elevatediepcollab

7 Ways AI is Affecting Education

joy@joyofmembership.com (Joy Duling) — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 11:05:53 GMT

The new season is a great reason to make and keep resolutions. Whether it’s eating right or cleaning out the garage, here are some tips for making and keeping resolutions.

Personalized Learning: One of the biggest advantages of using AI in education is its ability to provide personalized learning. AI algorithms can analyze student data to identify patterns and trends, which can help educators determine where each student is struggling and where they excel. This can be beneficial in creating personalized learning plans that cater to individual student needs. With AI, teachers can understand what might work best for each student instead of following a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching.
I ntelligent Tutoring Systems: An intelligent tutoring system (ITS) is a software program that provides personalized instruction to students. These systems can track student progress, recognize patterns, and adjust the learning material to meet the students' needs. An ITS can be used to help students with homework assignments, provide feedback, and offer guidance on learning goals. ITS can help self-directed students learn more effectively, identify remedial areas more quickly, and work through topics at their own pace.
Assessment and Grading: Another way AI can be utilized in education is through assessment and grading. AI can use algorithms to analyze student work and provide instant feedback, which can help save time for teachers. Additionally, the use of AI in grading standardized assessments can provide a more accurate picture of student learning outcomes. This allows teachers to see the exact areas where students need improvement and tailor instruction accordingly.
Digital Learning: Using AI also opens new doors for digital learning opportunities. Digital learning has the advantage of being accessible at all times, so students can learn anywhere, anytime. With AI technology, online courses and programs can be personalized to individual students, providing tailored learning experiences that better meet their needs.
Virtual Assistants: Virtual assistants can be used in classrooms to provide support to teachers and students alike. For example, virtual assistants could be programmed to answer basic questions, provide reminders, or create schedules. This can free up teachers to focus on more critical tasks in their classrooms, such as helping students struggling with a specific concept.
Chatbots: Chatbots can be useful in educating students in various subjects. Chatbots can converse with students in natural language, answering their questions and providing feedback. These can help students learn more efficiently and provide an additional resource for their learning. Chatbots can be useful for homework assistance and test preparation.
Learning Analytics: Incorporating AI and machine learning algorithms in the field of learning analytics can help educators gain insights into their students' learning patterns. By taking data from various sources – such as attendance records, course materials, and test scores – analytics can provide educators with a clear picture of where students are succeeding and where they need improvement. By empowering educators with this information, AI can help them design more effective lesson plans and learning experiences.

Final Thoughts

AI is an exciting technology that has the potential to revolutionize education. From personalized learning to virtual assistants, AI can offer a range of advantages to educators. However, it is important to keep in mind that AI technology should not replace the role of a teacher. Instead, AI should be used as a tool to help teachers enhance their education and deliver more effective instruction. As the technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see more innovative ways that AI is used in education to improve learning outcomes for all students.

Blessed by Burnout

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 11:05:53 GMT

....partial copy from previous site for demo purposes

Awareness

“Am I really making a difference in my students’ lives?” That weed of a thought was planted the year after what I expected would be my most challenging year as a teacher, the year of distance learning. Although I was in my 19th year of teaching, in many ways, I felt like a first year teacher again. The pandemic reset the experience clock. My colleagues and I faced an epidemic of new and difficult behaviors.

Burnout set in.

Burnout is an imbalance at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional levels with psychological and physical effects that reverberate at each of these levels (Maslach, 1997, p. 236). Its hallmarks include cynicism, exhaustion, and a sense of inefficacy, according to burnout researcher Christina Maslach (1997, p. xxii). A worker’s most vulnerable window of time for experiencing burnout is within the first five years of the job but it can happen at any point in a person’s career. An unexpected event - like the impacts of the recent COVID-19 pandemic - can exacerbate this phenomenon at any stage. A widespread post-pandemic increase in burnout is being felt across all fields. In-person teachers experienced such a marked and sudden change to their work, it’s no wonder that burnout seems even more prevalent among teachers than in other professions. We’re on a new playing field– in many ways, working a new job. Novice teachers and seasoned teachers alike are now equally susceptible to a divorce from job engagement.

Maslach asserts that burnout is not necessarily representative of a lack of resilience in the individual but is a symptom of the imbalance in the system. A mismatch of workload, control, community, values, or fairness contributes to burnout (Maslach, 1997, p. xxiii).

Understanding burnout erases any potential shame for embodying it. However, blaming the entrenched system is unproductive. Instead, we must ask ourselves, how might we adapt the system and better support those working within it?

