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IIIMPACT is a Product UX Design and Development Strategy Consulting Agency.
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That's where that deeper level of learning is made, where there's an emotional connection. Because if you're just showing up physically on a daily basis,
Speaker 2:It's interesting to hear the teachers, certain ones that are encouraging it, they're saying, hey, let me let's use it in the classrooms. Let's see you use it. They adapt to it. And ones that only want you to even look at it. They ban it in everything.
Speaker 2:So there's a wide spectrum still of that.
Speaker 3:Maybe the challenge that we're identifying in this conversation is how can AI support but also be invisible?
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of Make an Impact podcast. I'm your host, Makoto Kern. I'm the founder of Impact. We've been in business for over twenty years, launching hundreds of digital products and provide the cheat code to successful product launches. We help drive digital transformation and turn chaotic projects into predictable wins through proven strategic workshops and derisk road maps.
Speaker 2:Today, we're talking about AI in schools, not just classrooms, but everywhere in between, teachers, students, and administrators. My cohost today is Scott Harden. He is part of our impact team as a product innovation strategist and also serves on the Pasadena Unified School Board in California. As a school board member, Scott brings a crucial policy perspective to our conversation addressing AI use in Pasadena schools. And as lead at Impact, Scott solves problems that most companies face.
Speaker 2:They either move too fast and build the wrong thing, or they plan forever and blow budgets when they finally ship. He's mastered the art of strategic speed and direction, helping leaders align with their teams and launch products that users actually want. Welcome, Scott.
Speaker 3:Wow. What an intro. Yeah. There's not much That's higher. There's not much more I could say other than, hello, all.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me here. I'm I'm Scott Harden of Impact. It is true. I help clients disrupt the status quo. I'm the lead troublemaker.
Speaker 3:I like to, get our clients focused on developing innovative products. It's really about helping them refocus their goals, reconnect with their customers, all in service of designing and delivering great solutions that drive adoption and customer growth. So I'm super happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So today we have a special guest, mister Dan Salas. He is an educator. He's been in, education for about twenty six years, nineteen in special ed at Corona del Sol in Tempe, Arizona. He's been, a varsity head boy soccer coach for twenty years.
Speaker 2:He's got a bachelor's degree in physical and health education and exercise science and a master's degree in special education. And he's the host of the Soft Red podcast. Dan Salas, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Finally. Thank you. Not as long as Scott's, but I'll take it. No, I think about it. About yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm definitely the low man on the totem pole as far as IQ goes around here with both of you guys. I don't think you guys wouldn't be where you're at without somebody like me, you know what I mean? So I'll take a little credit for that. No, this is cool. I'm glad that you guys thought of me to be able to say, Hey, Dan, come on and talk about what I've been doing for twenty six years.
Speaker 1:Started in Illinois and then moved out to Arizona. That's what I've been doing out here and I enjoy it. Love it. Every day is, I'm grateful for it here.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I think before we get started, I think we should jump into a little bit about, you know, just getting people's headspace in as far as like the panic around AI in schools. And I think we're following some patterns that we've seen with every new technology. So back in the 1970s, calculators were banned from math classes. 1990s, the internet was considered too dangerous for school research.
Speaker 2:And in 2010, smartphones were universally vilified as classroom distractions. Each time education eventually adopted, but not without painful transitions that disadvantaged certain students and schools. And so I think with AI, the stakes are even higher and the transitioning is happening faster than ever before. I think with that, we want to kind of get into kind of your experience with AI, what you've been using it, how you've been using it and just kind of get your thoughts on it, Dan.
Speaker 1:Two things that have struck, stuck out to me immediately. First is what impact does. You talked about going into chaotic projects. Think that that's the first thing you said. And then the last thing you said was there's a panic when there's new technology.
Speaker 1:And I I I think that's so true right now is you mentioned smartphones and the Internet. I would say compared to AI, those are gonna be small storms that you've had in education. I think AI coming in is a tsunami that if you're not prepared for it in the next two years, I don't know if you'll even be in education in five years. If you're not willing to adapt to it, to learn from it, which brings on chaos and panic immediately to administrators, school boards, you know, district sites just because the parents on the outside of our walls are going to be saying, what are you doing for my kid? Because that's where they live.
Speaker 1:And their kids obviously are coming up, but it's not fast enough right now. And I know you and I, Makoto, we spoke on it in one of our conversations a few weeks back where there's so many teachers right now that if you're teaching the way you did five years ago, you're way behind. And if you're not catching up to what's actually going on, it's gonna pass so fast. You know, like you said, the the Internet in the nineties, the smartphone in 2,010, those were just little storms we had where it's like, how are we going to deal with this? How are going to manage this?
Speaker 1:I think this is on a different level of chaos that it has the ability to to push into.
Speaker 2:You know, obviously, if you're going into or if you're going into college or even you're gonna graduate soon, it's something that you need to prepare the kids for, for the future. Because even in the business world now, you know, you've got two different sides where people are embracing it. They're trying to learn as fast as possible, utilize it, Or you got people who are really scared of how the disruption's gonna be and they're panicking, they're overwhelmed, they feel lost, they're not sure where to go. So, you know, if we're feeling that in the professional world, I can only imagine what teachers are feeling right now.
