Zach Diamond  0:03  
Welcome to the modern classrooms project podcast each week we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self paced and mastery based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other, so this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the modern classrooms project podcast.

Toni Rose Deanon  0:28  
Hello and welcome to the modern classrooms project podcast. My name is Toni Rose Deanon, they them pronouns, a designated hype person here at MCP, and I am live at Georgia ETC, and I am so excited to have three folks with me live I've never done live before. So this is really cool. And then also, shout out to amateurs. Is that how you say it? Tom amitrace, because I have a whole set up for a podcast recording, which I think is really, really dope. So I'm gonna go on this side. So Daniel, you go first and introduce yourself, and then we'll have we'll start the conversation. All right.

Daniel Forrester  1:03  
Daniel Forrester, I am the Director of Technology Integration at Holy Innocents Episcopal School. Previously, I come from a math background, so I was a math teacher, taught public school, and now work at an independent school, 

Sarah Eiler  1:18  
nice, awesome. And I'm Sarah Eiler, I am the Community Engagement Manager first green pal, but formerly a World History teacher at a high school, so also high school experience and a tech coach for k8 schools in North Carolina.

Nicholas Provenzano  1:35  
My name is Nick Provenzano. I'm the community manager for school AI previously to that I spent 15 years teaching in high school ELA, and then nine years as a instructional coach, a makerspace director, robotics teacher, all of the things in a K 12 Independent School.

Toni Rose Deanon  1:54  
This is so exciting. So I've had a chance to have to collaborate with Nick and Sarah as well, and this is my first time ever meeting Daniel. And so we started talking about AI, of course, because that is a hot topic right now in education. And as you walk around this conference as well, there's a lot of AI tools and AI sessions as well that teachers and presenters are presenting on. But before we jump on to the before we jump to those questions, right that I'm just going to come up with randomly, because I don't have them right now, I really like to start off with like humanizing my guest, right? Like humanizing the guests here. So what makes you human, or what brings you joy? Currently, anyone can start.

Sarah Eiler  2:33  
I'll start because I recently moved to Augusta. Love the Augusta area, but also feel very isolated because I work remotely. So I have really been working personally on finding things that bring me joy and self care. So one of those things lately has been needlepoint. I know it is like the most grandmotherly hobby ever, but my brain works at a really high speed, and for some reason, when I like, put on headphones in an audio book and my hands can still do something. I can turn off the other thoughts and just focus on that, like my new movement of what I'm doing. So I really enjoy that. I also unpopular opinion. Have started decorating for Christmas

Toni Rose Deanon  3:15  
already. Hey, you know what? In the Philippines, we start in the bur months. So September, all Christmas decorations are out, and so it is what it is you're actually behind Sarah. 

Sarah Eiler  3:24  
So that makes me feel better hear people yell at me for but it brings me joy. So I have focused on what brings me joy within my four walls as of late and needle pointing and early Christmas decorating.

Nicholas Provenzano  3:39  
Love that I build Lego sets. It helps calm my anxiety, because I can focus on a single task and the laid out process. You know, for people you know that deal with anxiety, it's everything is going on all at the same time in your brain. And so, like you with needlepoint, I can just put on some music, and I can just follow the directions build the thing at the end of it, that sense of completion, that sense of like I did this, and now I've reached that problem period. Where do I put all of these? I was just about to ask that so I have all these shelves, and my wife's like, what are you gonna do with Java's barge Lego set? And I go, Well, it's gonna sit proudly behind me, so that when I do video chats, people can see this epic thing that I've done along with the Millennium Falcon or Voltron, that actually breaks up into the robot lions and then can reassemble. But I also have this moment. I'm like, I pass, like, take care of these like, is this like, super weird where I'm like, Is this my son's responsibility now he's gonna like, like, or I should move in the next five years. Do they stay with the house?

Daniel Forrester  4:53  
So I just read an article the other day about builders are now actually adding on rooms. For Legos, have gotten so into it, through their childhood and into their adulthood, that like they're actually creating, basically gallery rooms,

Nicholas Provenzano  5:09  
all of their stuff, not gonna say, added lighting. Yeah, I've spent but it's it's that quiet time. It's that peaceful time. My wife knows that if she sees me, like building Lego Oh, he's working through some stuff, and it's good, and I can crank out an hour and just walk away going, I accomplished something. I think that's the part of it that feels good. It's like, probably the same with the needlepoint where, when you're done, because I think we've all had those days where we've worked, at the end of the day, you go, what did I do today? Yeah, like, what was accomplished. And sometimes you did, but it was just so minute all the things you go, what did I do? But, you know, with these crafting or building things, which is why I loved maker Ed and built maker spaces and stuff, because you no matter if the project was finished or not, you could say, I visually see what I accomplished.

Sarah Eiler  5:59  
There's a physical product that you are working towards completion of. I actually was telling my therapist that it's so funny because one of my biggest problems is, like, negative self talk, just from I'm an only child, wanted to be the best at everything. Wanted to make my parents proud, you know. And I was telling my therapist like, it's so funny that the hobby that brings me joy and makes my brain relax is one that comes with a sense of accomplishment, of course, of course.

