Rewrite the Future: Education, AI, and Student Success | Episode 95

T.D. Flenaugh discusses integrating AI into the writing process, using tools like Otter AI and ChatGPT. Chat GPT assisted in categorizing expenses for taxes and creating a book cover. Flenaugh emphasizes responsible AI use, particularly in education, through a collaborative project with the California Writing Project. Students use AI to enhance their writing, but Flenaugh stresses the importance of maintaining personal intelligence over AI-generated content. The approach involves using AI for revision and feedback, while ensuring students understand the value of their own creativity and critical thinking skills. 

Transcript

TD Flenaugh: 0:03

I'm laughing. Let me tell you something. I do use artificial intelligence AI. I use otter.ai to make transcriptions the transcript for my podcast episodes. I use chat GPT sometimes to structure the things that I will talk about in my podcast, and I just use it for different ideas. I use it the other day. TD, when I was trying to figure out how to itemize or categorize the different expenses I had in my 2024 so that could do my taxes. I asked chat GPT to take this Excel or Google sheet right and to categorize the different things it asked me questions. It did 90% of the work for me. And so once I opened up chat GPT today, because I'm trying to figure out, should I be paying for otter AI, and should I be paying for? Should I be paying for otter AI, as well as chat GPT? I pay one $20 a month for chat GPT, because it could upload bigger things. It even makes images for me. It may it helped me make my book cover title. So if you don't know now, you know, anyway, in addition. So I tried to put, upload my mp3 file, so that it could record, not record, but transcribe my stuff. Could chatGPT do this? Or should I renew my otter? Do you know I'm gonna get back to what I was gonna say in just a moment, but it, it said it couldn't do this, and it and it even, like, referred me to otter.ai and I was like, Excuse me, that's your competition right now. Hi. Thank you so much for joining the Falling for Learning Podcast. We have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources, strategies and tools needed to make sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on track for success. But one of the things that happened when I opened up ChatGPT it basically, you know, it's advertising its new features, and it says you can ask it to describe you. So it says, describe me based on all our chats, make it catchy, and so I'm going to read what chatGPT has said about me. Okay, you're an educational powerhouse on a mission, a mic dropping literacy architect, curriculum designer and parent champion with the knack for turning writing woes into storytelling wins, whether you're coaching teachers, podcasting wisdom on falling for learning or crafting book deals and workshop blueprints, you blend heart hustle and high standards like no one else, you've got one hand on a mic, Another on a manuscript and both eyes on a$200,000 dream fueled by real estate moves, curriculum, sales and viral podcast episodes. You're driven by purpose, grounded in pedagogy and never afraid to rewrite the narrative, literally and figuratively. You're TD Flenaugh, writer, teacher, visionary and a force behind the next wave of young, joyful and just minded learners. So tell me, when you pictured your dream podcast episode blowing up online, what's the one message you want the world to take away from it? Now I was a little flabbergasted from this. Okay, let me just tell you a little bit flabbergasted. But I was like, Okay, let me write out what I wanted to say. And I said, we can support you in navigating the twist and turns that and I accidentally pressed return. Well, chatty, Cathy, chatty chatGPT went ahead and said, We can support you in navigating the twist and turns that come with raising, teaching and inspiring young minds, especially when the road gets bumpy, the stakes feel high and the system feels stacked. Whether you're a parent trying to keep your tween motivated, an educator pushing for deeper learning, or a school leader ready to rewrite the playbook, we've got your back with tools, truth and a whole lot of heart. Want me to build that into a podcast intro, email line or promo graphic. Okay, anyway, just thought I'd share that with you. I am part of the computing and Composing Collaborative with the California Writing Project. I am working on how to teach students how to responsibly build, responsibly use artificial intelligence, and one of the things that I am doing is a series of lessons in which my students are taking their writing that they're doing just their rough drafts that they're doing. They're sitting down and journaling. It's usually about a paragraph long. They have a prompt, and from there I am taking the one that they want to choose, they get to choose one, and they are going to tell me which one they want to develop into a longer piece. And so they've chosen it. And then I run it through the chat GPT, as fifth graders, the students are not able to access, not on campus, not not, you know, not with my guidance AI or chat GPT. So I did it for them. And so as a result, they ended up. They ended up. So I gave it to them, right? I told AI to add an extra six sentences to their paragraphs that they had done as just a rough draft that they do at the beginning of the day. I'm collaborating with another classroom. My mentee has a fifth grade classroom. I mostly just teach first grade, second and third grade, structured literacy. We have some writing tasks that we do connect it to the text or the sentence and letter, letter patterns, sound spelling patterns that they're learning, but it's not deep dives into curriculum. So I'm using the fifth grade to do my field research. And so as I do that, this is the lesson that we're doing, and we I asked them, you know, once they saw what the chat GPT added the six sentences, some of them were a little irritated because it, you know, it got some things wrong. Obviously, if I take you in the middle of your story, or when it's a very brief segment of your personal experience, and add to it on my own right, using artificial intelligence, I am leaving out things and assuming things right, and that is