Episode 79: STEAM MACHINE RETURNS!

Steve, M.Ed. (00:01)
Hey friends, welcome back to Under the Hat. We're sitting here at episode seven, nine, almost episode 80. I'm your cohost, Steve Martinez, and always I am joined by the lovely.

Sophie, M.Ed. (00:14)
Sophie's! Yans! I guess I should say my last name.

Steve, M.Ed. (00:17)
Well, you normally do

you normally do just say Sophie, but yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sophie, M.Ed. (00:22)
I do, yeah. I just realized

that you actually say Steve Martinez and I was like, maybe I should actually say my own last name. well. I'm Sophie, I'm your cohost and I'm thrilled to be here with you all today. Welcome and thanks for tuning in.

Steve, M.Ed. (00:36)
Yeah, Sophie, I'm super excited about this episode. I believe this is, to my knowledge, the second time we've had guests return to a pod ⁓ and to the show. So I'm super excited to dive in. And it's a topic that you know that has my heart, ⁓ at least I think so, project-based learning ⁓ and looking at STEAM and all of those fun things that we could be doing with our students. So super pumped.

Sophie, M.Ed. (01:03)
Yeah, what's top of mind for us today is our returning guests, Tara and John. It is so good to have these two back under the hat. You might remember them from season two, episode 34, where we dug into the steam machine. And we've been looking forward to a round two ever since. Tara and John are the real deal, each bringing over two decades of experience to their roles as PD specialists in New York.

They've spent their careers moving away from one size fits all teaching, focusing instead on hands-on project-based learning that actually sticks. Hear, hear. They've been literally

writing the book on it and have written the books on it, ⁓ co-authoring the tapas approach to project-based learning, which helped educators navigate the transformative power of PBL through a culinary lens, which is what we talked about the last time they were on. And whether they're presenting at ISTE or helping teachers in their own district design authentic learning opportunities, their focus is always on empowering the person at the front of the classroom.

When they aren't innovating, they're back home in New York soaking up every second with their families. Tara and John, it's been a minute since we've last spoke. In October 23rd of 2024, what have you two been up to since then?

Tara Koehler (02:26)
writing, writing, writing, that's what we've been up to. We decided after running some in-service courses with the first edition of the Topper's approach that some changes we hoped we wanted to make to the book, right? And so when you want to make changes to a book, guess what? We put out a second edition. ⁓ We decided that

We didn't give enough time or credit to community partnerships in PBL. So we wanted to just dedicate an entire chapter to that. So in our second edition of the book, you'll find a whole additional chapter dedicated to just community partnerships. The other thing we realized with that first edition in our coursework with our teachers was ⁓ they...

They wanted to get to that end product right away. They had a hard time going through, ⁓ you know, the small bites and leaving that product a little bit later. So seeing, you know, being the boots on the ground, seeing how they were working through the process of the planning in the first book, we actually decided to take ⁓ the authenticity in real world products and pull that up to that first part in the book.

Because teachers just weren't getting past it. So we listened we adjusted and we put out the second edition in It was November Yep, November the second edition came out under a new label under steam machine innovations, which is our own personal imprint And I'll let John kind of talk about the other part of what we've been up to in our writing writing writing

Steve, M.Ed. (03:50)
Thank you.

John Sammon (04:09)
Ahem.

This one is really near and dear to the heart. think Tapas, it's your first, right? It's your first baby that comes out. So of course you love it. You know, it's awesome, but it's very framework, right? And it's good because it's very practical, very meaningful. This one is really near and dear to the heart because of what's happening globally, right? We're living in the land of AI. So this new project that we just published is Beyond the Algorithm, which we're really excited about.

Steve, M.Ed. (04:25)
Thank you.

John Sammon (04:43)
⁓ So again, as Tara noted that we are ⁓ under our own label, Steam Machine Innovations, we're really excited and want to give props to Matt Miller, ditched that textbook. He wrote the forward for us for this particular project. it was awesome. What I love about his forward was he captured the essence of what the book is really about. And so there's like three real parts to this book. I mean, we lay it out practically beyond the algorithm.

Steve, M.Ed. (04:56)
Mmm

John Sammon (05:10)
And it's set up for like, what is PBL and AI and then the teacher facing part and then the student facing part. But really I've been kind of thinking about this and getting ready, right, to come on your podcast. And it's really the idea of three main parts of like, how are humans meaningfully in the loop, right? Defining, questioning, deciding. PBL is your structure. It's real, it's public, it requires thinking, not just answers. And then redefining what it actually means to be educated today. And so project-based learning.

with AI and beyond the algorithm, is there a new project? This was actually happening while we were working on Tapas, because the AI was coming in and we were experimenting and we're trying. And so that's the other project that we just published and we're really excited about that. We'll have a book signing that's going to be coming up on May 15th. So a quick shout out. I have my buddy here, so Sloop Brewing. We're going to be doing it at a brewery, so we'll be really excited.

Steve, M.Ed. (06:01)
Hmm.

Tara Koehler (06:06)
You

Steve, M.Ed. (06:07)
Hahaha

John Sammon (06:09)
Unconventional book signing for this one.

Tara Koehler (06:11)
Yeah.

Steve, M.Ed. (06:12)
No, it's good. Like you can do a book signing anywhere, right? Like, I'm here. Let's do it. Yeah.

John Sammon (06:14)
Yep.

Tara Koehler (06:15)
Yeah.

John Sammon (06:16)
So it's a happy hour. We're going to do it as a happy hour.

Steve, M.Ed. (06:19)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's phenomenal. John I will Tara I I forget which one of you kind of hit on this but like ⁓ one of you kind of talked about jumping the gun to the end product, right? And and that is like I just got done talking to ⁓ my interns about that because we were you know, I was running a class for them and we were we were covering PBL and ⁓

John Sammon (06:30)
Ahem.

