of high school education, unearthing challenges and crafting innovative solutions.
They spotlighted three main challenges:
- The prevailing emphasis on theoretical knowledge at the expense of practical skill development.
- The detrimental effects of a grade-centric system on student motivation.
- The prevalent lack of student autonomy leading to disengagement.
🔲 In reframing these challenges, the team sought to:
- Craft experiences that resonate with students and align with their purpose.
- Revamp the curriculum to mirror students' passions and future aspirations.
- Transition from a compliance-driven teaching model to one that's student-centric.
- Ensure a balance between foundational academic subjects and applied knowledge.
🌅 Venturing into visionary thinking, the Yellow Team proposed an AI-empowered pathway. This pathway would seamlessly blend the core high school curriculum with community involvement, mentorship, and other enriching experiences. An integral part of this vision was an AI bot, designed to converse with students, helping them unearth career interests and related opportunities. The envisioned platform would be flexible, allowing students to tailor their educational journey based on evolving interests and experiences.
In culmination, the Yellow Team introduced an AI-powered platform, designed to guide students through their academic journey, aligning it with career aspirations. The platform boasts two primary interfaces: a conversational AI bot and an immersive pathway experience. While the bot engages students in meaningful dialogues about their aspirations, the immersive pathway offers a tailored educational journey, encompassing core curriculum, community initiatives, mentorships, and informal learning avenues. This platform aims to reignite engagement, instill persistence, and grant students agency in their educational pursuits.
The Yellow Team's journey, with its profound insights and groundbreaking solutions, stands as a testament to their commitment to reshaping high school education, ensuring it's both meaningful and impactful for every student.
Summary of Pink Team’s Journey
🌸 The Pink Team's Workshop Journey delved into the multifaceted challenges of the high school education system, aiming to craft innovative solutions that resonate with both educators and students.
They pinpointed three primary challenges:
- The pressing need for support for students grappling with grade-level literacy.
- The scarcity of pathways tailored for students not pursuing college.
- The prevalent hesitation among teachers regarding the integration of AI tools in classrooms.
🔲 In their reframing efforts, the team posed the following questions:
- How can we bolster support mechanisms for students facing literacy challenges?
- How can we curate diverse educational pathways that cater to all students, irrespective of their post-high school aspirations?
- How can we dispel the apprehensions of educators and equip them to seamlessly integrate AI-driven tools?
🌅 The Pink Team’s exploration into “blue sky” solutions proposed several ideas to leverage AI in education, aiming to create a personalized and immersive learning experience. One idea involved an AI-infused learning tool that aligns lesson plans with student interests, ensuring a tailored and engaging educational journey. Another idea focused on an innovative AI-powered tool that captures classroom discussions, identifies areas of misunderstanding, and provides real-time suggestions to enhance classroom interactions. Additionally, they suggested the development of a holistic platform that combines AI-driven text analysis, student interest aggregation, and customized recommendations to create a dynamic and responsive curriculum. These ideas showcase the team's commitment to harnessing AI technology to revolutionize the educational landscape.
The Pink Team's final proposal was an AI-empowered tool designed to capture, analyze, and enhance classroom discussions. This tool, with its ability to identify competencies, interests, and provide real-time feedback, stands as a beacon for educators, enabling them to offer personalized instruction and foster a dynamic learning environment. By harnessing voice recognition and AI-driven insights, this tool aims to elevate learning outcomes and amplify student engagement.
In summation, the Pink Team's journey, with its profound insights and groundbreaking solutions, stands as a testament to their commitment to reshaping high school education. Their proposed product paints a promising future, one where education is personalized, engaging, and primed for the challenges of the 21st century.
About Emerson Collective
EMERSON COLLECTIVE is an organization designed to develop opportunities and solutions in education, environment, immigration, and health equity through philanthropy, creativity, and investments.
We work in pursuit of a world where every individual has access to opportunity, health, and well-being.
We bring together entrepreneurs and academics, artists, community leaders, and more to build solutions that spur measurable, lasting change. We work collectively to make the greatest difference possible.
