SupportED Learning Podcast
On a mission to speak with global education experts on how we can revolutionize the education system, especially in the dawn of AI.
SupportED Learning Podcast
Episode 31 - 34-Year Education Veteran on the Research Showing When AI Makes Students Smarter vs. Dumber - Eric Curts
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In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe Sebestyen sits down with Eric Curts, a 34-year education veteran, Google for Education Certified Innovator, and creator of the Control Alt Achieve blog and EduGems prompt library, to explain what's really happening with AI in classrooms right now — and what most schools are getting wrong.
Dr. Joe Sebestyen and Eric Curts walk through what actually works when students use AI, including the Wrestle, Wrap, Reflect framework that keeps AI from doing the thinking for kids, the MIT research showing that students who used AI from the start did worse than everyone but those who used their brains first and then added AI outperformed both groups, and how to redesign assignments so AI deepens learning instead of replacing it. Eric also explains how EduGems puts ready-to-use prompts into the hands of teachers and students for free, why AI could be the answer to the teacher shortage, and what parents who don't want their kid using AI are getting right and wrong.
This episode is especially useful for K-12 teachers learning how to integrate AI without losing rigor, school administrators evaluating which AI tools to adopt, instructional coaches building AI policy, and parents worried about what AI is doing to their kid's learning. Eric gives a clear, evidence-based framework for using AI to stretch students, support new teachers, and make classrooms work better.
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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. Your kid is about to be transformed by AI, or they're about to fall dangerously behind. In the next hour, Eric Kurtz, a 34-year education veteran who supports 28 school districts and created one of the largest free AI resources for educators, is going to walk you through exactly what's happening, what your school probably isn't doing, and what you can do about it right now. This is the insider briefing every parent needs. Welcome back to the Supported Learning Podcast. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian. Families often ask me how to navigate the landscape of in the maze of college prep and college emissions, as well as maintaining high academics. And usually the answer is involving finding someone that has figured out the game or is is ahead of the game. And uh tonight, I'm thrilled to have Eric Kurtz here today. Eric is a technology integration specialist who supports over 20 school districts in Northeast Ohio, a Google for Education certified trainer and innovator, the creator of the award-winning Control Alt Achieve blog, the founder of EduGems, a free AI prompt library for educators, and the author of the book Control Alt Achieve. He's been in education, as I said, for 34 years. Started as a math teacher, and right now he's one of the lead voices on how AI should actually be used in schools. Eric, again, welcome to the show. Well, hey, thanks so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01My pleasure to be joining you here.
SPEAKER_00So uh yeah, we're not too far away from each other here, being being in Pittsburgh and you being just outside Cleveland. But you've been in the trenches uh in education for over three decades, and now we're going through one of the biggest technological shifts, not only in the world, but the education landscape has ever seen. And um, and again, I don't have to tell you, you know, being in education for over 30 years, you've seen the trends, you've seen the uh the initiatives come and go, but oh yeah, there's something different with AI, it's here to stay. Let's kind of give us uh just before we get into it, just this the rundown of how you got to where you are today in education.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, absolutely. So uh yeah, I started off as a math teacher and absolutely loved it, had a wonderful time. Taught middle school math uh for my first seven years in in education. Um, had a great time. I really uh had a wonderful time. It's a great age group and a real fun subject to take something that might be a little challenging, sometimes a little dry, and bring it to life. And that was how it was. Very hands-on, a lot of great fun stuff. But I also loved technology. And so I was sort of like the building nerd. If you needed tech help, go see Eric. Now, again, this is long ago. I mean, this was back in uh I started in '92, and you know, so this was in the 1900s, you know. So this was from '92 to uh to '99. And uh yeah, at that time, um, we finally got an influx of technology in the state of Ohio. Uh, there was some funding that got computers in schools and connectivity, and it opened up a position in our school district for a technology coach, as you would call them now. I think we called it tech integration specialist back then. And I made the switch. Yeah, switched from uh teaching kids to teaching teachers, and I have been doing that ever since. So I was at that district for 21 years, and now the last 13 years I've been at the county office. In Ohio, we have ESCs, educational service centers. So I support that same school district, but I support, you know, several dozen school districts up in that area there. Basically providing training and resources and support. That's my day job. Oh, technically part-time now. I technically retired last summer with 33 years in, but I came back part-time this year. So I am still there. I'm there part-time this year. And then on the side, um, now I just I do this all over the country, all around the world, doing keynotes and workshops and trainings with schools and conferences, in person, virtual, whatever the case might be, mostly focusing on AI nowadays. That's that's sort of the main focus, but uh, all sorts of technology related things. So yeah, yeah, that's been the path that took me from the classroom to uh, well, basically again, from I'm still still teaching, just went from teaching kids to teaching teachers. You got it.