Tara Koehler (06:33)
Mm-hmm.

Steve, M.Ed. (06:47)
I don't know about you two, like oftentimes like people go into it with not understanding what we mean by a project based learning experience, right? And so like, for me, it was like, I don't, cared less about the project and more about the journey. ⁓ And so I really love like you leaning into that of like not rushing to the end, but I think you use the term like bite size, like what is going on from a bite size standpoint.

And I love that you use bite size because it makes it seem like it's way obtainable for anyone.

Tara Koehler (07:19)
Well, that's the whole premise. Yeah. The whole premise is, you know, making it digestible. know, PBL can seem really overwhelming. and you know, when John and I, you know, we've been doing PBL together for seven years in our district and we're really proud of the journey that we've taken our teachers on. And we were in many, many classrooms, but bringing the AI piece into it.

John Sammon (07:20)
That's the whole premise of the topic, right? Small bites.

Tara Koehler (07:48)
has elevated the work we've been able to do with the teachers in a way that we weren't able to do before. Like, it's capacity. So like, we're two people with 10 elementary schools. That is a huge undertaking. So where we might have been, you know, in let's say 20 classrooms, now we're able to be in, you know, even triple, quadruple the amount of classrooms because of

how we can leverage AI as a co-designer ⁓ just gives us more time to actually be in front of the students side by side with the teachers. And so these books really work in tandem together, ⁓ which is really, really a nice thing for teachers to have in their hands. It's like, okay, the TAPA's approach is going to make you feel just less overwhelmed by the planning process of PBL. When you do take it down into those smaller plates,

smaller bites and then, ⁓ as John said, the beyond the algorithm, that's just going to leverage the capacity and efficiency of the teacher and then bringing more critical thinking in for the student.

Steve, M.Ed. (08:46)
Mm-hmm.

John Sammon (09:00)
You know, to add onto what she was saying, Steve, going back to the end in mind, right, that we want the product and we want to take a look at it. Tara had said that it can seem overwhelming. Let's just be candid, right? PBL is overwhelming. It requires a lot of design choices. It's not, it's not a factory worker who just stands there and reads a script. ⁓ and so it really requires the teacher to be in depth in their thinking and their planning and it's designing learning experiences. It's not just telling children things. So.

When we turn around and say it can be overwhelming, it absolutely is. Even for us who live and breathe it on a regular basis, it just requires an individual who just sees education in that light. I can stand and tell them things, open up the script and read the book. But if I decide that I want to design learning experiences for my children, because I want them to go different places than that, then that's what I'm just choosing to do as a human being as an educator. It's really, it's a philosophical choice.

Steve, M.Ed. (09:43)
Mm.

Tara Koehler (09:58)
And we find like, we want teachers to go through the process before getting to that end product. But in the rewrite of the TOPPAS approach, like, you'll see it's just get your idea of what that end product might be. And we go through the process of vetting through our standards and who are our partnerships, what are the resources we're going to use. And that original idea for final product may evolve and go through some

know iterations and it may change at the end but we just found that they had to think about that what could that thing be at the end before they could get through it but it did it went through an iterative process what you think it is today it may change tomorrow through that planning.

Steve, M.Ed. (10:44)
Thank

John Sammon (10:48)
There was a teacher

Sophie, M.Ed. (10:49)
Thanks.

John Sammon (10:49)
I love. I'm sorry, Sophie.

Sophie, M.Ed. (10:52)
Sorry, I was just going to say that I actually really liked that you did that because for me and my brain, was thinking, okay, get because Steve has been trying to like, I'm on the PBL train. I am. I think it's amazing. I just struggle specifically with like the community partnerships aspect and the like guiding them to that final product. But what you said is like you put that final product in the front of the book now. So like you're thinking about that. And I like that because it's like backwards design.

Steve, M.Ed. (11:18)
Thank you.

Sophie, M.Ed. (11:21)
and that big picture understanding before you start breaking things down. You know where you're going. You know what that goal is ⁓ type of thing. So I think that was brilliant. And the fact that you listened to your teachers, you did some workshops and you listened to the people that were trying to do this. I think that is amazing that you're doing that. Second edition.

John Sammon (11:41)
⁓

There was a teacher, she was like, where do you guys come up with the ideas for this? Like the products and stuff. And it's like, well, look at your standards and where do the standards live in the real world, right? So it's asking them to do X, Y and Z. Okay, well, what does that look like and sound like in the real world? That's telling you the public product. It's telling you the industry that you're going into. So you were talking about that hard time finding community partners. mean, AI can leverage that really fast for you. ⁓ We talk about it in the second.

Tara Koehler (12:08)
Yeah.

Right. was just going to say that with.

John Sammon (12:12)
And the second project, but

it's so quick and easy with AI where you're like, okay, so here's the standards. Here's where I see this living in the real world. Who's a natural fit for this from local organizations to people who are family members that you can bring in. So when you think community partners, Sophie, like think in multiple levels, think of, okay, there's this big grand version of a corporation that we want to work with, or who's the mom and pop that are part of my classroom that can come in and be part of it. Who are.

the staff that are within the building that can be part of it. I mean, we're leveraging actually our PR and our finance people in-house in the district to be part of this financial literacy rocket project that we're working on with some fourth graders. And so that's like right in-house. So it makes it really easy. We use ourselves as community partners.

Steve, M.Ed. (12:58)
Thank

Tara Koehler (13:02)
And like, there's that balance, right? Of what do I as a human, what are my original ideas? And then what can AI provide me? So, you know, we came up with, okay, let's use our in-house people, but there have been ⁓ community partnerships. Like when you use the prompts correctly in AI and help it generate partnerships, you look at what that AI output is and you're like, I would have never thought.

to reach out to that business or that kind of business for this project. And so again, it's a balance. It's like, okay, I have these original ideas and the AI is giving me these ideas. Which ones am I gonna pull in? What am I gonna use, not use? A lot of critical thinking goes into that.

