Episode 87: The Shadow Quest Part I

Hosts: Steve & Sophie (00:29)
Hey friends, welcome back to Under the Hat Podcast. Today's episode is 87. And as you can see, a special one at that. I'm Steve Martinez, a former high school social science teacher, ed tech practitioner, and forever student of how we make classrooms work. As always, I'm joined by the lovely Sophie Young, a former middle school math and science teacher, instructional coach, and relentless advocate.

For Universal Design for Learning. It is fantastic to be here today, Steve. Sophie, today is a good day. And can we just call out these awesome hats? I'm excited for this special episode, Sophie. Me too, Steve. Are you ready for a quest? I am. Are we ready to dive in?

I think so. A little explanation for our audience members.

If you're watching or listening to this now, you are already participating in the Shadow Quest, which is a three-episode series in Under the Hat Podcast. It's a free virtual conference. So if you're here listening, you're already participating. Thank you so much for coming on this quest with us. Today we're gonna showcase two of our 14 sessions.

And if you want to just continue along with us throughout the month of October, you will see six of the 14 sessions or listen to, depending on how you're partaking in our podcast. if you want more, you want to pick and choose, you want to see what other pieces of information are out there from the 14 educators across the US, right? Yeah. Yeah, they're all over. Yeah.

From Ohio to California, we have educators. Actually, Ohio's not even as far east as North Carolina. So from coast to coast, we have 14 educators who have put together presentations that are 15 minutes long. So not quite micro learning, but not an hour long situation. Fifteen in between. In between. So you have 50 minute sessions.

That are UDL-based and shadow quest themed, that are real educators in the classroom talking about what they're doing. So if you register, Steve, can you tell them where they can register? On the website. So if you go on the Under the Hat podcast website, there's a button at the top right corner that says the Shadow Quest. If you click that, it will take you into the Shadow Quest Google site. Because

I just made a Google site. Is it worth showing? yeah.

you go into our website, which is newly done and fantastic. Good job on it so far, Steve. So far. So far. I haven't really looked at it that close. So the shadow quest button in the upper right hand corner. If you click on that. Can I just do a little

Little thing here. so I realized I met with someone in person last week that were trying to register. The shadow quest button does not pop up on the mobile version. I was gonna ask that. So that is something I'm gonna look at for all things moving forward. But like, yeah, so if you don't see it on your device, on your phone, or maybe even a tablet, be sure to jump on it on a computer. It'll be accessible there. Yes. Yeah.

However, we do have we've been doing a lot of posting. There's also that bit.ly that's out there's a bitly socials that takes you directly to the Shadow Shadow Quest site. Yeah. Yes.

But when you are on a computer like this, you do have this button right here. Yes. That button right there. When you click it, it will open up the Shadow Quest virtual conference. It gives you the overview, presenters, the sessions, the titles and short descriptions, anyways. But then the third one in is register at the top. If you scroll down on the overview, there's also are you brave enough to attend? There's a registration there too. They'll take you right to this. So

You register register to the show using this Google form. I'll get a notification letting me know that you registered. I will send you the link to the secret site. If you go to participate, Steve.

Up at the top, it's a new button. Are you talking about this? Shadow Quest Archive. That is not what I was referring to, but that is totally something you can click on. Do it. This? Yes. It will take you to the password protected site. The only way to get the password is to register for the event. Is the password password? The password is not password. Okay. Don't try it, folks. I mean you could try, you won't get in. Also,

Not to discriminate, but you can't be a robot So to say.

AI cannot come into the shadow quest. no. That's not fair.

I didn't set this up. That's just the way the site is. go back to the Shadow Quest virtual conference. Thank you. there's a also at the top navigation, there's a button that says participate. That says presenters, that says participate. It takes you. I swear I've looked at this before. This is new. You might not have. Yeah. I did this the other day. Okay. Okay. So the today's episode that you're listening to.

will appear here. nice. All right. I'm following. Yeah. And then October twenty fourth will be another episode. We'll be here. And then the 31st special Halloween episode where we'll be in full costume and announce the winner of the competition will appear here. If you want to gain access again to all the 14 episodes, you just need to register to gain access to all of them to watch what you want when you want. Yeah.

