5 Ways to Structure Your End-of-Year A.I. Exploration Workshop
Chances are — if you are like many of the schools, districts, and organizations I’m working with around the country — you are planning an end-of-the-year workshop that includes Artificial Intelligence as a topic.
This is no longer “new” to anyone because we all know it exists (in and outside education). It is, however, “new” to all of us as an emerging technology that can be used in positive, and negative ways.
End of the year PD is an opportunity to reflect, share, and hopefully get excited for what’s coming next year. Too often, it is none of those things, and more often then not it is not engaging or at least fun!
If you are doing this work, I’ve got five structures for you below that bring the energy, fun and hopefully a ton of learning and excitement. Check them out below!
Edcamp Structure
If you’ve never heard of Edcamp, you should check out the official site. An Edcamp model allows you to create the sessions before or during the day of the PD session. Anyone can lead a session, and your staff is free to move in and out of sessions throughout the allotted time. Here are some of the basics of the Edcamp structure:
Experience, not experts: Edcamps encourage participants to facilitate sessions by sharing experiences. At Edcamp, we encourage conversations, not planned presentations.
Participant driven: Edcamps allow participants to collaboratively determine session topics. Typically, session topics are sourced from those attending the Edcamp and the session board is built the day of the Edcamp with participation from participants. However, online Edcamps are allowed to source session topics through their registration process in order to best prepare for their online event.
Rule of Two Feet/Clicks: Edcamps suggest participants find sessions that meet their needs to maximize learning. If you are in a session that is not meeting your needs, we encourage you to move on to another session that may be better suited.
To run this type of PD you’ll need multiple rooms/spaces for the sessions and enough people to suggest and lead sessions on any type of AI Topic.
You can modify this by planning ahead and making more of a Best Practices showcase with some preplanned sessions to get things kickstarted.
SharkTank Pitch Structure
There are folks in your school/organization who are using AI tools with all kinds of experience and results.
Lean on YOUR staff to share best/next practices and how you can use AI effectively for teaching and learning.
In the Shark Tank Structure you’ll have teachers that are going to “Pitch” their ideas of AI use (whether that be a tool, or a process like curriculum writing, or something more innovative in their subject area).
Your Sharks (this can be anyone but have fun with it) will listen to the pitches and ask questions. The rest of your staff will watch and learn together (and have some fun with the whole process).
At the end of the Shark Tank presentations, your staff will choose which person they want to learn more from and join their session/room.
Lots of learning, tons of fun, and a way to build from the ground up.
Makerspace Structure
In the Makerspace model, you’ll create a large area (gym, library, other space) where multiple staff member can set up demonstrations and click/play areas around different AI use cases.
Staff will be able to walk around, learn informally from their colleagues, jump into some different situations, try new things, and spend some time “doing” and “making” instead of just “listening”.
The key to this structure is after the Makerspace having time for different departments, PLCs, or grade levels to discuss and reflect together on their experience.
Have folks come up with a plan for moving forward now that they have a base of understanding from the Makerspace and following discussion.
Double Diamond Structure
The Double Diamond is one of my favorite ways to use Design Thinking principles in a PD format. I do this process a lot when working with groups, especially leadership teams. Here’s how you do it in a step-by-step breakdown.
Step 1:
Learners in the room have sticky notes in front of them. They are asked to write down as many problems about AI IN SCHOOLS.
(or whatever you are working on) on the sticky notes (one per note). 5-7 minutes.
Step 2:
They all place their sticky notes up on the wall or board. Then learners walk around with 3-5 little dot stickers and place the stickers on the AI problems that they believe are the most important for what they are working on right now.
5 minutes.
Step 3:
The facilitator organizes the sticky notes and puts the top 1-3 notes with the most stickers on the board written out for all to see.
3 minutes.
Step 4:
You’ve selected your most important problems as a group. Now you work to rephrase the problems as “How might we…” statements.
For example, if a problem is “AI Makes it easy for kids to do HW”, you could rephrase that as “How might we rethink hw as a creative activity”.
You can create the “How might we” statements individually first or just as a group.
Step 5:
Once again learners have sticky notes in front of them. This time they write down as many solutions as they can to the problems and “how might we statements”.
They place these on the board or wall once they are done.
Step 6:
Learners walk around with 3-5 little dot stickers and place the stickers on the solutions that they believe are the most doable and appropriate for the problems selected.
Step 7:
Facilitator organizes the sticky notes and puts the top 1-3 notes with the most stickers on the board written out for all to see.
Step 8:
Now select your solutions to work on and create a prototype.
You can do this as a group, can split up into teams, or work on them individually first!
And that's how you do a Double Diamond Sprint!
Earn To Learn Structure
Earn to learn is another great structure, and one I enjoy using when I’m working with groups at conferences.
A lot of PD is “Sit-and-Get”. It’s not terrible to learn through a lecture, but if that is the only way you are learning, it is seriously lacking the application piece of learning that is so critical to using some of these tools and strategies in practice.
The basic tenets of “Earn To Learn” is as follows:
Folks are going to work in partnerships or groups of 3-4 (the less people in a group the better normally).
Each group is going to create something that is meaningful and relevant to their job/role/subject/grade.
We’ll use the AI tools/strategies discussed to actually create something.
As an example, I’ll often act as an instructional coach with one staff member in the audience.
I’ll ask what is an upcoming unit/lesson they are teaching that the students think is boring. Then we’ll go through the process together to make it meaningful and relevant—and much more engaging/effective.
I’ll use tools like MagicSchool, Curipod, and SchoolAI to help facilitate this process.
At the end of this back and forth coaching, my call to action for the group will be to go through that same process with a partner for their subject area or lesson/activity.
By the end of the workshop staff will have learned a ton about AI, used the tools, and gone through the process of using it in their practice. Much more effective than a lecture alone would ever be!
Final Thoughts
We don’t have a ton of PD time with our staff. At the end of the school year folks can often feel tired, run down, and out of energy for thinking about new ideas and innovative ways to approach teaching and learning in an AI world.
I’m hoping one of these five structures provides an avenue to lead some great PD! Reach out if you have any questions!