John Sammon (13:47)
It actually even offers you some suggestions as Tara said, like I wasn't even aware there were some projects that we're doing and we kind of leverage it through AI. I wasn't even aware that some of those existed locally in our community. So I was like, wow, I didn't even know that. So it was awesome to get that insight because AI is all over the place, right? It's got its hands in everything.

Steve, M.Ed. (13:59)
Thank

Yeah.

Yeah. So if you, if you don't mind sharing, I, cause I have a tool in my mind of how I would, how I'm currently using this in the sense of like, how is AI supporting community partnerships? And like it, think John, like to your point, like it just, I didn't know that existed in my community. So I'm curious, like where you're pointing folks in terms of like, are you pointing them straight to just like general places? Like, ⁓

chat GPT, your Gemini, or are you pointing them to like other things, like maybe like school AI as an example?

John Sammon (14:43)
So in the book, we actually target three. Chat, right, is generally student facing, or I'm sorry, chat is usually teacher facing. We never put students in front of it. And then we use BRIC. In the book, we talk about BRIC and school AI in particular. We reference Matt Miller, because Matt Miller kind of keeps an updated running log of various AIs and what their functions are. And so that's not really what we're in the business of. We're in the business of looking at how does AI elevate PBL. ⁓

Tara Koehler (14:44)
all of the above. ⁓

Steve, M.Ed. (14:52)
Right, right.

Sophie, M.Ed. (14:53)
Mm.

Steve, M.Ed. (14:56)
⁓ Okay.

John Sammon (15:13)
know, chasing every latest and greatest AI that's out there. So those are the three that we reference, which is chat, brisk, and school AI.

Tara Koehler (15:20)
And like, you know, in the school district, right, we have to be in compliance with the education laws for this to, you know, keep kids safe and protected. So, you know, more recently, we've been both using some Gemini. Like, you know, we had some limitations. Like if we want kids to be generating images for something, know, brisk isn't gonna do that for you. School AI isn't doing that for them. So Gemini is...

doing that for them. And so when they're National Geographic magazines and they're not finding in a search online an image they want to use, well, let's generate the image here. It's tough too. When you have kids going to get images ⁓ and they're doing a Google search, you know, you hope that everything's within copyright laws, but sometimes that image slips out that isn't within copyright laws is actually your

preserving that by using the AI to generate the image because you just never know what's gonna get thrown out there with some of those Google searches. ⁓ So we've been dabbling a little bit now with some Gemini. We like kids to see the outputs and compare them against others. John's actually the one that started doing this with kiddos and I jumped on that bandwagon. I don't know if you wanna chat about.

the experience with your sixth graders, right?

John Sammon (16:52)
So yeah, we'll make them, ⁓ critical thinking is everything with the AI work. So we've been having kids do split screens and have a similar conversation with brisk and school AI and look at the outputs that they're actually giving them because we want them to evaluate the outputs, right? So we have a really quick evaluative measure. It's like a green, yellow, red, green, meaning the AI did what I'd asked. It's logical. It would make sense in the real world. Yellow, I have some questions. Maybe some things need clarify red.

Steve, M.Ed. (17:04)
Ugh.

Sophie, M.Ed. (17:10)
Yeah.

John Sammon (17:21)
what the AI is giving me is not necessarily relevant in this real world. And so now they're not only, what's that?

Sophie, M.Ed. (17:26)
It's hallucinating. Sorry.

It's hallucinating.

Tara Koehler (17:29)
It's okay.

John Sammon (17:31)
And we actually use the term with them, but

Tara Koehler (17:33)
Yeah.

John Sammon (17:33)
we

have them split screen and actually judge. And so the different AIs will produce the outcomes in different ways. Some are bulleted lists, some are more of a narrative. And so different learners like it, the information coming to them in different ways. So they get to have a choice of this AI seems to work better with me and my learning style and what I like. So we like to do that with the kids so that they judge it.

Tara Koehler (17:52)
Mm-hmm.

We've even, our district has Securely now also. So we're really lucky that we work in a school district that we can use School AI, Brisk, Gemini, Securely. Like we have four kids safe platforms that we can put kids on on any given day, which is pretty incredible. having kids being Securely versus Gemini, know, they...

Sophie, M.Ed. (17:57)
I love that.

Tara Koehler (18:24)
They're really loving the Gemini when they're in those two platforms, but I think they like the idea that it could generate an image for them. we're doing a lot of that these days as we're working to, you know, completion of some of our final products. I mean, even was it not yesterday, the day before, kids are working on a rocket entrepreneurship PBL that's connected to energy concepts and science for fourth grade. And then we're bringing in financial literacy.

they're creating web pages for their businesses, right? Businesses want web pages. And there's a whole why invest in your company part. And they use the AI to generate an infographic that's just, somebody could go to that part of the web page and be like, this is why you invest in the company. And what it's producing based off of the kids' outputs of what their words were, I'm just like, my God, my gosh. And you just wanna like.

pull it up and let everybody see everyone's, know, outputs, because they're pretty spectacular.

Steve, M.Ed. (19:29)
love the, and Sophie hit on this earlier, the comparison, right? Have the kids, you engage in that critical thinking of like, look at both, but then also from, because this is always so top of mind for me is like the literacy side of all that. Like not just the prompting, and I'm sure this is mentioned in your book or your books of like,

John Sammon (19:46)
Ahem.