Taking personal responsibility over burnout, rather than allowing it to overpower me, was essential for my growth as a teacher– as a person. Like engaging with a nightmare image through active imagination techniques, addressing my burnout was a call that I, at first, refused. The self-work seemed too difficult, until I began to contemplate the alternative– ceaseless isolation, continued neck problems, growing cynicism, and bone-deep exhaustion.

Not only did I lack job engagement, but, like many of my colleagues, I found myself lacking life engagement, abiding in a dark night of the soul. I leaned heavily on depth psychology. Specifically, a deeper understanding of projection became my entry point for healing.

Projection is an unconscious mechanism by which one throws out that which they cannot yet own in themselves onto another person or institution. “You spot it; you got it.” Recognizing one’s projections is a difficult task. It acts as a teacher using the discovery method, requiring a student to muddle through a challenge so that the learning is more memorable and the student’s self-trust grows. Fortunately, projections come with some indicators. Unfortunately, perhaps, those clues are wrapped in the form of overreactions, uncharacteristic reactions, harsh judgements, and hidden agendas.

For example, I was running late to work one day. On the way to my school, I found myself stuck behind a slow car. Usually, I am the slow driver and, typically, I feel relieved to relax behind the slower-than-me anomaly. That day, though, I became frustrated at cars whizzing by me as I waited for a space to pass the slower vehicle. “Put your blinker on, and someone will be nice,” rang my mom’s soft voice in my mind. I did. No one was nice. Even the driver behind me, who was sure to be aware of my blinker’s pleading intent, moved into the space for which I had waited. So selfish!

Then came the unexpected.

The driver from behind me slowed down in the left lane, purposefully creating an easy opening for me to enter.

“Awww,” I thought, as I waved my gratitude and moved into the pocket provided. Then, “Ohhhhh!” My internal dialogue shifted. What did my uncharacteristic judgemental frustration reveal about the part of me that’s hard to face– that part that is like a child who made a poor choice out of a desperate sense of self-preservation? In this situation, I– eventually and reluctantly– chose to ask myself, what selfish part of me did I falsely see in the driver with whom I never even spoke?

This self inquiry led to an automatic writing exercise later, in which I wrote a question with my dominant hand and responded with my non-dominant hand. The automatic writing sample below is one technique for reclaiming projections, once aware of them. Triggers house projections, working like the alarm in the home of our psyche that is activated by a sneaky, unwelcome intruder. The trick is that this visitor is really a banished part of ourselves that has come up from the basement, where it likely was exiled during childhood, when we were at our most impressionable and most vulnerable. It was in hiding because showing itself meant the risk of losing the acceptance of those we love.the people in their lives who were supposed to have the answers– the adults– didn’t. Culture dictates that they couldn’t be angry at the adults, so they took their sense of powerlessness out on each other. Bullying and mean acts ran rampant. The students’ parents, being human, blamed (read “projected on”) teachers, and public vitriol increased. Teachers blamed administrators. The destructive cycle of unconsciously unloading our unfinished business on others has contaminated our shared world. Awareness, compassion, and action are needed for healing.

Projections sneak up on us, even when we have practiced recognizing and reclaiming many. The practice requires patience, like a young student who has learned one-digit by one-digit division must exercise self-patience to get familiar with this skill. The initial learning is important but still needs to be applied over and over. Those who have put in this kind of self-work may begin noticing when they are projected upon, a helpful perspective when responsibly applied.

Moreover, burnout itself can be viewed as a deteriorated projection. We enter our career with positive projections on it. When these projections fall away and we are left with the realities of the career, some beautiful and some ugly, we have a choice. We can make the career transition that is the healthiest choice in some cases; bring our genuine selves to our current career and examine it authentically, taking the light to the candle; or we can let it all burn down.

Action

When my burnout began and teachers around me started leaving the profession, I feared for the future of education. Instead, I find that my personal psychological work toward wholeness allows me to make a greater positive impact than ever before, in and beyond my classroom.

As it turns out, the weed that burnout planted was fireweed. In nature, it’s the first life to grow after a wildfire and blossoms in stalks of vibrant pinks and purples. In human nature, where ashes of projection cool, new growth can be nurtured with vibrant results. Burnout can be a blessing when used as a catalyst for awareness, compassion, and action.

Just like strong first instruction supports mastery for our students, laying the groundwork of awareness and compassion creates a foundation from which action for the good of all rises. Rather than expanding in words on action, I charge the reader to take steps toward wholeness. Notice your own projections. Reclaim them, along with the lonely parts of yourself, using automatic writing as a powerful tool. With dedicated self-work, the wise teacher within will guide your right action.