SPEAKER_00So uh, but you're not part of like you're you teach coaches, you're not our you teach teachers, you're not the tech help, right?
SPEAKER_01I know you've done some of that, but you just a good question, yeah. I mean, when I was at the district level, well, you know how that is. When you're at the district level, you wear a lot of hats. So when I was at the district level, absolutely I did everything, you know, from you know, fixing computers to running wires to, you know, managing the gradebook server to doing the training. But thankfully, where where I'm at now, my focus is just professional development. And so, yeah, I I basically spend my time uh creating uh resources, curating resources, trying to create uh trainings, webinars, uh in-person um trainings, things like that to just help teachers make the most out of these resources that we have now.
SPEAKER_00So I um I did an internship for a superintendent in another district. And uh when I met their technology director, the line that he told me that still I remember to this day is you know, schools are full of inefficiencies, especially with technology. So talk to me about what you see now that you have, I mean, you've had the vision of uh supporting over 28 schools. How, what are teachers getting right when integrate technology into the classroom? And what are we not quite there yet? The commonalities.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, right now, AI really is the focus with with without a doubt. That's that's that's what we're all looking at. And I would say we're in a transition period where for the first couple of years when Chat GPT came on the scene, um, a lot of it was very basic training. What is AI? You know, how can I use AI to support me in my daily tasks? You know, that was the start. And that makes total sense. That's where you've got to begin because everybody needed to get caught up to speed there. Where I'm seeing things going right is where schools are saying we're ready for the next step. And where I'm seeing things not go right would be schools that are still hanging on to those early steps. What I mean by that is the next step is how does it impact students? That's really where we need to get to. It's like, okay, got to start getting the teachers comfortable, help making sure they understand how it works. The kids are using it. Whether block it in the school or not, they're using Chat GPT or Jim and I or Claude or you know, Grok or whatever. They're they're using these tools in so many ways. And so we do need to make sure that we are educating them on how to use these tools properly. And we need to make sure that we are also integrating their use into our assignments. It's not a matter of how do we block the AI, how do we stop them from using it? Yeah, we want them to not use it inappropriately, that is true, but we need to intentionally be building it into our assignments so that they see how to use it appropriately. We can maybe get into this later on if we want, but there's a big uh study last year that was published that talked a lot about the impact of AI on uh on students' brains and the appropriate and inappropriate ways that they can use AI to help or hinder. And so that's where I think we're really at right now is this point where, you know, I'm seeing schools moving forward saying we're ready for those next steps. Let's dive into our student use. How can this truly help level up our students? How can it provide personalized learning for them? How can it provide immediate feedback? How can it assist them and enrich them? And how can we make sure they're using it right? That's great. I'm so happy to see that. We do still understandably have some schools that aren't quite there yet. And they're like, hey, we're we're still figuring this out. Okay, I get it, totally get it. But that is something that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
SPEAKER_00Do you what do you see in the teachers? Because, you know, I'm seeing an active resistance towards AI, or I think the limiting not even understanding what is completely out there. That is just like Chat GPT, and it's you know, it's kind of easy to see and spot like that. And it's like a watered-down version. I mean, like so much has changed in the last month with HegenTic AI, AI agents. I don't think teachers are even, oh, I don't even think I don't think most teachers are even aware of what actually exists. As I just successfully set up Claude Copilot on my other computer over to the side as it's deleting my old emails right now automatically. But like, yeah, I mean, you know, where where are teachers, where are teachers with this in terms of integrating, I guess, into the schools in Northeast Ohio? You so you're saying is it a school by school decision whether or not to embrace AI or use it or what is going on in your area?