Steve, M.Ed. (19:59)
What does that look like to train and teach our students engineering problem? Because it's different type of writing to different type of thinking. ⁓ But then also. It's kind of like back in the day, kids are like, ⁓ I wrote my I wrote my assignment. I'm done. This kind of repositions it to where, well, you're always going to have to retweak your prompts to get it where you need it to be right. So it does, hopefully in some way intrinsically.

gets them to like, no, no, no, I do have to make these adjustments to get the things that I need out of it. Right. So I just, I don't know. Like I feel like at the start of all this with AI becoming more at the forefront, you know, like all the dangers, all the cheating, all that, like all these, all these different worries, right. But like, I just appreciate the way that we're weaving in the things that we should have been teaching to begin with. Right. And so I

I love that piece of how you're weaving all that together.

John Sammon (21:02)
There's a recent study, I'm not sure if you guys seen it, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, UCLA, and they were talking about the impacts of AI and learning. And so if we just go in and we're disconnected from the thinking, you're seeing a massive decrease in student thinking in the test that they would have to take. But a person that goes in and partners and never removes themselves from the thinking, you see that actually there's an elevation there, or I actually think it's maintaining status quo, those students are doing just as well on an assessment. And so the reality is,

PBL is the structure, right? I had mentioned that before, because it provides us all of the opportunities to do the right teaching and learning with AI. And so students have to think. They come in as a critical thinking partner and have to judge. It's not just answer getting, it's creating a public product as we were talking about. It's collaborating with community partners. It's real world relevance. okay, AI has given me suggestions for things, but is this real? Does this live in the real world?

And they have to make those judgments. mean, Steve, you just nailed it on the head. There's certain things we know, sense making, reflection, iteration. We know these things are positive. We know they have great outcomes for kids. And so how do we put them into learning that AI supports them in that and doesn't do it for them? And so a really simple way of doing it is just having children think beyond the tool, you know, if they can go in and just type in the answer and get the answer from AI, then the task we designed is not designed for today's learning.

Sophie, M.Ed. (22:24)
Mm-hmm.

Tara Koehler (22:31)
Yeah.

Steve, M.Ed. (22:31)
that right there.

Sophie, M.Ed. (22:34)
Yep.

Tara Koehler (22:35)
I was

recently asked a question, you know, as an elementary person, I'm sure, you know, you guys have heard portrait of a graduate, right? Many, states are adopting that as a, you know, path for students. And it's not just the regions, you know, in New York, you don't have to just take assessments to be able to graduate. And so the question came to me of like, as a elementary person, like, where'd you see that?

portrait of a graduate like fitting into the elementary world. And, you know, first of all, it's an awareness to elementary teachers to just kind of know like, I know you might be a kindergarten or a first grade teacher, but this is what's going to be needed when your kiddos leave you. And so when we think about those skills, being a collaborator, communicator, critical thinker, an innovator, civic and global contributor,

that resilient achiever, all of those elemental pieces of a portrait of a graduate, the PBL structure is absolutely necessary if districts are going in this path for some of our students. Just doing everything, paper, pencil, taking tests, handing papers into teachers, that's not what is gonna build those success skills that are needed for our future graduates. And so,

when I think about that portrait of a graduate, and like we talk about it in the second book, you know, as well. ⁓ You know, we have to teach our kids to be able to do this analysis and run beside these tools that are not going away. we're like, AI is gonna take over the world. I'm afraid, I'm afraid. Like, no, like I think Matt Miller said this, it's not AI taking over the world, it's the people who know how to leverage it and use it, you know?

Sophie, M.Ed. (24:28)
Use it.

Yes. And it's not like AI is going to take over jobs. It's the people who know how to use it to make themselves work faster and better and like increase their capacity. Just like you guys are doing it with the, with the PBL projects. ⁓ Like just relying on, just like when you're collaborating with your partner, you get way more ideas and you move a little bit faster because you have the two brains bouncing off of each other and feeding off of each other.

You do that with AI and you've got millions of brains like coming at you with all these ideas. yeah, so being able to use AI to elevate your production, your ideas, your, I use it as a thought partner a lot when ⁓ I'm trying to come up with ideas and figure out new designs for, we're in the middle of the rebrand ⁓ for the show. And it's actually quite interesting the two different, like completely different.

help me write this doc, a doctoral paper, help me come up with this creative design. ⁓ I didn't have to go to a person. I can't went to the tool and I was able to have that thought partner and elevate my own thinking through that whole thing. But you also, what I also really like that I think you guys are probably like, you're not just comparing the two tools and when they're outputs, but like, are you else like, I'm assuming you also have them. Is it accurate?

Tara Koehler (25:55)
Yeah.

Sophie, M.Ed. (25:56)
Is it telling you the truth? Not just is that a crazy like hallucination, but like, is it doing and giving you real information that's out there?

John Sammon (26:06)
A lot of times we'll have children go into the research phase to build their knowledge around the topic, whatever the subject is. We're STEAM, so it's generally science, math, whatever the domain is in science. And so we tell them in that quick, you know, traffic light evaluation method that we do with them, you know, green, yellow, red. What do you know? What did you learn? What are the things you already know about the topic? Is AI in alignment? ⁓ Is it saying something that you're unsure of? Well, where are you going to go for another source to find that out?

How are you going because we need to confirm. We never just copy and paste what AI does for us, right? And so we constantly keep them in that thinking loop. if you're not sure, well, what's another way you can go find that information to help you confirm that these are accurate facts that you're.

Steve, M.Ed. (26:42)
Mm-hmm.

Sophie, M.Ed. (26:42)
Mm.

That's one of my favorite things to do with my AI chatbot. I'm like, where did you get this? Where can I find, give me that link. And then it's like, actually that's not published anywhere. I'm like, then why did you tell me?