Okay, and then I mentioned the competition. So then there's the third way. If you go back to register, there's scroll down the audience competition, the curse breakers offering, there's how to compete, there's participant checklist, and there's a rubric letting you know like how to compete. When you register, you'll get access to the shadow archive. but then in there is the form where you can have all these details again and submit your

participation, your competition. And all we're asking it is

of your learning.

So, like how have you dismantled or plan to dismantle a specific curse or barrier to learning in your classroom based on what you have seen in these presentations? And so can can we also call out because feedback I've received recently has been like, Steve, it's so brilliant how you have the attendees, like the competition piece from an engagement standpoint. I am just

lightly suggesting like this type of format, principals, instructional coaches, professional development leaders, right? Like that thinking about just taking note of what Sophie's done here from like an engagement piece for our adult learners, I think is just it's really good. We want to know how you are going to make these ideas work in your classroom. And we plan to share them and like because your ideas

I say this to my new teachers all the time. The best PD in your district is right down the hallway. But even better PD are more brains. It's you guys that are out there trying things, seeing how they work. And that's why we asked educators to be our present our presenters, because they are already the ones in the classroom trying things.

And if you take what they've learned and apply it in your classroom, maybe the same way or in a different way and let us know how it happened, how it worked, or what you planned to do and how you hope it's gonna work, that is not only letting us know that this this is worth our time, but also you're helping spread what works in the classroom too. And the best P D are other educators. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I love that.

And this is all free by the way. You don't have to pay a dime. Mm-hmm. Just register. Just register. Sweet. Thank you for that overview and that reminder. yeah. So what are we doing now? I guess we're gonna go into our first session. So

Are gonna show a sneak peek of the learning archive? Hmm, we could.

Once you register, you'll get an email from me eventually, probably same day, or from the admin pod account. Check your spam and junk for it because sometimes that happens. So if you want because we'll you'll get an email saying like welcome to the shadow quest or something like that. And then that's where the link, the direct link and the password will be sent to you.

Okay,

so this is the Secret Shadow Archive for your viewing pleasure, but not an interaction pleasure at this moment. So enter the Shadow Quest. Scroll down. The Shadow Quest Learning Archive. We end up starting off with some sponsored sessions. Right here is where you can click for the information and submissions for the Curse Breakers offering. That's the audience competition. if you see a spell book on any like section, that means it's clickable.

resources. So it's a hyperlinked resource, that little spell book that's there. We have the sponsored sessions at the top and then the pathways linked to each section in this in the website. It's just keep scrolling. So if you want to go to a certain thing, go for it. Thank you so much to Snorkl and Learning Genie for sponsoring our shadow quest event.

The first session that we're going to talk about today and showcase to you is More Thinking, Not Less, Across Learning Communities, sponsored by Snorkl

and presented by Megan Mitchell. She's an educator, director of community at Snorkl, and AFT trainer. She's fantastic. All right, so the session is about

Feedback loop and learners explaining and reflecting and revising using their work. You can read the dirt this deep description right there. If you notice, there's a little spell book right there. You click on that, it will take you to their folder of materials that they have provided, including the video. So all of those things are it's just like an archive within an archive of everything about this session.

So we're now gonna you have anything to say about the session before we play it? No, just that it it's really good and Megan's phenomenal. and hopefully we have her on the show at some point. Yes, I agree.

Wow, Sophie, so what were your big takeaways from Megan's episode? From Megan's session? So from Megan's session. Megan's session's on snorkel about more thinking. as a former math and science teacher, the justification, the explanation, the understanding their thinking underneath the work was always what I wanted. And so I would go around to my students and I'm like, how did you get that answer? And they're like, I don't know, put it in the calculator. I'm like, but what did you put in the calculator?