SPEAKER_01So the only thing that's required in Ohio, uh, we actually are the first state to have this legally required, is that schools have to have a policy. So that is required. Every school in Ohio has to have an AI policy, but it doesn't say what that policy has to be. So there's no requirement for a school to uh, you know, use AI with students. So, yes, every district needs to make those decisions on their own. I would say where where teachers are at is understandably overwhelmed. I mean, as always. I mean, that's I was in the classroom for seven years, and I know that pales in comparison to the amount of time other educators have spent in the classroom, but I was there and I and I know, and it's I guarantee you it's harder now than it was when I was there. The amount of responsibilities, the amount of things you have to do. And so I always, always, always come back to technology should not be one extra thing that you're trying to put on top of everything else you're already asking teachers to do. It needs to be something that takes things off their plate, it needs to be something that intelligently integrates into what they normally do on a day-to-day basis in a way that they see, wow, this is saving me time. This is helping me to understand my students better and to, you know, get feedback to them quicker or to get insights into who I need to pull aside into small groups and things like that. And so that's what I really try to emphasize in the trainings that I do is let's get into their hands very quickly some tools that they can use today, tomorrow, right away, and be like, wow, this this is helping me, you know. That's a really good entry point. And then, yeah, you're right. There's so much more. They don't need people, everybody does not need to know about agentic and all these things. Maybe someday everybody will be there and that'll just seem like normal. That's fine. There's always going to be people on the cutting edge. That's always going to be the case. But for right now, I see, you know, whether it's teaching students or teaching teachers, as an educator, our job is to meet people where they're at and just help them move one step ahead. And so that's what I'm trying to do with that.
SPEAKER_00And um, you're you've created actually a free library, a free resource, EduGems, right? Yeah. The Egy Gems Wree library, ready to use AI prompts for Google Gemini. And uh, so you're not a school AI guy, huh?
SPEAKER_01Oh, no, no, no. Don't don't get me wrong at all. I absolutely support all of those tools out there. So I personally know the people who run school AI, Magic School, Brisk, Snorkel, Enlighten AI, Diffit. I mean, they're friends of mine. I know these people and they're great folks, and they've got a great vision for schools and helping students. And I think that's great. I think there's a place for all of those things. Having said that, yeah, I think we're starting to narrow in on less tools. At first, this was the Wild West. Okay. I mean, there were just AI tools popping up left and right everywhere. Where I'm at, if somebody asks me today, Eric, what should a school do? Without a doubt, I'm going to say Gemini should be a piece of your solution. I'm not saying it's the solution, but I cannot imagine a school not using Gemini because it is free, it is available, K-12, it is incredibly robust, and it has built-in data privacy so that no matter what teachers or students put into it, nothing ever leaves the school. It's Kalpa Furpa Hippa compliant, the whole entire thing. So, first of all, I just can't imagine why you would not? It's it's just an incredible tool that is free and powerful and ready to use. Now, I could definitely see partnering it with something. I could say, yeah, it's Gemini Plus one or Gemini plus two. It's like we're gonna partner it with school AI because it rounds out some more things with the uh student monitoring and feedback and stuff, or we're gonna partner it with Snorkel or Enlightened AI or Brisk or Magic School or something like that. Totally understand that to help round out the package. But for right now, yes, a lot of my emphasis is on Gemini training, Gemini and the Google products that go along with that. And yeah, eduGems is a good example of that. Basically, if people aren't familiar with what a gem is, it's basically Google's name for a saved prompt. Basically, if you create a really awesome prompt that you want people to use, you can save it as a gem and then share that gem. And then anybody can just click on that gem and run the prompt. So basically, I have created, yes, a collection of gems. Many of them I've made, but no, not all of them. Others people have been kind enough to share with me. So I've been able to curate them from other people that have been kind enough to share them. As of today, right now, there's 114 gems on the site. So it's growing all the time, going to keep getting bigger and bigger. And these are just all kinds of ready-to-use gems for tasks like creating, you know, bell ringers or choice boards or lesson hooks or decodable texts or alternative assessments, differentiation, uh, exit tickets, loads of stuff to support teachers. And there's an entire section specifically for students. So on that site, there's an AI tutor that students can use to assist them, not do the work for them, but assist them. There's a project breakdown gym that a student can use when they're feeling overwhelmed. I've got two weeks to get this project done. Help me break it down into bite-sized pieces. There's a brainstorming gym, there's a career explorer gym, there's, you know, AI debate gym. So if they want to prepare for an argumentative essay they're writing, they can debate the AI. So many possibilities there for the students as well as the teachers. And that's really all the site's for is just to try to get these ready-to-use tools into the hands of teachers and students totally for free. It's just prompts in Gemini. So anybody can use these and copy them or do whatever they want with them.
