Episode 14 – Dr. Mark Zeiler on Human-Centered AI, EdTech Adoption, and Why Schools Can't Keep Up

In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe Sebestyen sits down with Dr. Mark Zeiler — a veteran educator with over 20 years of experience in K-12 schools — to explore what it actually takes to keep the human element alive in an era of accelerating artificial intelligence.

Dr. Mark Zeiler spent two decades as a teacher, instructional coach, and school dean before stepping away from K-12 administration to join the Human Intelligence Movement, an organization focused on ensuring humans remain at the center of educational and institutional design as AI continues to reshape the world. Dr. Joe Sebestyen and Dr. Mark Zeiler discuss why so many of the skills students will need most — critical thinking, adaptability, collaboration, and communication — are still largely absent from classroom design, and what it would take to build a learning environment where those skills can actually flourish.

The conversation explores the compliance burden crushing school administrators, the fidelity gap that causes EdTech tools to fail, and why even the most well-intentioned district initiatives tend to add to the pile rather than change the system. Dr. Mark Zeiler draws on his experience managing safety protocols, navigating school culture, and leading professional learning conversations to explain why the public education ship moves slowly — and why that pace is becoming increasingly dangerous in a world where AI is advancing at exponential speed.

This episode is especially valuable for educators, school leaders, EdTech professionals, and parents navigating the intersection of academic preparation and technological change. Whether you are thinking about how to support a student through college admissions, wondering how AI will reshape the skills that matter most, or searching for an honest conversation about what is broken in American schools and what human-centered solutions might look like, this episode delivers the clarity and candor worth sitting with.

Thanks for tuning in to the SupportED Learning Podcast with Dr. Joe Sebestyen. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe for more insights on education, critical thinking, and AI integration in learning. Visit our website at supportedtutoring.com

Remember to share this podcast with fellow parents and educators who are passionate about reimagining education for tomorrow's world. Until next time, keep supporting learning! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're listening to the Support Ed Learning Podcast, where we challenge the status quo of education and reimagine what learning should be. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian, and in every episode we dive into critical thinking, Bloom's Taxonomy, educational innovation, and how AI is shaping the future of learning. Whether you're a teacher, parent, policymaker, or lifelong learner, you're in the right place to rethink, reshape, and revive education.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Supported Learning Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Joe Sebastian. Tonight I have a very special guest. I am joined by Dr. Mark Zeiler. Dr. Mark, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:40

I am excellent, Joe, and I really appreciate the invitation to be here. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

We appreciate you having appreciate you coming on, and I'm glad we're able to have this because you uh just recently stepped out of K-12 education and into the world of humor human-centered learning, correct?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Uh humans, uh yeah, human intelligence movement is the organization.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Yeah, gotcha. Yeah, like so that and you, I just we just before we got K1, you just said you just left right around Thanksgiving break, something I have yet to do, but I'm getting close. But yeah, tell me what that was like, and we'll just kind of give me a little bit of your background and how we led up to that because it's very, very fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Well, as you and I were talking about, uh, the the one of the commonalities we have is we just love education. I mean, we love kids, you know, we love teachers, and we we love making a difference. So all of that is still very much ingrained in my daily approach. Uh, what drew me to the human intelligence movement is that AI is obviously moving at light speed, you know, and as it continues to accelerate, so many decisions are being made that are going to impact the future of learning and obviously the future of society. And so the human intelligence movement, the one of the core principles is that we want to keep people at the forefront of design. You know, that includes educational design, you know, corporations, society. We just want to make sure that humans don't get left in the the AI dust, we'll say. Yeah. But absolutely. You know, it's just like just like being at a school, though. It's just people, you know, um collaborating, working together, asking questions, diving deeper, and and trying to figure out the best decisions we can make for students and for adults.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Yeah, and we're gonna, I'm really excited to get into all that. Um, just so I don't jump the gut and at least give you a little bit of a proper introduction for your background. Uh, Dr. Mark has over 20 years of experience in K-12 education. Congratulations. That's all that's an awesome experience. That's two decades. Um, you've worked as a teacher, an instructional coach, and as a school leader. Some of the major results you've achieved 2020, 22% year-over-year growth in ELA, 68% documented math gains. Um, and now moving on to focus on helping districts and ed tech teams improve implementation um onboarding engagement with uh what we were going to talk about tonight. And do you call yourself a relationship Jedi, which uh must be a Star Wars fan there. But uh so, and uh I do like this. I mean, think something just reading about your background from our team about again, uh you're you're you're saying a lot of the words, and I hear I hear human-centered design, because that's been in education for a while. And it's I I think we're in the same mindset, and I'm I'm excited to get into that about you know, humans are gonna have to be a part of AI. So we'd avoid the terminator, the scenario, right? Of just being lit out because ultimately, ultimately, that's what's what's gonna happen here. So just kind of going back to your background, you describe yourself as a relationship Jedi in ed tech. What does that actually mean in practice?

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Well, it requires that you carry around a lightsaber uh when you're visiting classrooms and you know, the hallways, community events, supervision nights. You got to make sure to wave the wand. Um, but no, um, jokes aside, I did have to pass up uh a George Lucas phone call or two because he wanted to film the scene of my office a few times. But really, you know, I I like to laugh a lot. Uh, I think that's important in education. People that know me the best know that that's really what drives me, uh, the relationships, the human connection. And so relationship Jedi has a purposeful meaning to me. You know, it's really how I show up as a human, show up as, you know, personally, professionally, and it's how I've been able to have a really positive impact in the lives of the students that I've worked with in my time and also the adults that I've helped during my time. So just, you know, I I like to, I just like to be curious. I like to ask questions, I like to be an active listener. And I like to really take the time to understand what makes people tick. And for me, that's just helpful to understand the the landscape that's in front of us and how we can all work together to get the best results uh for students. And again, you know, when we're outside of the classroom building for society as a whole.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Right, right. Um, so I mean, in your tw, I'm interested to hear about your 20 years of experience, just kind of the progression of where you started to where you are now, that journey, and what did they teach you um that most leaders never really get to see?