Speaker 1:I think, and if I could add to that, just as we brought the internet to education, that was simple. We could control what, you know, browsers that kids are looking at. We can control, but now with technology and phones and it's almost uncontrollable force, one of the biggest barriers immediately that I see is when, you know, the Internet came in and then you had like technology specialists that were at the high school, you know, tech support or whatever you had. There's one or two people. And hopefully they were they had some people skills and they were able to help you out.
Speaker 1:Are you going to have AI specialists on campus? Because there's going to be programs. And I know Scott, when we spoke, we talked about, you know, hey, like, what can we do to help you? I think we're so ignorant as teachers to understand what's on the outside of our walls that we're gonna have to have training to be able to even understand what AI is, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, where does that support come from? Where does that help myself? I mean, I'm I'm excited for it, which means I'm willing to kind of accept it and learn it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But what about those teachers that have been in it for fifteen, twenty years? And they're like, hey, I still have eight to ten years before I can retire. And I said this tsunami of change is coming. And you're like, woah. What am I supposed to do?
Speaker 1:I feel helpless as a teacher. And sometimes I do right now talking about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, it seems to me that there's there's kind of three buckets in terms of, you know, that where districts have to sort of figure out, you know, their affairs as it as it pertains to AI. One is how do students use AI, themselves to participate in their learning, how do teachers and staff teach using AI. And then there's sort of the the the global level, like, what you know, at and from a school board perspective, you know, what are the policies around AI? You know, what are the what's the governance around AI?
Speaker 3:What are the guardrails, you know, a district saying? We're gonna do this. We're gonna lean in in this area, but we're gonna make sure that we don't risk or create risk in in another particular area. So it's really kind of, you know, like, three buckets. Think you were just talking about sort of some of the competencies around students.
Speaker 3:Like, how do students, feel comfortable using AI and in a productive way, not as in a way where perhaps they're cheating or or perhaps they're not doing the work that the teacher assigned to them, but actually using AI to support their learning. And I think that's an important piece that, you know, over the next few years, we're really gonna have to sort of lean in on as teachers to really help students embrace the right kind of AI.
Speaker 1:It's funny you say that. Had one of my students today just say, hey, mister hey, mister Salas. I know Makoto thinks I'm funny. I don't know about you, Scott. But she said she said she Funny.
Speaker 1:Look.
Speaker 3:She said no. Just kidding.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Funny looking. She goes, hey. You know, you should be a comedian. And she goes, you should just talk on something like a show.
Speaker 1:And I go, I don't, I don't know what you're talking about. She goes, you should get your own podcast and just start talking. I said, actually I do. And she said, when I struggle in class,
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I will take the teacher's notes that are posted online and punch into AI and say, hey, make this a podcast because I love listening to podcasts. Just that alone, I was like, wait a second. That's brilliant. Mhmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1:She goes, I'm not gonna re she goes, I'm not gonna read what she he wrote in notes and I'm definitely not gonna, you know, pay attention to the teacher all day long. But if I can just take all these notes and say, make a podcast, go. And she goes, I'll listen to it. And I learned a lesson. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant. Yeah,
Speaker 2:I think what, I mean, what we should probably jump into is like actually talking about how you have utilized, because I know we've had some conversations about, I mean, you just started using it. Yeah. You started thinking about like, okay, what do I need to do to engage the kids? I mean, tell us a little bit more about when you started using it, what's your thoughts are and feelings? What's the, you know, outcomes so far that you've seen?
Speaker 1:Obviously, you know, my wife, she's in graphic design. On a daily basis, she runs into these, you know, hiccups, problems, roadblocks. And so she, she just said, oh, I use this. And she started talking about that, you know, a year ago, year and a half ago. And so I'm just like, ah, whatever.
Speaker 1:It's, you know, the, the generic chat GPT. Oh yeah, I chat GPT this and this. And, and that's great. And there's a couple of educators that jump into, hey, here's some AI suggestions. And so I would say towards the end of last school year, I just started punching in chat GPT, do this, do that.
Speaker 1:And as I'm teaching the health class here at school, I just felt like this general malaise among students. Like they just they couldn't really engage in the excitement of the topic. And so over the summer and into last spring, I just started punching in some of the ideas I would have and say, Hey, you know, how can I make it a little bit more of an emotional connection to the topics? And so I punched in, you know, something so basic as I've got ninety days in the first semester, ninety days in the second semester. Give me nine thought provoking health related questions for high school students.
Speaker 1:Bam, it throws it in there. And I look and it categorized it into the six subcategories that I actually use on campus. And so it's like, and the questions were fantastic. And I've got a handful of my own. I went from that to recently saying, can you put this on a deck for me so I just can put it on a Google slide and I can go from day to day to day?
Speaker 1:And then I want music attached to it. I want a countdown attached to it so the students have four minutes with music. And within an hour, I had all of that the exact way I wanted it. And so right now I'm working on I don't know if you guys like this, but I love the little hand animation when the people write. I'm engaged to watching the hand.
Speaker 1:And so for me, I'm going, wait a second. I wonder if other kids like that. So I asked the kids, hey. If I presented lessons with this animation, how would you like it? And I had about three quarters of the kids go, that'd be cool.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's their level of excitement. Yeah. That'd be cool. Yep. So so right then and there, it's I I just wanna make and I and I hope just from my Flintstone creativity in education, can I take it to the next level of ideas to go, hey, wait a second?