John Sammon (26:58)
Hahaha

Tara Koehler (27:06)
That's so funny. You know what's interesting? So Securely is without having to prompt or ask, Securely will actually tell you like it's pulling from Wikipedia. It's like, it'll be like gathering from article blank and it'll give you the hyperlink for a second. You know, it's, kind of like that, that it shows you where the information is coming from, which is good for kids to see like this.

is an algorithm, but like it's pulling information from somewhere. And sometimes it could be wrong. Like John said, you go through an evaluation process of, you know, looking at that.

Sophie, M.Ed. (27:45)
or it hallucinates and just pulls it right out of its.

John Sammon (27:49)
Yeah, it combines it with whatever, whatever data sets it's combining it with. You know, as we're talking about it, I've been playing around a lot with different AIs to see where they're at, right? Like chat, Claude, taking a look at Grok, ⁓ Gemini, and looking at all of them to see like what their strengths and weaknesses are. Now I'm a dope, I'm sure I'm wrong, but what I'm starting to see is like Google Gemini seems to be really great. I would call it like the researcher because it seems to be really grabbing.

Steve, M.Ed. (27:50)
summer.

Hahaha

John Sammon (28:18)
from what are the current tags that are out on Google. ⁓ I would say that Claude seems to be a little more philosophical. So it's like the thinker ⁓ and rude, right? And then chat, I tend to like chat. That seems to be more of the engineer, the builder, you know? This is just playing around with them. And then there's the social media, is grok that, you know, that's just catching everyone's opinion and pulling things in.

Steve, M.Ed. (28:27)
and rude and rude.

Tara Koehler (28:29)
I'm sorry.

Yeah.

John Sammon (28:47)
That one's particularly rude, awesome. But I think they designed it in such a way to not be this polite version like the other ones.

Steve, M.Ed. (28:49)
Yes.

Tara Koehler (28:55)
You know.

Sophie, M.Ed. (28:56)
to tell my Gemini to stop trying to please me and make me happy. I want you to just be blunt, rip the band-aid off. And now it's like, here's the rip the band-aid off version. I'm like, yes.

Tara Koehler (29:07)
Isn't it funny how it gets trained and we teach kids this like, you know, the stronger that, you know, input that you give it, the stronger the output is going to be. And I think the bias for me with chat is it's like my first. So it's where I started everything, my AI journey. And so it like the algorithm between the chat and myself has been built.

So it's really hard for me, for my teacher flow work to go and use the other ones. Like I have no problem putting the kids in all the different ones, but I have this like bias and attachment to chat because we built this, you know, not a relationship, but it's not a relationship, but we built this algorithm together and like it knows I'm a PBL educator. So.

John Sammon (29:47)
You have a personal relationship.

Sophie, M.Ed. (29:51)
relationship.

Tara Koehler (30:01)
it knows that I am really into cognitive load theory when I'm planning, you know, lessons. And so it will be like, you know, I could turn this into something PBL, or it'll be like, ⁓ automatically put the CLT consideration in, ⁓ you know, to whatever. I didn't even ask it to do it. Like, I don't want CLT for this, but because we've been doing so much work with it, it's just, it's built and it's doing it. So it's really hard for me to step away.

Steve, M.Ed. (30:03)
Hmm.

Tara Koehler (30:31)
for myself and play with the other ones. So I'm just having fun with the kids playing with it.

John Sammon (30:38)
You know, it's funny that you're bringing this up, Tara. The other day, I was working with some kids and so they start off with their initial prompt and then we start talking about clarifying. ⁓ Can you go through and provide me greater details on, however we want to continue the conversation with the AI. And so the kids are starting to realize that too. They start with their initial prompt and as it gets into it and the discussion starts to happen, the kids are like, it's getting better.

And like, because it's developing the relationship, it sees and it's starting to refine, it knows what you're looking for. So even in the the quick interactions within a 45 minute lesson, the kids are, it's funny how intuitive they are. They pick up on these little nuances when they're working with stuff, which is what we love it. Cause we're training them to do that. We're like, we're training their brains to think about.

Tara Koehler (31:18)
They really did.

Yeah, and we want them to not accept something if you don't agree. you know, with that rocket entrepreneur, they're they're making logos, right? And I know that in the field of artists, like the AI is definitely scary, right? Because these images that are being outputted are pretty incredible. But here's the thing. The kids drew their logos on paper like they were the artists.

Steve, M.Ed. (31:25)
Yeah.

Tara Koehler (31:54)
They they drew it, and then we uploaded the image in, and again, we're making a professional webpage, so you don't want a crayon logo. So just asked it to create it ready for, yeah, digitally, and literally mimicked it. Like, unbelievable what it did. The kids were like, oh my goodness, but then.

if it outputted something and they were like, oh, now that we see it like that, and can we make a change? We don't want the stars there. We want fire here. And for them to still be creative and artistic to know, that's not what I want that to look like. So yes, it is scary for the artist world, but we're having kids still be the artist, right? Most of the time. But for a book,

Steve, M.Ed. (32:41)
Thank you.

Tara Koehler (32:50)
When they're getting an image for a book, that's different. I'm not having kids draw pictures. Like that's very, would be very timely because the writing process takes so long. So we are just asking for it to produce an image, but the kid still is being creative and artistic because they're like, I need my image to have X, Y, and Z. And if it doesn't do it, reprompt it.

John Sammon (33:12)
We use it as a comprehension exercise. Go through the section, the subsection you just wrote. Okay, well, what's the most important part of this? What's the gist of your paragraph? What's the gist of this section? Okay, so what image do you need to have created to go along with that so that your image supports your text? And so we use it as comprehension for their own writing. Like, okay, well, what's the gist? Here's the main idea. I mean, let's go back to just here's main idea and supporting details, right? ⁓

Steve, M.Ed. (33:33)
Hmm.

Yep.