What did you do first? What did you see happen first when we were doing labs? and it was sometimes really hard to pull that out of them, even just verbally. But if they're explaining their thoughts while they're doing it in a recording, not only can they go back to it,

But I can see it too. I can see it happening in action too. And this, as Megan mentioned, this allows you to have that differentiation, that personalized custom feedback for every single student when they're still learning or when you're trying to get them to expand on something. Or you give them an open task and you want to see which way they went about it and why and justify it.

So yes. Yeah. Two things came to mind when watching one is the quiet student. Yes. And being able to hear from all of your learners, providing feedback to all your learners. even for the ones that feel like they can't or that don't, because being quiet some it can be a choice.

But there can also be like deeper reasons why a child is more quiet and then like you're not gonna hear from them, right? The not hearing from them, this is something I talk a lot about in my pre-service courses, when I show them snorkel is so Megan does a good job of showing some of the back end stuff that the that the teacher sees. Yeah. And how it groups it, it groups the students based on performance, right?

And so I call out like you know, we we cover a lot of like MTSS tier one through tier three interventions and instruction. And so like for me, I'm like, look, it's already grouping, it's giving you like a foundation of where to go next with potential tier two, right? And so for me, that that those two things like the

Quiet, the shy students and like how to navigate or having another tool in your toolkit to navigate another piece of data the tier two, the piece of data. Yeah. Another excuse me. Another piece of data to help you.

figure out who needs more support. Figure out what support they need. Because the AI not only tells you and groups them, but it tells you what the misconception is based on the rubric and the information that you, the teacher, put in there. So it's not just judging it based off of whatever it pulls from the internet. It's judging their work based off the rubric, the description and the task that you, the teacher, put in there. And you're not

Like Megan said, you're not gonna do a snorkel on every single assignment, on every single task, on every single activity that you do. But if I find snorkel to be something that not only provides a megaphone for that quiet kid and helping the shy students shine, I love alliteration. that it also provides you with that independent practice time to help guide

That small group work but also

Facilitate the small group work because while everyone's working on a snorkel and trying again in that safe environment, like video games, where they're leveling up their answers. Because something she didn't tell you is when you're in snorkel, you get two scores, whether your answer is correct or incorrect, and how well you explained it. And that's the math explanations, not

Just the final answer. Not just the final answer. And not just math, but anything. What is it? C E R? Is that what it was? claim, evidence, reason? Yes. Where is their claim? What is their claim? Where is their evidence and what is their reasoning that they could explain it? That's across the board. When you're trying to cite evidence from a reading, slap that reading in there, have them write up an answer. Where is it? Find it.

Highlight it. Talk about it. Justify it. Can can we also call out how like this is AI built in a way that where like the kids aren't cheating. They're not cheating. They're engaging with it, but it's not it's done in a way to where it's not a bot. It's not a chat bot. It's purposeful driven feedback loop solution. They're not generating anything with it. They're not technically

The one engaging with it. The teacher has set it up and provided them with a personalized tutor that they don't chat with. They attempt the problem. They can re-attempt the problem. They can try again, re-record from scratch, start with what they always have to do the audio all over again, but they could start with a clean slate or where they left off with what they drew and stuff, which I like.

Big shout to Megan, big shout to Snorkl. and now you have access access to this whenever you need it. To watch it again and all those resources that Snorkl provided to us linked on that spell book. thank you, Snorkl, for sponsoring the Shadow Quest event. And because of them, the winner of the audience competition is going to end up getting a bigger prize. Yay. Love it. Hopefully I win. Wait, can I win?

No. No. Okay. No. Moving on. All right. Sweet. So we have next up this one is a learning genie learning genie session. and so Learning Genie has sponsored our entire fall semester here at Under the Hat. So we're super pumped to showcase them. and so yeah. Are we ready? The title of their session, the website. Mm-hmm.

Open up the learning archive again, please.