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Well, again, like you, here's one thing I'll say. Um, education continues to change. Uh I would say that education has tangibly changed every year over the course of the last 20 or so. Uh you feel it, but um more so they have, you know, more so than ever when COVID came around. Uh there there's just there's just been a divide that we we basically haven't returned to, you know, just a different way of operating. Um, I I feel like on a relationship level, you feel you just feel the weight of our roles deeper. You know, so every every stakeholder is carrying this, like, you know, what whatever you want to call it, a cognitive load, mental health load. Like we're all doing the best we can to serve our roles, you know. So for you know, for teachers, for instance, you know, and the schools that I've been in, we count on teachers to be in the hallways, essentially at their doors when the bell rings, you know, so that that helps with supervision, uh, that helps reduce some of the problems that we might get in a in a in a hallway during class change. And that that's great, but that's also really hard on the teacher. They don't they don't necessarily have the time to breathe. And, you know, we like the one of the topics we're talking about tonight is adoption. It's really hard to talk to teachers about adopting with fidelity when it's it's really hard for them to find time for a bathroom break, for instance, you know? Right. So there's that. And then you and I have a commonality with uh school administration. And again, I joke a lot, and so I'll say this half-jokingly, but in administration, it feels like it's difficult, you know, to take 10 steps down the hall without finding five more problems that you have to solve. And you know, it's also hard to find five uninterrupted minutes in your office, you know, to take the time to do the things you need to do. So administrators are facing those problems. Um, and just to sidetrack real quick, I want to say I think what you're doing, uh, in addition to your work and this, I think what you're doing at the support at tutoring for students and families, the the students and families are carrying this weight, you know, they they have all this pressure. You know, the students are trying to figure out how they're gonna, you know, get to the to the college level to be prepared for that. The the parents are asking questions about how to best prepare their kids. So all of these stakeholders having all of these challenges, and and yet we have to find a way in that ecosystem to work together and and to collaborate and to make sure we're listening to each other and and that we have cohesion as we pursue all these different goals.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

It's really sad because I mean, the reason I started tutoring again and have ultimately founded my own company was that I like I didn't like the interactions we were having during COVID. I'm like, I don't have any positive interactions with kids or families or anything right now, and I'm losing that love. Like, I actually loved being a teacher, I loved helping kids. And then you make the transition to admin, and I always describe it as like if you're a teacher and you're you know, a decent teacher and kids like you, like I was always the teacher that kids came back during Thanksgiving breaks after they graduated to come visit, say hi. It's like you're the star athlete, all right? The star athlete of a great team. And you move into administration, assistant principal, and now you're the referee, and everyone hates you. Every decision you make is wrong in questions. So it's like, so it's it's you know, and now in my current position, that doesn't necessarily happen. It is a lot easier to build a relationship with kids, but it's still like there is a barrier there, structural barrier. But I will say that to that point, we lost something during COVID that I don't know if we'll ever get back. And it's so hard to put on it, but there is like rolled up resentment, um, bitterness, like it's just and it's just like this aura that's there. And it's it's sad because what is what is the consequence of that is the erosion of trust in this institution that we've held very sacred. Because bipartisanly, not to bring in politics, but everyone loves their local school, everyone loved the local school teachers. But now it's like it's it's so much in that personalization more movement, in that um all about us kind of thing with the there's the human, there's the community aspect, the relationship aspect that's getting lost. And in that, the lost, there's a there's a deep erosion of trust in our schools that's happening. And I don't, I'm scared for where it's going because it ultimately leads to like this this this bedrock institution in our democracy falling apart.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Yeah, and I can relate to everything you're saying all too well. Uh going back to the metaphor of the referee, there's really no better way to prepare for school administration than to be a referee because you know, every time you make a call, you know, half of the people love you, half of the people hate you. Right. Um, it's it's really difficult to make decisions and try to keep like I used to think it was hard to make everybody happy. I'm at the point it's hard to make um anybody happy is how it can feel. Now, I know we have to give ourselves more credit than that, because I know that we are, you know, we are addressing a lot of needs through the work that we do, but but yeah, I yeah, what you described with COVID. At the time of COVID, I was uh dean at a a really unique high school. So it had uh 1,600 students, and what was fascinating about it was half the students were involved in in what's called a Cambridge program. It's kind of like an IB level track, you know, some of the top-notch students around, um, and then half students were not involved in the Cambridge program. And uh you can totally relate to this. I didn't get to interact with the Cambridge students and the dean's office, you know, uh, or very rarely anyway. You know, our work was really, you know, resolving conflicts just you know, every two feet that we walked. And that's another thing about school administration is I mean, I'll say this about the public space. I've never worked in a public school with less than a thousand students in it. Most of the schools have 1500, 1600 students. So, for perspective of our listeners, if only one percent of our of our family base had some kind of pressing problem on a given day, you know, we would have at least 10, 15, maybe 20 unscheduled, you know, emotionally charged conversations. A lot of those will take place, you know, with families coming in the front office and you know, saying things like, I'm not gonna leave here until I talk to Dr. Whoever. I got that nickname Doctor Whoever.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