About XQ
XQ Institute is the nation’s leading organization dedicated to rethinking the high school experience so that every student graduates ready to succeed in life. Our vision is for young people everywhere to have vibrant high schools where students can grow to the fullest as civic participants, critical readers, proactive problem solvers, original thinkers, generous collaborators, and learners for life.
We work in communities throughout the country, with individual schools and entire school systems, to help them dream big about what high school could be, turn their innovative ideas into action, and create more rigorous and equitable schools.
About MeshEd
Students learn best by connecting their learning to real-world interests, challenges, and opportunities.
MeshEd provides affordable project-based learning curriculum and professional development for teachers. Their curriculum brings together students from different socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds to build and digitally archive passion projects — and to share works of imagination, social justice, and environmental stewardship.
MeshEd is closing the opportunity gap of access to courses that prepare K12 learners for fulfilling 21st-century careers.
About Betaworks
Betaworks invests, accelerates, and builds companies and projects from scratch — our focus right now is on AI and Augmentation, LLMs, NLP, web3 rails, and applied machine learning.
Since 2008, Betaworks has built products from the ground up, like Giphy, Dots, Bitly, and Tweetdeck, and invested in many amazing companies, including Venmo, Superplastic, Anchor, Gimlet, Rec Room and Hugging Face. They believe fiercely that human potential can be realized through technology so long as we place what is human at the core of what we build.
References and Resources
Books:
Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence Hardcover – November 15, 2022 by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb
The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values 1st Edition by Brian Christian
Reports & Peer Reviewed Papers:
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Teaching and Learning - Office of Education Technology, U.S. Department of Education, 2023
A Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights for Education, Kathryn Conrad, CriticalAI.org, 2023
Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights: Making Automated Systems Work For The American People, The Office of Science and Technology Policy, 2022
“Unpacking the ‘Black Box’ of AI in Education,” Gillani, Eynon, Chiabaut, & Finkel, Educational Technology & Society, vol 26, no 1, Jan 2023, 99-111
Generative AI and the future of education - Stefania Giannini, UNESCO, July 2023
“I Do Not think It Means What You Think It Means: Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Work & Scale,” Kevin Scott, Daedalus, vol 151, no 2, AI & Society, Spring 2022, 75-84
AI and education: Guidance for Policy-Makers - UNESCO, 2021
Articles & Blogs:
“How Schools Can Survive (and Maybe Even Thrive) With A.I. This Fall,” Kevin Roose, The New York Times, Aug. 24th, 2023
“AI Will Transform Teaching and Learning. Let’s Get it Right.” Claire Chen, Mar. 9th 2023
"A Map of Generative AI for Education", Laurence Holt, Medium, June 2, 2023
"Incorporating Generative AI in High School Classrooms", Edward Montalvo, XQ Institute, June 2023
“The End of High School English,” Daniel Herman, The Atlantic, Dec. 9th, 2022
“The College Essay is Dead,” Stephen Marche, The Atlantic, Dec. 6th, 2022
Podcasts:
“Can AI help close the education gap? Sal Khan thinks so,” Bill Gates, GatesNotes, August 10th, 2023
Classroom 2050: Unleashing AI, XR, & Gaming, a16z Podcast, Aug 2023
Generative AI is here. Who Should Control It? Hardfork from the New York Times
Technically Optimistic: Education and AI. What does AI have to teach us?, with Raffi Krikorian produced by Emerson Collective
1." Why It’s ‘Imperative’ That Edtech Providers Prove Their Products Work” EdSurge, 2023:
2.What Data Will Show That Edtech ‘Works’? EdSurge (2016)
3.EdTech Evidence: 2023 Mid-Year Report, EdSurge, 2023
4. LinkedIn and AI, "How do you manage and analyze the project evaluation data that you collect?”
5. EdTech Context Inventory: Factor Analyses for Ten Instruments to Measure EdTech Implementation Context Features, Overdeck Family Foundation:
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