TeachLab with Justin Reich

Generative AI is not like other education technologies, which schools often invite into the classroom. This one crashed the party. And then, it started re-arranging the furniture. We wanted to learn more, so in a little over a year, the Teaching Systems Lab has talked to over 90 teachers and 30 students about the impact of Generative AI. 

Some are excited about AI's potential to transform education for the better. 

Others are troubled by the temptations of a machine that can quickly and convincingly do many homework assignments. 

And some think AI is just a shiny object – a distraction from the much larger problems facing education.

Over the next seven episodes, we'll try to answer the question: Is AI a game-changing tool, a threat to critical thinking, another ed tech fad? … or something else? 

Media requests can go to jpd009@mit.edu. 
 

School leaders, education researchers, and others often point to a study conducted by Stanford researchers that suggested the arrival of generative AI in K-12 school has not meaningfully increased the percentage of students who acknowledge some kind of academic dishonesty. Sometimes, school leaders or experts suggest it means there’s “nothing to see here” when it comes to tools like ChatGPT and worries about students bypassing learning. Researcher + Journalist Jesse Dukes joins Justin to dive into the specifics of that study, and compare it with anecdotes from interviews with students and teachers. 

 This episode was produced by Andrew Meriwether and Jesse Dukes. We had additional reporting from Holly McDede  and research help from Natasha Esteves and Manassa Kudumu. Thanks to the Spencer Foundation and the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing Initiative at MIT for funding our ongoing  research into the arrival of generative AI in schools. And thanks to the Kapor Foundation for funding Jesse’s work in California with KALW public radio. Thanks to all of the teachers and administrators who have talked with us. 

 If you want to take our survey, or learn more about our research into Generative AI and K12 education, head over to tsl.mit.edu/ai and if you want to volunteer for the sister study, in California, visit Jesse’s Linktree.

Justin Reich and researcher and producer Jesse Dukes argue that AI in requires a new theoretical framework. Generative AI, unlike many teaching technologies, is an "arrival" technology, meaning it will be present in school environments regardless of what choices school leaders make about whether to adopt it. Their new preprint Toward a New Theory of Arrival Technologies: The Case of ChatGPT and the Future of Education Technology after Adoption explores the idea of "arrival technologies"

But rather than summarize it, hey, why not let the arrival technology do it? So we turn to Google's new tool, Notebook LM for a "Deep Dive Conversation" to summarize the article. 

Thanks to the Spencer Foundation and the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing initiative at MIT for funding our ongoing  research into the arrival of generative AI in schools. Thanks to all of the teachers and administrators who have talked with us.  This episode was produced by Jesse Dukes. We had research help from Chris Bagg, Manasa Kudumu, Natasha Esteves, and Andrew Meriwether. If you want to take our survey, or learn more about our research into Generative AI and K12 education, head over to tsl.mit.edu and if you want to volunteer for the sister study, in California, visit Jesse’s Linktree.

Jesse Dukes reports from a two day training one school district offered its teachers, all to help them adapt to the arrival of generative AI in schools. That training proved helpful to teachers, but it’s not clear how much professional development most American teachers are getting, and it appears many are getting little or none. 

Episode produced by Jesse Dukes

Research by Chris Bagg, Andrew Meriwether, and Natashas Esteves. 

Editorial support by Natasha Esteves. 

Additional research from Manasa Kudumu. 

Thanks for the school district that let us visit (you know who are!) 

Thanks to all the teachers who talked with us for our ongoing research into the arrival of generative AI in school environments. Learn more at tsl.mit.edu/AI. 

We've just wrapped up a school year, so our team researching the arrival of generative AI in classrooms shares  some fun and inspiring moments of teachers adapting to the new reality. We hear from teachers who role modeled the use of as a tool or resource for students, or to generate amusing and weird curricula. 

This episode was produced by Andrew Meriwether and Jesse Dukes, and features research by Natasha Esteves, Chris Bagg, Andrew Meriwether, and Jesse Dukes. Original song "The AI is a Hummin'" written by Jesse Dukes with help from Bing CoPilot, and performed by Jesse Dukes. 

To learn more about our ongoing research, take a survey, or volunteer to be interviewed, visit https://tsl.mit.edu/AI/.

The Arrival of AI powered tools like ChatGPT (now GPT4) in schools has generated concerns that students would use the tool to bypass cognition, or, “cheat” as we colloquially call it. And, it appears many students are doing just that. Early on in our research project about generative AI’s arrival in schools, it seems that English, ELL, and Social Studies at upper levels are particularly likely to encounter students using AI, without permission, to complete assignments. Justin talks to Jesse Dukes who shares a few examples of how teachers are managing this new challenge, and they discuss the wider implications for teaching, ethics, and student well being. 

This episode was produced by Jesse Dukes. We had research help from Natasha Esteves, Andrew Meriwether, and Chris Bagg. Thanks to the Spencer Foundation for funding our research, and to all the teachers and administrators who agreed to speak with us. 

Justin spoke at the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education in November of 2023. You can see his graphics and outline.tsl.mit.edu/AI/ has more generative AI related resources, including our SURVEY for educators, school leaders, students, and parents. Jesse Dukes is leading our current project about the experiences of teachers and students with generative AI this school year. 

Today we share another great episode from our friends at Upper MiddleBrow. As students, parents, and teachers happily (or wrenchingly) returned to school, Upper MiddleBrow invited TeachLab host Justin Reich to talk about stories with teachers. They identify many examples of bad teachers and bad teaching in fiction, and while film and TV often present sympathetic teacher protagonists, they wonder if the Great American Teacher novel is yet to be written.

Resources and Links

Check out Upper MiddleBrow, a podcast where hosts Jesse Dukes and Chris Bagg discuss high-craft works of popular culture

Order Justin Reich’s new book Iterate: The Secret to Innovation in Schools

See Upper MiddleBrow’s Teacher Protagonist’s graphic

Watch our documentary film We Have to Do Something Different

Follow TeachLab on Twitter and YouTube

Follow our host Justin Reich on Twitter

Civics 101 is a podcast refresher course on the basics of how the U.S. government works, born from the brain trust at New Hampshire Public Radio and hosted by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice. This is the second part in their series about the state of civic education in the US. 

In this episode, TeachLab host Justin Reich joins the Civics 101 team  to talk about how teachers choose what to teach, so-called "divisive concepts laws," and how we can approach disagreements without falling prey to "division actors."

This episode features: 

• Justin Reich, Director at MIT Teaching Systems Lab and host of the TeachLab podcast
• Louise Dube, Executive Director of iCivics and member of the Implementation Consortium at Educating for American Democracy
• CherylAnne Amendola,  Department Chair and teacher at Montclair Kimberly Academy and host of the podcast Teaching History Her Way

Resources and Links

Check out Civics 101: A Podcast, a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Order Justin Reich’s new book Iterate: The Secret to Innovation in Schools

Click here to see a map of all the states that have passed legislation limiting what teachers can say regarding race, sex, gender, etc. 

Click here to see the Interactive Roadmap by Educating for American Democracy.

Watch our documentary film We Have to Do Something Different
 

Transcript 

https://sonix.ai/share/XBF9ue1HSi1uek4spV3fHohu
 

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Follow our host Justin Reich on Twitter