SPEAKER_00I mean, what is long-term goal with it? Like, are you because I hear that and I think, man, my second year teaching sucked. I had to write all my lesson plans, like scripting lesson plans. And if I had the ability to have AI to help me, I look at it, Eric, as you could potentially turn around the teacher shortage. Because um, I know for new teachers, you know, like there's definitely a skill gap. A lot of teacher programs don't prepare teachers correctly on how to teach. And a lot of schools don't teach their teachers on how to teach. So it's just like figure it out. And a lot of them burn out. But like you're creating prompts that could they could come into the classroom and they could actually have not only well-structured lesson plans, they could have well-structured lessons.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. And uh, I will say a couple things about it, though. All these gyms are set up to be very focused on human in the loop. So none of these are gonna be something where a teacher just clicks the gym and says, Hey, I got to teach a lesson on this topic, do it for me. It's gonna be a back and forth conversation. They've been set up to have a conversation with the teacher saying, Well, tell me, tell me about your class, tell me about the needs in your classroom, tell me about what you've taught so far. Let's talk about and it's gonna be uh, you know, four or five, you know, conversations back and forth, and then say, okay, based on all of that, how about this? Here's a draft for a lesson planner. Here's a draft for some a bell ringer or a KWL activity or a whatever it is. And then it says, what do you think about this draft? Let's let's talk about it. You know, you know, do you want to change things? You know, whatever. So it really is the emphasis is AI. I say this in all of my trainings, AI is not here to do your job. AI is here to help you do your job better. It is an assistant. When I was in college, I was a TA. So I was a teaching assistant. I helped my professor with grading and notes and things like that. That's what it is. AI is your TA. It is meant to be your assistant. The buck still stops with you. You've still got to make the decisions, you've still got to grade the papers, you've still got to be the one who, you know, the final say is on you. But hey, AI can be a big help in that, in saving time, in brainstorming, in uh looking for, you know, uh patterns across multiple essays and helping you see where the students are struggling. Those kind of things absolutely can empower our teachers, whether they're brand new into it or if they've been doing this for 30 plus years. You got it.
SPEAKER_00This episode is brought to you by Supported Tutoring, where we don't just help students get better grades, we help them become critical thinkers. Whether it's mastering AP exams, maximizing college applications, or building lifelong learning habits, our expert tutors focused on critical thinking, confidence, and real growth. Head to supportedtutoring.com to find the support your student deserves. What if you had to narrow down narrow it down to three AI tools that every student should have access to right now, what would it be?
