Well, hello. Welcome back to the Hillbrook School podcast. My name is Bill Selleck. He him. I'm our director of technology here at
Hillbrook and I'm here with Brian Reviza. Brian, 7th and 8th grade science teacher advisor as well.
Excited to have you here.
Excited to be here. Yeah.
So this season we're looking at AI in education and this group has been meeting what, this is our third time I think. Does that sound right?
It is the third time.
Yeah. So we started off being some playful stuff and you're a musician as well, right? So we can talk a little bit about Suno, the text to music generation.
Fun times, good times.
And now we're trying to move past that a little bit from the like this was fun to like this is transformative and not like no pressure there. Right. But the idea that it doesn't have to just be a cute song or a silly image or like it wrote a poem for me. But there's more, there's more to it. We can actually start to reimagine what education is.
That's what we're doing together.
That's what we're doing. So what are you doing?
Well, today I actually was working on a way to get students to use AI as a tutor in an effective way that doesn't feel like just looking for answers in a search format like a platform, like, like a Google search. So if I'm teaching them in class, you know, there's a lot of kids doing a lot of different things and it's nice to get a little bit of help. Students help each other. I'm there to help people. But it's nice to have students have a guided tutor essentially on hand.
Is this a version of like ask3 before me?
It is kind of like that and it's like, you know, I would offer kind of information, step wise processes maybe. You know, I'm specifically talking about a chemistry application right now.
Okay, so walk us through. Like what?
Yeah, so if they're going to be learning about ions, ionic, making ionic compounds using the periodic table.
Oh, okay.
Okay. Yeah.
How like the thing on the far left one has to match the far right column when you work your way in.
Yeah.
Like an acl.
Is that right? So that nice. Look at G. Remember these things. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Yeah. So this is just a simple, it's a simple application. You know, I'm starting kind of from a standpoint of let's pick the simplest kind of thing to see how I can develop something like this and really Help the kids. I'm using school AI for this.
Cool. So using like.
So it's a trusted, vetted. Yeah. Site. And it also has kind of a built in tutorial, kind of a feel where the AI has kind of a demeanor, like a teacher, so to speak.
And this is.
Right.
So like, sidekick is one of the little spaces you can create.
It is. Sidekick would have a space on Sidekick.
And so basically, like, you describe what you literally just described to us.
Right. So I am taking time right now as I'm developing it. I tell it, I tell the AI what I'm looking for. And it would be sort of just like me being the teacher and what I would normally teach and how I would do it and the steps I would take as a teacher with the whole class.
Makes sense.
And then the AI would offer me some. I could do it like this and it'd give me a couple, like three options and then I can say, yeah, do this one for me. Make me this little platform like this. Don't include this, include this, don't include this. Make a hybrid. It also includes how do you want me to be as the tutor in terms of my overall comportment and demeanor. Do I want to be funny? Do I want to be straightforward? Do you want, like straightforward with a little touch of funny, A little bit of pirate voice?
Right, right, exactly. I wonder if you could do that.
Be kind of funny. So I gave it straightforward, but be loose and funny. Like, you know, but not distracting funny. We're not talking jokes here, but we're talking. Be warm as a person, if you could.
Right, right. So you kind of like tee up this whole thing, share that with the students. They pop in with a QR code or a link.
Yes.
And then they get the warm, funny, but not distractingly funny thing.
Correct.
And then it's for when they get stuck.
Yeah. And my guess is I'm not gonna give this to students as like, you guys do this. And then I just sit back and watch the discussions go on. By the way, side note, the nice thing about school AI is that it does offer. You can see all of the conversations that each student has with the, with the, with the chatbot. And it also gives sort of like some feedback in terms of do they seem like they're using inquiry, you know, in case they're just offering funny questions back to like, kind of play with the thing?
Yeah. See, they can break it and get it off the rails.
