Summary: Whether you’re just entering the workforce, starting a new job, or transitioning into people management, kindness can be a valuable attribute that speaks volumes about your character, commitment, and long-term value. Here are a few simple routines you can integrate into your everyday work life that will spread kindness and help create a culture of kindness at your organization.
Practice radical self-care. The best way to be a valuable, thoughtful team member is to be disciplined about your own wellness — your physical, emotional, and mental well-being.
Do your job. Start with the basics by showing up on time and doing your job to the best of your ability. This is where your self-care practice comes into play — you can’t do your best work without taking care of yourself first.
Reach out to others with intention. Make plans to meet virtually or, even better, in person with your colleagues. Ask about their pets, their recent move, or their family. Most importantly, practice active listening.
Recognize and acknowledge people. Authentic, thoughtful interactions show that you’re thinking about the other person and reflecting on their unique attributes and value, which can cement social connections.
Be conscientious with your feedback. Being kind means offering feedback for the betterment of the person receiving it and the overall success of your company.
“When anxiety is high and morale is low, kindness isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity. With mass layoffs, economic uncertainty, and geopolitical tensions, kindness is needed now more than ever, especially at work.”
With nearly 15 years of experience in building and leading career-connected learning initiatives, St. Vrain offers a roadmap for districts of all sizes who are beginning the journey to create their own pathways of opportunity for students.
Over the past decade, St. Vrain Valley Schools has launched more than two dozen career pathways and now has a goal to offer quality work-based learning experiences for every graduate. As staff have developed these opportunities, St. Vrain has seen significant increases in graduation rates – approximately 94 percent of St. Vrain students graduate high school in four years – and a significant decrease in dropout rates to less than one percent of students. Graduation rates among our Hispanic students have increased by 30 percentage points, almost completely eliminating graduation rate gaps between all students and students of color. St. Vrain’s post-pandemic achievement has also accelerated at a remarkable pace. Building career-connected programming, and offering it as early and broadly as possible, has demonstrated a compelling case for the effectiveness of career pathways in accelerating achievement and student success.
The value of hands-on learning in prison — from college-inside.beehiiv.com by Charlotte West Women in Washington reflect on their experience with a pre-apprenticeship that introduces them to the trades.
When I visited the prison in May, Brittany Wright had plans to go down to the Cement Masons & Plasterers Local Union 528 in Seattle when she got out a few days later. She’s now an apprentice working on a light rail expansion project for Sound Transit, making $31 an hour plus benefits. “I’m a little nervous, but more excited to get out there and actually start using the trades,” she told me at the time. “They seem like they’re willing to work with me. And that’s all that matters.”
Everyone is empowered to access learning and earning opportunities based on what they know and can do, whether those skills and abilities are obtained through degrees, work experiences, or independent learning.
People can capture and communicate the skills and competencies they’ve acquired across their entire learning journey — from education, experience and service — with more ease, confidence, and clarity than a traditional resume.
Learners and earners control their information and can curate their skills to take advantage of every opportunity they are truly qualified to pursue, opening up pathways that help address systemic inequities.
Employers can tap into a wider talent pool and better match applicants to opportunities with verifiable credentials that represent skills, competencies, and achievements.
This is the world that we believe can be created by Learning and Employment Records (LERs), i.e. digital records of learning and work experiences that are linked to and controlled by learners and earners. An interoperable, well-governed LER ecosystem has the potential to transform the future of work so that it is more equitable, efficient, and effective for everyone involved— individuals, training and education providers, employers, and policymakers.
Background (emphasis DSC):60 Minutesdid an interviewwith ‘the Godfather of AI’, Geoffrey Hinton. In response, Gary Marcus wrote a columnin which he inserted his own set of responses into the transcript,as though he were a panel participant. Neat idea. So, of course, I’m stealing it, and in what follows, I insert my own comments as I join the 60 Minutes panel with Geoffrey Hinton and Gary Marcus.
Usually I put everyone else’s text in italics, but for this post I’ll put it all in normal font, to keep the format consistent.
OpenAI, the company behind the viral conversational AI ChatGPT, is experiencing explosive revenue growth. The Information reports that CEO Sam Altman told the staff this week that OpenAI’s revenue is now crossing $1.3 billion on an annualized basis. This means the company is generating over $100 million per month—a 30% increase from just this past summer.
Since the launch of a paid version of ChatGPT in February, OpenAI’s financial growth has been nothing short of meteoric. Additionally, in August, the company announced the launch of ChatGPT Enterprise, a commercial version of its popular conversational AI chatbot aimed at business users.