Speaker 1:Let's make this exciting. Let's engage them. But let's make an emotional connection that the kids are, want to come to class. They want to, you know, I can miss every other class at school except, you know, Mr. Salas's health class.
Speaker 1:And I think that's where that deeper level of learning is made, where there's an emotional connection. Because if you're just showing up physically on a daily basis
Speaker 2:You're not a TikTok video, so they can't swipe every five seconds.
Speaker 1:That's exactly it. You got to keep like a level of technology in the classroom, a level of personability, a connection with them, an emotional connection. And then actually the topic has to have the emotional connection. So if you're not doing that, if you're not putting in and that's scary to some teachers because that's extra work. And that's just not, you know, what what do they call that?
Speaker 1:Is it I think it's I think it's called rote learning where you just, like, sit, repeat, memorize, answer. The kids are just done with that. It's difficult. You know? You know, and we'll get into special education.
Speaker 2:Well, I actually wanted to, I think jump into that because obviously with regular kids, you know, that's one thing they kind of can use it. But I know that when we're talking before, if AI can basically automate your administrative tasks in special education, I think that sounds like that's where the big benefits are because it's such a time intensive thing where you can't really even focus on the student because you're doing all the other stuff that isn't important.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And in terms of lesson planning, know, Scott, you spoke on your your interest in special education. And since our last conversation, you know, I thought about how do you make the lessons and the daily rigor of of being a teacher, bringing it down so you can say, hey. I'm gonna give an effective lesson. And, you know, the one thing I thought of is you can plug into AI, I guarantee it, something on a maybe a more enhanced level than chat DBT to say, I have a student with a processing delay in reading or oral understanding, oral reasoning.
Speaker 1:Can you make a lesson for insert the topic for that? And AI will be able to say, a student with an oral reasoning disability, here's a lesson that they'll get into. And that's like, that's fantastic. Now you take the topic, you take AI giving it to you, and they give me two weeks worth of lessons. Boom.
Speaker 1:There's my unit on finish the sentence. Yeah. That's fantastic. And if that in lines with the IEP or the goals of the IEP, I'm guessing you can probably say produce IEP goals related to oral reasoning, oral comprehension, oral reasoning, and align the lessons to the goals. Win this IEP.
Speaker 1:Holy crap. That just did your job. Yeah. You know? And you can't say to, you know, let's say they have an advocate in the room.
Speaker 1:Hopefully the advocate's like, wow, that's brilliant. Turns to the parents and says, I think this is a really good idea.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:You know?
Speaker 3:So Yeah. Maybe So from that You know, what I might ask is, is back up for a second and just kind of, maybe you can kind of give an overview of your experience as a special education teacher for the audience just to give a get a sense of your number of years that you have taught and maybe touch on, like, the biggest challenge that you had in in providing instruction to the students with special needs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I, I, when I came to, I originally got just my bachelor's degree in physical and health education with the exercise science minor. And when I moved to Arizona, said, you know, Dan, that's great. You want to be a teacher here, but if you want to coach as well, we could only have a position in special education. And so I said, well, I'll just go ahead and get my master's degree. So I got my master's degree right off the bat and immediately got thrown into special education, a case manager.
Speaker 1:And holy cow, talk about a different world immediately. And so from 2003 to, I think it was three years ago, that was it. That was all special education. I would have, anywhere between, I would say, twelve and eighteen depending upon the year on my caseload.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Those would be, I wouldn't say the, the life skill students, but these would be your inclusion students, your general population students that would I would see maybe once a period, and they would come into my resource level science classes. My level of expertise would be the resource level science. But then, you know, you see the students that are in general the general population throughout the day. I mean, I would case manage those those students.
Speaker 3:Okay. So Yeah. And when you would so when you were doing case management Yep. What were some of the biggest challenges you had in trying to keep up with all of that and, you know, be you know, make sure those those things were implemented with Fidelity?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I would say two two things. The directives that would come from the district level down Right. Wouldn't necessarily make sense sometimes. You'd be like, why do we need to do why do we need to do that redundant task?
Speaker 1:And we, you know,
Speaker 3:the Yeah.
Speaker 1:The department of redundancy department. Then we would say, I that it's already there. That information is already there. And then the second thing would be, okay, now that you've asked me to do that, you haven't made it. You've doubled now my work and time that I would have to do it.
Speaker 1:Whether if it would ask now, I have to go to the English teacher for comprehension data. I would have to go to the math teacher for math calculation data. And that's not always the easiest. That's time consuming. You know, we used to do these reports of progress every quarter.
Speaker 1:If a student has a disability, sometimes that progress would be so minimal. And you'd have to do these every quarter on top of being, you know, lesson plans, on top of grades, on top of working with other students. And so streamlining that process. The district wants us to do a, b, and c. Okay.
Speaker 1:Like, you just gave me three extra jobs for the next nine weeks.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's frustrating.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Very frustrating.