So anyways. But I'm not. So I'm not trying to like, you know, Replace myself with. With this thing. I'm trying to. There's going to be some students where this will be helpful to say, oh, you didn't get it the first pass through. Here's some more problems. And here's a tutor, like you would normally do if you'd hire a tutor for yourself on the side, and we can get it done there, and I can check in with them, et cetera. So this is like, I don't know, I would say the most baseline tutorial application that I can use this for. I am also looking to kind of expand on a student's independent use of this tool. And I have used it in the past for this, and I'm looking to kind of just revamp it and work it better since my time working with it last year, which was. We had a project, it was a watershed project, and students were answering an essential question.
Give us two sentences about what's a watershed?
Okay, so a watershed is the. Like the region where you live. All of the water that would be from rain or any precipitation, snow.
So like Santa Cruz Mountains.
Santa Cruz Mountains would go down into all of the creeks, end up in a lake, a reservoir, like Lexington Reservoir here, continue down to Vesona, continue down the creek. Ross Creek on campus would fall into Guadalupe river as well as Los Gatos Creek, going into Guadalupe river, where both end up in the. The bay, San Francisco Bay. And that's our watershed, not to be confused with, say, Santa Cruz's side, where the water on that side of the mountain would go into, say, Monterey Bay.
Cool. So we're doing watershed. We all know what that means now.
That's good. So I always forget, you know, Bill, you have people listening that may not know exactly what all of your guests are talking about. So I'm. So I'm doing this with students. They're doing multiple visits to percolation ponds near here, and they're testing water in Los Gatos Creek, looking at wildlife, identifying native plants and trees that they may see on campus. How do all these things fit into the watershed?
Also, this sounds amazing, checking out, but
walking the streets of Los Gatos to see where storm drains are, and then walking the streets or walking the campus to map out all of the storm drains on our campus and see where do they all end up, which they end up in Ross Creek. And a really interesting thing is at the end at Blossom Hill park, which is a park near us a couple blocks through, we walk through a neighborhood, we go to the end of this park, and we see our creek, which is in essentially a cement canal because a large portion of the creek that's open to the air, called Daylighted on our campus, actually runs underneath all the houses and then it opens up again. So we take a walk down there. Lots of different things to talk about, Lots of different ways that we can be like, how do we interact with our environment? How do we, you know, negatively impact it? How are we. So. So here's an example of an essential question. What are the consequences of human actions on our water systems? And how can we make. How can we make a difference? Or how does the health of our watershed impact the larger ecosystem in our community? Things like that. Or how am I interconnected with the ecological community around me? So, so these kinds of things, big questions. Big, big questions. And how can you make a project where you're explaining something about the water tests that you did at a real creek and information you found out about that and compared over time. How can you kind of share that information with the general public? But overall, explaining the overarching question of how. How am I interconnected to the ecological community around me, that's a hard thing to.
School AI is helping with this.
So the application that I'm looking to have school AI help with is how can along the way for students not to get lost with the fact that this project is essentially trying to answer an essential question. Can you get AI to look at some of your information along the way? Can you find the important information that you're trying to convey to what it through your project and can you feed it to this thing and have it give you feedback on whether or not, you know, it's this, this question is being answered or it's somehow being touched upon or conveyed well.
And so much of what I wish teachers had done for me, particularly thinking about like math and science, is making those bigger connections. I never got that. So it would have been so cool had I been able to go like to school AI. Right. My kids would say like in the 1900s when I was in school, it's the bigger connection. Why am I learning this? How does this connect with what we're supposed to be learning?
Yes. And for one person to constantly with 60 people, you know, so this just, just allows them to take more agency over it. And, and you know, and then, you know, ultimately, in addition to this, it would be just leading kids to see that they can use AI in a. Like I'm trying to have them use it. And just a bit of a more, more than just the Google search type thing. Can you Treat it like your own tutor. Can you look further beyond what maybe a homework assignment says and says, you know, what else can I use? What else can I be finding out about a certain topic? What should I know as an 8th grader? What should I know? What don't I know? What are misconceptions about this topic? Just smart ways to. To use it as an independent learner, I would say.
