Today, you’re getting a rare Wednesday email!
That’s because I’m starting a new six-part email series: “How to Keep Students Thinking in the AI Age.”
I wanted to give an extra focus to this issue that EVERYONE seems to be dealing with in some way — with some things I’ve seen and heard AND some practical solutions.
Starting today, for the next two weeks, I’ll send you SIX total emails (avg. ~3 per week). After that, we’ll get back to our regular weekly schedule.
(PS: I’m writing these emails, not ChatGPT. I do love emdashes, triads (groups of three), emojis, ellipses, and bulleted lists — and I loved them before ChatGPT was cool! You’re getting my human brain and writing in this series.)
After reading: Agree? Disagree? What are your thoughts?
Click here to leave a comment here (at the bottom of the page)
Now, let’s begin with Part 1: How to Keep Students Thinking in the AI Age …
You’ve probably noticed something lately.
It’s harder than ever to keep students engaged in school.
About one in four students is chronically absent. (Source: Return 2 Learn)
Social media and smartphones are making it harder for students to stay focused and pay attention.
When they’re in class, nearly half of middle schoolers and two-thirds of high schoolers are disengaged. (Source: Gallup)
It feels like we’re fighting harder than ever to just keep students mentally present.
And in the past few years, a new variable has been thrown into the situation: artificial intelligence.
Immediately, teachers started to wonder … will this factor into the classroom? Will students use this to shortcut thinking and learning? How will we move forward?
In response, there has been a huge push for AI literacy. Everywhere.
Organizations are pushing AI frameworks.
Education leaders are warning that students need AI skills.
Tech CEO’s and influencers are telling us: “Here’s what you need to start teaching kids about AI …” (even though it doesn’t fit in the structure of today’s schools at all).
But when you step into a school or a classroom, you start to see the disconnect …
Teachers are busy. They have standards, content, and curriculum to cover … grades to enter, emails to respond to.
School leaders are innundated. They’re responding to student issues, discipline, policy updates, pep session schedules, and state requirements.
Students have their own priorities. They’re thinking about recess. Friends. Lunch. The football game on Friday. How their outfit looks today.
And when you factor in technology, AI, cell phones and other distractions, it makes it even harder to get students thinking — especially doing the deep, critical thinking we want them to do (that we know they’ll need).
The last thing we think we need is AI literacy.
You know what we really need?
AI literacy.
(Wait, what?)
Yes, you read that right. We think AI literacy is the last thing we need, but it’s actually what we DO need.
That’s because we’re talking about AI literacy in the wrong way.
(Stick with me … I’ll bet this applies to you in a BIG way …)
AI literacy isn’t what you think it is
Lots of folks are talking about technology and tools.
“What apps should we be using — and should students NOT be using?”
“What technology will help students now — and prepare them for the future?”
“How do we teach kids to prompt?”
These questions matter … but they’re not the real issue. Unfortunately, lots of folks have a hard time realizing this.
There’s all this noise on social media and the news about how detrimental technology is to learning. There’s talk about banning Chromebooks. “We gave them laptops and took away their brains.”
The heart of this issue isn’t whether you’re on Team Tech or Team No-Tech.
The real issue? How we use the tech … how it supports learning.
That means that the key is how we get students thinking and learning — whether we use tech or not.
And in an AI-saturated world where this technology will increasingly impact what we know, how we learn, and how we go about our business? We’re going to need our students to be critical thinkers who can analyze, reason, and judge effectively.
So … what does this have to do with AI literacy?
This is the part that everyone seemst to misunderstand these days …
AI literacy isn’t primarily about tools and tech.
It’s about thinking.
It’s about helping students learn how to:
analyze AI-generated information
recognize where an AI answer might fall short
interrogate confident AI responses that may be incomplete
evaluate the quality of explanations
Did you catch the verbs? (I’m a word nerd.) Analyze. Recognize. Interrogate. Evaluate.
Those are the kinds of timeless thinking skills that teachers have developed for ages. AI doesn’t make them less necessary. I’d argue AI makes them more necessary.
When AI can generate answers instantly, the answers themselves aren’t the biggest value. It’s the ability to evaluate them.
So … how does that impact teachers in the classroom?
We’ve established that thinking is going to be key in the AI age. And we’ve also established that keeping students thinking in the classroom is really hard in the AI age.
So, what do we do? It’s not going to take a brand new “AI-resistant” curriculum … or a canned “AI unit” … or a degree in computer science.
It can start with something simple — that actually reinforces what teachers are teaching.
EXAMPLE: Imagine discussing a chapter of a novel and asking your students: “If AI summarized this chapter, what might it miss?”
EXAMPLE: Imagine asking AI to write a critique of that novel chapter and asking your students: “What do you think? Is it fair? Accurate? Balanced?”
In this case, students are going beyond analyzing the story — and analyzing the AI interpretation. It’s higher level thinking about class content — AND students are learning a thing or two about AI literacy.
THIS is what AI literacy is — or needs to be.
In the AI age, lots of folks think the answers is students generating answers.
That’s almost right. The answer is critiquing and evaluating answers instead.
Let’s unpack how we actually do this …
In this email series, I want to explore this big idea with you. It isn’t just the job of the tech teacher. It can help every teacher in every class to keep student learning going — and to instill those critical thinking skills that will support them in the AI age.
In the next email, we’ll see how this concept belongs in EVERY classroom — not just technology classes.
English. Science. Math. Health. P.E. Music.
High school. Middle school. Elementary school. (Even in the primary grades … and no, I’m not suggesting that we teach the littles how to do their classwork with ChatGPT.)
See you on Friday!
Matt
After reading: Agree? Disagree? What are your thoughts?
Click here to leave a comment here (at the bottom of the page)