Toni Rose Deanon  6:27  
And I think a lot of teachers feel that way. Honestly, if you think about it, right? It's always that kind of we don't have instant gratification in education, right? There's definitely no instant gratification. So I think we as educators are always trying to look for different ways where we can get that instant gratification. Instant gratification right. And so I was just about to say to Nick like, that's such a healthy mechanism, right? When you are anxious and you're crashing out, you're like, let me build some Legos. So kudos to you. That is actually a beautiful thing. Daniel, what about you?

Daniel Forrester  6:59  
This may be a little cliche, but it's, it's actually getting home and playing with my kids. I have a two year old, a six year old, and no matter how my day has gone, when I walk into the door, they scream and are so excited for me to get home. And then, you know, just playing with them, you know. And my daughter loves to pretend. She loves to draw. My son is in a dinosaur phase, so he is, every day, a different dinosaur, and eats off the table, and, you know. And so it's just one of those things that doesn't matter how well things have gone or how poorly they've gone, it's I get home, and it's I'm they think that I'm the coolest guy in the world, and all of my ideas are great, and just to see the smiles on their faces is just like one of those things. 

Toni Rose Deanon  7:48  
And I'm sure they keep you young too.

Daniel Forrester  7:51  
I hope so. I'm an old parent.

Nicholas Provenzano  7:54  
Enjoy it. My son's 14. Let me tell you,

Daniel Forrester  7:58  
I'm living in happy times right now I'm fully aware of it, trust me, and that's why I'm relishing every moment while I get

Toni Rose Deanon  8:06  
Oh, I love that. Well, thank you all for sharing. I appreciate that. You know we I wanted to record this this episode with you all to talk about AI, because, again, like I said earlier, AI is a hot topic, and I know that with screenpal and school AI, y'all are having lots of conversations with leaders, and then Daniel as a school leader, right? Like you're hearing about all of the stuff that you could purchase for the school, right, that you could help teachers implement whatever it is that you want them to implement. And so I'm curious what, I guess, for Nick, the question is like, when you talk to leaders, when you talk to schools and districts, what is? What is one of the things that they look for? And you can also just say, like, yes, Daniel, you agree, right? What, what are, what are some of the things that they look for, especially when it comes to AI implementation, like, what are their challenges, questions, concerns?

Nicholas Provenzano  8:53  
Yeah, my hot take. Answer to that with these groups is that AI isn't the solution to all your problems. 

Toni Rose Deanon  9:00  
Yes, and you got to say that again. You got to say 

Nicholas Provenzano  9:03  
AI is not the solution to all of your problems. And that sounds like a wild thing for a person who works for an AI company to say, but we are a company founded by educators. It's run by educators, and we all have been on the other side, where the professional development person comes in and says, This is the thing, and you're never going to have to worry about X, Y or Z ever again. And all the teachers do the biggest eye roll, you can hear it, move across the room and immediately take out the grading for the day and just start like they check out. Because that's coming from someone who's clearly never been in the classroom or is so far removed from the classroom that they don't know what the current situation is like. And so when I have this conversation with educators all over the world, it's the same thing that when I learned to use things like Adobe or Google or whatever I go this is going to help you solve a problem, a. Certain way, and it might work great for this class, and it might be the worst tool for this class. Like, I would say things like, I always submit a session that's here are all the tools that failed me as a teacher. Never gets picked up, shockingly. But all of those tools I could have another person who could do the exact opposite. Say, these are all the tools that were successful for me. Yeah, right, because it's, again, you've been in the classroom long enough. Every problem is so specific. We teachers talk about the chemistry of your class like, it's a phrase that we use, like, oh, the chemistry of my third hour is great. Or, oh, one kid came in and the chemistry was like,

Daniel Forrester  10:37  
way off, yeah. Like, that kid's absent, yes, classes,

Nicholas Provenzano  10:40  
the glue. Yeah, the glue is gone. So when you talk about AI, it's going to solve certain problems for you, some things you might not realize are problems. It can streamline things. It could engage certain groups of students, but some students are still going to require face to face, one on one, human time, which everyone should still have, right? This idea that AI is going to replace all of those things, I think, is the fear mongering to a bit. It's the unknown bit of it. But when Google came out, everyone said, Education is over. Why do you even need teachers? Kids can Google it? And the response from like the tech forward, people, was, if Google can do your assignment, it should. It's not Google's fault. It's the assignments problem, and those people don't want to hear that AI is the same thing. If AI can just do all the things you want a kid to do. What are you asking the kid? Because as teachers, we have to recognize we are no longer the gatekeepers of information. The Internet destroyed that I started teaching, and I said, Hey, where's the teacher's edition of the textbook? Like, night was this, like, 2000 2001 and said, Oh, we're out. I go, What do I do? And they just said, I don't know. You can probably, like, order one or something. I went online, order the teacher edition of the textbook. Had it, and then I had this epiphany, anyone can do this. Yeah, what's stopping a kid from dropping 45 bucks to get the teacher edition, and it was that moment where I realized, oh, I need to think beyond the textbook, because the Internet has changed the game, and AI has now fundamentally changed it, where, if all you're asking is broke memorization things, do we need that anymore? Yes, there are some basics I think we all need to know and memorize and just we learn through doing. But do I need to know the exact chemical formula for this at that moment, my high school teacher, back in the 90s, when we took our final exam, gave us the periodic table. Says, Here you go, you can have this and whatever's on it, so that it was like, the hint of like, put notes on it. And he just said, quite simply, no scientist in the world doesn't have access to the periodic table or notes that they've taken, and so this idea that information should be used and taught how to be used, whether that's Google, whether that's AI, we need to prepare our kids with how to utilize these tools so that they're a generation that doesn't share bunnies bouncing on a trampoline, thinking it's a real thing. 