For comparison, OpenAI’s total revenue for all of 2022 was just $28 million. The launch of ChatGPT has turbocharged OpenAI’s business, positioning it as a bellwether for demand for generative AI.
The State of AI Report 2023 is live!
Check it out here to learn about key AI developments in research, industry, politics, safety, and predictions for what’s next.
New ways to get inspired with generative AI in Search — from blog.google We’re testing new ways to get more done right from Search, like the ability to generate imagery with AI or creating the first draft of something you need to write.
Next month Microsoft Corp. will start making its artificial intelligence features for Office widely available to corporate customers. Soon after, that will include the ability for it to read your emails, learn your writing style and compose messages on your behalf.
From DSC: As readers of this blog know, I’m generally pro-technology. I see most technologies as tools — which can be used for good or for ill. So I will post items both pro and con concerning AI.
But outsourcing email communications to AI isn’t on my wish list or to-do list.
The Public Is Giving Up on Higher Ed — from chronicle.com by Michael D. Smith Our current system isn’t working for society. Digital alternatives can change that.
Excerpts:
I fear that we in the academy are willfully ignoring this problem. Bring up student-loan debt and you’ll hear that it’s the government’s fault. Bring up online learning and you’ll hear that it is — and always will be — inferior to in-person education. Bring up exclusionary admissions practices and you’ll hear something close to, “Well, the poor can attend community colleges.”
On one hand, our defensiveness is natural. Change is hard, and technological change that risks making traditional parts of our sector obsolete is even harder. “A professor must have an incentive to adopt new technology,” a tenured colleague recently told me regarding online learning. “Innovation adoption will occur one funeral at a time.”
But while our defense of the status quo is understandable, maybe we should ask whether it’s ethical, given what we know about the injustice inherent in our current system. I believe a happier future for all involved — faculty, administrators, and students — is within reach, but requires we stop reflexively protecting our deeply flawed system. How can we do that? We could start by embracing three fundamental principles.
1. Digitization will change higher education.
… 2. We should want to embrace this change. …
3. We have a way to embrace this change.
I fear that we in the academy are willfully ignoring this problem. Bring up student-loan debt and you’ll hear that it’s the government’s fault. Bring up online learning and you’ll hear that it is — and always will be — inferior to in-person education. Bring up exclusionary admissions practices and you’ll hear something close to, “Well, the poor can attend community colleges.”
To use Sherpa, an instructor first uploads the reading they’ve assigned, or they can have the student upload a paper they’ve written. Then the tool asks a series of questions about the text (either questions input by the instructor or generated by the AI) to test the student’s grasp of key concepts. The software gives the instructor the choice of whether they want the tool to record audio and video of the conversation, or just audio.
The tool then uses AI to transcribe the audio from each student’s recording and flags areas where the student answer seemed off point. Teachers can review the recording or transcript of the conversation and look at what Sherpa flagged as trouble to evaluate the student’s response.
AI Meets Med School— from insidehighered.com by Lauren Coffey Adding to academia’s AI embrace, two institutions in the University of Texas system are jointly offering a medical degree paired with a master’s in artificial intelligence.
The University of Texas at San Antonio has launched a dual-degree program combining medical school with a master’s in artificial intelligence.
Several universities across the nation have begun integrating AI into medical practice. Medical schools at the University of Florida, the University of Illinois, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Stanford and Harvard Universities all offer variations of a certificate in AI in medicine that is largely geared toward existing professionals.
“I think schools are looking at, ‘How do we integrate and teach the uses of AI?’” Dr. Whelan said. “And in general, when there is an innovation, you want to integrate it into the curriculum at the right pace.”
Speaking of emerging technologies and med school, also see:
— Salma – Midjourney & SD AI Product Photographer (@Salmaaboukarr) September 29, 2023
How to stop AI deepfakes from sinking society — and science — from nature.com by Nicola Jones; via The Neuron Deceptive videos and images created using generative AI could sway elections, crash stock markets and ruin reputations. Researchers are developing methods to limit their harm.
48+ hours since Chat GPT-4V has started rolling out for Plus and enterprise users.
With just under 10 acquisitions in the last 5 years, PowerSchool has been active in transforming itself from a student information systems company to an integrated education company that works across the day and lifecycle of K–12 students and educators. What’s more, the company turned heads in June with its announcement that it was partnering with Microsoft to integrate AI into its PowerSchool Performance Matters and PowerSchool LearningNav products to empower educators in delivering transformative personalized-learning pathways for students.