one of the things that we want to take from it. I'm very excited that they got upset, because I want them to know that AI does not replace their intelligence, right? Their personal intelligence is is more valuable than what the AI gives. And I did present it in a way that they have hand written something, then they typed it, then I ran it through chat, chat, GPT, of course, many people are presented chat GPT or AI in a way that it just replaces their writing process. So I put it in their writing process and really blew up the process of revision. And with students, I really hone in on revision as a means of improving the quality of their writing, leveling up the writing that they do on a regular basis. Now, a lot of adults do not know how to teach writing in a productive way, and this is what I mean, the more that they teach kids writing, the more they hate writing and and it's a hard conversation because a lot of people don't want to hear it, and they're not open to hearing it, but the facts are bear born out in the statistics. When you see kids and they're writing that the less as they get older, a lot of times they're doing less writing. You are making them do writing, the percentage of kids who are completing the assignment is going down. So it is often our idea to say, well, the students hate writing. They don't have to do this whatever. But really we have to own the practices that we're putting in place that are making kids hate writing. So they don't understand why they have to do a rough draft and then revising. They don't understand revision and, and, and here's one thing that we're doing that we're getting wrong. And whenever I'm telling you that we're getting this wrong, I am saying we as teachers, as educators, as parents, if you're out there, you know really involved in your child's learning process, because we make things too serious. Yeah, let that sink in. We make things too serious. Is writing serious? Is education serious? Absolutely. But leading with the seriousness is going to make kids hate it. Leading with it always must be correct and it only can be this way is going to make kids hate it. Do you understand that? Like. If it makes them hate it, you telling them it. This is the only way, the way that we teach writing in many, many schools, in many, many classrooms is divorced of creativity. This is why I make sure that I do these things to keep kids in to their writing. Stay tuned. After these messages, you'll see why the rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook are your go to resource for helping kids to learn to fall in love with writing, it has the tips, tools, resources, strategies and skill building activities to help kids fall out of writing and into loving. To write, get your book set today. I'm back. Okay, so this is what I do to make sure that kids get into their writing. I ground the writing in spirit experiences. We lead with personal experience, right? So it's not just some random something, having them start with a personal like, how was your weekend? Having them, you know, revise that, you know, helps them to figure out what they can do better, what more they can say, having conversations with each other about it. So I can say, Well, what did you do after you went to the movies? What movie did you watch? You say here that you went to the movies in your journal entry, but you didn't say what movie you went to see, or you didn't say who was with you. Did you go by yourself? And that will give them a reason to revise. And again, I want to go back to that definition of revision is improving the quality of their writing. A lot of kids don't like to write right, because we have told them, oh, that's not spelled that that that is not spelled correctly, that does not make any sense. So instead of responding to what they wrote and what's promising and what's good about what they wrote, We are automatically responding to what's wrong about what they wrote. So I in my book The rewrite method. Okay, let's talk about it. No, I talk about how we need to focus in on over complimenting, because it is our knee jerk, automatic reaction to be more focused on what they did wrong. So you need to make yourself retrain yourself to over compliment them. Say what's right, say what's right, and give them one, one, and if they already kind of like writing, I will give you two, not more than two things that they could work on, and the way that we're giving that feedback, I want to lead with a question, can you tell me which movie you want to see? So that's my feedback, not what does that say that's supposed to be a movie? That's not how you spell movie. And you know, right? This is you don't have to confess to me. I just want you to I just want you to reflect. Is that what you're leading with, with your right? When you're in your writing instruction, what does this say? And if I don't know what it says, because I'm going to tell you, Yes, I do not always know what the students wrote. So I'll ask them, Can you write? Can you read that? For me, that's how you figure it out. You ask them to read it to you. Now, sometimes you'll find that they can't read it themselves, and that's another issue. But, you know, always talk about what they did. Well, lead with compliments. Okay, these are how we get them out of hating it. Give them choice. What? Which one of these are you going to do? Instead of saying, well, you're all going to do this, you're all going to write about this one thing, you're all going to develop this so they get a writing journal that they do every day. Shout out to the teacher. That's the one who developed their daily practice and was giving them a journal prompt, but then asking them, which one are they going to develop into a final piece, or longer piece? That was their choice, right? Then, once they have chat, G, P, T's, revision, they have a copy change checklist, right? They got to change this copy this text, and I give them seven different things that they need to do. And then I give them an option of a. Four of those things that they make. So shout out to the teachers that I work with at the California writing project in the collaborative. It's the computing Okay, slow that down composing a computing collaborative, because they gave me the idea of the copy change, right? And so