John Sammon (33:39)
Okay, well, what's the image you need that's going to go along to support the reader and the text that you

Steve, M.Ed. (33:45)
Yeah.

Sophie, M.Ed. (33:46)
And

I like that Tara especially because like descriptive language is something that they would really lean into when they're getting into what their book images could look like, especially in elementary that working on like expanding that vocabulary and using more words than just angry or happy, sad. Like you have all these different words ⁓ that you can use to describe what's happening.

⁓ what you should be seeing on stage or in the scene that they're writing or whatever it is. that's something that I just think that's something that I, because I was trying to make an avatar of me for the Edgy Guardians crew and it just wouldn't get my hair right. And I had to go through a lot of different adjectives to like get this haircut.

⁓ And it was a learning journey for sure to try to figure out how it was going to produce what I wanted. But I now know a lot of different words to try to get a specific image created. And I think that was a Microsoft copilot.

Steve, M.Ed. (34:43)
Yes.

John Sammon (34:58)
There's a, the prompting, so Tara and I are both, we have kids working on literature for Mid Hudson Regional Hospital. It's a local hospital, but it's part of Maria Ferraris, which is like a world renowned children's hospital. ⁓ And so they're writing for children that are in a hospital. And so for children to understand the prompting when they're working tone, like you just said, the adjectives, happy, sad, okay, well, no, let's really get in. What's the tone you need to be writing for some of these sick children?

Steve, M.Ed. (34:58)
Yeah.

John Sammon (35:27)
encouraging, like they start to get into different adjectives to describe.

Tara Koehler (35:31)
And I think ⁓ the prompting, I've been telling my students, make sure you say, I'm a fourth grader. Because if you don't tell it, ask for the output to be for a child, the output's gonna be written, or it defaults to an adult, right? Like I think that that's what the AI does. And so by teaching them to say, I'm a fourth grader working on blank,

Sophie, M.Ed. (35:32)
Mm-hmm.

Steve, M.Ed. (35:44)
⁓

Tara Koehler (36:00)
and tell the AI what its role is. So you are a graphic designer, you are an editor. So not only who are you, but what role do you want your AI to assume. ⁓ We kind of go through this whole, you know, procedure for prompting, not just with being more specific and using those adjectives, but also those roles are really important.

Sophie, M.Ed. (36:25)
Mm-hmm.

John Sammon (36:26)
So it's fun to bring the thinking into a task like that. Like here's a quick hack for a teacher out there. What Tara was just talking about is giving them a very detailed prompt, right? They could start with a vague prompt and see what it provides them and then say, okay, now have it redo it as a fourth grader and compare which one's real. Like that's first one. Does a fourth grader speak like that? Does a fourth grader write like that? No. Okay. So which one is going to live in the real world? And now they have to judge this comparison.

Tara Koehler (36:42)
you

Steve, M.Ed. (36:45)
⁓

Yeah.

Tara Koehler (36:56)
Yes.

Steve, M.Ed. (36:56)
Yeah, yeah, it kind of what I've been thinking on on over last few minutes just listening all this is like It addresses the pain point that most teachers have in a more traditional type of classroom, right where the teachers get frustrated when the student is like I'm either not going to produce anything or They write idk. I don't know or it kind of addresses that

Right. And so like, it's not like students now, not only they're not allowed to get off the hook because there's that piece, but there's also like now they have the tools to have a jumping off point. Like it's such an equitable piece there of like, okay, if you were telling me that you don't know, you now have the thought partner to help you know. And it's such

That's such a huge pain point, especially in ELA classrooms, in history classrooms where not that we shouldn't be writing in all subject areas, but like in those classes in particular, where students get just, they don't know how to put here to paper or screen, right? So to me, that's huge.

Tara Koehler (38:09)
You know, if the AI, like especially if they're using it as an editor tool, you know, we have the AI offer them, you know, feedback, know, glows and grows, what could a potential polished piece look like? And we never allow children to just take, right, and hit that approve button. It's like, you have to look at the feedback and if it's suggesting this word,

John Sammon (38:09)
It is.

Steve, M.Ed. (38:11)
Yeah.

Tara Koehler (38:39)
choice instead of what you use. If you don't know what that word means, if you can't draw that parallel, you either one have to find out what it means and make sure that I know you need to tell me as the teacher you have an understanding of that vocabulary piece or you don't use it. Like you can't just use something you don't understand.

John Sammon (39:01)
Your pain point, Steve, in science, you were talking about it, the literacy aspect, the LA social studies. So claim evidence reasoning, CERs, right? Scientific explanations are particularly brutal for children. We were at an NSTA conference earlier this year, and it's like K through 12. Like scientific explanations are really challenging. And so having the kids have a place that they can begin and that they can start that can help them work through. ⁓

Steve, M.Ed. (39:12)
Yes.

John Sammon (39:31)
Yeah, it's awesome that they have a jumping off point for, I generally, when I go into classrooms and talk to teachers, I'm like, okay, so we're going to do root canal today, which is CER. And it's, it's, it's tough for the kids, but giving them an intellectual partner certainly supports them and gives them a place to begin that they wouldn't have otherwise had.

Steve, M.Ed. (39:49)
Yeah.

love to shift gears a little bit here, because since you both are in the space of professional development on on this topic, I when I train teachers on PBL, sometimes like if they've never done it, kind of I believe to John's point, like it, it does feel big. Now, I feel like those that have not really gone down the rabbit hole of it, AI also feels big.

And so I kind of, curious what you all think of like, if, I'm a teacher and I've been teaching a certain way for let's say 10, 15, maybe 20 years, and I'm looking at your book or I'm looking at kind of like this, like, well, what about this PBL, the AI kind of structure and build and,

What do you say to someone like that? And I know you have answers and I know it involves bite size. But it's one of those things where I do feel that because things have changed so rapidly over the last five, six, seven years, that has to be overwhelming to somebody that maybe is quasi-interested in diving into PBL slash AI, but really it just feels such an undertaking.

