Learning Futures

This Selects episode was originally published on July 12, 2022. 

--- Original Show Notes --- 

Hosts Clarin Collins and Sean Leahy talk with Leigh Wolf and Audrey Watters about the futures of educational technology, how we have come into an era where technologies are present in almost all classrooms and how that has changed teaching and learning in significant ways. Our guests chat about how we could create a more humanistic approach to existing and emerging EdTech, and how EdTech can become a roadblock for teachers. Our panelist help us unpack what EdTech really means, and define it in a broader sense than a “computerized” or “digital” tool only. They invite us to think critically about what EdTech could be in the future and how to help it become more equitable and accessible.

About our guests:

• Audrey Watters | Blog | Hack Education
• Audrey's new book: Teaching Machines - The History of Personalized Learning available via MIT Press
• Dr. Leigh Wolf | ASU Bio

The Learning Futures Podcast is produced at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. The Executive Producer is Dr. Sean Leahy, the show is produced by Dr. Clarin Collins and Karina Muñoz Baltazar, with technical production provided by Jacob Snider.

This Selects episode was originally published on June 21, 2022

--- Original Show Notes ---

Clarin Collins, Sean Leahy, Robin Lake, and Brent Maddin come together to discuss the current landscape of challenges facing public education. The worldwide pandemic opened many eyes to the current struggles teachers face and encouraged many institutions to change their education models, one such example being the NEXT Education Workforce. Through discussion we are guided along the possibilities of where public education can lead, as well as the current challenges that many school districts are facing. 

In this episode you can learn about the work that is being done through the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and the Next Education Workforce, as well as the Center on Reinventing Public Education. 

(3:15) - Brent Maddin talks about his role and explains the mission and work of the NEXT Education workforce. 

(5:38) - Robin talks about the Center on Reinventing Public Education and how the Center became affiliated with ASU and MLFTC

(8:54) - The panel explores the new opportunities stemming from the partnership between MLFTC & CRPE.

(15:25) - We discuss the seriousness of the current challenges facing the public education system

(21:32) - We discuss how the pandemic affected school districts’ attitude towards working with the NEXT Education workforce?

(27:00) - The panel discusses the optimistic opportunities for positive change in the education structure

(32:50) - Futures projection - we get Brent and Robin’s take on where they see public education going in the next 30 years

(37:40) - We ask the question “How would someone from 30 years in the past react to our current education situation?”

(41:35) - Pushing the boundaries - we ask our guests “Where do you see public education going in the next 100 years?”

(48:00) - We get some great ideas on resources and other elements of our guests work at NEW and CRPE (links below in the show notes)

About our Guests: 

• Brent Maddin | Next Education Workforce | @bmaddin 
• Robin Lake | Center on Reinventing Public Education | @RbnLake
• CRPE’s Pandemic Learning Report
• Pandemic Pods & Crisis Learning

The Learning Futures Podcast is produced at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. The Executive Producer is Dr. Sean Leahy, the show is produced by Dr. Clarin Collins and Karina Muñoz Baltazar, with technical production provided by Jacob Snider.

This Selects episode was originally published on March 28, 2023. 

--- Original Show Notes: ---

In this episode Punya and Sean discuss some of the highlights captured in a recent interview with Senior Research Fellow from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education Dr. Chris Dede and talk about AI and education.

Guest Information: 

Dr. Chris Dede

Chris Dede is a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education (GSE) who has worked with AI since the 1970s. A former Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Learning Technologies at Harvard GSE, Dede is a Co-Principal Investigator of the NSF-funded National Artificial Intelligence Institute in Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE).

• More information on Dr. Chris Dede - visit his Wikipedia page.
• National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education - https://aialoe.org
• LinkedIn
• Twitter @chrs_dede
• Silver Lining for Learning - https://silverliningforlearning.org

Dr. Melissa Warr

Melissa Warr, a graduate of ASU’s Learning, Literacies, and Technologies PhD program, is an Assistant Professor of Learning Technology and Education Design at New Mexico State University.

Links from the conversation: 

• Learning Futures Collaborative: Future of AI in Education & Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Chiang, Ted. (2023, February). ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web. The New Yorker.
• Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Basic Books. [openlibrary.org link]
• Weizenbaum, Joseph. (1966). ELIZA—a computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine. Communications of the ACM, 9(1), 36-45. [pdf link]
• Dreyfus, Hubert (1972). What Computers Can’t Do. New York: MIT Press. [archive.org link]
• Chinese room argument: Searle, John (1980). Minds, Brains, and Programs. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences. [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy link]
• Quandary Game
• Cicero, Facebook’s A.I. “Diplomacy” game
• DALL-E 2, AI art platform
• Dieterle, E., Dede, C. & Walker, M. The cyclical ethical effects of using artificial intelligence in education. AI & Soc (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-022-01497-w
• Ashok Goel’s AI “Jill Watson”, Georgia Tech University [TEDx Talk link]
• Mursion, workforce immersive learning
• Ethan Mollick’s substack, professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

The Learning Futures Podcast is jointly produced by Enterprise Technology and the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University.