SPEAKER_01Well, as far as students go, I mean, I really would still put Gemini in that list because of, like I said, if they have a school account, they're gonna have access to Gemini. Uh, they should. They should. If schools haven't turned them on yet, they they need to, but uh they can use a personal Gmail account as well. But by using a school account, they get that built-in data privacy protection. And that's important for our students to not be worried about every single thing they're putting into an AI. Is it gonna go go out there and show up in the next model or something? So I think Gemini for sure, and then Notebook LM. If people are not familiar with Notebook LM, it is a Google product, it is powered by Gemini, but it's it was designed originally for students. Now, teachers use it a lot, but it was built for college students originally. It was called Tailwind. That was the original name of the product, and it became Notebook LM. And basically it's what you call a rag system, retrieval augmented generation system. All that means is it's a tool where you have to put the content into it that it is going to use as its source. Because normally when you're talking to ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever, it's pulling from the trillions of pieces of information it's been trained on. Notebook LM is a system where basically it's a genius, but it doesn't know anything until you tell it. So basically, the idea is a student spins up a notebook, they create a notebook, and they drop into that notebook everything their teacher gives them during a unit. Every article they need to read, they drop it in. Every video they're supposed to watch, they drop it in. Uh, any PDFs that the teacher shares, or slideshows they share, or study guides. And so a student, they can put their own notes. They can take their handwritten notes and take pictures of them and upload those into the notebook. Basically, what they end up building for each unit of the year as they go through is a notebook that is filled with all of the vetted materials for that particular unit. And once they have them in there, they can ask it questions, explain this to me, you know, they can quiz me on this. It can generate uh flashcards and quizzes, it can make audio overviews that summarize the information in an easy to understand format. It can make infographics, it can create all of this content to be a support. I can't imagine a student not using that. It is an amazing powerful tool. So I would say Jim and I for sure, notebook LM as well. And then after that, if you had to pick some other tool out there, there are so many that could be in that third place one. I don't know that I would be too quick to say it's gotta be a certain one at that point. It's really gonna be kind of dependent. If a student, for example, is really struggling with math and science. Maybe they want to use something like CK 12 Flexi. CK 12, they create totally open source textbooks and digital textbooks for schools. Well, they also have this tool called Flexi. It's a free, totally free AI chat bot that's been trained on math and science content. And they can just chat with it anytime they need, and it's going to help them as an example. You know, but then there's so many. Other ones out there that could fill in that third spot depending upon where the student needs most of their support.
SPEAKER_00You've presented a session, um, the future of feedback. Or so you presented a session at FETC called the future of feedback, excuse me, guys in with AI. What does AI-powered feedback look like in practice? And should parents be excited or worried about it?
SPEAKER_01Well, here's the thing. That session certainly can raise some eyebrows because anytime you start talking about AI and grading in the same sentence, you can have understandable concerns. Like, wait a second, are you saying the AI is going to grade the students? And that's why I titled the session Guided Grading, the Future of Feedback Guided Grading with AI. Because the idea is this no, no, this is not a situation where AI is going to replace the teacher and do the grading for them. As I said before, teachers still have to read the essays, teachers still have to put a final grade on the assignment there. But what we're saying is let's use AI to assist in that in a lot of ways. One of the big ways is formative assessment. That is something that we really don't get a lot of because there's not enough time for it. Here's the difference formative assessment is when you're having an assessment that's not like the final grade. That's a summative assessment at the end of a unit. Formative assessment is when you can then go back and make changes to the thing you just worked on to improve it. That's amazing. So let's say a student writes an essay rather than saying, here it is, and then 24 hours later, or two days later, or a week later, they get that essay back with feedback. No, what if they used AI and they write the essay and they turn it into any of these AI tools, Enlighten AI, class companion, school AI, magic school, Gemini, any of these. And the AI says, Oh, based on your rubric that you're that you provided from your teacher, based on the essay you wrote, at the moment, right now, you would probably get this grade. And here's why. Here's the areas you're struggling in. Now, here's some ideas. It's not going to write it for them, but here's some ideas. Think about these and see if you can implement them. The student turns right around, right then, and they rewrite, they edit, then they submit it a second time and they get feedback. Then they edit, then they submit it a third time and they get feedback. That's phenomenal. They're they're iterating right then and there with great guidance from the AI that has been prompted by the teacher who's filled in all of the assignment details and the rubric and all the things they're looking for in the student's writing or their math or their whatever it is the student is doing. That kind of thing, we can't do that as much. We don't have the bandwidth to do it. We don't have the time to do that sort of formative feedback for our students. Well, let's use AI for that. So when the teacher gets this essay, they're going to get every copy of it. They still get a rough draft and they get the next version and the next version. They can still see all of it. But now the student has already really gone through the process of editing and revising and getting feedback before it ever even gets to the teacher in the first place. That's the kind of thing that we can get excited about is having that immediate support and feedback, regardless. It doesn't have to be just writing, I know I'm using essays, but take a tool like take a tool like uh Snorkel. Snorkel can handle everything, including math. Students can literally do their math on a digital whiteboard, and Snorkel records that and can see exactly what they're saying as they're describing how they're solving the math problem, and it can give them immediate feedback on looks like you had an issue there with this part. Please try that again, or maybe you better take another look at that. And the student can iterate and try it right over again. So it's math, it's science, it's language arts, it's all of these things. So yeah, that's the kind of thing that I think is a uh an amazing benefit of AI when it comes to grading. Um, rather than just saying, oh, you know, we're just gonna have the AI do the grading for the teacher. No, that's that's not what I'm trying to uh to push.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, you you've seen a lot, and obviously you've seen the recent changes with AI. Um and there's a lot of schools out there afraid of the data, the data leak, right? The the information, obviously, you mentioned FERPA potentially HIPAA. But what is the biggest mistake schools make when they try to adopt AI? You you've seen it across 28 districts. Like, what is the pattern in terms of adopting AI that you think schools are making?