As readers of this series know, I’ve developed a six-session design/build workshop series for learning design teams to create an AI Learning Design Assistant (ALDA). In my last post in this series, I provided an elaborate ChatGPT prompt that can be used as a rapid prototype that everyone can try out and experiment with.1 In this post, I’d like to focus on how to address the challenges of AI literacy effectively and equitably.
Countries worldwide are designing and implementing AI governance legislation commensurate to the velocity and variety of proliferating AI-powered technologies. Legislative efforts include the development of comprehensive legislation, focused legislation for specific use cases, and voluntary guidelines and standards.
This tracker identifies legislative policy and related developments in a subset of jurisdictions. It is not globally comprehensive, nor does it include all AI initiatives within each jurisdiction, given the rapid and widespread policymaking in this space. This tracker offers brief commentary on the wider AI context in specific jurisdictions, and lists index rankings provided by Tortoise Media, the first index to benchmark nations on their levels of investment, innovation and implementation of AI.
The prospect of AI-powered, tailored, on-demand learning and performance support is exhilarating: It starts with traditional digital learning made into fully adaptive learning experiences, which would adjust to strengths and weaknesses for each individual learner. The possibilities extend all the way through to simulations and augmented reality, an environment to put into practice knowledge and skills, whether as individuals or working in a team simulation. The possibilities are immense.
“AI is real”
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says artificial intelligence will be part of “every single process,” adding it’s already “doing all the equity hedging for us” https://t.co/EtsTbiME1apic.twitter.com/J9YD4slOpv
Part 1: October 16 | 3:00–4:30 p.m. ET
Part 2: October 19 | 3:00–4:30 p.m. ET
Part 3: October 26 | 3:00–4:30 p.m. ET
Part 4: October 30 | 3:00–4:30 p.m. ET
Welcome to The Future of Education with Michael B. Horn. In this insightful episode, Michael gains perspective on mapping AI’s role in education from Jacob Klein, a Product Consultant at Oko Labs, and Laurence Holt, an Entrepreneur In Residence at the XQ Institute. Together, they peer into the burgeoning world of AI in education, analyzing its potential, risks, and roadmap for integrating it seamlessly into learning environments.
Who decided that grading and assessment should be the exclusive responsibility of teachers? Why do we sideline students when it comes to assessment?
Self-assessment is a powerful strategy that encourages students to become more invested in their learning journeys. It is a process where students evaluate their work, reflecting on what they’ve learned, how well they’ve understood complex concepts, how much progress they’ve made toward mastering key skills, and where they may need to invest time and energy to improve their concept knowledge and skill set (Siegesmund, 2016). Self-assessment shifts the focus from a grade-centric perspective to a learning-centric one. For those of us who want to encourage students to adopt a growth mindset, believing they can always improve and develop with practice and hard work, self-assessment is a critical piece of that puzzle (Wang, Zepeda, Qin, Del Toro & Binning, 2021).
The more I look around higher education, the more clearly it seems to me that there are three practices which we carry out every day – which seemed baked right into the very DNA of our current system of higher education – that are inimical to the actual purpose of higher education. Those practices are:
Lecturing,
Traditional grading, and
Student evaluations of teaching.
Before you get upset, let me say: I don’t think any of these practices is “evil”, and my understanding of the history of education says that all three were developed with good intentions, for legitimate reasons, to solve real problems. (With the possible exception of student evaluations of teaching – I’m working on trying to figure out where these came from and why they were invented.) But regardless of the background and intentions, they have taken over higher education like an invasive species.
“If you looked at the average person outside of higher education and said, you know, ‘We’ve created a culture in higher ed where our core thing we do isn’t valued,’ that makes absolutely no sense,” says Amy Hawkins, assistant provost for teaching and academic leadership at the University of Central Arkansas, which has been working to change that dynamic on campus. “It would be like saying in a company, ‘Well, customer service isn’t really a big deal to us. We’re about product development. We treat our customers like crap.’ I mean. That’s nonsensical.”
Does the public know this? And does it care?
Surveys show that what the public values most about higher education is good teaching and meaningful learning.
What makes an effective microcredential programme? — from by Temesgen Kifle Short, flexible and skills-focused, microcredentials must balance the needs of students and industry. Here are tips on how to develop courses that achieve this
Here are tips for higher education institutions (HEIs) to consider when creating and delivering microcredential programmes so they meet the needs of all stakeholders.
Collaborate with accrediting bodies, employers and other HEIs
An introduction to creating escape rooms— from timeshighereducation.com by Bernardo Pereira Nunes Bernardo Pereira Nunes offers tips on how to get started on an escape room experience that will boost students’ teamwork, leadership, communication and problem-solving skills
But I’ve also been hearing one intriguing question, over and over, that isn’t directly about loans or repayment, so much as it is about how to avoid them entirely. And it’s coming from parents of kids who’ve not yet traded in their sticker collections for student loans.
“I’ve got one little guy who’s about six years old,” Caleb Queern, of Austin, Texas, told me recently. “And my questions are, number one: How much should we be saving between now and the time my little guy is ready for college? And number two: What’s the best way to save for it?”
Is school transformation possible without replacing the existing education system? In addition to Tom, Kelly Young of Education Reimagined joined me to argue that it’s not. In an educational landscape that constantly seeks marginal improvements, my guests spoke to the importance of embracing new value networks that support innovative approaches to learning. The conversation touched on the issue of programs that remain niche solutions, rather than robust, learner-centered alternatives. In exploring the concept of value networks, they both challenged the notion of transforming individual schools or districts alone. They argue for the creation of a new value network to truly revolutionize the education system. Of course, they admit that achieving this is no small feat, as it requires a paradigm shift in mindset and a careful balance between innovation and existing structures. In this conversation, we wrestle with the full implications of their findings and more.
Redefining What High School Is Supposed to Look Like — from edutopia.org by Brittany R. Collins From restorative grading to paid internships, an equity-centered approach to education creates rich learning opportunities for all students.
We have a networking party with special tables and food, and the students have to stand and mingle. We emulate this sort of a networking party, because they have to learn how to do it. They have to dress the part that day, and I film it so we can watch it back to give them some feedback.
Digital Promise announced [on 9/26/23] the launch of the Digital Promise FutureLab. This cutting-edge initiative embodies Digital Promise’s long-standing dedication to innovation in education and aims to not only revolutionize the current state of education, but to reimagine a new world of learning.
FutureLab is funded in part by Digital Promise’s recent gift from MacKenzie Scott.
“Innovation is in Digital Promise’s DNA, and we are reaffirming our commitment to push the boundaries of what’s possible in education,” said Jean-Claude Brizard, President and CEO of Digital Promise. “We believe the Digital Promise FutureLab will be a catalyst for transformative change in education. It’s a significant opportunity to collaborate with visionary educators, technologists, and researchers to create a more equitable future for learners worldwide.”
Scenario 1: Fully Digitalized Law School Scenario 2: Blended Law School Experience Scenario 3: Specialized Legal Education Scenario 4: Decentralized Legal Education
In the decentralized legal education scenario, the traditional model of law schools is disrupted by the emergence of alternative education platforms and micro-credentialing. The concept of a law degree is replaced by a more flexible and personalized approach to legal education. Students can choose from an array of legal courses offered by various providers, including universities, law firms, online platforms, and even government agencies.
15+ YouTube Shorts Ideas For Your Next Video — from buffer.com by Tamilore Oladipo If you’re looking for inspiration for your next short video, here are 18 YouTube Shorts ideas to help your content stand out and engage viewers in bite-sized bursts.
With more than 50 billion daily views, YouTube Shorts offers a unique opportunity for content creators to reach a wider audience, promote longer videos, and even increase subscribers.
For content creators and small businesses, Shorts can be a game-changer. Whether you’re repurposing old content, sharing clips from live streams, promoting exclusive content, or hopping on the latest trend, Shorts provide a versatile medium to engage viewers and potentially go viral.
From DSC: Perhaps there are a few ideas in here for your students — as they continue to develop their skills in creating multimedia-based communications and presentations.
Also relevant/see:
11 YouTube Shorts Creators to Inspire Your Next Viral Video — from buffer.com by Kirsti Lang A curated list of YouTube Shorts creators worth watching — both at the top of their game and on the rise — and how their content helps them stand out.
Short-form video is still thoroughly enjoying its heyday, due in no small part to YouTube Shorts.
The introduction of vertical, short-form videos to YouTube was a bold move for the Google-owned platform, and it’s paying off for both them and creators — 50 billion daily views is really nothing to be sneezed at.
It’s also ushered in a new wave of short-form video stars, many of whom are prioritizing Shorts over the likes of Facebook and Instagram Reels, and TikTok, with subscriber counts quickly dwarfing what it took years to amass on other platforms.
The idea was simple: ask sixty community leaders to fan across the city’s public schools, follow in the footsteps of its youngest citizens, and report back on what they saw.
Fifty-nine said yes. What they found, Pickering says, “were kids with dead eyes. Kids not engaged. And kids who knew that school was a game – and the game was rigged.”
So the Billy Madison team used its findings to design a prospective high school that would actually produce what its participants said they wanted to see:
Let kids pursue their passions. Give them real work to do. And get them out of the school building, and in the community.