Drs. Clarin Collins and Sean Leahy have a very engaging conversation with Dr. Ruth Wylie, Dr. Danah Henriksen, and Maricel Lawrence about Futures Thinking. Each panelist discusses how they engage in different types of futures thinking and give tips for others to become engaged in this work. They also discuss how topics such as creativity, play, and wellness integrate with futures thinking.

--- Original Show Notes --- 

Clarin Collins, Sean Leahy, Ruth Wylie, Danah Henriksen, and Maricel Lawrence discuss Futures Thinking and how that may look throughout our working spaces and how it affects the decisions we make regarding education. Our guests engage in a round table discussion on how we might look at our futures, the different categories of futures that exist and many more interesting points. 

(6:40)- What is Futures Thinking (FT)? What do we mean when we say that? 

(14:19)- Maricel´s choice of ASU´s PhD program, why did she choose it? Imagining new universities. 

(20:17)- Defining the different possible ¨futures¨.

(25:00)- Categorizing the different kinds of futures.  

(26:46) & (50:58) -How to get people thinking about Futures Thinking. How to create a ¨Futures Mindset¨?

(33:07)- Futures Thinking as a method to spark creativity in people. 

(41:29)- What is the role of Futures Thinking in the education system?

(53:28)- Uncertainty and its relation to Futures Thinking.

You can learn more about our guest´s work by visiting the following links: Ruth Wylie, Danah Henriksen, and Maricel Lawrence. 

If you are in the DC area, you can checkout the Smithsonian exhibit mentioned by Ruth: Smithsonian Institute Futures exhibition.

The Learning Futures Podcast is produced at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. Executive Producer is Dr. Sean Leahy, the show is produced by Dr. Clarin Collins and Karina Muñoz Baltazar.

This re-released episode features the full audio recording and notes from the original broadcast: July 26, 2022. We (Jake) hopes you'll enjoy revisiting this ever timely topic for the Futures of Learning! 

--- Original Show Notes ---

Hosts Clarin Collins and Sean Leahy talk with Jill Koyama and Daniel Liou about the continuing disparities that are present in education. Starting out on a global level, our guests react to the UNESCO report on reimagining the future of education, talking about the importance of recognizing and building curriculums that represent the diversity of the current student and teacher population. They invite us to think about a more humanistic approach to teaching and learning and to reimagine what schools will look like in the future.

You can learn more about our guest´s work by visiting the following links: Jill Koyama, and Daniel Liou. Daniel’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/liou_daniel

• UNESCO Report 
• GLSEN LGBT+ organization

The Learning Futures Podcast is produced at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. Executive Producer is Dr. Sean Leahy, the show is produced by Dr. Clarin Collins and Karina Muñoz Baltazar.

In this short bonus episode Sean talks with Learning Futures producer Jacob Snider about Jake's summer take-over of the show. Jake shares a little preview of the episodes he will re-release over the next few weeks as the rest of the podcast team gears up for Season 6. 

In this episode - Punya and Sean talk around a great interview with ASU's own Kyle Jensen, who is the director of the writing center. This episode explores the impact of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) on creativity and the writing process, along with many other topics such as attention economy, consolidation of information, considerations around regulation, to name a few... 

Guest Information

Kyle Jensen 

Kyle is the director of Writing Programs and a professor in the Department of English's writing, rhetorics, and literacies program at ASU. He has conducted research on modern rhetorical theory and education and is the author of "Reimagining Process: Online Writing Archives and The Future of Writing Studies" (2014), and co-edited "Abducting Writing Studies" (2017) and "The War of Words" (2018).

Not featured in audio - but credit to the source interview with Kyle from: 

Danah Henriksen
Danah is an associate professor at ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College whose work focuses on creativity, design thinking, and technology, as well as the relationship between creativity and mindfulness.

Lauren Woo
Lauren is a doctoral student in the Learning, Literacies and Technologies program in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. Her research blends teacher education, online teaching and learning, emerging technologies, and creativity.

Episode Links

• OpenAI
• What are generative AI tools and how are they being used at ASU?
• TechTrends Journal
• I’m a Student. You Have No Idea How Much We’re Using ChatGPT.
• AI21 Labs
• Wordtune
• The Ezra Klein Show [Apple Podcast]
• AI 'godfather' Geoffrey Hinton warns of dangers as he quits Google
• What’s ahead for Bard: More global, more visual, more integrated
• EU Regulatory framework proposal on artificial intelligence [link]

In this episode - Sean is joined by guest host Dr. Steven Weiner to lead a panel discussion around the challenges in changing the educational system and barriers to implementing change. The panel examines the reasons why high school is particularly difficult to change and explores potential solutions for overcoming these barriers. In this episode Steven and team highlight ongoing projects at Arizona State University that support educational systems change and proposes ways for researchers to better communicate their findings to policymakers and educators.

Guest Information: 

Steven Weiner
Steven Weiner is a research analyst at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, where he brings an interdisciplinary lens to understanding transformative change within educational systems.

Ruth Wylie 
Ruth Wylie is the assistant director of the Center for Science and the Imagination and an associate research professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.