Speaker 2:It's more hours and I mean, how many more hours you think it added to your workload?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. I would say the first, and I think, you know, we talk about teacher burnout and it was in one of these questions I believe in it when we spoke on. I really think that, you know, if it's learning this process, learning how do you manage your time throughout the day and you still have time to care about other things when you get home in your own personal life. I would say easily, easily, easily an extra hour a day in your life is dedicated to your paperwork. And that doesn't even mention, you know, the Sunday night panics or the Sunday night anxieties where you're like, hey, I had a great weekend.
Speaker 1:And then it'd be 08:00 Sunday night and you're like, okay, what meetings do I have? Oh my gosh. And again, it it requires a level of patience and organization for you to relax. Think about organize my day, my week, and it's overwhelming. But you get used to that anxiety if that makes any sense, and then you operate.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:And if you're just
Speaker 3:It must be
Speaker 1:I think education is difficult. But if you're only teaching one prep, I only teach freshman English, that's hard and it is grading all the assignments. But at 03:00, you're like, all right, well, that's, that's tomorrow's day. Where I'm going, holy cow, I only finished my day. I've gotta complete this IEP.
Speaker 1:I've gotta gather data to include it in the IEP. I gotta make sure I'm emailing people to make and it's wow. That's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And and, you know, a lot of times when things fall through the cracks or, you know, an IP isn't isn't serviced properly, you know, there can be there can be a lot of liabilities, some of them pretty severe. Yes. Legal liability for the for for districts is a is a thing. There's there's expense involved in that.
Speaker 3:I mean, have you been in sort of those situations where you had to spend a lot of time sort of responding to litigation that took you away from your actual job of serving the cases that you have in your in your case list?
Speaker 1:Great question, Scott. You know, thankfully, no. However, I will say this. We've had, at our school at least, we've had hall of fame case managers. And again, I would say I had anywhere between twelve and eighteen on my caseload.
Speaker 1:When I say a hall of fame case manager, we had one lady, she would take on one, two, sometimes three horrific cases where you're just like the mom was already or the parent, let's just say, would already be threatening due process. So your data had to be there. There would be binders of information of when you met with the student, how often it was it was mind blowing. But we would have case managers here along with some really good department chairs. And those department chairs were understanding enough to know, hey, listen, Makoto's got 17 on his caseload.
Speaker 1:There's no way we're taking that student and adding it to them. So I'm gonna go as department chair and kind of be the liaison to the hall of fame case manager. And we're going to work this together because we know this can erupt any second. And those were, in my experience, those three to five a year really take a ton of time and energy away from the department lead or department chair and those one or two hall of fame case managers that are Jedis. Jedis.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know?
Speaker 3:And do you sort of find that there are situations where maybe systems not were being compatible with each other, a lot of manual entry, paperwork burden. Like, you know, have you have you sort of encountered frustration because the tools you use to manage the cases, manage the IEPs were not in sync with each other?
Speaker 1:Yes. I think I think just the the program that we used, I don't know if it's changed, if it's still the same, but it was called IEP Pro. I think I used that for about fifteen out of the nineteen years. Was a program right at the beginning that was pretty archaic. And, you know, we would input things and it was, it didn't have any dropdown menus.
Speaker 1:The most part, it was a print and it was, you know, your pen was on there. But then we got to this IEP Pro program and it was usable. I wouldn't say it was terrible, but as the years kind of progressed, you became an expert to it, but yet there were its limitations. And those limitations is what cost you the time, what cost you the mistake.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:And because so many people had their fingerprints on the IEP at multiple times and there were just so many layers to it. I think that's where, again, you're like, oh, that's where the slip up was, you know? So when the IEP got audited at the district level or the state was coming in to audit and they randomly take certain IEPs for your audit, you're hoping that when they're the ones they pick, that they're going to be, you know, blue stars, like perfect. Yeah, that's my experience with it. If we had the technology to be able to say, this is what I want to have happen immediately, based on what the notes of the meeting said, the IEP meeting.
Speaker 1:And you could implement that stuff real time would be, oh my gosh, would be incredible. And then a long time, the prior written notice saying you did all this in the meeting and my gosh.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I was gonna ask like during your lifetime being in it, does the policy changes or the process and what you have to do, does it constantly change or does it stay consistent?
Speaker 1:Yes. Again, yes and no. I think the policies are pretty consistent. It's the small adjustments to those policies and the wording. And again, I think that's what would really frustrate us where you'd say something in the IEP and like, no, you can't say it like that.
Speaker 1:That's generalized. Or it would be, you know, we always use the phrase, if you're not comfortable reading it aloud in court, don't put it in the paperwork.
Speaker 3:No. That's a great point.
Speaker 1:You know? And so it was you couldn't use certain words to describe the situation or the kid, and you definitely couldn't share information that wasn't relevant because those little things, Makoto, I think would drive a bit of frustration where it was just like minutiae and they're like, no, you can't say it like that. That's not what we want to see in an IEP. And so that at times you became almost a wordsmith. We're like, all right, I know how to say this quick.
Speaker 1:And there would be case managers. You're like, How would I write this in the IEP? And they're like, well, just say this. Less is more.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's not just the paperwork and the management and the administrative tasks. It's also, I mean, you have to make sure just the whole management of the of the child throughout the day of school and making sure, you know, whatever. I mean, can you get into a little bit about that too? I mean
Speaker 1:There's students from that are a little higher. You know, they have a one on one all day long, all the way to kids that we would we would call minimal contact, meaning the student has a disability, again, in math calculation. So math calculation doesn't mean that they need a tutor one on one. It levels the playing field for that student. So depending upon the modification of his assignments, the modification in his tests, the modification of a curriculum, You've got the teacher that's willing to work with that.