You know, um, so but those are real issues. And and right like you, I have no problem having conversations with people and and working with them to resolve. But the trust, I think the trust you're talking about, I I I sense the again, palpably, because I I would have much rather people walked in the office and said, Hey, you know, can I talk to to Dr. Mark? Because I know that he cares about my kid, I know he cares about my family, and you know, be willing to talk to me about this issue that I have. But those that that's not how a lot of the conversations the school administrators have are framed. You know, they're they're much less uh less cordial tone, we'll say.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Yeah, and it it just it's you know, it I'm actually very fortunate to where where I'm at, and it does they don't always pop up, but it it is, you know, when you do get into those issues, it does become emotionally draining. And like you said, the constant disruption. So it's like, you know, there is a need for school leaders, there's a need for instructional leaders and to push that forward, but that does require time, focus, deep work. Um, you know, and ultimately stuff gets put on teachers' plates, gets put on administrator plates, nothing actually comes off that pile. So it just stacks and it's like, is that really where that what is the straw that broke the camel's back in education? So what you know, you're in the human intelligence movement now. Um, and I would love to learn more about that. But ultimately, what problem are you trying to solve with it?

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Well, again, it's that so many decisions are being made right now. Um, it's really hard to keep up with how fast AI is moving. But um, even even if we were to take AI out of the equation, you know, we often just talk about, hey, how can we get more of the human elements to flourish in a classroom? Because, you know, these conversations about, oh my gosh, AI's here and now we have to reshape education and figure out how to navigate it. You and I both know these conversations are actually quite old. You know, we've been for decades about how there's this disconnect that's that's just been persistent about okay, the kind of education that we're trying to give students in classrooms as a whole, and you know, of course, we're speaking generally. There are there are schools out there that are doing it the right way, you know, that are maybe a little more innovative and and have different resources or whatever. But all told, you know, a lot of students have graduated schools ill-equipped uh to, you know, to to thrive in the society as it was. And that was true 10 years ago, 15 years, 20 years ago. And now with with AI sort of automating, you know, we do you know, you talk about the automation that's happening, a lot of the entry-level jobs that are are being outright replaced, you know, and and also the nature of work is sort of a moving needle right now. Like we couldn't really say what a lot of the jobs are that our our kids will be doing, you know, 10, 15, 20 years from now. In other words, the future's unfolding. We don't know exactly what it's gonna look like, but we just want to make sure that you know our students have the ability to think critically, that they can adapt. You know, so again, like one of the one of the research uh papers that was put out there uh you know some months ago was the World Economic Forum, the Future Jobs Report. And it just kind of talks about some of the in-demand skills over the next five, 10 years. And I thought it was fascinating that of the top 11 skills that were named, eight of those were human-centered skills. And if you look down the list, you know, a lot of those skills are not actively being developed in educationally designed schools. You know, so just it just could it makes you wonder a little bit how we can get more of that um flowing in the classroom. And if I can go back to your point about the pressure and the compliance-related tasks, we'll just talk compliance for a minute. The compliance-related tasks alone in the public space requires so much of our time and attention as educators. Oh, yeah. And but um, you know, I don't I don't tend to thrive as well when I'm under that kind of pressure, you know, when I'm conflicted in the weight of all the things that I have to do next, you know, and I'm I'm on to the next thing. And then another trademark of administration is you know, you you literally cannot focus on one task at a time, you know. But by design, you have to be doing 25 things at once, or you're just not gonna get, you know, close to the end of your to-do list. So you know, again, but we're talking adults for kids. They're not gonna thrive when we're putting pressure on them, uh, you know, from the accountability measures. So a lot of those accountability measures, you know, state statewide are are are tested in the school grade categories. And a lot of those school grade categories are putting weight on administrators and and you know, it trickles down. The administrators have got conversations with teachers, the teachers have to put pressure on the students because hey, these are things that need to improve. Again, so just the the compliance accountability piece makes it really difficult for us to to thrive in a human-centered way with the with the current way that our system is designed.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Yeah, I mean, I think so I saw this uh I saw a post on I think Facebook or LinkedIn. Um Sam Altman said that kids born today will never be smarter than AI at this point. And it's not that they won't, they can't, so they won't because of like we're now in a we're now in an instant gratification, instant access society where like we're we're real based, our attention spans are super short. There's no actual, like we're just everything is this instant, and now you can people are using chat GPT like Google, and they're taking whatever it gives it at its word. And then there's no like we're not, but other but kids are. There's no pushback, there's no thought, there's no processing to what it's telling you. Like I said, you know, like I've had this conversation before of like chat GPT, like app chat GPT right now could potentially replace anything you learn in the classroom. You have the power in that app alone, and not not to mention there's Gemini, there's Claude, there's all these other AI tools. AI has the power to literally teach you anything right now. There it's it already is there. That that is that is what's at the fingertips of everybody. That's unbelievable power. Problem is most of us consume, we're not creating, we're like, we're just going to we're not gonna push back, we're not gonna challenge, we're not gonna want to stack things. And like you said, about critical thinking, that skill, if not built separately to be able to push it along, that's where the job loss is gonna be. Kids who can't think critically. And I see that almost every day now in this business is that we're so focused on the GPA, we're so focused on getting into a top school, we're so focused on competing when learning is not a competition, except just it's a growth, it's a it's an infinite game, it's it's just feeding the soul, is growing, right? And learning, and it's not there's no competition there, like and so it's but we've made it that we've made the grade. I think schools teach a fixed mindset just by the way structurally they're set up currently. Do you would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Or I mean, yeah, and I really like how you put that. I really like how you put that. The the point about uh not being a competition, if there's a competition, it's with yourself, you know, in terms of like what you're interested in learning, what you're capable of learning, and sort of turning within and being the best expression of yourself, and that that really is not the message that students have received in classrooms historically. It's certainly not the message I I was used to seeing when uh when I, you know, the last day I left. But but with AI, and like you said, everything that so it's got exponential computing skills, you know, right? It can compute anything.