Toni Rose Deanon  13:02  
I thought it was 

Nicholas Provenzano  13:03  
our instincts. Was more of a generation where we still go, well, that's a video, and that looks real. 

Sarah Eiler  13:10  
It must be true. Yes. 

Nicholas Provenzano  13:12  
So discerning, those media literacy skills, yes, AI is now another level, and that's an expectation where, you know, you bury your head in the sand. Okay, your kids are using it Hate to break it to you. I don't need to teach Google Docs or YouTube is so unimportant, or Wikipedia is not a trustworthy source. Wikipedia is one of the most trustworthy sources now on the internet like that has done a complete flip. And, yeah, 

Toni Rose Deanon  13:35  
that is so wild, too. 

Nicholas Provenzano  13:37  
Completely wild. You used to say.gov is a source that you can trust, I mean, but that's the part of educators of why we have to stay current. That's why we have to recognize the changes in our culture and remember that we are teaching kids that are generationally, going to be encountering a whole different world. So my hot take is that, no, AI is not the solution to all your problems, but it's the thing that can help you get to the thing which is engaging and supporting student learning.

Toni Rose Deanon  14:13  
I love that, and so I'm going to bounce that to Daniel, because as a school leader, right, like you're hearing all these things about AI, how can you better support or, how do you better support your teachers, that they do feel successful when they're trying to do something new, right? Because a lot of the times this is that this, it's not a hot take. I think everyone knows this, right, like professional development is wonky, or walkers or just not effective at all a lot of the time, right? I remember sitting for hours at a time, just being talked at and like you said, I was degrading. I was on my phone, I was on Instagram, like I was doing all the things I wasn't paying attention. And then there's like, accountability piece too, right? Like, okay, you sat here, right? And we talked to you for two hours, and good luck. Go do the thing now, right? How do you support. Educators. 

Daniel Forrester  15:00  
Yeah, it's, it's a it's a funny thing. Teachers are a lot of times the worst students. Yes, you talk about professional development, right? A lot of people put thought and effort into providing that training, and whether it's for school, AI or screen, power or whatever, whatever platform you're trying to help teachers with, when they you get them in the room and there's more than one on one or one on two, you know, you have those people who open up and start grading or start replying to emails. And if they were in front of a classroom and students started doing that, they immediately jump on them, right? And we and we have corrective measures. And so like, while we are trying to help strengthen their ability to handle all of the different technology platforms that are out there that can enhance what they're doing. For me, the way I help them is I really try to be intentional about what it is that we're trying to move forward right? How is this going to impact learning? And if it's not going to impact learning in a positive way, or it potentially could impact it in a positive way, but it's going to require a lot of time to make it implementable. Then we, I do a lot of that front end work for them, and I try to investigate, I have a small pilot group of teachers that I will do intensive training with. And then we meet and we test out, and we get feedback from them of how it went in the classroom. And then we talk about, okay, why did it go bad? Was that just your delivery of it? Was that the design of it? And then we try to scale that out to the other teachers, because then, when I have use cases, but really it's, you know, teachers always want time, right? I need time to be able to understand this. I need time to be able to do that. And that's the one thing in schools that we can't always give to teachers, is time. And so to really try to support them is I try to listen to your point, Nick, I think AI doesn't solve every issue. It solves an issue. And so for us that the success I think we've had recently is understanding that each teacher's issues are different, and so trying to get insights from those teachers, whether it's the English department versus the Math Department versus the world language department, or within that department, what are your struggles? And then let me help you find a solution using these tools that we've identified versus, you know, and I'm guilty, I have to do kind of a whole school, you know, presentation on here's the platform. This is how you log in this and like, those things are the ones where people's computers are open. But when I go in and say, like, Hey, you told me you were having an issue with this, let me walk you through how we can use a student space, or how we might be able to use a formative to be able to kind of do all these things. It helps to solve that problem. And when that problem then gets solved for that individual teacher, they start using it, they start building confidence, and then they come back to me for more and say, Okay, now I have this problem. And so then it becomes a problem for me, because there's only one of me, and how do I help everybody in the school? So

Nicholas Provenzano  18:02  
I think you said something that really connects to how we started the podcast, the humanizing, yeah, right? Because you took that approach of, like, I need to help the English teacher. What is your problem? Right? Because, again, no different than our students. The minute you can say, I see you and I see the problem that you're having. What can we do together to solve that?

