Episode Summary:

A.J. Juliani, author, speaker, and educator, shares his insights and experiences on creating meaningful and relevant learning experiences for young people. And, how doing so is evolving in the age of AI.

Key topics covered include:

• Drawing parallels between effective coaching practices and effective teaching practices, such as focusing on skill development and nurturing a love for the process rather than solely on winning. As A.J. put it, “first downs over touchdowns.”
• Realistic perspectives on the opportunities and challenges presented by AI in education, including the need to move beyond using AI as a classroom management tool and towards harnessing its potential to support meaningful learning and teaching.
• Practical strategies for using AI tools like SchoolAI to provide timely feedback and facilitate teacher-student conferencing.
• Insights from his upcoming book Meaningful and Relevant on addressing student distraction by prioritizing purposeful and contextualized learning experiences.
• His hope for the future of education to move beyond narrow academic achievement measures and embrace a more holistic view of student success, potentially leveraging AI to support data-driven approaches to well-being and competency development.

Related Resources:

• Strategy: Use Tech Tools to Nurture Inclusion (Learner-Centered Collaborative)
  Listen to students and include their voice in the classroom through more than just verbal discussions. This can include tools such as text-to-speech or speech-to-text software, interactive whiteboards, and online tools that allow students to engage in collaborative and reflective learning by creating text or video content.
• Learner-Centered AI (Learner-Centered Collaborative).
  Whether you’ve been dabbling with ChatGPT and other AI tools or this is all new to you, this online course will dive into how AI is changing the world, including education. It will give you actionable ideas and tools you can use to supercharge yourself as an educator (and save time) and empower your students in a learner-centered learning environment.
• Why Kids Need Meaningful Learning Experiences Right Now (A.J. Juliani).
  A.J. shares how much research-based evidence we have on what meaningful learning looks like and the realities of how much meaning is missing in the learning experiences young people are having in school. With this gap comes an opportunity.