Speaker 1:But then you've got some students, again, that are just a lot more severe in their level of disability. So if we're going to go from math calculation all the way up to a level of spectrum disorder, it used to be called autism, but spectrum disorder, now all of a sudden, gosh, there's a lot more required on a minute to minute, hourly, hour, and a daily basis for that student. You know?
Speaker 2:I'm curious. In video games, cheat codes let you skip months of grinding to unlock special abilities instantly. Have you ever wished for something similar for your software challenges? What if there's a way to instantly access twenty plus years of specialized expertise instead of developing it all internally? What if you could solve in weeks what might otherwise take months or years?
Speaker 2:Would you agree that most organizations faced a steep learning curve when implementing new software solutions? At my company, Impact, we serve as that cheat code for companies looking to transform complex software into intuitive experiences that users love and that drive real business results. Would it be valuable to explore, and how might this work for your specific situation? Visit impact.i0 for a free strategy session focused on your unique challenges.
Speaker 1:But if we're going back to what we came here for, the use of AI, if there was some type of a daily program written specifically for that child based on that disability, based on the agreed upon, accommodations, modifications of in the IEP, that's almost like a script that we could use and just follow the script along. And then you have the personal touch. The script is nice, but then you still have the personal touch of who that human being is. But when we go back to AI, that would really make it, hey. I'm I'm following the script we all agreed upon
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:In the IEP meetings. How am I in trouble as the case manager, as the department, as the district? You know?
Speaker 3:Dan, in the classroom, were you mostly pulling kids out? Was it sort of a kind of mod severe pulling the kids out of the classroom? Were you involved in any kind of in inclusion situations where the the kids were actually in as a regular day class and and were actually, you know, participating
Speaker 1:along Right. No. I've I've been in I've been in I've been in both, Scott, where Yeah. We've had full inclusion where we did a co taught model for a long time at my school. And I was a co taught in multiple subjects.
Speaker 1:And so that would be where, again, a student, maybe a minimal contact, but they needed some type of supports in the classroom, note taking, if I had to read a test to them. So that would be a sign of like an accommodation. Next thing would be if the teacher said, Hey, listen, that student requires less tests on the exam. I would get the original exam and then I'd modify it. There'd be less questions.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'd take away a choice. Instead of A through D, I would go in and go A through C. So that would be a modification. And then I would be also in a class, a resource level class, to be able to say the curriculum has been modified to meet the needs of the current students. And so when I'm doing that, I could have students on my caseload within in front of me.
Speaker 1:Now when you said pull out, I think that would be a pull out would be for various things, but it might be, hey, listen. I'm gonna do a math calculation quiz or test, but I need the data so that I could say in the progress of the IEP, Makoto given a teacher made exam of 20 questions. He was successful 18 out of 20, or you can use a percentage 65% of the time. Now that's data we're using to continue going. You know?
Speaker 1:That's the that's the level that I would work with.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna do an acronym check for the audience. An IEP for those that are, do not know is an individualized education program. So I just wanted to state that for the podcast audience that they knew when we say IEP, that's what we're talking about. So what were some of when when you were in inclusion classrooms, what would you say the biggest challenge in that environment was? Like, where where did you really see a lot of struggles?
Speaker 1:The struggles in when you when in the inclusion, when it was full inclusion, would almost be the amount of comprehension the student in special education was expected to retain.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:When they went to a full inclusion model, that's what made it more difficult. When they took away the basic level classes and said, we know Johnny is a basic level biology student, but we're gonna put him in full inclusion level biology.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:And that biology teacher who's the expert, that's the curriculum expert, that's the subject expert, is going to deliver the information, you know, at 35 miles an hour. Yeah. Meanwhile, the guy the kid sitting next to me is used to him covering that information coming at 10 miles an hour.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:So is that teacher repeating themselves? Is that teacher reteaching the topic? Because everybody else in the class is moving on. But Johnny's sitting here going, I don't know what they want. And you're like, I get that.
Speaker 1:So I'm sitting there going, okay. I'm gonna try to break this down in thirty minutes what that lady taught in fifteen and I gotta reteach her to do something. So I I think that dynamic was where there was problem. To take what that teacher was delivering at this speed and break it down so it's just a little bit slower. But then you run the risk.
Speaker 1:If the class moves on, did they pick up and comprehend it so they could move on? And I think that dynamic was was was difficult.
Speaker 3:So you touched on this, a little bit in the beginning, but I wanted to dive into your now let's sort of flip the script and make it more about, you know, solutions, you know, how we could solve some of these problems. And I think if if maybe you could think of if the sky was the limit and AI was in a position to kinda help you address some of these challenges, especially the biggest ones that you've identified, what would you want? What would you wanna have happen? You know? How how could AI really streamline That's some of the
Speaker 1:a good that's a loaded question. And I would say yeah. It is, man. Holy cow. You're asking, hey, Dan, if you had the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Systematically, Scott, I would I would say if we're the foot soldiers, we're actually the ones in battle. If we were given the option of, hey. What what do you all need? That would be a that would be a lot because I think as teachers, we're all a little bit different.