Daniel Forrester  18:22  
It's the beauty of what education is being sold as with AI, right, the personalization of learning, right? But when you're trying to teach the human to use the AI to then personalize learning, you have to have, there's not an AI to teach the AI, the human how to use the AI, right? That hasn't been developed yet. So it's one of those things where it comes back to that human connection and being you know that one on one time, right? And how can you provide that to as many teachers as you can?

Sarah Eiler  18:54  
I think that one thing that was really important about what you said when you went in and you helped the individual teacher, and this is something that I rarely so I'm a K 12 girly at heart. I very rarely will say that something that they're doing in, like talent development, corporate learning space, is better than K 12. And I don't want to say better than necessarily, but they really have done a lot of work on focusing on micro learning. So you went in, you handheld with that, not literally, figuratively, with that teacher, and you were like, here's how you do this, right? So you basically had a micro learning session with that teacher, right? And you figured out how to solve that problem. People respond so much better. And I know that's part of like, short form video, Tiktok generation, whatever you want to call it, reels on Instagram and Facebook. I think that people respond really well to the micro learning and being able to solve one small problem rather than a sit and get is what I used to call it a sit and get professional learning session where you're just sitting and you're. Like, you can't even retain the amount of information that you get in an hour. Like, even here, I've gone to so many incredible sessions, and thank goodness my type A personality took notes on a Google Doc, because I'm gonna have to go home and, like, look through every single detail of that to identify what my micro learning is that I want to take and apply elsewhere. But just like you said, though the one teacher, the personalized learning aspect, but also that micro learning like it's just one small problem that we solve. I used to lead professional learning for Discovery Education. 180 days a year, I'd be out on the road leading professional learning sessions, six hour trainings. Six hour trainings. I mean, in the same room with the same people for six hours. And I would always tell my teachers that I was working with, just walk away with one thing I know, I'm going to throw a lot of information at you for six hours, but if you walk away and you're like, I want to collect student video responses on a Padlet. That's great. Use that next week. That's all you need. Is just the one new idea. Don't get overwhelmed.

Daniel Forrester  21:11  
There's, you know, borrowing from the corporate world. There's a book Big Little breakthroughs by Josh Linkner, who talks about a lot of innovation and big change and corporations don't come as this huge idea. It's actually these very small things that have a bigger impact, right? And again, it goes back to finding out what the actual issue is for that teacher and try and provide a solution to that issue. Gains buy in and helps to create positive experience and has a greater impact, versus saying, Here's a platform that can do all of these things now you figure out how it solves your problem. And I think that's what in education we have a hard time of doing, is we a lot of times we say, we just throw a product or, you know, device or something at an issue, without really trying to figure out what the real issue is. And how do we have that big, little breakthrough that then ends up paying on the back end?

Sarah Eiler  22:05  
And that's why, like, school AI, is so beneficial, because you're taking a large language model, which is a full day of training, in our metaphor here, right? That's the full day of training, and you're breaking it into smaller pieces and making it palatable, right? You're like, oh, like, I need a worksheet. I hate a worksheet, but you know what I'm saying, like, I need, I need a PDF. Can you help me make a PDF? Can you help me make a script for a video? Right? You're getting kind of those tidbits and solving that small problem. So, you know, the benefit of using a wrapping for a large language model is that it makes it easier for teachers to understand how to generate that and prompt the AI to get what they need.

Nicholas Provenzano  22:49  
Well, and I was just gonna say there is a systemic problem in education as a whole, where the science is there that tells us how to teach adults. It exists. It is well researched, it has been peer reviewed, and it is completely ignored at all times.

Toni Rose Deanon  23:09  
And the thing is, and that's the wild thing, right? Like we, we just the society in general, right? Like we are so ready to blame teachers, right? Like we're just like, oh, teachers aren't doing their jobs. Teachers need to do better. Teachers need to do what, whatever, right? But like you said, like conferences or even professional development, right? It's a sit and get so that's what they're getting, so that's what they're providing, that's what they're creating for students, because that's what they're seeing.

Daniel Forrester  23:31  
And so they've learned in the past, right? And think, right, it's going to happen

Toni Rose Deanon  23:35  
exactly. And, you know, is that mindset too? Of like, I've always done it this way, and but when we have conversations with teachers who do want to innovate, right? We do a lot of reflection of like, Hey, why is it that you grade the way that you do? Why is it that you plan the way that you do? And the response is always like, oh, because that was how I that was how it was when I was a student. And so it's like, Oh, perfect. Now we can, we can start with that, right? Let's talk about that. What were some of the weaknesses, what were some of the challenges as a student when you were going through that, and then think about like, how you're recreating those environments for students, right?

Nicholas Provenzano  24:07  
Even building the craziest thing that I've learned as I you know, over 20 years in education, no one knows how to really make a good assessment. Yes, no one is like the science behind assessment building is super fascinating, but also never taught to a teacher anywhere, ever, yes, right? Like, it's right, the biases, like, even if you remove that aspect of it, just what makes a good question. We were talking at dinner last night about, how do we, you know, standardize these exams and what language we use. So one of the questions referring to a soft drink, called it a soda, and there are kids regionally, what the heck is the soda?