It's the very next one. Ta-da! The Shapeshifters lesson. Make one lesson meet every learner. Again, we have the spell book that takes you to a folder of lots of resources and a couple other videos if you want to dive deeper into Learning Genie in the Google Drive folder.

When you sign up to Learning Genie, you already get like some free units per month or something like that.

but this one will give you four more.

You have to register

gain access to that situation. So in

all right, well.

Here we go. All right. Here is Learning Genie.

Presented by Gene and John Corippo. Jean and John. John Corippo Love him. Yes. and for those that don't know, Jean is the CEO and founder of Learning Genie. Of Learning Genie.

Insert video here. Yep.

Okay, I can I can run with this in terms of the takeaways.

Okay. Okay. Right. All right, friends. So phenomenal session. and so for me, there were a few things that really stood out to me. And as John Carepo called out at the top of the session, like this is not just for new teachers. Like we think about like, it's building units for us. That's a new teacher kind of need. Even for our teachers that are veterans, right? And then maybe have a lot of establishment, a lot of, you know, stuff already built in their drive, curriculum changes.

Our kids change, the world changes, right? So the need to revamp is super important from year to year. what I really appreciate about Learning Genie, I guess I'm gonna start with like the new teacher lens, is it doesn't just focus on building the one lesson. in most teacher prep programs, and I I believe this is shifting because my my college is definitely like doing a lot of work in this area.

in tr tr historically, teacher prep programs really focus, at least in California, like on the one day, the one lesson. Let's well, and that lesson could be multiple days, but it's one It's the one lesson, right? It's the one lesson. what I appreciate about learning, Genie, is that it's the whole unit. You're able to see a good exemplar or pull from an entire space of time with a with a whole unit of like,

These are the things that that I want, right? And so really focusing on more of what the long term looks like when you are planning, right? So I love that piece of it. I've been playing around with it a lot with science, seventh grade science curriculum a lot recently. And what I appreciate is the the the complete story they tell of seventh grade math, seventh grade science, sixth grade history.

Whatever it is, I just do middle school because that's my realm. it's not just this one standard. That standard is connected to something and it flows, it makes a story. And that's something that is you were actually talking about one of those a course that you were doing where they were like breaking it down, like this is the big idea, and then these are the units, and like breaking it down.

That

type of thinking, that level of thinking of breaking it down from big picture to details is sometimes hard for people. Sometimes people are big picture people and sometimes people are little details people. But in order to plan effectively and have good pacing and make sure you're teaching to the rigor of the standards that you need, you need both. You need the details and the big picture. You need to know where you're going and know how everything is connected to get you there.

So a little bit about what Sophie just mentioned. So I at my college I teach a course. it's like an inquiry unit integrated kind of course. And so part of what they do is they develop a whole unit that has inquiry infused in it, right? Which by the way, we should all be doing anyway, just in general. But that's what the course is. So

What they do is they do a curricular flow, right? So kind of what Sophie's talking about is like what is the big picture? What are the essential standards? And then within those standards, what are the elements that they need to teach? What vocab needs to be front loaded? How are we bringing in UDL? Right? Like all these things. So what I had them do is I had them build the entire unit like they normally would. but they took the unit then, because in Learning Genie.

You have the option when you go in there, you can start from scratch, just start a new unit, or adapt an existing unit. So you can take something from your existing curriculum, even, or something that you've created from scratch. Yep. It's in beta. You click. You click on it and you upload it, right? Has Google Drive access, right? You can just upload it. Like I had my students just download like a PDF of it. It's essentially what I had them do. And then

You can upload many files. So I had them upload their all their lessons for that for that given unit. and then it was it was cool because like then they saw they're like, wait, I didn't think about including my community. I didn't think about doing this, that, or the other. And I was providing them feedback and like that was a lot of fun, but like just the layering of different supports, like having that learning genie layer at the end, was very valuable and very cool to see.