Lauren Katzman 
Executive Director of Urban Collaborative Center, and Associate Research Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University

Janice Mak
Janice is a clinical assistant professor, focused on the intersection of computer science education, policy, and systems changein the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University 

Meg Astudillo
Meg is the Graduate Service Assistant for the Center on Reinventing Public Education

Links & Information: 

• Learning Future Collaborative: Designing the new American high school
• Learning Futures Podcast Episode 5, season 5: Designing the new American High School [listen on Simplecast - Apple Podcasts - Spotify]
• Reading Recovery program
• The reading wars: Kim, J. S (2008). Research and the reading wars. In: Hess FM When Research Matters: How Scholarship Influences Education Policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.. pp. 89-111. [link to pdf]
• Action research: Clark, J. S; Porath, S; Thiele, J; and Jobe, M (2020). Action Research. New Prairie Press, Kansas State University Libraries. [link to pdf]
• ASU’s EDD program
• Bolman and Deal’s four-frame model
• Participatory approach
• IEPs, individualized education programs
• RTI & MTSS, Response to Intervention & Multi-Tiered Systems of Support
• Universal design for learning
• Zero Reject [link to Wikipedia]
• Manifestation Determination Reviews [link to AZ DOE policy]
• Section 504, civil rights legislation
• Arizona STEM Acceleration Project
• Schools of Opportunity, from the National Education Policy Center
• Lauren’s book: Effective Inclusive Schools
• Learning Labs in Wisconsin
• CRPE report (2022): The State of the American Student
• CRPE report (2014): Policy Barriers to School Improvement: What’s Real and What’s Imagined

In this Bonus episode Sean talks with special guest and friend of the show Stephanie Pierotti (Director of ShapingEDU at ASU) about the upcoming FREE Virtual event - ShapingEDU Mini Summit: AI x Higher Ed, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI Tools that will be held on May 11, 2023. 

This is a Free Event - you can sign up or learn more by visiting ShapingEDU.asu.edu

Event Description: 

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to create more impactful, individualized learning journeys that maximize learning experiences at every step, and streamline educator’s workload. With the wildly fast-paced introduction of new AI tools, we’re forced to process a new array of challenges and opportunities almost daily.

How might we reduce the fear and anxiety surrounding AI by utilizing AI tools that empower educators to create more impactful, personalized learner opportunities, while also equipping students for career success?

Our popular action-packed Mini Summit event format allows us to explore a wide array of aspects of hot topics from diverse viewpoints in a four hour window. This mix of lightning presentations, fireside chats, panel discussions and a Serious Play activity keeps the engaging content and inspirational ideas flowing for the full four hours.

Links:

• ShapingEDU - to learn more, stay connected with the community 
• Event Registration - did we mention it was FREE? 

In this episode Sean and Punya sit in studio and talk about the recent interview Punya and Danah had with Ethan Mollick for their Tech Trends series in which they talk with Ethan on a wide range of topics covering creativity, games, entrepreneurship and his journey to being one of the most visible scholars openly experimenting with AI in his teaching in higher education. 

About our Guests:

Ethan Mollick
Ethan Mollick is an associate professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies and teaches innovation and entrepreneurship. He leads the Wharton Interactive - an effort to democratize education using games and simulations.

Danah Henriksen
Danah Henriksen is an associate professor at ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College whose work focuses on creativity, design thinking, and technology, as well as the relationship between creativity and mindfulness.

Links and Information:

• Learning Futures Podcast episode 8: Extended Reality with Dan Beaupre and Tom Schmidt [listen on SimpleCast - Apple Podcasts - Spotify]
• DALL-E 2, AI art platform
• ChatGPT, AI chatbot
• Midjourney, AI image generator
• TechTrends journal [publisher link]
• Warr, M., Mishra, P., Henriksen, D. et al (2023). A Chat about GPT3 (and Other Forms of Alien Intelligence) with Chris Dede. TechTrends.
• Ethan Mollick’s substack
• The Breakthrough Game, the game Ethan Mollick co-designed with award winning game designer Justin Gary
• Richardson, C., & Mishra, P., (2017). Learning Environments that Support Student Creativity: Developing the SCALE. Thinking Skills and Creativity. [link to summary pdf from Punya’s website]
• The Teaching Game and BlueSky Ventures Game on Wharton Interaction
• Gertler, P., & Chioda, L. (2017, April 12). Impact of Youth Entrepreneurship Education in Uganda. Innovations for Poverty Action.
• The Turing Test [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy link]
• God of the gaps theological perspective [Wikipedia link]
• GPT-3, a language prediction model [link to list of models]
• Bing AI, from Microsoft
• Noy, S & Zhang, W (2023-working paper). Experimental Evidence on the Productivity Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence. MIT. [link to pdf]
• Canvas, web-based learning management system
• Real Genius movie [IMDb link]
• Punya’s blog: ChatGPT3 is a *** artist
• Mollick, E. & Mollick, L. (2022). New Modes of Learning Enabled by AI Chatbots: Three Methods and Assignments. SSRN. [link to summary article]
• WebSTAR, web server application for the classic Mac OS [Wikipedia link] 
• The Spencer Foundation, foundation providing grants for research in education