Written with
Gerald Ardito, Manhattanville College
Marie Heath, Loyola University
Kinshuk, University of North Texas
Gerald Knezek, University of North Texas
Ellen Meier, Teachers College, Columbia University
Punya Mishra, Arizona State University
Ryan Novitski, International Technology and Engineering Educators Association
David Rutledge, New Mexico State University
On September 14-15, 2023, leaders from educational associations, editors of educational technology journals, policy makers, and representatives from corporate and nonprofit entities convened in Washington, DC, for the 2023 National Technology Leadership Summit (NTLS). Support for this year’s Summit was provided by the National Education Association (NEA), which served as the venue for the Summit, GoReact, and the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE), a long-term partner of NTLS.
This year’s NTLS started with a policy update by Adriane Dorrington, senior policy analyst at NEA, as well as updates by the Institute of Education Sciences director, Mark Schneider. In addition, participants received updates from long-term NTLS partner Lynn Gangone, president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), as well as corporate representatives from GoReact and Dell.
Consistent with past practice, NTLS hosted a panel featuring presidents of teacher educator associations discussing pressing issues at the intersection of technology and teacher education and a panel featuring editors of educational technology journals. This year’s editors’ panel discussed implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and ChatGPT in academic publishing and journal responses to the use of AI.
The 2023 NTLS was organized around two strands: (a) Generative AI: Possibilities, Promise, Perils, and Policy, led by Marie Heath and Punya Mishra; and (b) Catalyzing Learning: Objects to Think With, led by Glen Bull and Gerald Knezek.
Generative AI, Possibilities, Promises, Perils, Practices, and Policy
The Generative AI, Possibilities, Promises, Perils, Practices, and Policy (genAI-P5)strand at NTLS, led by Marie Heath and Punya Mishra, aimed to develop a set of questions for teacher education to use for inquiring into policy, practice, and research around generative AI. Participants explored the obvious and hidden impacts of large language models (LLMs) on education and our individual and social lives. Participants also applied technoskeptical (Krutka et al., 2022) and practice-based questions (Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, 2023) to identify gaps in theory, positionality, and approaches to AI in education. Finally, strand participants developed a series of reflective questions to engage with when considering the use of LLMs in education.
To generate the questions, participants reviewed diverse literature on the design and impacts of LLMs (Bender et al., 2021) on education (Berkshire & Schneider, 2023; Heath & Krutka, 2023; Mishra et al., 2023; Trust, 2023; Williamson, 2023), indigeneity (Hendrix, 2023; Marx, 2023), the environment (Bender et al., 2021), and the social (Bender et al., 2021; Williamson, 2023). They engaged in a technological audit (Krutka et al., 2022) of the technology and analyzed and discussed the possibilities and perils.
Next, strand participants identified five important themes of generative AI, around which teacher educators can build inquiry and reflection: (a) truth and verisimilitude; (b) equity and justice; (c) professional works, mindsets, tasks, and skills; (d) the intersection of genAI within the broader context of teacher preparation program administration, evaluation, and curriculum; and (e) curriculum to teach about AI and society. Finally, participants brainstormed subtopics and questions to ask about each theme. Currently, Maria and Punya are drafting summaries of each theme and synthesizing the participants’ brainstorms into three main questions for each theme.
Catalyzing Learning: Objects to Think With
The Strand on Catalyzing Learning was further subdivided into two groups, one focused on building and extending the CAD Model Library (CAD Library; www.cadlibrary.org), led by Glen Bull and Ryan Novitksi, and one focused on reviewing STEM-oriented 3-D printed materials, led by Gerald Knezek. The first group focused on extending work on maker education with 3D printers, digital die cutters, and other fabrication tools, in support of the new CITE Journal section, Objects to Think With (https://citejournal.org/category/objects-to-think-with/).
Specifically, group participants had the opportunity to collaborate and meet with other educational professionals who, collectively, are working to expand and curate the CAD library. Toward that end, participants established curators for the educational disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Once established, participants discussed current products in the CAD library found on www.cadlibrary.org and ways to encourage submissions and identify further objects for publication in the CAD library. To accomplish this goal, participants discussed systems and protocols for submissions of articles to ensure fidelity in the quality and practical utility of objects. They also engaged each other with hands-on learning activities to grasp what the objects should embody once submitted for peer review and identified next steps to further advance the scope of work associated with the CAD library.
The second group reviewed a set of 3-D printed materials created by a team headed by Gerald Knezek. A special focus was on the NASA pinhole projector maps of the October 14, 2023, and April 8, 2024, solar eclipse paths and the development of complementary pinhole projector eclipse mementos with UV color changing properties in the presence of strong vs. weak (e.g. during total eclipse) sunlight. These materials were designed to be openly available to teachers throughout the United States and to provide K-12 students with tools through which they could understand and safely observe the 2024 Total Eclipse (https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/future-eclipses/eclipse-2024/where-when/). The outcome of this discussion was to approve two of these open CAD designs for inclusion in the CAD Library—specifically, the NASA designed and certified pinhole projector maps for the 2023 and 2024 solar eclipses.
The second task of the group arose organically from the initial discussion on the CAD Library, as participants began to inquire into the possibilities of such a library and how it could benefit K-12 teachers and their students. Participants created a proposal to extend the existing specifications for the library to include additional metadata fields, such as learning standards addressed, suggested grade levels, data about the effectiveness of the models on student learning, and reflections from teachers. Further, the group discussed a more robust repository for such models that sought to extend the notion of repositories in GitHub to allow teachers and their students to interact with these learning materials in the same ways that software developers interact with code: forking, branching, contributing, and sharing. As a third task, participants engaged in discussions exploring possibilities for future collaborative work directed toward further advancing the efforts of making learning more meaningful and experiential for students.
References
Bender, E. M., Gebru, T., McMillan-Major, A., & Shmitchell, S. (2021, March). “On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big?” In Proceedings of the 2021 ACM conference on fairness, accountability, and transparency (pp. 610-623). https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3442188.3445922?uuid=f2qngt2LcFCbgtaZ2024
Berkshire, J., & Schneider, J. (Hosts). (2023, August 8). “AI Is Going to Upend Public Education. Or Maybe Not. With Larry Cuban” . Have You Heard. https://soundcloud.com/haveyouheardpodcast/ai-larry-cuban
Heath, M.K., & Krutka, D.G. (2023, April 23). “Collectively Asking Techno Skeptical Questions About ChatGPT.” Civics of Technology Blog. https://www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/collectively-asking-technoskeptical-questions-about-chatgpt
Hendrix, J. (Host). (2023, January 29). “An Indigenous Perspective on Generative AI with Michael Running Wolf” . Tech Policy Press. https://techpolicy.press/an-indigenous-perspective-on-generative-ai/
Krutka, D. G., Heath, M. K., & Smits, R. M. (2022). Toward a civics of technology. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 30(2), 229-237.
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. (2023). “15 questions every college professor should be asking about ChatGPT and other generative AI” [Canva slides]. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Yb6m_xJnx7hgzRronZ_gjjspHGv16jTZpYCqkNBSQPY/edit#slide=id.g27dd2c7880a_0_6022
Marx, P. (Host). (2023, July 20). “Big Tech Won’t Revitalize Indigenous Languages with Keoni Mahelona” . Tech Won’t Save Us. https://techwontsave.us/episode/177_big_tech_wont_revitalize_indigenous_languages_w_keoni_mahelona
Mishra, P, Warr, M., & Islam, R. (2023). “TPACK in the age of ChatGPT and Generative AI.” Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 39(4), 235-251. doi: 10.1080/21532974.2023.2247480
Trust, T. (2023, April). “ChatGPT and Education” [Google slides]. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Vo9w4ftPx-rizdWyaYoB-pQ3DzK1n325OgDgXsnt0X0/edit#slide=id.p
Williamson, B. (2023). “The social life of AI in education.” International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40593-023-00342-5