This thought-provoking discussion delves into the topic of system replacement in education. Is school transformation possible without replacing the existing education system? Joining [Michael] to discuss the question are Thomas Arnett of the Christensen Institute and Kelly Young of Education Reimagined.
In an educational landscape that constantly seeks marginal improvements, [Michael’s] guests speak to the importance of embracing new value networks that support innovative approaches to learning. They bring to light the issue of programs that remain niche solutions, rather than robust, learner-centered alternatives. In exploring the concept of value networks, [Michael’s] guests challenge the notion of transforming individual schools or districts alone. They argue for the creation of a new value network to truly revolutionize the education system. Of course, they admit that achieving this is no small feat, as it requires a paradigm shift in mindset and a careful balance between innovation and existing structures. In this conversation, we wrestle with the full implications of their findings and more.
From DSC: This reminds me of the importance of TrimTab Groups who invent or test out something new apart from the mothership.
The 2023 GEM Report on technology and education explores these debates, examining education challenges to which appropriate use of technology can offer solutions (access, equity and inclusion; quality; technology advancement; system management), while recognizing that many solutions proposed may also be detrimental.
The report also explores three system-wide conditions (access to technology, governance regulation, and teacher preparation) that need to be met for any technology in education to reach its full potential.
Bloom Academy is the first and only self-directed learning center in Las Vegas – microschooling as true, nontraditional and permissionless education alternative. 5 Questions with Microschool Founders Sarah & Yamila.https://t.co/RvxtwGXvkZ
Since last spring, journalists at The 74 have been crossing the U.S. as part of our 2023 High School Road Trip. It has embraced both emerging and established high school models, taking us to 13 schools from Rhode Island to California, Arizona to South Carolina, and in between.
It has brought us face-to-face with innovation, with programs that promote everything from nursing to aerospace to maritime-themed careers.
At each school, educators seem to be asking one key question: What if we could start over and try something totally new?
What we’ve found represents just a small sample of the incredible diversity that U.S. high schools now offer, but we’re noticing a few striking similarities that educators in these schools, free to experiment with new models, now share. Here are the top eight: .
What does it take to empower parents and decentralize schooling? Why is a diversity of school models important to parents? Are we at a tipping point? .
Several meta-analyses, which summarize the evidence from many studies, have found higher achievement when students take quizzes instead of, say, reviewing notes or rereading a book chapter. “There’s decades and decades of research showing that taking practice tests will actually improve your learning,” said David Shanks, a professor of psychology and deputy dean of the Faculty of Brain Sciences at University College London.
Still, many students get overwhelmed during tests. Shanks and a team of four researchers wanted to find out whether quizzes exacerbate test anxiety. The team collected 24 studies that measured students’ test anxiety and found that, on average, practice tests and quizzes not only improved academic achievement, but also ended up reducing test anxiety. Their meta-analysis was published in Educational Psychology Review in August 2023.
The End of Scantron Tests— from theatlantic.com by Matteo Wong Machine-graded bubble sheets are the defining feature of American schools. Today’s kindergartners may never have to fill one out.
There are several possible reasons why pretesting worked in this study.
Students paid more attention to the pretested material during the lecture.
The pretest activated prior knowledge (some of them are clearly doing a lot of prework), and allowed them to encode the new information more deeply.
They were doing a lot of studying of the pretested information outside of class.
There are some great spaced retrieval effects going on. That is, students saw the material before lecture, they took a quiz on it during the pretest, then later they reviewed or quizzed themselves on that same material again during self-study.
So much of the way that we think about education and work is organized into silos. Sure, that’s one way to ensure a depth of knowledge in a field and to encourage learners to develop mastery. But it also leads to domains with strict boundaries. Colleges are typically organized into school sub-domains, managed like fiefdoms, with strict rules for professors who can teach in different schools.
Yet it’s at the intersections of seemingly-disparate domains where breakthrough innovation can occur.
Maybe intersections bring a greater chance of future work opportunity, because that young person can increase their focus in one arena or another as they discover new options for work — and because this is what meaningful work in the future is going to look like.
From DSC: This posting strikes me as an endorsement for interdisciplinary degrees. I agree with much of this. It’s just hard to find the right combination of disciplines. But I supposed that depends upon the individual student and what he/she is passionate or curious about.
A lot of people have been asking if AI is really a big deal for the future of work. We have a new paper that strongly suggests the answer is YES. .
Consultants using AI finished 12.2% more tasks on average, completed tasks 25.1% more quickly, and produced 40% higher quality results than those without. Those are some very big impacts. Now, let’s add in the nuance.