Daniel Forrester  24:53  
What would you like drink? A Coke? Okay, what kind. Sprite, yeah, right.

Nicholas Provenzano  25:03  
So those type of things where we talk about ai, ai, while has issues of biases and people are if you're thinking about that, you can help remove those, but to be able to have a system that can create better assessments without your individual biases involved in it is huge. The my old anti multiple choice test question issues I have in general, so easy to grow. Do you know sure you know the wrong answers on a multiple choice test have a name? Do you know what they're called? Distractors. Distractors, we open. We call the wrong answers tricks. Yeah, we are designed to mislead. What type of an assessment world are we creating? Where we go? Did I fool you?

Toni Rose Deanon  25:58  
Right? Yeah, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Sarah Eiler  26:00  
I remember so I did take one as a teacher and teacher ed and like, shout out to my MIT program. It was great. I'm not hating when I say this. I took one course called classroom assessment. A lot of my courses were online. My classroom management class was online, asynchronous. Online. I had not managed anything until I literally student.

Sarah Eiler  26:31  
But when I took the classroom assessment course, I remember my professor being like, you're not good at writing distractors. And I was like, so I'm not good at writing the wrong answer. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, how I'm not good, because my wrong answer was too wrong. It wouldn't trick students, and it was too wrong. It was too obviously wrong.

Toni Rose Deanon  26:56  
Yeah, it's a trick. It's a gotcha moment. And this is something that I was having a conversation because I went to a session that was to a session that was grading for equity, right? Like, Joe Feldman was there, the author was there. So it was like, I was like, Whoa, this is amazing. And one of the things that I had brought up too, is like, we're talking about assessments, right? But a lot of the times teachers are assessing not even what they're asking for, right? So as an English teacher, you would know this Nick Right? Like, hey, tell me the theme. But then I'm taking points off because you didn't write a complete sentence, but I'm not assessing the complete sentence. I'm assessing if you got the theme right, the anatomy right. So that's the conversations that I have to with teachers of like, hey, let's talk about this question that you're asking and then how you're grading it, because it's not aligning at all.

Nicholas Provenzano  27:39  
Actually, I ruffled some feathers in our English department when I suggested that the kids don't have to write the research paper for the research paper unit. And they just so I go, Well, we're just testing the research skills, right? They've written papers all year. The writing isn't the part that I'm assessing like I know that they can write I've seen them all year. Do they know how to do research? Do they knew how to organize research. They just looked at me like I was just out of my mind. I just go, well, it just seems like everyone does it at the end of the year because everyone hates it. The kids don't want to do it,

Sarah Eiler  28:13  
right? How many times as an adult have we had to write a research paper? If I'm being honest, it's very useful skill. Yeah, I'm a historian, so I researched a lot, 

Toni Rose Deanon  28:22  
but you're not writing papers about it.

Nicholas Provenzano  28:26  
Prepare them for college. I'm like, I get it, yes, in text citation, I get it. That's a skill. But at the end, why am I making them write a 10 page paper that I have to read?

Daniel Forrester  28:35  
Right? And it's May, and it's main, yeah, and you have 100 kids doing that

Sarah Eiler  28:42  
to be the devil's advocate with even in text citations, okay, so I learned that ELA style, yes, in English class. Guess what? I was a history major. What did the history Chicago? Well, then I had to learn footnotes. I feel like

Toni Rose Deanon  29:00  
I can do that now. 

Nicholas Provenzano  29:01  
Many of us learned like to make our bibliographies and got points taken off because the period was, 

Toni Rose Deanon  29:08  
oh my god. 

Nicholas Provenzano  29:08  
And then when things like easy bib would suffer, you just plug it in. There was this of like they need to know. I go, why, right? This is now something, yes, does the kid need the Dewey Decimal System? No, like, they can go to the computer and now, like, I had to use the card catalog as, like, technology is okay to replace certain things. Again, AI is going to replace certain things that used to be tedious, that used to be about doing the thing instead of knowing or learning about the thing. And as teachers, no matter what technological advance it is 10 years from now, 10 years from now, you know it's going to be something to be okay with, like again, every school block, YouTube, everyone, every single one, right? It was just, of course we do YouTube. Not for learning. And then now ridiculous. Of course, YouTube is for learning. Of course you can show this video. Of course you can do it like it takes schools, your school, Daniel, to say, You know what, we want to be ahead of the curve, because we know it. And so you have those forward thinking schools. And so when you work at a company like school AI, it's identifying those and flooding it with like, whatever we can do for you, because we need those Lighthouse districts and schools that see the future and say, You know what, we don't want to be the last school that allows YouTube, the last school to allow Google Docs views like I fought so hard to allow Google docs in my school. It's like such an embarrassing conversation, if you think back about it, but because everything there's predators online, everything the internet is just predators. And we can't have YouTube, we can't have Google Docs. You know, it was like those things, but now the idea of removing that from an educational institution, teachers would lose their mind. 