*This article is intended to provide psychoeducation for self-help purposes. It is in no way a substitution for mental health services. A good burnout coach can provide invaluable support for healing, lifting you from a sense of isolation. If you are in unmanageable distress, seek help from a therapist.

Increasing Retention

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 11:05:53 GMT

What can be done to increase educator retention? To answer this question, I believe it is essential to identify and resolve what is causing educators to leave the classroom.

To retain educators, it is extremely important for administrators and supervisors to pay close attention to the level of stress on the job. Like in any other profession, stress whether real or imagined is the biggest culprit for employee burnout. When I started teaching in 2008, I met teachers who had been teaching for 40 to 50 years. When asked what they thought of the younger generation of teachers they shared that the young teachers joining the teaching force, since the early 1990s, had less endurance for stress and lacked skills or strategies to cope with the stress of teaching. These seasoned teachers also pointed out that they were seeing more and more young teachers burning out at a faster rate. I noticed that being the case in a significant number of papers written about teacher burnout in my nearly ten years of teaching and during my doctoral program and research from 2015 to 2019. I think this is also true of most professions today. But one of the major factors stressing out teachers in the last couple of decades, in part, is the change in teacher preparation programs where new teachers entering the classroom are not adequately prepared.

A contributing factor compounding stress for teachers is the changes in curricula, along with the emerging student behavioral issues teachers are having to deal with in the classroom. In an article entitled, Changing pedagogy for modern learners—lessons from an educator’s journey of self-reflection in 2014, Taylor pointed out these same elements as factors impacting teachers. Supervisors and administrators must keep in mind that society has changed and in recent years the level of stress tolerance has decreased. It is important to find ways to mitigate the stress of the job. It would also be wise to make stress-coping strategies part of professional development for employees, and managers and supervisors should have some training on identifying signs of stress. This should also start in the recruiting phase. During the hiring process, the hiring personnel must look for strong evidence of positive strategies for coping with stress in the candidate. Perhaps being able to preempt the shortcomings of employees when it comes to handling stress, organizations and school systems may increase retention.

Most people that go into education do so with the vision of making a difference for young people. To be the inspiration for a bright future. So, what has happened that teacher retention has decreased? While many articles have been published blaming the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason for teachers, especially in K-12, leaving the classroom, I see this starting long before COVID, with the demand on teachers for standardized state testing. Especially when the teacher’s salary is tied to standardized testing scores. Standardized testing is one more aspect of teaching today that compounds stress for teachers.

If the education systems loosen the demands of standardized testing and simply monitor that teachers teach authentic education material, giving teachers the freedom to teach the whole child instead of focusing on the subjects that are tested, teachers would be much happier staying in the classroom. Literature in education shows that since standardized testing became the thing, the number of companies developing these tests has increased and the switch of teachers from the classroom to the test developers has also increased. Prior to national and state standardized testing, each school district developed its own tests. One side effect I have noticed from standardized testing in the education literature is that special interest groups have driven education to become more and more political. Teachers who do not support the politicization of education have simply looked elsewhere for employment. In the school district where I live, the principals of several schools placed gag orders on teachers not to talk with anyone about their test scores in the 2018-2019 school year. Teachers did not tolerate that situation very well and many left the schools as a result.

In an article, titled The State of Teaching Statistics 2022 published on April 2022, Devon Karbowski presents the results of a survey taken from over 4,600 public school teachers PreK-12. The focus of the study was the school year 2021-2022. The participants revealed how instruction has changed, echoing the words of Taylor (2014), the increase of needed supplies, how many classroom supplies teachers must provide, and what the school budget does not cover. According to Karbowski (2022), 78% of teachers need additional supplies due to COVID-19learning loss, 82% of teachers used their own money to buy basic classroom supplies, and 50% of the teachers did not have the budget for basic classroom supplies for the school year 2022-2023. The teachers surveyed were public school teachers. It also should be noted that there is no industry, outside of education, where the employee must use his or her own money to buy what he or she needs to do their job. Even delivery drivers are compensated for using their own cars.

I believe that the leadership of any organization must be willing to take time for deep reflection on how the workforce is meeting or not meeting the organization’s mission and vision. Then apply whatever is needed to keep a tolerable stress level for all involved.

elevatediepcollab

7 Ways AI is Affecting Education

The new season is a great reason to make and keep resolutions. Whether it’s eating right or cleaning out the garage, here are some tips for making and keeping resolutions.

Final Thoughts

Blessed by Burnout

﻿ Awareness

Burnout set in.

Then came the unexpected.

Action

Increasing Retention

What can be done to increase educator retention? To answer this question, I believe it is essential to identify and resolve what is causing educators to leave the classroom.

Awareness