Teachers Will Lead This Transformation

An audience question emphasizes the need for teacher-led change

Last week, I executed a presentation for faculty within The University System of Maryland through The University of Baltimore’s Bank of America Center for Learning, Teaching, and Technology called “AI Literacy for Adults: A Humanities-Based Approach to Safe and Effective Use.” The webinar was part of CELTT’s Lunch and Learn Series organized by Dr. Jessica Stansbury and Julia Goffredi. 

If you are not yet following CELTT’s work, I highly recommend checking out their resources and efforts. They are taking a proactive approach and providing a bevy of useful resources, guidelines, and presentations for faculty at the University level.

My favorite part of executing these presentations is the Q&A section at the end. Questions from faculty are often enlightening and thought-provoking. On a personal level, they provide me with insights into how teachers are thinking about the problems and opportunities presented by AI. In the context of adapting to AI in the classroom, these questions shine a light on the gaps that still exist in the current period of transformation.

Towards the end of the Q&A session, I received the following question:

“How can we convince administrators to take a more proactive approach and provide the professional development services that we need to get up to speed and adapt in a meaningful way?”

The question spoke to the frustrations of some educators who sense a pressing need for training, experimentation, research, and data-gathering to inform future approaches to curriculum and the classroom, but are not receiving it. 

Reasonably, I think, some administrators appear to be worried about taking the wrong approach, making a mistake, or misunderstanding the shifts that need to occur. The wait-and-see approach can feel beneficial on some level, but in an era of immediate change, it can also leave an institution on the back foot.

After a beat, I realized that the answer to this question dovetails with work that I and many others in this community have been calling for over the past several months.

The transformation of curriculum and the classroom experience needs to start with teachers. Faculty members are “in the weeds” more than administration and have a better sense of what gaps need to be covered for our students and institutions. For teachers, also, time is of the essence. The question of “what to do about AI” surfaces almost every week, if not every day, for most faculty. 

Therefore, the impetus can and should come from faculty members taking a proactive approach to experiment with new pathways of learning, communicate their experiences, and push for relevant training in these areas.  They are directly privy to the shifts in student work that are occurring and have the best sense of the reform that needs to occur – on both a curricular level and a policy level.

E-Book: AI in Education: A Roadmap for Teacher-Led Transformation

That’s why I have teamed up with Dr. Nick Potkalitsky, career educator and author of the popular Educating AI blog, to produce an e-book designed to guide teacher-led transformation at both the K-12 and University levels. This book is meant to lay the foundation for teacher AI Literacy and subsequent AI experimentation in the classroom in a way that is responsible, thoughtful, and safe. By facilitating the development of AI Literacy in a humanistic way, we hope to kickstart a deep and meaningful approach to education reform in the age of AI.

Our book, titled "AI in Education: A Roadmap for Teacher-Led Transformation" is based on our experiments in the classroom and our writing here on Substack over the last year. If you have been following along, some of the material will feel familiar. However, we have made an effort to include new concepts, information, and guidance based on our experiences over the last six months. We hope that by marrying our existing content with new content, we will be able to serve teachers who have only recently joined the conversation along with teachers who have been steadily following along.

The launch date is set for October 30, just in time for Halloween, but we hope this book won’t scare you. Instead, let’s take these initial steps together with a mix of caution and excitement – or, as Geoffrey Hinton calls it, “stoic acceptance.”

As we navigate this new era of AI in education, let's embrace Hinton's concept of "stoic acceptance" not as passive resignation, but as a mindful approach to change. It's about acknowledging the challenges ahead while actively seeking ways to harness AI's potential for the benefit of our students. By equipping ourselves with knowledge and a thoughtful strategy, we can transform uncertainty into opportunity, shaping an educational landscape that is both innovative and deeply human.

If you found this preview helpful, please consider sharing it with your fellow educators who might benefit from our upcoming e-book. Together, we can build a community of informed teachers ready to lead the AI transformation in education.