Sarah Eiler  30:58  
Try changing an LMS over, right? Going from, like, Google Classroom. We went from Google Classroom to Canvas. 

Nicholas Provenzano  31:04  
Oh yeah, there you go. Forget it. Okay, so you're

Sarah Eiler  31:10  
both like, I like Google Classroom better. I don't want to learn Canvas. I don't want to learn

Daniel Forrester  31:15  
something most learning new, but I also have all my stuff there right now. I have to migrate.

Toni Rose Deanon  31:19  
That's the thing, right? So, like, I again, we all work with a lot of educators. I think that's the commonality that we all have. And I think, again, there's just so much empathy that goes out for educators. I mean, I was also in the classroom for 10 years, instructional coach after as well, right? And so I I felt all the struggles, right? I know why you're resisting. I know why you're resisting. Because, again, there's a lack of time, lack of support. And then there's like, so much pressure to perform the way that you need to be to perform, right? There's the teacher evaluations that you also have to do. And then, of course, if you're innovating, I don't know how many times y'all heard this, right? Of educators who are trying to innovate, who are trying to make student centered classrooms getting docked off of their evaluation too much talking, right classroom, right? Exactly, or it's too chaotic, and it's like the most organized chaos. Kids are so engaged. But that's like the takeaway, right? So the system this, and I'm not blaming any specific group of people, I think the system is just, so it's just, there's just so many problems. 

Nicholas Provenzano  32:14  
You didn't have the objective on the board, right? You didn't have the objective of the day on the board. Yeah? Like, how did kids know what they were doing? Because I told them, and they know how we deal with this, and it's the same thing every single day, and the one day you showed up, it wasn't written on the like, I don't know if they're not third graders don't

Sarah Eiler  32:35  
remember having an observation. And I will not say what school it was at, like in my career, because I've worked at many but I still remember having an observation where the administrator came in, put down a laptop and then got called out for, like, an emergency we had, all we had done was, like the five minute opening question, you know, like it was not even the full class period. You're supposed to get, like, multiple 45 minute observations in North Carolina throughout the year, left the laptop counted that observation the five minutes because his laptop sat there for 40 minutes. Nice schedule. Criticism, like the feedback, not criticism, but it was because it wasn't, you know, positive feedback was, well, they filled in the blanks on a worksheet for the warm up. Do you know what we did for the rest of the class? We did a gallery walk, a literal gallery walk with like images, political cartoons and historical documents, where students were out of their chairs walking around the room looking at artifacts from World War One, like they were literally like, riding and walking around the whole period. Like, if he would have done more than leave his laptop there, he would have seen one of the best activities that I did in my classroom, that students were, like, very engaged in and very into. But all he saw was a five minute opening. 

Toni Rose Deanon  34:03  
Yeah, it's interesting, because I'm sure when our listeners are listening to this, right, they're just like, lots of feelings are coming up when it when we talk about evaluations, when we talk about, I want to try something new, but, you know, fill in the blank, right? There's lots of emotions that that come to play with that. And so I again, going back to, like, the tools, right? It really, teachers are always complaining about time, so the tools that we use should be giving us more time to spend with students, right? And I think that's like, one of the things too, that I'm having conversations with teachers about, because a modern classroom, Daniel, you haven't had you haven't heard my spill at modern classrooms that we do, self pacing, blended learning and mastery based learning. So professional development, we help teachers create that learning environment, and then our teachers use school AI to help with that, and then screenp out to create their instructional videos. So this is kind of how we got connected.

Toni Rose Deanon  34:55  
So it's that time piece, right? Like teachers just need that time. They need time to process. They need time to digest. Very similar to our students, right? And so, you know, it's really interesting. Tying it back to time, I do a lot of virtual events. And I think Nick and Sarah, you do a lot of virtual events as well, too, right? And so for my webinars, for the 60 minutes I talk 20 minutes the rest of the time, y'all are in breakout rooms. Y'all are reading something. It's a shared experience. You're having conversations, you're sharing ideas. Because I am actually not the smartest person in this room. All of us the room is the smartest, the smartest in this room, right? And so Sarah and I had a virtual book club that we were doing. And I think I told you about this too, because Ken Shelton, we had Ken Shelton on there for the promises and perils of AI and education and and Sarah and I were just like, Yo, we can catch up. We can, like, Kiki it up. Because our our participants are now doing the hard work, right? Like they're doing the work that's like, internalizing it, having conversations about it, so they can see, oh, I need to do this also with my kids, right? Because, like, typically, a lot of the times when we're facilitating stuff, when we're teaching teachers, we do just like, talk at them, and then it's like no time to explore at all. And so, you know, this is my first time also being in a space with two community managers, right? Because I am also one. I'm like, Oh, my God, I didn't so great. Why is community important education right?