SPEAKER_01If I had I mean, I guess one thing I would say is there's always the concern that a school is going to think that AI is sort of like magic. Like, okay, it's so powerful, it's so amazing. If we just put students and AI together, magic's gonna happen. You know, it's like we just gotta get it in their hands and wonderful things are gonna happen. Unfortunately, no. Unfortunately, no. AI is not good, AI is not bad, it's just a tool. It's just a tool. And how it gets used makes such a significant difference. If we simply say, okay, we are turning on AI for our students, hey, I applaud that. I'm so glad a school's doing that. But if that's all you do is just, hey, we're turning it on for kids, human nature is gonna take over. And a student is going to use it to write their essay for them. They're gonna use it to, you know, do their brainstorming, they're gonna use it to make their outline, they're gonna, they're going to cognitively offload their own thinking and their work onto the tool because that's human nature. Because guess what? Adults will do the exact same thing. I'm not, I'm not attacking kids here. This is, we're just talking humans. So what I'm saying is, yes, we need to turn on AI for kids, but we need to train our teachers on how to adjust their assignments so that their assignments have AI built in in a way that is intentional, that has different elements, including some part where the student is doing work with no technology. There's a piece of the assignment where the student works independent of the AI, independent of the technology. I call that the wrestle. So in my framework, it's wrestle, wrap, reflect. That's the three-part framework. The wrestle is that first part. The student needs to spend some time. Maybe this is writing an outline, maybe it's brainstorming, maybe it's taking notes, maybe it's coming up with a storyboard, whatever it is. They need to do something on their own. Then comes part two, the rap, where you have a rapport with the AI. You rap with the AI. That's when now the AI comes in to elevate what the student has already done. But they gotta have something of value to bring to the AI. Here's what I've already done so far. Challenge me on this. What am I missing? Help me go further, give me feedback, show me my blind spots. But then there has to be the third part, which is reflect. You can't just say, oh, the AI said it, so that's the answer. Now it's okay. We got to intelligently think about what the AI said, decide which pieces of this do I agree with? Do what do I want to keep? How do I want to incorporate this and now redo what I've been working on to bring this in? That sort of a framework, wrestle, wrap, reflect, has students using AI, like requiring them to use it, but in a way that is actually increasing critical thinking. It's increasing creativity, it's challenging and stretching the students, not having them offload the work to the AI. And so that's what I think is the key thing here. I worry about a mistake schools could make, which is just, yeah, turn on the AI, put the kids with it, and let the magic happen. That's not what's going to happen. If that's the case, we're going to see in the next year or so a lot of students losing skills rather than gaining them. So we need to have these intentional ideas of, and so I spent a lot of time on that. I spent a lot of time training schools on how do we reinvent our assignments in the age of AI.
SPEAKER_00So I guess a lot of parents out there, especially of high-achieving students, would say, my kid has to learn the hard way or no machine is going to teach them anything. And I don't want my kid using AI to do all this stuff. What would you, what would you say to them?