Yeah, I really enjoy using AI extremely purposeful, extremely focused, and as like a thought partner. You are not the only person who needs to think of these ideas anymore. You also don't need to read your curriculum like a script anymore. If you're like me, when I was the only seventh grade math teacher, the only eighth grade science teacher in my school.

I didn't have other people to really brainstorm with. So having something like AI to give you other ideas, other ways, other labs to to do with your kids with the materials that you have to still reach that same level of rigor and exploration and inquiry is extremely powerful. It doesn't have to just come from one brain anymore.

Yes, because there are multiple brains, a multiple little brains in your classrooms, right? Which is a good segue to my number two for this session. And that is when you build a unit, yes, the AI creates the whole thing per lesson per week. It's good. the slideshow presentations, the worksheets, all of it, everything. If you want edu protocols in there, it builds those out. It's yeah, they have a partnership with John.

And company over at Edu Protocols. But towards the end, what I just find so valuable is once you get to the tail end of just building everything out, you have this option to feed it more customizable information. and so there's a UDL component, and so you can revise the unit based off UDL needs, right?

It also has a drop down in terms of like demographic and general needs specific to the learners that you have in your room. So there is a special education kind of drop down. like, are there students with IEPs in your class? And then it asks you like what are the needs there. So like the drop down will have things like dyslexia, ADHD.

And so again, it'll then revise and customize based off what what you select there. it'll also give you a another drop down, kind of a different track of from an English language learner perspective. I about to mention that. Yeah, of like w what are the native languages in your classroom, right? And so again, we'll customize even more. I think like just having again, like Sophie mentioned, like just the intentionality.

like being super intentional with how you're using the AI. for me, that's like a level of customization that yeah, you could get elsewhere, but this is intended for unit design. This is intended for classrooms. and the the output is quite good. Yes. And it's fast. It's rather fast. It's fast. It's high quality instructional materials. It's relevant.

Instructional materials for your students when I was doing the science units that I was working on, they were bringing in like mudesto crops and talking about the actual We have crops in Modesto. my god. I didn't that. and so so context, we were talking about photosynthesis and cellular respiration and then going into chemical reactions and that are happening inside of plants and things and

conservation of mass, all that jazz. You can teach all of that with the world around you. Literally go outside and pick grass from the yard at the school and see photosynthesis occurring because of the bubbles up here in the water. you can literally talk about all of the things in almost any science or history class. Yeah. Math, English.

With examples in their community that they live in, making it more relevant for them. Real world learning, real world application across all content. And that's built into Learning Genie. Yes. And standard alignment, all the standards, you pick whatever whatever state you're in, whatever standards. There is ISTE standard alignment. More recently, CTE standards for our CTE friends.

I B standards and it just it's just a different level of like how you can

Design how you can really meet your learners where you're at, at your fingertips. The only thing I say is when you do that, you're still the engineer in your classroom. So making sure that you are still vetting things because the whole unit may not be exactly what you need, right? And you can reprompted learning genie, I'm not saying that, but like be like, cool.

I like this edu protocol here, but I already have something for our veterans here, right? I already have something that fits well into this part of the unit. I'm still going to use that thing and that's a hundred percent okay. But now you have another thought partner, another co teacher, a co genie right at your side.

but yeah, so it's and then you're not going to teach or pay teacher and spending any money. You're not going to teach or pay teacher and finding out that it's not actually aligned to the standards that you're trying to teach, because that has happened with me. you're getting exactly what it's supposed to be because it is one hundred percent standard aligned. 'Cause you pick them. Yeah.

Alright, friends. So check it out. We we have this idea, side quest here, of taking bloopers from the season because they've been really hilarious. so be on the lookout for that.

Well, friends, that is all the time we have for today's episode. A massive thank you to Snorkl, Learning Genie, and all of our presenters who made Shadow Quest possible. Absolutely, Steve. It was a fantastic time talking with you about feedback loops, supporting all learners, UDL, and customizing instructional materials. Yeah. And so, Sophie, what was your most frivolous AI use case this week? Or do you not have one?

I actually don't have one this week because all of my AI use was definitely purposeful in instructional use cases and

brainstorming data and evidence use. Okay. Yeah, it was definitely not frivolous. What about you? I did well, no, I did not I didn't have one last time. Yeah. So now I do. Well what's the frivolous AI use. Okay. So all this happening while I just this happened a brainstorm while I was on a run on a treadmill. So I didn't have time to share this with another human. but while I was on the treadmill and I'm running, I was on my phone too.

Don't know how that happens. But I was working through Chat GPT. and like on the app on your phone, you have the option to add chat GPT plugins. I don't know if you've ever done that. I know that you're more into Gemini. I am definitely a Gemini plugin. Yeah. So but with there are various plugins. So you can plug in one plugin is like Google Calendar, right? Okay. And so it can be like you you can add

talk with chat in that way of just like, hey, what's on my schedule today? Where are areas that like I can add additional meetings, like hear back things, like whatever. That doesn't sound frivolous. I'm not there yet. So one of the ones, one of the other ones is so I've been really leaning into saving more time by leaning into you know, technology to like do the things that I frankly don't have time to do, like grocery shopping.

So I've been leaning a lot into what is it, Instacart. And so like I'm as I'm still at work. I order my groceries from like Costco or whatever. And by the way, ordering from Costco from Instacart, while might be a little bit more pricey, hundred percent worth it to not have to go into Costco. Anyway. but yeah, so you so this whole this like, yeah, like I'm gonna just order it, boom, and it just shows up at your house. That this is not new, right? Blah blah blah.

COVID days. Yeah. But the there's an Instacart plugin into ChatGPT, ChatGPT. I'm like, first of all, ChatGPT, what's the use case here and how could this help me? So what it does is once, and I've added the plugin already. I'm sorry about my chair. No, it's my chair. I'm trying to turn it towards you. so once you add the plugin, you can tell it, and because I I asked chat, I was like, what's the purpose here? Because why can't I just go to the app?

And just order groceries. It's like, well, no, what you can do is you can tell it like for the week, here is how I want to eat. Here's the diet I I'm on. Here's the diet of like me and others in my home to like customize. And like what if like, you know, your partner or your wife, your spouse, whatever, like they eat one way and then you eat another way, you meet like, hey, here's what I want for a week. So it'll build

The meals, like the meal prep. Like here are all your meals for the week. And now I can go order those groceries. So that way you can prep and prepare and cook those meals. So it tells you what to order from Instacart? Yes. Mo, but then I believe it'll order it for you. snap. I believe. I've not tried this yet, but maybe not a complete frivolous use case. There's not a case yet.

But it's in my head, so we're gonna use it and try it. But yeah, so it's one of the I just thought that that was like really cool. and I might try that this week and because I have to order groceries soon. But yeah, so that's that was my frivolous use case, though I haven't executed on it yet. I just wanted to share. I just wanna point out to those of you listening that before I moved out to California, Steve didn't order.

groceries to be delivered at his door.

I did during the pandemic. But like

the last two years you haven't ordered groceries. And now you're thinking about having AI order your groceries. So I know it's kinda weird. Though I refuse to have AI like have full access though. So that's like into my life so that there's that piece too. Yeah. And

But I think it's just I just want to point out how

You can point that out with the pointy hat. Yeah.

Alright, friends, big shout out to Learning Genie and Snorkl for sponsoring the show at various different levels, various different capacities. Big thanks to Learning Genie and Snorkl. If you want to learn more about Learning Genie, go learning-genie.com. Snorkl, I believe, is snorkelapp.com. and so give them some love, check them out. and if you need connections with them or if you want to learn more, we're we have

those deep relationships with both both of these phenomenal companies. so you can reach out to us as well. and you know, you can look at underhat underhat pod dot com to to reach out to us. We're also on all the socials and so are Learn Engining and Snorkl if you want to reach out to them. Yeah, absolutely. All right friends, keep your hats on. Put your minds open. Stay curious.