Nicholas Provenzano  36:18  
Now, the simple short answer is that the world and people in it are working very hard to silo everyone off from everyone else. And community I look at is our ability to help people remember that we have more in common, that we have differences, and the differences are one or two things, but every single teacher, whether you're rural, suburban, urban, like, whatever it is, guess what? We've all had that one kid, we've all had that one parent. We've all had that one administrator, right? And the stories are different, but the situation is the same. How do I help Billy sit down and do this? Or how do we come up with a lesson to allow Billy to stand up and run around and learn? And whether you taught in rural Georgia, whether you're in LA Unified, whether you're in the suburbs of Chicago, we've all had Billy, and we're all going to share, this is what I did with my Billy. And you go, Oh my God, how did I How did I not? And what I love about what we do at school, AI is that we're building this program that allows you to ask that question, and for the AI to say, here are some different possible solutions, because sometimes you don't have the time to engage fully in the community, but we offer that opportunity. So when people do show up, they all of a sudden go, it's not me. It's not just me. And that empowers you, for six months to realize that I am not a bad teacher. These aren't bad kids. This is the reality that we're all facing. And oh, my goodness, I have someone I can message and just say, thank you. How can I and know that I'll get a response? And I think for me as a community manager, my whole job is to connect that teacher from Singapore with that teacher in Kansas, and go here, do something cool. You guys are kind of doing cool things. I'm like, find them and for them to go, wow, I can bring this into my school, which was impossible 15 years ago, which was impossible 10 years ago. And I think as a community manager, if I'm not making connections, what am I doing? Yes.

Toni Rose Deanon  38:35  
And I also want to, want to add on to that with community piece, right? Like a lot of the times, our teachers are just so ingrained in what they're doing that they forget how amazing they are. And I have to remind them all the time, like, Hey, you're amazing. And it's not even like, I'm not I'm teaching you new things. I'm reminding you of the greatness that you already have. And because you're so focused on this problem that you're forgetting all of these things that you already know how to do. And so it's that point too, of like, Hey, this is a reminder. Because, like, a lot of times that light bulb moment for teachers, like, yeah, duh, of course, I should have tried that, right? And it's like, because, again, we're just so focused on, like, this problem that we forget about our greatness. And so I always say designated high person, because I do community engagement, because I always just remind teachers like, you are amazing. You're doing some really cool stuff. Let's elevate that. Let's highlight it. Let's continue to, like, focus on those strengths too, right? So, Sarah, what about you? For screenpal,

Sarah Eiler  39:31  
I think the biggest thing is, for me, it's about like, proving the shared struggle, which is very similar to what you were saying, Nick, and that, like, we share all of these things. And even as community managers, we don't get time like this very much either, right? Like the other day, Tisha called me and we were talking Tisha poncio, who is with lumio Now, we were chatting for literally a whole hour, and we never even realized how many, how many similarities the two of us had. And I'm talking. About emotional and you know, like our actual behavior characteristics were so similar, and the way that we view the world is so similar, and we just didn't even know, because we had never actually been in the same phone call for an hour or the same room for an extended period of time to talk and get on that deeper level. So I think that having the community and having these webinars and our book club allows educators from all walks of life to be in the same place at the same time, even if it's, you know, different locations, all on a zoom webinar,

Toni Rose Deanon  40:36  
different content, like all of that, yeah, 

Sarah Eiler  40:39  
but it just allows us all to share what we're going through, just like that conversation that Tisha and I had, I'd be like, This is what I struggle with. This is what I struggle with. Wow, we struggle with the same thing. What are you doing to help? You know, to help yourself. And tissue has been very open. She has ADHD. And she was like, Do you think you might have ADHD? Probably. But you know what, when I was a kid like, my parents thought that me having ADHD was a problem, and they didn't want, you know, to have the child that had to take medication and couldn't control herself in the classroom. So you know, it's like just having that shared experience and being like I went through the same thing, and having that aha moment of like, we are so similar, even though you're in Texas and I'm in Georgia, and our paths don't cross very often, I think is really valuable. And for me, the reason why I like these in person events and like doing book giveaways in tandem with the webinars and making sure that, you know, I'm giving people access to screenpal, or we're still giving away as much as we can for free within the product. It's more about empowering teachers and also being like you are valuable. This is something that I can give you a valuable to show of value, to show you that I think you're valuable. Because I think, as a society, unfortunately, we don't place the value in education that we used to. I don't know if it was ever placed, because, I mean, I was, you know, in school until I was a teacher, basically. So I couldn't tell you, other than on the student side, you know, the value that teachers had. But I know the most clear is being from North Carolina. The monetary compensation that teachers receive is not in line with what's expected of them, or, you know, the education that they need. I have a friend who just is going back to the classroom from working for the Department of Public Instruction, and she's going from making $5,000 a month at the DPI, which is a publicly funded right the North Carolina Department of instruction, to making $2,900 a month as a classroom teacher. Yeah, and it's just like, 

Daniel Forrester  42:51  
it's a hard sell. 