Well, and one thing that you're not naming that is so, so cool is it teaches the workflow of, like, one chat per topic. That's. That's such a key part of, like, how to leverage something like chat GPT. You don't just want one ongoing chat. You have one, like, help me write emails. You have one for, like, planning my meals at food, you know, but like, if I'm talking about, like, menu planning and the menu planning chat and then hop over the email one, like, those chats don't talk with each other.
Yes.
But then in that one, they're like, oh, we need to make sure to have a vegetarian option.
Right.
This recipe doesn't have that. Here's how you could change it. Right. So it's like, it's almost like training wheels for students for, like, Absolutely. Chat has a focus.
Absolutely.
And an expertise.
Absolutely.
I like that. And so you could, like, I'm now imagining if I were like a snarky 8th grader to be like, here's the assignment I have to do. Like, this feels ridiculous. How is this connected? It actually could come back and be like, actually, here's how it's connected. This lesson fits in with this theme and answers this question in this way. What do you think? And it'd be like, oh, oh, that actually. I actually can see that connection now.
Right, True. And if you're being snarky, you're always going to be snarky either way.
Sure. Right. But to actually get, like, a little complaint, like, with it, like, if you have this one chat going on about watershed, and you're like, this assignment is what with the watershed. It can actually make that connection for the students without having to raise their hand, which most students don't do.
Exactly.
Right. Or, like, gives the snark or, like, the genuine question.
It offers a good chat partner that, you know, maybe it's in addition to having other peers to talk to as well, that might give you yet another perspective.
Yeah. Well, and even I'm thinking, like, in my high school experience, I'm thinking about, like, chemistry now. I was a very good student. I still am a very good Student,
as you explained with your demonstration of ionic compounds earlier.
But my 10th grade honors chemistry teacher, like, was not a good teacher. Like, the whole class was lost. And when we did ask a question, she would just basically say the same thing, the same way, just completely lost. So I wish there had been a way we could be like, here's the thing we're talking about. I don't get it.
Exactly Right. You didn't have the same avenues right at your fingertips back then, where now you could say, I tried learning this thing today. Here's a question I asked. I still don't understand it. What am I missing?
Yeah.
And have that conversation and not to
have to ask the teacher five times. Right, right. Because no student's gonna do that. I still don't get it. After the fifth time, you're just like, I will now be quiet and give up.
And so this, this is like, ultimately, through all my practice of setting up these little scaffolded platforms and things. Like, ultimately what I would want students to come away with is exactly what you just said. But have that be a habit of mind that that is how you can use this tool. You know, it's not the lowest hanging fruit of just like, tell me the answer.
Yeah, I love it.
And in which case that would require me as the teacher to give better prompts than just give me an answer to a question.
So cool. One cool thing. I'd love for you to try and let us know how this works. Yes. Let's get back on the pod maybe.
Okay.
School AI gives you a QR code for each sidekick session. If you leave it open, that means you could actually just print out the QR code, stick it on the wall, and be like, seventh grade, ongoing school AI chat.
Love that, Love that.
You know, essential questions.
Yeah, Right.
So they could just like scan that. They hop back into the chat.
Yes.
It's like semester long chat. Be like, how does this fit in? I don't get it. We have this stupid assignment and we have to do this, this and that. He said, if it's the watershed. Seriously, it's like, actually, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah. I would love something like that. That ties into all of my science process skills, which, you know, as a means of the students understanding along, just all along the way how they're, how they're, their skills, that they're being, you know, that they're learning and that they're being assessed on how they fit into each lesson, how they can recognize the connection. I was sure there might be something like that that could live in the classroom, like, annually through the year.
Yeah. That's such a cool idea. I love it.
Cool.
Well, let us know how that goes. Brian, thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having.
It.