SPEAKER_01I would say that they're, you know, I appreciate where they're coming from and that they are partway right. They're, they, they have, they have a nugget of truth in there that, yeah, I agree. I don't want the AI to just do the work for the students. I totally agree with that. That that is not what we want. But if they stop there and just say, no, the student is going to do everything on their own, now they're cutting them short of what they could accomplish. So let's go back. So the study I referred to earlier was an MIT study that came out last summer. It's called Your Brain on Chat GPT. And I won't go through the whole thing right now. I would encourage people to look into it. I have a whole keynote I do on it. But really, what it came down to was this they found out that if you had students, in this case writing essays, who wrote the essay only with their brains, no technology help, compared to students who used AI on it. In that initial round, yeah, the kids who used just their brains did way better than the kids who used AI. But that was just in the initial round. What they then did is they had them switch places. They had the group that had been using AI now only use their brain. And the group that had been just using their brain now could use the AI. And what they found out was, yeah, the group that had been using AI, they really struggled even worse because they had gotten lazy. But the group that had started off using their brains only and then added AI later, they did better than everybody. They did better than the group that had only been brain only. So what you've got is a situation where, think about this. You've got these different groups. You've got brain only, then you've got one group where students are using AI doing worse than everybody, and another group where students are using AI doing better than everybody. So it wasn't an issue of the AI being good or bad. It wasn't the problem. It was how it was being implemented. So this goes back to the idea of wrestle, rap, reflect. The kids need to use their brain first. Yes, parents, I agree with you. They need to put in the hard work. They do need to wrestle, but don't stop them there. Don't cap them there. They can go higher. If after they do that, they use AI in an intelligent way to challenge and enrich and stretch them. Your students will do better than they could have done just on their own. So don't sell them short, but you're absolutely right. Don't have them just turn to the AI as the first solution to the problem.
SPEAKER_00So you don't see AI as replacement. You see it as an integration or adoption, I assume, for humans.
SPEAKER_01Right. I mean, AI is still, I think, best classified as a tool that is going to that if we use properly, is going to augment and stretch and support us. Now, what's it going to look like a year from now? Two years, three years, four years, five years. Now, I can't predict that. So I'm not going to go out on a limp and say, you know, what happens if we do reach AGI, artificial general intelligence, or ASI, artificial superintelligence? What's that going to look like? Yeah. I don't know that any of us can predict what all of that's going to look like. We'll cross that bridge as we get there. But where we're at right now, yes, absolutely. I see AI as a tool that can support students, educators, everybody to help us achieve more than we could achieve without it.
SPEAKER_00You have seen uh you've seen every wave of like as I mentioned earlier, of educational trends, computers, internet, smart boards, one-to-one ads. How is AI different from all those?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, one of the biggest differences is I think scales is a fair word to say as far as like what how much it can do compared to the other things. So, okay, let's put it this way one of the most powerful things we can possibly do for students is personalized learning. Back in the mid 80s, Benjamin Bloom was studying this, and he was saying, what does it take to increase student achievement? And he did all these studies on try this, try this, try this, whatever. Well, he found out, for example, mastery learning could move student achievement one standard deviation up, which is fantastic. But then he found out that there was a way to move student achievement to standard deviations. So that means a student who was scoring below average after this intervention would be scoring not average, but scoring above average, two standard deviations up. That innovation was personalized learning, giving every student a one-on-one personal tutor. Now, unfortunately, that wasn't practical in 1984. It's like, well, we can't afford a personal tutor for every student. Although maybe some parents could. Schools certainly couldn't. Well, that's the difference. We now have a piece of technology that can begin to approximate that kind of thing. Now, in no way am I saying that an AI is equivalent to a human personal tutor, but what I'm saying is it can begin to approximate those kinds of things, which means students can now have 24-7 support in the evenings, the weekends, anytime they need, they can turn to this tool to get tutoring and enrichment and help on anything they're working on. It can understand where that student is at and it can adapt to them. So it's a tool that isn't, you know, everybody gets the same thing. No, maybe the first couple of questions are the same. But once it realizes where the student is at, it's going to start either reteaching or enriching as it needs to to meet that student's needs. But beyond that, it's also then collecting all that data in a school safe way with student data privacy and all of that, collecting all that data so that we can see longitudinally over that student's career, how they're doing, but we can also see across the class students who have similar issues. So that teachers now are getting insight and they can say, I need to pull these five kids aside. They're struggling with this very specific thing. And the AI was able to identify that. So kids get 24-7 personalized learning, teachers get actionable insights at a scale we've never seen before. That's the difference between this and a smart board that saves you a little bit of time.