Sarah Eiler  42:52  
It's a hard I mean, it's like, even my husband, like, love him dearly. And if my daughter does want to be a teacher, more power to her. I will support her 100% but he's like, You know what? I don't want you to do. I don't want you to be in the Army like me, and I don't want you to be a teacher like he's like, I mean, of course, we'll support her no matter what. But you know, you're just kind of like, I've gone through the hardship, and I don't want that for you. Like, I don't want you to feel under

Toni Rose Deanon  43:19  
appreciate, right? And I think I mean, and then that's what we can do with community, right? Like, we can't give you money, but we can't give you really time, but we can create a community to back you up, to advocate for you, to support you, to empower you, to do all of it, to rejuvenate you. Honestly, I think for me too, a lot of the times community managers work by themselves, right? Am I right? Yeah. Okay, great, great, great. So for me, it's like, more like, I want to collaborate with people, I am over competing, right? So it's collaboration over competition for me. So I'm always, constantly reaching out to different people and being like, Hey, how can we collaborate together so that we can do and create an event that's that our teachers would want to, would want to join, right? And so, and another thing that I'm also struggling with is like, I'm always, I'm always creating communities for teachers. How do I create community for myself? So that's like another thing too, right? And we and a lot of the times, again, reminders for adults and how you can create communities in your local areas or even virtual, right? Because I travel a lot, it's really difficult for me to be consistent in a physical space. So I really lean in and lean on my virtual community a lot of the times.

Daniel Forrester  44:26  
I think some hearing you guys talk about how you design your communities and stuff like that goes back to a comment you made earlier around in education, we don't get instant gratification, like there's no gratitude given to us by our students in the moment, like some of them will come up to you and say, Hey, you were my favorite teacher. You had a big impact on me. Or when they're graduating, they may say that, but like, I my teacher, the reason I got into education was because two of my football coaches thought that I would be a good coach and a good teacher, and so they kind of steered me into that path, and I had no interest in doing it initially, and then. This has been my career, but it's it's I was able to go back to them years later and just tell them how big of an impact they've had on me. And I've been fortunate enough to now be so far into my career, I've seen some of my students who now have their own kids that I've come back in contact with talk about like, You're my favorite teacher. You did this thing one time in class, and it had the biggest impact. When you guys were talking about community and building a community, there's such a long gap into being able to hear those stories from students that by finding and connecting with peers outside of your school, sometimes you get a little bit more of that shared gratitude, value, the being able to share their experiences and say, I'm I'm not a bad teacher, that I actually this is what everybody's dealing with. You get a little bit of that, that appreciation and that, that relationship building and lifting up one another in the moment that we don't get from our students, because it's such a delayed thing. And I think that that's one of the really important things that I think teachers who are struggling in education and who might be wavering on whether or not they should continue, they need a they need a community to go into, and it's and it's, you know, you get appreciation from your leadership, but that leadership is always tied, I mean, that gratitude is always tied to some evaluation, right? It's like, hey, we really appreciate you. Is it Do you appreciate me because of me and what I'm bringing or is it because my class is always doing what they're supposed to I don't take too many sick days, like, what are you actually grateful for? And so there's, there's always that questioning of whether or not you really mean what you're saying to me, but you don't. You don't have that when you're in a different community, whether it's you know, one of you all's communities with your platforms, or if it's developing another virtual community that you can be a part of. I think in education so valuable, because you do get to share those experiences, and you do get to problem solve, and you do get to kind of do, and it makes you better teacher. It makes you your mental health and wellness is better, and it keeps you driving forward. So I think it's one of those things that it's, it's, it's the solution, if we talk about trying to find, you know, technology provides that solution to the issue on whether or not you sometimes get in your blinders and you start to question whether or not what you're doing is actually good. Actually good or if you're actually a good teacher. 

Toni Rose Deanon  47:25  
That's a really great way to wrap up this conversation, too, right? Again, all human beings just want that sense of belongingness. All the human beings just want to feel valued and supported and loved and and the ways that they feel supported, valued and loved, right? And so thank you all for saying yes to this. I know it's so random. I just, like, kind of walked up to like, hey, I want to record this thing and talk about education. And you did it. And this is such a beautiful, beautiful conversation. So again, thank you for being here in this space. Shout out to Georgia ATC as well, for putting us in the same physical space together. And I just again, thank you for your service. Thank you for your service. Thank you for everything that you've done for our teachers and our students, and I just really appreciate you all. Thank you. Thank you. 

Zach Diamond  48:11  
Thank you so much for listening. Listeners. Remember, you can always email us at podcast, at modern classrooms.org, and you can find the links to topics and tools we discussed, as well as more info on this week's announcements and events in the show notes for this episode at podcast dot modern classrooms.org We'll have this episode's recap and transcript uploaded to the modern classrooms blog on Friday, so be sure to check there or check back in the show notes for this Episode if you'd like to access those and if you enjoy our podcast and it's been helpful in supporting you to create a blended, self paced, mastery based learning environment. We would love if you could leave a review that does help other folks find our podcast. And of course, you can always learn the essentials of our model if you want to go beyond the podcast through our free course at learn.modernclassrooms.org course at Learn dot modern classrooms.org and you can follow us on social media @modernclassproj, that's P, R, O, J, we are so appreciative of all the hard work you do for students and schools. Have a great week, and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the modern classrooms, project, podcast, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai