Colin Campbell Teaches the 95%

Welcome to summer school for teachers & education technologists.

Hi there - it’s July, a time when the education world slows down considerably. As I did last year, I plan to spend this month working on some longer form projects instead of my weekly editorials. So each week I’ll share something shorter:

1. One very short video clip from my private reserve showing a teacher doing work that seems likely to succeed with the 95% of kids that edtech often writes off, the ones who need social and cognitive development simultaneously.

2. An open thread for you to post constructive and positive analysis of the teacher practice in the video. If you come from edtech, you might describe how you think digital technology can support this work. If you come from teaching, you might describe the teacher’s pedagogy. Three different teaching moves caught my eye in today’s clip and I’m sure this crowd will spot even more over such a short duration.

3. My Odds & Ends section with brief riffs on current news, which this week includes the implosion of the company working on Los Angeles USD’s big AI project.

What is Colin Campbell doing here?

In this clip, Colin Campbell is working on Flower Planters from our curriculum, specifically the warm-up that asks students to construct a story about the expression 12 ÷ ⅓. The clip is 1.5 minutes.

Transcript

Teacher (Campbell):

What I'd love for you to do is talk about your story with your table. Some of you guys might not have been able to finish your story. Maybe your table can help generate the rest of your story. Okay go ahead and talk with your group. 3 … 2 … 1 … go. What was the story you came up with?

[privately to student]

What did you come up with, Zander?

Student (Zander)

A cake recipe calls for 12 cups of flour.

Teacher

That is a huge cake. Anyway, continue.

Student

Two wedding cakes.

Teacher

[laughs]

Student

How many do you put in the bowl to get four whole cups?

Teacher

That’s awesome. I’m gonna have you share with the class to get us started okay? That was great. I believe in you okay?

[to class]

5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1.

So I heard some great conversations. I was talking to Zander and he was talking about this really, really big cake. So Zander, can you read yours?

Student

A cake recipe calls for 12 cups of flour.

Teacher

So really quick, guys. I’m gonna ask us to picture a cup okay. Twelve of those in a big bowl. Can you guys imagine how big that bowl has to be for 12 cups?

How many of you guys have baked before? You guys have baked or cooked, right?

You guys know how much a cup is, right? It’s gonna be a huge cake, right? Continue Zander.

Student

But you only have a one-third measuring cup. How many scoops would you need to put in the bowl to get 12 full cups?

Teacher

So what would the answer to that be? We would have to scoop it … how many times, everybody?

Class

36.

Teacher

36 times. Okay. Who has another story they would like to share with the table?

---

Open thread with a conversation starter:

• What is one way that Campbell is trying to help Zander and the rest class learn about mathematics?

Featured Comments

Elliot Beck:

I’m particularly struck by the 2nd question “Will generative AI help bring teachers back to the profession?” Seriously? This question feels so out of touch with reality. I get that it’s a survey question but come on - talk to just about any teacher / former teacher and they’ll tell you boat loads of things before “generative AI.” My word.

Rob Nelson:

Nice point on The Diamond Age. It has always bugged me that human dimension of learning is an explicit theme of the novel that gets missed by so many readers who fall in love with the idea of “The Book” But it works the way it does only because a human spends hour and hours each day enlivening the educational experiences "The Book" offers.

Odds & Ends

More like “Dead,” am I right? (Has anyone done this bit?) [photo]

¶ Several dozen of you tagged me on news that the company building Los Angeles USD’s big artificial intelligence play “Ed” has imploded, with the CEO leaving and dozens of staff furloughed and the company seeking some kind of lifeline. It is nice to be known so well by my subscribers, but this seems like much more of a “startup” story than an “artificial intelligence” story to me. A startup jumping from junior varsity in one sport to varsity in another, from selling one product to small districts to selling a different product to the second largest school district in America, is a startup story with high potential for an unhappy ending.

I wish we could have seen the ending to the “artificial intelligence” story. My strong sense of Ed is that LAUSD was at least a year too early to build anything meaningful with AI at a scale that large. So they built a Clever-style app launcher with chatbot customer support crazy-glued on for AI headlines. But LAUSD already has Clever and I’m very skeptical that students and families are clamoring to interact with their district via chatbot, mostly because in relational work like education I don’t think people particularly enjoy interacting with chatbots at all—AI or otherwise. I suspect we’ll get quite a few more chances to test that hypothesis, though, whether that’s in Los Angeles or somewhere else.

See also:

• New York Times: A.I. ‘Friend’ for Public School Students Falls Flat

• The 74 Million: Whistleblower: L.A. Schools’ Chatbot Misused Student Data as Tech Co. Crumbled

¶ A bunch of you were at ISTE last week—one of the world’s largest edtech conferences. I did not attend but did creep occasionally on the conference hashtag where—I am trying to note without judgment—99% of the posts seemed to come from inside the vendor hall (versus from conference sessions). I think Andrew Davies made really good use of that space by asking a bunch of the assembled AI companies “why should teachers use AI?” There were lots of similarities in their answers, all of which have promise, though none of them have been proven true at any scale larger than scattered anecdotes and existence proofs:

• Brisk Teaching: Reprioritize time.

• Magic School:  Save time.

• Diffit: Save time and reprioritize time.

• Snorkl: Give kids immediate feedback.

• Curipod: Save time.

• School AI: Customizing learning to student interests.

I also note without judgment that four of those startups are focused on saving teachers time. Great focus! But it isn’t obvious to me how many such startups the world needs operating simultaneously.