unknown 20:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

So with that, you know, if we're leading with with our human-centered frame, a human-centered lens, then that personalization that you talked about, you know, and then I I can tell that's a focus of your your support your support at tutoring, which I'm really drawn to. Like you're really into personalizing the instruction, you know, understanding who the kids are and helping them achieve their personalized goals. To do that in our classrooms, you know, we're we're pretty far away from the educational design to allow that to flow the way you and I are envisioning. Right. Those the standards-based instruction as they are, the kind of standards that teachers are trying to porge through. And, you know, a lot of teachers will comment, uh, you know, if I had a thousand school days, I want to be able to get through all the standards that they have. And, you know, our answer is you've got to get through the standards. And, you know, and and so, you know, we we push forward. And even if students in the classroom haven't, you know, attained mastery with with you know the benchmarks of that standard, the next day gotta boot an X, you know, move it on. The personalized approach that you just described. I I think that there is far more power in that for the future that you and I see unfold, you know, where we have our our kids really looking within, you know, exploring their interests. And, you know, this is where we can think about the whole like the project. Project-based learning. And what I like about that is the multiple intelligences that it can align to. And you know, kids sort of exploring what matters most to them and what they're interested in.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

And but I think like with everything with education, it just gets twisted and turned and manipulated into that we lose the heart of what so project-based learning. Like so, without being PBL trained, ever certified trained. Here's what I understood a PBL, right? Project-based learning is the antymphesis of Bloom's taxonomy to create something. We're going to create something that's going to solve something, applying maybe real-world school skills to a current problem or a future problem, using everything we've learned in this unit or through these chapters or whatever, and creating something new. I'm thinking that's what it should be, right? So ultimately, there are things we have to do. We work together collaborately collaboratively and we solve some issue or we do something. That's the project. It looks more like projects, it's almost moved into project management, activity management, and like predictable outcomes. And that's not ultimately what it was, right? So it's like it's time filling and it's not pushing kids to learn or grow in a way. I'm not saying that I'm speaking universally, but I'm just saying that's what I feel like it has become. So it's become oversaturated in the wrong ways and lost the heart of it. And at the same token, when I was an administrator of former district, they rolled out personalized learning before AI, right? And I'm like, although I believe it, what you're describing is impossible without and like you, what you a teacher cannot differentiate for 30 kids in a classroom at a time? Where is that time coming from? And so when you think of everyone's at a different level, how else do we solve those gaps but with AI, right? And so is that where human-centered AI comes in? And is that what what is that and how is that role gonna be playing here in in edu in K through 12 education?

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Yeah, well, you know, what so one thing that comes to mind is there when we think about what human-centered AI is going to look like in the future, I I can't make the statement that there's one approach that's gonna work for everybody, you know. So really what it's gonna be, it's gonna be one of several things, you know, and and there's been some work on this recently. There's a a center on reinventing public education, and they convened these uh four like uh think forward fellows, and they just got together and and one of the conversations that they had was you know, some school districts are gonna need one of three things, and one of them is living with the here now, you know. So, in other words, like AI assisted education, taking the education system as it is currently, and just basically making the most out of it with the AI tools that you have. You know, and then if there is a if there was some really strong leadership and sort of like some visionary folks that wanted to jump deeper, it could look like an AI integration where exploring different things that schools could do with AI, you know, that sort of levels up, you know, what kids are learning. And then there's there's kind of a coupe de grace, there's a that there's an innovation approach where like your job as a school is to innovate, innovate, innovate. But again, going back to our public education dilemma, you know, when we use the term innovate in public space, uh what a lot of people don't see is just how slowly uh the ship moves, you know. The ship moves very slowly in public education. And I you know some people see that as a knock, uh, but the reality is it wasn't designed to move fast, it was designed to be structured, it was designed to be safe, it was designed it was designed this way. So to innovate in the way that we're envisioning requires a more forward-thinking approach to policy, for instance, to budget, you know, because we know that budget decisions are made so far out in advance that if you get really excited about something and you're purchasing tools, well, you have to wait for the next fiscal year, basically, right? For the you know, for the procurement to go through. And so by the time you finally got something rocking and rolling, you're already a couple of months into the next school year. And you know, you've missed pre-planning, you've got professional learning, you got to do all these things. So, yeah, that that was just another thought is the kind of information that I think we need in the public space, a lot like infrastructurally, if that's a word, it a lot has to change with how how fast the ship can turn uh to get the innovations moving before you know AI develops into the next thing. Because you know, AI is what it is right now, but by the time we're gonna put something into place with AI as it is right now, you know, what's it gonna look like by the time the ship's moving in that direction, you know, in the in the public space?

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Were you mostly in uh secondary schools as a school leader?

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Yeah, so when I when I first jumped out of college, I I moved up to New York City and I worked for uh a company called Score Educational Center. So it was a private company, and it was similar to like a Kuman or or a uh um a Sylvan or you know, but it was like we would have 250, 300 students who would come after school to work on sort of a personalized math or reading program.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

But I'm throwing that out there because that was kindergarten through eighth. But since I left that space, yes, I've been dealing with uh secondary, so seven through twelfth has been the bulk of my experience since returning from New York.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Because I see the biggest challenge in secondary, because that's what the world I live in, is right now most secondary systems are siloed in the way teachers interact with one another, department levels, grade levels, things like that. There is not there is a less overall focus on skill building and a more focus on content because I mean, and I you know, I was like that maybe my first year in teaching until I like went into uh an inner city school and I had to learn how to become behavioral management basically. And then, you know, it wasn't really till I became an IB teacher um that I learned how to actually teach, teach like skills. But um I still think some of well, first I I think you know, we want to talk about education problems. Most teacher pro teacher programs don't teach teachers how to teach, number one, and then it's left on the schools to do that, and usually their their processes are not gonna do that. They're assuming you're coming, there's like a huge gap there, that's a whole separate conversation. Um, and so they just get thrown in there, and most teachers kind of default, and again, I'm I'm making broad strokes here, yeah, but default to that Socratic kind of like lecture-based instruction of the way that at the collegiate level and see themselves as the basically the arbitrators, right? Like they are the content delivery, like it you must learn this content through what I say. This is the curriculum, and it's like at the speed of which AI is, is that even necessary? Is that even net do you think we even need to have a content teacher at this point because of the access to information tailor-made? And is it more like the human element of it is put like developing those the skills that, like you said, the those human-centered skills that are not actors not being taught anywhere right now?

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Yeah, I that's a really tricky question. That's a really tricky question because you know, if you take the teacher too much out of the equation, like I feel like there's a miss, you know, that because that relationship building has to play an integral role, I think, in the education in these schools. Now, could the model look a lot differently than the sage on the stage model? Yeah, for sure. And you know, that's where I, you know, I think the the collaborative piece, you know, if it's not project-based learning, it's you know, students having conversations, like asking real questions to dive a little deeper, you know, into the content. And then, you know, you mentioned blooms, and with with AI, I mean, AI is basically creating, you know, it's almost turning blooms upside down, right? That's that's how I described recently. So if it's if it's doing great for us, then you know, maybe we can charge students more with um, you know, the the verification or or not not so much an explanation, but an analysis of how things have been created, how the AI tool they used um created what it did, and you know, having conversations along those lines in terms of the the deeper thinking. Because there's got to be deeper thinking somewhere. You gotta be able to fit it in. You know, but again, like you said, before AI, we were having the same conversation. You know, oh, we got to ask higher level questions, you know, let's write those questions into your lesson plan, and I'll see you next next time I visit your class and we'll see how many questions, you know, that kind of thing. But that that wasn't as as effective as we need it to be either.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

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SPEAKER_02 32:06

Well, it's scary because it's like I I mean I'm never I was never really I'm I'm a history, I was a history teacher. I'm not really into like literature and English, but it just keeps on like the stories you see, and I and I just just I do own a Tesla. So like when I say like Elon Musk shuts down production of Tesla Model S and X to build his Optimus robots. I'm like, this looks like the prequel to iRobot or Terminator, and it's like, you know, he sees it as we won't even need to work, it's gonna be utopic in terms like there's a very fine line to a utopian society where everything is automated and done to enhance the life experience of the human, to that it's a brain-dead society, and it's like there just there's no, you know, I'm saying there's no creativity, there's no critical thinking. And I'm really scared of where we'll turn to because I don't I don't have much hope for us in that we're such consumers and not creators anymore, and we're programming our kids kind of not the school, they're just in society, like they just live off of their they live off their phones, they live off TikTok, they live all that stuff, and it's like, look up, let's have a conversation, let's have and those those skills are eroding, which is scary.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Yeah, you know, I I even heard someone saying that these bots are having conversations with themselves on Reddit, like without even a human participating, you know, and it just makes me wonder that the deeper we get into this, like these bots kind of acting on their own. Like I like one question that was posed is well, what happens if a bot essentially breaks one of our laws? Like who's to blame, and how do you track down who's responsible? Those those kinds of questions. Yeah, again, all the more important that we have conversations like we're having, and that we we figure out some kind of path for that is is less apocalyptic, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Well, no, it's scary, but I guess so I guess how do you measure whether an ed tech rollout is truly improving student outcomes?

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Well, so you and I both know that one of those answers, like from a district lens, it is going to be attached to things like the district strategic plan, you know, at the site level, the school improvement plans, some effect like that, where the the major areas of improvement that are connected to however your school grade is measured. I don't know how differently it's measured, you know, where you are. It's in Florida, but you know, generally in Florida, you're looking at proficiency, you know, you're there, you're looking at learning gains, you're looking at lowest 25% improvements like this. So, yeah, I mean, most of the ed tech decisions at this point have been connected to helping us, you know, improve student achievement within those school grade categories. So with um I've actually had some positive examples uh during my time in administration. Uh there was uh uh McGraw Hill has uh essentially an algebra platform, and it you know, it had been adopted before I got there, but I basically took another look at it when I got there, and I was kind of looking at the fidelity of usage from the students. I saw that some students in the department were actually using it pretty regularly, some weren't using it at all. Um, they all kind of spoke differently about how effective it was and and supporting personalized um you know achievement. But yeah, so we just opened up the conversation again at some of the math department meetings. Hey, hey, that you know, this is what the district originally purchased this for. How are we actually using this? Like, what do your students think? So, to me, that fidelity is uh uh from a unit human-centered lens, thinking about how the humans are actually using it, you know. So obviously, you and I both know like if if we have a gum chewing policy and we sit down with one department, you know, net alone in a faculty meeting, we're gonna have a lot of discord and there's not gonna be a lot of cohesion with with how well that gum chewing policy is gonna be implemented. But the more we ask questions about you know why the policy is there to begin with, like, hey, why do we bring this tool on board? Um, yeah, you sure. I mean, I understand that some of you think that it doesn't work as well. Some of you say that students aren't um, you know, using it or but some of you have commented that, hey, you know, the students are using it consistently are showing some gains on those benchmarks. You know, a lot of the ed tech companies have gotten pretty good at you know downloading the state standards, you know, so they're trying to match up their platforms in the dashboards and the information that they're gathering with, showing progress toward the you know, the benchmarks that we have to get students to to achieve on the standards. So yeah, I mean fidelity could mean a lot of things to me, but are we using it? Uh you and I both know with a lot of ed tech platforms, you know, that they're not all used consistently. Some of them are used hardly at all. Um, but just like with you know, conversations before ed tech, some of our teachers are more comfortable than others with using technology in general. Well, you know, with AI, some teachers have outright ignored it, you know, and act, hey, let's put the genie back in the bottle and pretend it doesn't exist and let's not use school. But there are some students that have sort of been early adopting with it and and playing around with it and and trying to get the most um efficient use out of it. So, yeah, again, who's in the classroom is gonna matter. Um, the having honest conversations with them is gonna matter. I've also found it very beneficial to have conversations with kids. I mean, I've I'm at the point where I was going into classrooms and literally just having a conversation with kids. Like, okay, we we have this science platform, we're trying to increase seventh grade science scores. This is what we're having you guys work on. It's a gamified platform. When I when I look at it, and you know, I've I've I've kind of practiced with what the customer success manager showed me, it looks pretty cool. You know, you can make gains. Like, what do you guys think? And there are some students that are like, yeah, this is cool. I like playing games. And then some students are like, Oh, I get confused, you know, when we jump into this module, I don't really understand what it's asking. And then we know we kind of carry on that conversation. Well, you know, what might you do if you're a little confused about how to proceed? You can always ask your teacher, you know, and then afterwards, you know, you're having conversations with the teacher. Well, you know, these students were saying that they were confused, these students said they're on board, you know. So, you know, you're facilitating, you know, you're facilitating this this platform. You're not it's not plug and play. You know, plug and play really move the numbers.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

What um what advice would upset a lot of district leaders, but still is true.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Part of it it's what what you had said earlier, to be frank, which is you know, every time there's a district leadership team meeting and principals come back to the sites. I never in the history of the world has a principal come back from one of those meetings and said, Hey, I got good news, man. You know, I had this district meeting and you know, they talked about all these different you know demands that you had on your shoulders, and they decided that we're gonna take some of those responsibilities off your plate. You know, the conversations are always, okay, you know, finish the district meeting. You guys are gonna do 15 more things, you know, they're gonna do by the end of the month. And, you know, even if you don't have time to do it, you have to figure it out. So part of what the district doesn't want to hear, and to to be honest, uh a lot of it is it's compliance, you know. The district itself is afraid of getting sued if something doesn't get done. And you know, they have good reason to have those fears because there is a lot of litigation out there for unmet, you know, especially when he's when you when we get into things like IEPs and whatnot, if something's written written down and it's federal law to get done, and you know, someone has to to account for that, you know.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

So, Dr. Mark, you've been you've been in education, and I mean you're still in education, obviously. So how did the how did this opportunity arise to to leave to leave the day-to-day of K-12? And you made the leap, the leap of faith of not fully out of education because you're now on the ed tech side, but I guess walk me through how that all happened and uh well I I will tell you I was very thoughtful about it.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

You know, I had a lot of conversations with my wife about you know things that things that I see on the day-to-day, and I think my straightest answer I can give you is in Florida, uh, there are very stringent demands on school safety and security. Again, I don't know what it looks like for you. Uh we had the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas committee, and because of that, we had a lot of very strict policies that were in place, and you know, so taking everything else that you and I just talked about off the plate, there really are many full-time jobs that are necessary to keep safety and security measures in compliance. So, you know, at a point I almost felt like I was a safety and security officer because you know, at warnings I was manning the metal detectors, I was charging the metal detector batteries, they're kind of like power tool batteries, like I've got Mikita tools, and you know, you if you charge them, I know they're 40 volt batteries. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so I was doing a lot of that, and you know, we did try to make the most out of that. So as kids came in through the metal detectors, you know, you you have your conversations and you build your relationships. But, you know, then throughout the day, if there was a door that was left open or a gate that was left open, you know, there's surveillance cameras all over campus. There's somebody full-time at the district that's watching these cameras. And, you know, if somebody notices a door or a gate open, it ultimately trickles down and we hear about it. And I mean, it was at the point I was literally getting pictures in my phone um in the middle of the night. There's a gate open, there's there's a door. So yeah, there's just so much pressure, so much pressure. And and again, I I joke a lot, but at the end of the day, you know, we care so much about people. Obviously, we don't want anyone to be hurt in any kind of incident, but um, you get the feeling as a school administrator, um, under these kinds of demands, that if something were to go wrong in your school and you know, someone was to get hurt, you know, you really feel like you would be on the chopping block. Uh, you have a lot of scrutiny, and there would be a lot of surveillance footage being watched, and there would be a lot of questions asked about okay, if if someone got hurt because this gate was open, ultimately who is responsible for that? So, yeah, what I'm describing to you is really a safety and security element, which is just one of the many compliance-related tasks that administrators have to handle. And it's it's part of the job, but at the same time, I just found myself really, really disconnected from why I initially got into education, you know. Right. And I I I had to to be very deliberate and building relationships and having the kind of impact I wanted to make. But I I ultimately felt like I could find a place where I was doing it more consistency, you know, where I spent most of my day making that kind of difference and not, you know, just part of my day as if by accident.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

So you made the jump. How do you how do you feel? You like it?

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Yeah, I I absolutely haven't regretted one one minute uh of of you know taking a new step. I'm real excited about sort of a new chapter.

SPEAKER_02 44:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

And another cool thing, I mean, with all the experiences that people like us have, you know, we we can add so much value to conversations, you know, to so we're still really having a positive impact in the space. We're just sort of doing it in a di in a different way.

SPEAKER_02 44:18

Yeah. It's uh it is it's kind of it's it's kind of like bittersweet though, right? Because you're ultimately like that's you want it to make the impact, you have to like remove yourself from the classroom and then the school, and then you know, like now it's like I gotta get back into the system to change it because I was in there and it's like where it's at. So it's it is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

So a hundred percent. And you know, you you you you don't know who needs to hear this to understand just how urgent uh of an issue it is because you know, again, this is me joking, but I'm not seeing the line of people that are lining up to be a school of wish raiser. I'm just not seeing it, right? I didn't see it here, you're probably not seeing it there. Um, sure. Ultimately they'll find people to fill the role, but in terms of the the highest quality people, you know, that are the most caring and compassionate, and they really got into it for the right reasons. Those people are gonna be harder and harder to find if if the conditions don't improve.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Right. So for the for that part too, teachers, teacher shortages, not when people aren't going to teach anymore, and just it wasn't the career that it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, in terms of the promises and and um, I think everything thrown on it. So ultimately, you know, there is a role for AI to help bring us through that. It's just kind of making sure that people like yourselves, leaders can put it the right way so it doesn't become another another thing on the pile. It doesn't break the system, it actually improves the system. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Um I mean, it has to.

unknown 45:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

It has to because educators, I mean, we're just so jaded with any initiative, any initiative. Oh, yeah. Because over the years, you know, the initiative just kind of changed with the wind. And, you know, there's always something else coming down the pipeline. But at what point does something actually stick around and have a sustainable and positive impact? So yeah, I think it I think it has to. And I do think AI is right enough an opportunity. I mean, what we do with it is what we do with it, but we have an opportunity to to lessen that workload, you know, and and to make some kind of positive impact in the lives of teachers.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

They need well, and with that part, I'm going to go into our uh rapid fire round. These are kind of just five rapid fire questions. If you're you don't you don't I I break the rules, just you could just say the first thing that comes to your mind without explanation, but of course you want to explain, you can definitely put that in there. Um, so so are you ready for that? Sure. All right, cool. So I guess just you know, the most overrated ed tech trend right now in education.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Well, so I just gotta say there's a lot of cool trends. Like I love the VR, I love the AR, I love the gamification, but I'd say it would be any any any AI powered tool that doesn't have human-centered guidance.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

I like that. Not built around the humans. One thing districts overthink.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Compliance. Compliance. They're they're afraid of getting sued. There's a lot of legal risk, but that just overshadows the the clarity and purpose, and it really gets in the way of the kind of impact and innovation that we're trying to have with schools.

SPEAKER_01 47:35

How about one thing districts underthink?

SPEAKER_00 47:38

Uh I would say culture, you know, um cult strategy for breakfast. And that's completely I don't see it enough. It doesn't seem to be a thought.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

One sentence every teacher wants products teams to hear.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

Well, just that our attention span is split by literally a million and one demands, and your tool cannot be our center of attention.

SPEAKER_02 48:07

One thing AI will never replace in education.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

My friend, the power of human connection.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

A relationship Jedi.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

Humans still have to be a part of this thing, right? Ultimately, the why why are we building that? It's do you know do you know who um Fareed Zuccari is of Zn M? It sounds so familiar. He does um he does a couple segments. He's a he's a he's an author, he's uh he's he's on CNN, but he has uh he wrote a book that's probably about a decade ago in defense of a liberal education. I think I said this on my other podcast, small l, right? But uh but talk about the need for the humanities. There's been such a focus on STEM, STEM at all cost, that you know, some of the the greatest gains in science came as a result of the Renaissance, came as a result of philosophy and studying the human into intellect. And we made these great, gate, great gains in innovation because of the focus of a well-rounded, uh universal education. And now we're just so pigeonholed to like just focusing on STEM. And so, do you want all these scientists that don't actually care about humans? Like, and not, you know, what should we do? And it's like if you could just like replace that conversation we're having a decade ago now with AI, and it's like, where is the human in this? And what what role does it play for them? Because it can be a great enhancer or it can be something that was just mindless wonder of just we just take all the thinking out of it. So it's really, really is we need leaders like yourselves um to help guide the next the next movement of this, because I don't think the factory system is gonna continue to work the way it is right now. And I think for us, for part of it, us lacking the ability to make those changes and say, hold on, we do need to rethink this. Does it have to look like this? Is causing that erosion of trust price faster?

SPEAKER_00 50:09

A hundred percent. And so I hate using this term because this is a chat GBT standard response, but but what you just said really does resonate with me. The term resonate is like every chat GBT response, but it resonates and it's powerful because you know, when the human element is lost and we're we're not keeping it front and center, you know, I just don't want to know what what that future is going to be. I don't I don't want to think about what it looks like. So, you know, going back to you know the questions you're asking about what what we can do with AI with humans at the center, you know, that figuring out a learning design where we're using this exponential computing tool to get kids to think deeper. Like how how can we create uh you know lessons or or learning environments where it's it's okay to feel, it's okay, it's okay to think thinking outside the box more, you know, because one one thing going back to standardization, like there has to be more I'd like to make the blanket statement, we need to do away with standardization, but there needs to be more personalization in in the classroom, and we have an opportunity to provide it, you know, at a very high level with with AI.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

I don't think that's like you know, where we fail is saying that failure is a bad thing. We label failure, we put a grade on it, we we we and so it's the grading system that is going to create the fixed mindset because I am not I am not good at math. I am not a math person. Why? I failed this test. Does that mean you'll never be able to learn math? Like given more time, giving you a chance to redo it, can you learn it? Absolutely, we all can learn, but we're literally programming kids into thinking that, into limiting their beliefs when AI proves just the opposite, and that there is infinite, there's like infinite possibilities, infinite ways to learn something. We're we're fixated on no no no, you didn't do it this way the correct way, right?

SPEAKER_00 52:18

Therefore, you're and so yeah, yeah, we're we're focused on there's gotta be a right answer, and and really what it needs to be is the right question, right? Or like a deep question. But yeah, the right answer is is not the design that I see our future needing.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

And ironically, it's the learning is iterative, right? Because I because that's like writing's an iterative process, the more times you do it, the better you get the improved literacy, all those things. So is learning, learning is iterative. Like that's I use the example because it's like we learn by doing, telling is not teaching, right? So we learn by doing. I this we just I made the mistake of cheapening out and bring my contractor friend in and building a set of deck steps off of my deck, right? Well, we did it in a day and a half. I mean, we were we I drove him into the ground. We we worked to get it done because he was only there for a weekend. He's from he's out of state, but like I learned how to build a set of deck steps during that time. Now, could I do it better next time? Absolutely. There's things I would change, things I like. So I learned by doing it how to right the next time I would do it fast, but we made a bunch of mistakes and we corrected them, but we had ultimately we had to get something that was functional. But it's like, why doesn't that apply to anything else we do in education?

SPEAKER_00 53:33

I like that. I like that because I like I like the the concept of design thinking, and I mean iteration is a big part of it, prototyping and no, right? We don't encourage that whatsoever. You know, we we really encourage what's the answer, and if you don't get the right answer, then why didn't it you get the right answer?

SPEAKER_02 53:51

Right, you know, what do you need? Maybe you're now punished for not getting the right yeah, you're good. You're not giving it away.

SPEAKER_00 53:58

Would be great to to figure out how to get that into the future ready learning design.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

Do you hear the story of like there's two teams? I don't know, I don't know where I saw this at now. There's two teams. One had all day to make the perfect pot or a clay pot or something like that. I don't know what it was, and then the other team had to make as many pots as humanly possible in that time stayer. And the that this team over here came out with a better design than the other, like in terms of perfecting the pot better than what the this team had because of just how many times they iterated and did not care. Wow, have you heard that story? But it's really really cool. I got another one for you.

SPEAKER_00 54:40

It's it's kind of wild just how little we put that concept to use in a school where again we're trying to prepare kids for what comes next. And so what are we what are we preparing them for if we're not preparing them for, you know, as an adult, you learn pretty quickly that you know you you don't win all the time. And it takes a lot of it iterating and bouncing off of walls and and trying things out to to get to know yourself and and what you're you know, what you're here to offer.

SPEAKER_02 55:10

Well, I um I don't do you have time for this one. Have you heard of the Roman war chariots and the US Railroad?

SPEAKER_00 55:16

Oh, I gotta hear this.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

Oh man, okay. So you need to take this with you and basically take over ed tech in terms of this. So this is this is when I read this story, I'm like, this is public education in America. All right, so you ready? But it's a it's just like failure to change because of it. So the US standard railroad gauge distance between the rails is four feet 8.5 inches. That's an ex that's a really odd number. Why was that gauge used? Well, because that's the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first U.S. railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon trail tramways, and that's the gauge they used. So, why do they use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for for building wagons, which use the same wheel spacing. Why do the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often. Um, and some of them old long distance roads in England. So, you see, that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So, who built these old real rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe, including England, for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And what about the ruts and the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge at 4 feet 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for Imperial Roman war chariots. Bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you're headed into a specification procedure and wonder, well, who's the horse's rear end came up with this? You may exactly be right. Imperial Rome to be specific, right? So it gets even worse. The twist of the story is you see the space shut. If you saw if you saw the old space shuttles sitting on a pad launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters boosters or SRBs. They're made at a plant or a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed them wanted them to be fatter uh from the factory to the uh, but they had to be shipped from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through the tunnel. So the tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and that railroad track, as you know, is about as wide as two horses' rear ends. So the a major space shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over 2,000 years ago by the width of horses' rear ends in Rome. And so that's that's like I read that, I'm like, because it's all that's how we say in education, because it's always been that way.

SPEAKER_00 58:17

I know. So and my question to you is does any of that surprise you? I mean, does not any of that surprise you. Yep, we just do it because that's the way it was. That's always what yeah, yeah. I I mean, I hear that, yeah. Obviously, in the public education space, how we've always done it is something you always didn't why we didn't it that way. Well, you're not allowed to ask why. You just need to get it on.

SPEAKER_02 58:41

That's why. So well, with that, I think we'll come to a close because we uh I appreciate your time, Dr. Mark. Um, thank you for being our guest. Um, if anyone wants to find more about what you do, what you bring to the education space, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_00 58:56

Yeah, they can reach out to me on LinkedIn. That's the easiest way to find me. And thank you, uh Dr. Joe. It's been a real pleasure to speak with you and hope to continue to stay connected and wish you continued success.

SPEAKER_02 59:09

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for being a part of our journey, Dr. Mark.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

All right, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 59:14

Thanks for joining us on the Supported Learning Podcast. If today's conversation inspired you, challenged you, or sparked a new perspective, be sure to subscribe and share with a fellow change maker. We'll be back soon with more voices, more insight, and more ways to elevate the future of learning together. Until then, keep learning and keep pushing the conversation forward.