Choreographers of Learning
Expanding teacher impact through more support, flexibility, and the opportunity for deeper relationships
My journey as a teacher may be one of the more unique journeys out there. Not only did I make a sudden career change from the software industry to teaching high school, but I also taught on both the East Coast and West Coast, in public and private, homeschool and online, international and domestic, startups and extracurricular programs, and just about every age group possible. As a result, I have a broad set of contexts from which to pull when guiding students through their academic careers. These contexts provide ideas to explore with my students and the ability to adjust course when needed so that they can learn from and experience success in their efforts. That is likely why one statement has prompted the most feedback from my post about the Pedagogy of Project Leo.
Having a multitude of pivot options and ideas to explore for my students is the most important skill to being a choreographer of learning.
Unfortunately, the current education system doesn’t incentivize teachers to have a wide variety of experiences to pull from. Managing a class of over 35 students with minimal amounts of data and guidance might be one of the hardest jobs out there. More and more is expected from teachers each year, yet less and less support is provided. That may be why teachers are leaving the profession at some of the highest rates ever and are feeling burnout.
One existing way that teachers improve their ability to pivot and explore ideas for students is to refine their curriculum each year. Veteran teachers often recommended that teachers should try to improve one aspect of their curriculum each year, perhaps giving one new project or concept a try while keeping everything else the same from the year before. Trying to do too much at once causes too much stress and too much uncertainty. It is just too hard for teachers to diversify their offerings and experiences year in and year out. New teachers come into the profession with an excitement to teach something they love to an age group they enjoy working with. Yet the first year of teaching can feel like fraternity hazing, often turning even the most energetic and passionate teacher into a jaded educator doing just enough to survive. Throw in tenure and things get even more complicated.
In reality, the skill to pivot when problems arise and identify new ideas to explore is not only important for a teacher in the classroom. But it is also important for students to learn as a life-long skill to guide them as they navigate through their careers.
This is where Project Leo is different. Project Leo is uniquely positioned to play an important role in supporting a teacher’s ability to pivot and identify new ideas as well as a student’s ability to pivot and learn new ideas while working through a project that they look forward to working on.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) brings a new level of support that never existed before. In a way, it has unimaginably rich and broad contexts from which to provide ideas to explore and ways to pivot when necessary. We can now provide every teacher with an endless stream of project ideas to get students excited about the skills and knowledge that are being taught in every classroom. Personalized projects for every student not only improves student engagement, but it also gives students and teachers alike fresh perspectives on the content that brought them to the classroom in the first place.
Assignments in Project Leo are both a mechanism to give students a reason to learn, as well as an opportunity for teachers to expand their T-Shaped skill set. Instead of sticking with what has worked in years past, teachers can now delve into the latest applications of the area they have the deepest understanding. Teachers will identify the essential skills and knowledge that each student needs to develop. Or these can be adopted from a variety of preassembled educational packages that we are curating in Project Leo. Our AI based Project Generator will then give students the opportunity to find interesting and challenging ways to learn and apply those essential skills and knowledge. This means students are excited to build their own unique project, while teachers still have the ability to guide their students into projects that align with their areas of expertise.
In addition to helping identify ideas to explore, Project Leo will also help improve the ability to pivot when a student encounters any of the countless reasons why projects hit roadblocks or when teachers find that the world changes and needs something new. When something unexpected happens, teachers and students will need pivot options. Thankfully, we no longer need teachers to have the direct experience necessary to pivot around all roadblocks for every unique project. Instead, we can once again use AI to guide both students and teachers by providing timely and project-relevant feedback to questions that will help a student get past unexpected challenges. The more teachers guide students and the more both groups learn from timely AI feedback, the better their pivoting skills will become, the more comfortable they will be in taking on new challenges, and the greater challenges they will take on. We believe that the AI tools within Project Leo will both increase curiosity and support students and teachers in building new skills through projects that benefit society. Teachers finally have the support they need to get excited about their content area and spend their precious time working directly with their students instead of over-planning and over-grading.
Teachers no longer have to feel like they are constantly playing catch up and reacting to what comes their way. Students will no longer have to take on projects in which they are uninterested. Rather, with Project Leo they can both proactively pursue projects that are challenging and relevant today, that not only teach new concepts, but develop life-long skills that students, teachers, professionals, and the entire community can be excited about.