John Sammon (40:49)
Thank

There's, I mean, here's the quick hacks for things. It's elemental. There are certain elements that are functional as part of project-based learning. Just take one element, right? Maybe it's autonomy that you want to bring more into the classroom. You're not even in full-blown PBL, right? You're just going to start taking the elements that are meaningful that live within that structure of PBL. Maybe it's a community partner piece you want to bring into work. Maybe there is a version of a public product that comes out.

Maybe it's how you're going to attack the research part of what you're doing. Just pick one elemental aspect. We have a framework that's part of the first book, but pick one elemental aspect and then say, okay, now here's my original idea. Now how can I just leverage AI softly to help me elevate that thinking for it? Bam, done. It's that quick. It's that simple. And then you build another element and you build another element, right? It's just, if you build the elements.

Tara Koehler (42:02)
And I think if you're somebody who, you know, wants to go beyond the elemental work, but you're still worried, it still feels overwhelming. Yes, the first book, we have that four part framework, but you'll see that bleed into, ⁓ you know, beyond the algorithm. And when you're in that part two of designing PBL, you know, learning with AI, we're following that same framework.

start with your standards, right? And then you move from there. ⁓ And so we take them through that same process that we take them through in the first book, only we're bringing in the AI, which actually can lessen some of the strain of doing all the planning without that co-designer. It's a co-designer. So it does make it ⁓ easier than just doing it solo, 100%.

John Sammon (42:59)
The second book we lay it out in the intro where we talk about it, this can be a comprehensive playbook beyond the algorithm or whatever's meaningful for you at the time. It doesn't have to be a linear approach where you're following through. Go to the part that most resonates with you and work on that part. so again, taking that overwhelming, my God, I can't eat this well. I got to take it one bite at a time. You know, this is how you do it. Start with elements, start with small pieces, start to build it. If you're already in it.

Here's a piece that now can leverage these things for you to help your workflow, have you go faster. ⁓ You know, we have the student facing part where, as Tara said, we are highly fortunate that our district has bought into innovation and we have these tools. You know, some locations, some districts may not actually even have the student facing pieces. That's the third part to the book. Like, what does it look like and sound like when children are doing

Steve, M.Ed. (43:52)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tara Koehler (43:53)
And so that

traffic light, the red, yellow, green that John's referenced multiple times, we have tips like that in that third section. How could you actually read this part of the book and go tomorrow and try something with your students? Here's the thing, the student facing piece, if you are a district that does promote that and allows students on the AI.

You don't need to be in a full-blown PBL. Like John said, the elemental for the teacher, but it's elemental for the students. So you could be in just one type of assignment and start playing with some of that prompting, you know, with the AI. ⁓ It does not have to be PBL for you to try, you know, some of these tips and tricks that we have in the book. But you want to do PBL. It's the way to go.

Steve, M.Ed. (44:47)
But you want

Sophie, M.Ed. (44:48)
Yeah.

Tara Koehler (44:48)
I'm shooting today,

but I'm not too.

Steve, M.Ed. (44:49)
to.

John Sammon (44:50)
I got to be honest,

we joke around. It's like, I feel like once you get into it, project-based learning and it's all it's full blown elements. There's just no looking back. Education just, it's so for me, it's so boring the other way. I'm just like, my God, I'm bored out of my mind. I can't even do this. Like it just challenges me as a teacher as well. So I love

Tara Koehler (45:10)
Yeah. But you know what's nice

in our district? We have ⁓ repeat customers, right? Like once a teacher walks into PBL, like it's pretty incredible to see them drinking the Kool-Aid and being like, I want more, I want to do more. And so it's so cool to work with those repeat customers because you just get to do PBL on a much deeper level the more that they do it.

So like what year one looks like for a teacher with us is vastly different than a year two, three, four. I mean, I have some people that it's like, I think we're five projects in, you know, because they just keep wanting to come back for more. And then there's that release, right? We go through where we're with them and then sometimes we're not with them and it's where a critical thinking partner in a planning process and they're running with an idea that they originally came up with.

So we just have such varying degrees of where teachers are at with this in our district. But it's you know, exponentially, which is what we want.

John Sammon (46:23)
It was really great. Our board made it its second board goal that they want more project-based learning in the district. So, I mean, when the governing body is pushing it down, I mean, we're very fortunate that we have that. know, Tara brings up an interesting point.

Steve, M.Ed. (46:30)
wow.

John Sammon (46:40)
We have access to these tools. Our district is awesome that way. Teachers have access to people like us. We have an ELA counterpart in our district. We have tech integration in our district. We have Taranai esteem. ⁓ Been playing around with creating a GPT that is a PBL coach that a teacher can go into. It's in its burgeoning days. Hopefully we'll get something out. We'll share it with you guys and push it out. But playing with a GPT that is a Taranai,

that follows the guardrails that are part of Topis, that are part of Beyond the Algorithm, so it's inspired by those. But now you can have your own GPT coach that anybody where districts don't have PD people to support them could be present.

Steve, M.Ed. (47:24)
I vote that you call this thing the Tara and John clone.

Tara Koehler (47:31)
Yeah.

John Sammon (47:32)
It's

in, it's, I've been piloting it with one or two teachers just saying, Hey, go in and interact with it. See what you're getting out of it. There are teachers who are Tara said they've been involved in multiple PBLs. So they have a very good lens and they're really good, you know, people to critique it. So we'll see.

Steve, M.Ed. (47:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sophie, M.Ed. (47:49)
think its name is Jora. J-O-R-A. Jora. That actually,

Tara Koehler (47:56)
Jorah, Jorah Coleman,

John Sammon (47:56)
Not time.