Speaker 1:What I need is not what Mr. Johnson needs. What I need is not what Mrs. Smith needs. Right.
Speaker 1:In general, if we're just blanketing it, and I we touched on this just to have, you know, an AI specialist come in.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I know recently we've had, since COVID, in three to four weeks, we were given this online platform. Put your entire class on this. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And we made it happen. But that wasn't without this amazing tech support lady that we have at our school right now. And and I think there was one or two of them that in a moment's notice, I don't know what to do, and they were on call for it. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I think specifically in staying in the special education world, If there was AI specialists for special education that would come in and say, hey, listen. I know it's chaos. I know it's panic. I'm here to help you with that.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Dan, what are your immediate needs? That would be amazing. Because my
Speaker 3:Could AI actually could AI actually do that? Like like, in other words, an AI interviews you essentially. And so you you tell you basically, take time to sort of expand on where you need support, where you need help, as do your colleagues so that there's some systematic way across the district of saying, you know, this is what almost like an interactive survey led by AI that helps you drill into some of the pain points.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna add one more caveat to that. K. Yes. You're right. I would say, yes.
Speaker 1:There's a way that would do it. But what that what what do you think that involves, Makoto and Scott? More of my what?
Speaker 3:More of your time? Time. How do think? My time. You don't have.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay. Where are you where are you taking
Speaker 2:this course? I I not good with pop quizzes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Where where are you take where okay. You want me to you're asking me to teach five lessons a day. Five periods a day. You're giving me a prep period.
Speaker 1:That's great. And I will say most teachers on their prep period almost use it to exhale, not to work more
Speaker 3:Right. Because it's Now that's a great point.
Speaker 1:And so you could do, and I think this would be great, I think you could do really quality organized professional developments. And if you, again, if we're if you're asking me for the world, it would say, okay, we're gonna do a professional development AI for history, math, English, special education. And you're gonna go to your pop out and you're gonna spend six days this year going to an AI specialist so that hopefully next year you can start implementing those practices. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Anything less than that is just gonna be, oh, here's another one of these things they're pushing on us. Yeah. As opposed to this is how it can really help you. And again, it lessens that chaos and that panic. It hasn't happened yet, but I don't know if the alarm bells are ringing yet at the schools.
Speaker 1:And I and I'm I don't want I don't wanna push panic. I think that's, again, it's a maybe a strange word, But you're gonna get the graduates, the kids that just graduated in 2025, the May May or June 2025. When they go into the into whether it's college or community college, are the colleges and community colleges universities using AI? I don't know the answer. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:If they are, then what did we do to prepare them for that at the high school level? And if we're using that at the high school level, what are they doing at the middle school, the elementary? I mean, you see that. That's what I mean. It's this tsunami coming in of like, uh-oh.
Speaker 2:This is where, I mean, we're all parents and we're all parents of kids. I mean, obviously you as a teacher, doctors, they go into profession because they wanna heal people. Teachers wanna teach kids. I mean, that's why you're in the profession and how you can do that most effectively without doing all the other noise is probably, I would, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but that would be ultimate goal. Me as a parent wants to feel like my kid is going to be prepared to whatever they're going to move to the next stage and the next stage.
Speaker 2:And so I feel like, yeah, my kids are all using it and they're all using it whether it's in, they're, you could say cheating or whatever, but I encourage them because I'm in tech to use it. It's interesting to hear the teachers, certain ones that are encouraging it, they're saying, hey, let's use it in the classrooms, let's see you use it, it's being helpful and they adapt to it. The ones that don't even want you to even look at it. They ban it and everything. So there's a wide spectrum still of that.
Speaker 2:You're not gonna prevent people from not using it or kids not using it. They'll do whatever it takes to get to the best outcome because the pressure's there.
Speaker 3:Dan, have you heard of sort of going back to time management for special education teachers being a huge problem for professional development with regards to AI. Have you heard of any districts that you admire or look after, have colleagues in that are using AI to kind of better manage your time, you know, better manage compliance, better manage communication?
Speaker 1:Right. No. I I haven't. But
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's
Speaker 1:fine. You kinda struck a nerve when you when you said time management and better almost better use of our time. If you ask a case manager in special education, I've got a good friend. He is a Jedi when it comes to IEP production and, you know, compliance, everything. He's he's so so so good.
Speaker 1:Yeah. If you said to him, hey. Listen. I'm gonna need you to go to this training. He's gonna be like, what?
Speaker 1:Yeah. For what now?
Speaker 3:What are you asking for?
Speaker 1:Right. And you're gonna he's gonna go, how about you gotta give me a day for me to go learn this. How about you give me a day to finish my paperwork?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:You know?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So Yeah. I know. And that's and that's an important hurdle to get over. Is yeah.
Speaker 3:Is how to blast through that perception that, you know, reticence to using or leaning in on AI because it's the the the fear is that it's gonna make more work for me when potentially on the back end of that. I loved what you said earlier about sort of the Sunday scaries, which is
Speaker 1:Oh. I've got this real fear.
Speaker 3:When I'm when I know that I've been having a great time all weekend, and now I've gotta go in on Monday and face the shit. And if AI could reduce the Sunday Scaries, really, that's what it comes down to. Right? Like, knowing that I've got support where I didn't have it before. Right.