SPEAKER_00So you're very, you're very optimistic. You're very, I mean, honestly, it's a breath of fresh air for a lot of a lot of technology specialists are so stressed and worried about AI and the data privacy. It's it's really nice to talk to someone who is looking towards the bright size. But if I bright side, but if I could ask, if I can end on something, I do want to end, I want to challenge you here. What does keep you up at night regarding the future of education and AI?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, absolutely. And don't get me wrong, yes, I certainly do try to promote, I try to push the needle in the positive direction. But I have sessions that deal with the concerns. I do an entire session about cheating with AI. I do a whole session on the concerns of AI, where we cover things like deep fakes and we cover things like over-reliance on AI, biases, inaccuracies. We cover uh, you know, cheating again, all of those kind of concerns related to it. So absolutely, I address those things. And I am concerned. I share those concerns, I validate them as well. What am I worried about? Well, yeah, I mean, there's so many. How do you pick one? I think one that I would be really sad if happened would be schools that decided, hey, you know what, we're going to run this like some businesses have been trying to do, and we're going to cut teachers, or we're going to let, you know, let uh teacher jobs not get refilled when they retire. Because you know what? We can have AI pick that up and we can have AI cover that. And that has not shown itself to be true in businesses. Over the last couple of years, what they're finding is businesses that laid off people or didn't replace people and put AI in its place, they've not found that that worked. They did not get the return on their investment that they wanted. But businesses that said, no, we're going to keep our employees and we're going to train them to use AI to supplement and help them, they are seeing the increases. And so that's what I would hate to see as a school say, you know what? Yeah, we can just cut these things. We don't need to hire more teachers. We don't need to renew these positions or whatever. That would be very sad. Uh instead, no, we need to keep the humans in the classrooms, in the schools, working with the students, supported by the AI. So that would be definitely one big concern that I would not want to see come to pass.
SPEAKER_00Well, Eric, this has been a very educational and informational hour. It's been awesome to have you here. Talk about it, share your optimism for people and families out there that want to go deeper with you and just learn more about what you're offering, parents, teachers, anyone, where can they find you?
SPEAKER_01So my main website is controlaltachieve.com. Think back to the old days when you had a frozen computer and you did control alt-delete to reboot a computer. That was the idea 10 years ago when I named the website is that we were going to reboot classrooms that needed, you know, that were stuck in a rut. So control alt achieve. So control altachieve.com, that's the website. Everything is there. All my webinars are there, all my my newsletter is there. You can sign up for. That's the easiest way to stay in the loop on things. All my blog posts are there, all of my AI resource documents, my contact information, socials, all that, my YouTube channel. That's the hub. That's where it's all at. And then edugems.ai is my newest website. And that's of course where you'll find all of those completely free to use educational gyms, ready for students or teachers to take advantage of.
SPEAKER_00Well, Eric, again, first off, thank you for your service in education and continued service in education. It's um it's awesome to see someone still very passionate and uh, you know, actually living out the mission of lifelong learning. Oh, yeah. Did uh anything you wished I asked, but I didn't ask?
SPEAKER_01Uh no, I mean, that was fantastic. I appreciate all the things we chatted about there. And uh I appreciate you and what you are doing to try to help support parents and students. So thank you so much for the opportunity to pop on and chat for a little while.
SPEAKER_00Well, I appreciate it. Uh are you uh are you a Cleveland Browns fan?
SPEAKER_01No, I am not a sports guy, so it's really not a problem one way or the other. You know, I I just know I appreciate sports, I appreciate you know our local teams, but it's not something that I put much energy into. So no.
SPEAKER_00I got you. All right. Eric, thank you very much, and thank you all for tuning in to the Supported Learning Podcast. We'll see you next time. 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.