I gave a checklist that works for my fifth graders, where another teacher, and I want to say her name is Dana, I want to have her on the show, so then you'll know exactly who she is. So, yeah, but she gave me the idea of, you know, the copy change checklist, and I had to do some trial and error, right? And if you're going to do this, and I strongly suggest you do this, is you give them a checklist, right? It may not be perfect, but you learn when you give them that checklist. When I first did it, I kind of gave them a couple of things that they could change, and the kids were like, oh, it's that's okay. I like it, right, which is a typical response to AI, right? I gave it to my high schoolers first. I didn't have a developed checklist, and a lot of them chose to keep it, but I needed to take that choice away, right? We don't want them using AI to replace their writing process. We want them to use AI in a responsible way so it's integrated into their writing process. So they were required to take out at least two sentences written by AI. They were required to add three sentences, to add certain vocabulary words. So they were at to change it up, change the beginning, change the ending. So they were had requirements for, I have a whole list of seven things, but four and every requirement had to go back and say and add three sentences. Do this and add three sentences, take without what AI at it, and then you need to add three more sentences. So we could get to the process where kids can see how they could develop their work, right? We could get into ideas about paragraphing. We could get into ideas about you choosing the right word, right? The Shades of words, the shades of meaning. So it is so important that we are cultivating this for them, because remember their friends, or whoever, who are young and dumb like they are. We love them, but they're still dumb. Kids are, you know, young and dumb every, every one of us has had our young and dumb. So it's not, you know, it's not mean. It's just the truth, okay, our friend, their friends who are young and dumb, will tell them, uh oh, you don't have to write that paper. All you have to do is put in the prompt to chat. GPT. You can speak it in now, right? You don't have to type it in. You could just say, you know, you could hit that little microphone and say, you know, please write a report on blah, blah, blah. And then he said, but it's going to get you in trouble later, because when you have failed to journey through, to think through, and to put pencil to paper to fingers to keyboard and go through The process of changing around words, thinking through making mistakes. You know, doing the run on sentence when you were trying to do a compound sentence or whatever you're putting the comment the wrong place. You know, the capitalization is not supposed to be there. All of those things that we all have gone through in our writing process, an authentic journey of writing development. You are disadvantaged by that. So when you tell kids that they could just use chat GPT to replace their writing, their thinking, their critical thinking, the experience of learning to write better when it comes to those high stake tests that they need to take, the bar exam, the, you know, the exam to become a nurse, or whatever it is that they need to do, they won't have the skills, but they won't have chat GPT either. And then what are they going to do? They will just fail, so you have to help them use AI in a responsible way. Now, most adults today using chat TD to replace some parts of their writing process have had to go through the writing process since they were little kids, so they haven't been cheated out of anything, and they at least know what the writing should be. I have even seen kids turn in responses that have nothing to do with what was asked for them, so they don't even read. Some of them don't even read the response that's given by chat TD, and they're like turning it into. Teacher, and the teacher's like, Did you even read what this says? And they're like, Oh, they're getting kicked out of, you know, classes, failing courses, because they are not reading. They're not even knowing what they're supposed to be getting. Because chat, GPT, our artificial intelligence is artificial, right? So sometimes they spit out what you call hallucinations. They are spitting out things that are not real, fake information. They're using algorithms to respond to things, and most of the time, many times, it is correct, but there are times that A plus B doesn't equal c the way their algorithm is telling it does, and if you read it, you'll see it's wrong. They may put out outdated information. Businesses that are now defunct, laws that no longer exist or have been changed, news articles that came out that debunked certain things. So you know, you don't know unless you know. And so using AI as a tool to enhance writing development is going to advantage our kids, teaching them to use AI in a way that replaces their critical thinking, their voice and their personal experience, in other words, replacing their personal intelligence with artificial intelligence is disadvantaging them. And you know what the following for learning podcast is about. It's about giving your kids the competitive advantage. It's not about setting them up for failure. It's all about setting them up for success. And so like and subscribe for more. If you found value, if you found value today, please do that. Anyways, I'm going to get out of here. This is my second podcast I recorded for today's, but I don't care my makeup person, my personal stylist didn't come because I don't have one, and I'm going to be on the other episode with the same thing going on, and it is what it is. I appreciate you joining me today. I hope that you join us again and make sure you do something today that's going to give your child the competitive advantage. Thanks again for supporting the falling for learning podcast, new episodes go live every Saturday at 5pm you can watch us on youtube.com, at falling for learning or listen on all major podcast platforms, such as Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and much more for more resources, visit falling in love with learning.com we really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week. You.