Speaker 3:It's almost like the AI has to come to me is what I hear you saying. I don't have time to come to it. Yes. That's the thing. Like like like, if I'm saying, I don't have enough time, you know, to do all the paperwork and manage the kids, you know, I don't have, there's there's breakdowns in communication and it falls on my lap, so that takes me further away from being with the kids.
Speaker 3:What I almost heard you saying in all of that is, I wanna be with the kids more. I wanna support the kids more. I wanna do what I was trained to do. And so maybe the challenge that we're identifying in this conversation is how can AI support but also be invisible so that I don't have to Oh, yeah. I don't have to be trained I don't really have to be trained on it too much.
Speaker 1:I I love that. Can you guys sense the PTSD in my voice when you guys are saying that, man?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Yeah. We I mean, that's a
Speaker 1:real thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's a real thing, and it's it's a triggering thing that happens whether it's special ed or not. It's like, why do I have to go and learn a bunch of new things Ugh. When I don't fully understand it yet?
Speaker 1:You you know, right when you understand it, they change it. Right. It would almost be yearly to every other year. I've been so lucky. The past the past two, department chairs that we have at Corona del Sol have have just been just amazing.
Speaker 1:And it's funny because they'll posture and they'll say, hey, everybody, we're going to be doing this and we're going to be doing that. And then they have this like sly little one more thing that we have to change. And you're like, oh, her tone has changed. You know, And then all of a sudden you see people start shuffling in their chair, you know, like, what's she about to say? But I love how you said, how can it be invisible?
Speaker 1:How can it be? Don't take any of the time because I'm still dealing with a human being in front of me that has its life. And regardless of what what the people at the district office are requesting, you know, that's still someone's child I have to I have to tend to. I have to do my best at, You know?
Speaker 3:Like, if it had observed the classroom while you're teaching, it listened to you in IEP meetings.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:It was taking notes while you were in those meetings, and it was, you know, it was developing a perspective on how to help you without you having to do anything other than what you're doing today. Wow. Then the district could use that as input to say, okay. Here are some solutions. Maybe some sort of communications log that AI manages.
Speaker 3:Maybe I think we talked about this before, like, almost like a personal assistant for you that reminds you that an IP meeting is coming up and reminds everybody who is managing the IEP that that's coming up. Because we've seen in our district, you know, missed IEP meetings, and it leads to bad blood and lack of trust. You know? I think it's an exciting idea of AI being a trust builder.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You're you're absolutely right. I I like the word trust builder that you're using because so often I think in in in again, maybe this is this is another this is another podcast. So often I think in education, we know in our hearts we're here for the right reason. But then there's all these little, not evaluations, but almost like checks, checks.
Speaker 1:Hey, we're checking on you. We're looking at you. We're judging you. And I mean, come on, it's a thankless job to begin with, but you're hitting me in these, all these little places. And as a case manager, you're hoping to do everything right the best way you can.
Speaker 1:When someone comes in and just kinda puts a little chink in your arm or you're like, what the heck man, what am I here for? I'm doing the best I can. I'm here, you know, for the kids, but yet, you know, you get this like friendly fire coming in from the district or administration. You're like, come on man, that wasn't, that wasn't me. But, but to have, I mean, if Makoto can come up with a program that's listening to me talk and it can do all this information that you're talking about.
Speaker 2:I already did.
Speaker 1:As you're talking. That's right. That's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Most importantly, the AI in meetings. Would be amazing because I think as many notes as we take in a meeting and sometimes it gets recorded and they're like, hey, you mind if we record this? No, I don't. But if it were to take and immediately strip that meeting and then immediately say, okay, what goals were discussed and put the proper goals in. Scott, if you could just be a case manager and based on the IEP meeting, if we said, here's a solution.
Speaker 1:The meeting is the most important day for that child's next next year because that's where the plan is gonna come from. If that plan is generated within twenty four hours of do we agree on this? Because for me as a case manager, the meeting takes place, and yes, I'm gonna have a draft and the meeting takes place. And after that, multiple things change. It was like, I'll you know what?
Speaker 1:I'll reconnect with you, miss Smith on Tuesday after this. Now you're gonna have a week, two weeks go by, maybe a month, who knows?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But in twenty four hours, if I can hit go and it's like, and all parties involved get a copy of that and it's approved by the parent, by the by the school, by the by, you know, the advocate. Hey, you're good to go. Thanks. That looks great. Now we start.
Speaker 1:That would be Yep. That just took an hour of my time because I hit go.
Speaker 3:Yep. And then you just and that yeah. Then that free that you feel then you go back to your time is respected because, in fact, you you we've taken a lot of the burden of admin away. We've liberated you from the the burdensome admin.
Speaker 1:Yes. That chaos and panic has
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:From from like an outsider, talking to two people who are who who are in the system, are there any type of, like barriers or anything that if you approach your administrator or Scott, if you would hear, you know, oh, we wanna integrate AI. What are the things that are immediate? Like, is it like privacy and and all these other things that are you're you're worried about that you immediately say, wait, we gotta do this, this and this first?