Tara Koehler (47:59)
Jorah Corvon.

We've already joked that her last name is Coleman.

Sophie, M.Ed. (48:02)
Yeah!

Come

on, love it. ⁓ I actually was ⁓ coaching a district ⁓ when I was working in EdTech ⁓ and they created a GPT for their teachers that it was specifically their standards, their curriculum, their tools that they have access to so that they weren't going out and like trying to find a solution. They were coming to this GPT, talking to it about the standard that they wanted to use.

And then not only gave them like suggested lessons that they could do and activities that they could do, but what tools and where to pull that lesson from and what resources they already had access to in the district. Cause and I was like, whoa. And it was like, can me this and that and like it listed like three tools that they could do to do this activity. And I was like, that's fantastic because I don't know how many times a teacher has like gone off and found a solution to their problem. Not realizing that they already had.

a solution to their problem and they just didn't know the district had it.

So the fact that you guys are trying to do that same thing with like PBL is I love it

Steve, M.Ed. (49:04)
Yeah.

Tara Koehler (49:09)
I'm sorry.

Steve, M.Ed. (49:12)
Keep it going. All right, friends. we're almost at the hour. And so this has been a lot of fun. But Tara and John, you know that we always ask that same question for all our guests. so Tara, if you wouldn't mind going first, but happy to hear what is top of mind for you in education. What is under the hat?

Tara Koehler (49:35)
⁓ I'm gonna go back to that portrait of a graduate. ⁓ Building those success skills, even if you took PBL out and AI out and just thinking about what are the humans that we wanna raise out of our classrooms and our school district, we wanna raise students who are critical thinkers, collaborators, know how to play nice in the sandbox, ⁓ know, divergent.

that they could persevere, like things are gonna be hard when you walk out of, you know, whatever classroom you're in and you go out into the real world. So like, what could we instill in our students so that they could be successful adults and humans when they leave us? And so ⁓ we do that through the PBL AI work. I'm not saying we're not doing that, but I'm saying even if that didn't exist,

That is what I think is top of mind for me is the type of humans that we're gonna raise out of our rooms to be successful adults.

Steve, M.Ed. (50:43)
Love that. I love that you use the word race that changes the whole tone and the mindset, right? Where once they're your kids, they're your kids. ⁓ I love that. Yeah. John, what about you? What's, what's under the hat for you?

John Sammon (51:02)
So my thing is ⁓ humanity. I think we're kind of in the same world, and I. ⁓ There's a chapter in our book specifically that is very deep for me, and it's ⁓ humans meaningfully in the loop. ⁓ I feel like the future that we're gonna be embarking on, we all have predictions, but the future that we're gonna be embarking on is that if we don't create humans that are meaningfully in the loop, ⁓

There's certain things that can happen down the line. And so I think that our children being meaningfully in the loop, not just clicking approve buttons, but being deep thinkers, being iterative in their thought, being reflective, having ethics and values in the judgments that they're going to be making as they're moving forward, because they're going to be taking over this future world. ⁓ And so my thing is that, I mean, Tara used the term raise, you had referenced it.

Are we breeding them to be ethical, value-driven humans that are meaningfully in the loop that we can say securely as we move forward in any future? Humanity is in a good place. And where does that happen? People don't think that's a right now problem. I feel like it actually is. I feel like education is the training ground for it because if we're not doing it, who is? And so in my mind, that's what's really been on my mind or, you know, top of the mind.

Steve, M.Ed. (52:28)
Yeah, and it was yesterday's problem, right?

Sophie, M.Ed. (52:31)
Yeah.

Tara Koehler (52:33)
Yeah.

John Sammon (52:33)
Yeah, this is not a future endeavor when AI gets stronger. This is a today problem. Yeah, so we have to start training children now. And who better than our educators today? So that's what, you know.

Steve, M.Ed. (52:33)
Yeah.

Tara Koehler (52:36)
Thank you.

Steve, M.Ed. (52:39)
Yeah. No waiting.

Love that. Yeah. No pressure educators.

Sophie, M.Ed. (52:50)
No pressure.

Tara Koehler (52:52)
Okay.

John Sammon (52:53)
I know, here's the thing. I know it's

Sophie, M.Ed. (52:54)
Thank

John Sammon (52:55)
like weighing heavily on me, you know? And I sit back and I'm like, no, it is, it's deep, it's big, I get it. But I don't know, didn't we get into education for deep and big or do we just come in for the surface? I mean, I don't know.

Sophie, M.Ed. (53:10)
I mean, some people got into it because the summers are off.

Tara Koehler (53:13)
Yeah.

John Sammon (53:16)
I'm a different ⁓ teacher.

Steve, M.Ed. (53:16)
I mean,

being in the now being in the pre-service space, right? In that higher ed space, I do see a spectrum of that, of like, of why they're getting into it. But it's my job again, like we talk about like, no pressure, but then it's my job to like reposition them and mindset and.

Is this really for you kind of conversations, right? And because that's kind of the other piece and those honest conversations.

Sophie, M.Ed. (53:47)
build

it into them or weed them out.

Steve, M.Ed. (53:51)
I mean, yeah, well, because at the end of the day, like, want the best for our kids, right? And so that to me is big. ⁓ Tara, John, this has been super fun. ⁓ Thank you so much for being back and chatting with us. We learned a lot. Just really appreciate you.

Tara Koehler (54:12)
Thank you for having us.

John Sammon (54:15)
Yeah, you guys are lot of fun. Thanks for inviting us back a second time. So we feel very lucky to be with you.

Steve, M.Ed. (54:21)
Yeah, absolutely, 100%. All right, friends, until next time, keep your hats on, put your minds open, bye-bye.