Speaker 3:For me, it's privacy. I think the Yeah. Biggest a as a governance official in the school district, you know, how do we safeguard student privacy? That's job number one. You know, we have to make sure that we do all the things that make our teachers', you know, lives easier.
Speaker 3:But, you know, if if I if the student data is somehow used in a way that does not, support the right to privacy, that would be a concern.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And if it's going up in the, you know, OpenAI ChatGPT, I'm I'm sure that's technically not private.
Speaker 3:Just like most, in California, there are ways to anonymize, sanitize the data so you can look at it in aggregate, but you're not identifying individual students. Yeah. And so that's job number one, to be able to separate. It's okay to learn from, you know, a lot of the the inputs that, you know, this great idea that we've been sort of talking about in this podcast about a support agent for, you know, special education professionals. You know, all the information that we learn, the model can grow and become refined and better, but the student data piece has to be separated from it.
Speaker 3:So that's and that's not easy to do. I think that's what's that's a huge barrier for districts to lean in like we're talking about.
Speaker 1:I would and I would say the first thing I thought of, we are just getting crushed right now budget wise. Yes. I don't know what's, you know, caused this. And I'm in a district that is it's six high schools in the Tempe Union High School District, and they're doing the best job they can budgeting the money because our district is not a growing district. We've been so consistent for the twenty years I've been here, where now Arizona is just vastly growing and it's open enrollment, meaning most you can go to any school you want to in in Arizona.
Speaker 1:It's open. So I could live in Tempe and go to school in Scottsdale. I can live in Phoenix with school in Tempe.
Speaker 3:Oh, you can even go across districts regardless of whether you live in the the district or not? Oh, that's Yeah.
Speaker 1:You it's interesting. You can go to you can go to any school you'd like to. You know, it's it's just open boundaries. And so that being said, we're not immune to this whole, like showcasing the appearance of your campus. I mean, there's kids and parents that, hey, listen, I want to go to the bright and shiny new school or the updated athletic facilities.
Speaker 1:And so the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear what does AI need to do, AI is going to come at a cost. AI is gonna come at a premium because someone's gonna know they can capitalize on it. And everything I've ever understood at the district level is if I've got a computer program, if I've got a textbook, if I've if I wanna buy, you know, meals for the soccer team, it has to come from an approved vendor. And the approved vendor for AI is going to be finish the sentence. And they're gonna charge the district a premium because they can.
Speaker 1:And we're already operating probably at a loss. So this is great in theory, but how are we gonna justify paying x amount of dollars when we just caught we just cut 12 positions. And I'm just making that number up.
Speaker 2:I don't know
Speaker 1:what it what it is.
Speaker 3:100%.
Speaker 1:I'm just Yeah. In being generalities.
Speaker 3:Same in California too. That's yeah. And we have declining enrollment in Western California. A lot of districts, you know, in the Western part of the state are just losing kids because they can't afford to live in in in Western California. So we are struggling, you know, money wise because of that.
Speaker 3:So we're in we're in similar boats with regards to being able to afford some of these things.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, Makoto, we're gonna have to let you go because we're gonna get an AI specialist in the district.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:Sorry, you're a twenty two year veteran, but you know what? It's time you, went back to DeKalb.
Speaker 2:I think this might be, probably a good place to kind of conclude this podcast, but I think, I don't know if you have any kind of closing thoughts on, you know, any kind of important advice for educators navigating the whole AI space.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Thanks again for having me on. And I would say overall it's a scary space because we're all kind of hoping right now for me and a lot of other educators is how much more change can we go through from a year to year basis in staffing, in, you know, our workload, let's say. But again, Scott, I love what you said. Just be invisible.
Speaker 1:If they can find a way to marry both that AI education into our own workload, that would be amazing. And as teachers, we can't say, and we talked about this, this is I think what kicked it off, Makoto, we can't say that's not how I teach. This is how I teach math or this is how I teach health. It's gotta evolve or Yeah.
Speaker 3:Let them do what they do best and get out of
Speaker 1:the way. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And as teachers, oh man, I love being in front of kids.
Speaker 1:I love giving my kids my passion, my energy on a daily basis. But what just muddies it up is when there's procedures coming from the top down to like, all right, we got to make sure we're doing these things and taking us away from the front of the room. Yep. You know?
Speaker 3:So Yeah. Beautifully said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. I think, yeah. I wanna thank you again for, your time, Dan. It's great, talking to you about this. It's a topic that's been at the top of everybody's mind, especially if you have kids kind of seeing where things are going, what's going on in teachers' heads, you know, what their head space is in regards to this.
Speaker 2:But I think, maybe some closing thoughts as we conclude this podcast. The integration of AI in education presents both unprecedented opportunities and significant challenges. For special education teachers, AI can automate administrative tasks, lying for more focus on high value instructional activities and relationship building. At Impact, we specialize in helping organizations integrate AI strategically with a focus on sustainable implementation that enhances rather than replaces human capabilities. This approach is particularly critical in educational contexts where the stakes involved not just for organizational outcomes, but for the development of young minds.
Speaker 2:Visit our website in the description below to learn how we can help your educational institution develop a strategic approach to AI integration that enhances teaching and learning while preserving the essential human elements of education. Thanks again for tuning in. Like and subscribe, and leave a comment below. We'll see you next time. Take care.
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