Define Superintendent (education) – to Chat GPT – 4o – Gen AI …
Here’s an inspirational version of the definition for your blog post intro:
A superintendent is more than an administrator—they are a visionary leader, a champion for children, and the steward of a community’s hopes for its future. In public education, the superintendent guides a school district’s mission, ensuring that every child has access to opportunity, every educator has support to thrive, and every decision reflects a commitment to equity, excellence, and growth. At their best, superintendents inspire transformation, shaping not only schools but the lives they touch.
So, as I resume my “normal” routine as a superintendent after an exceptional professional learning experience, I offer tremendous thanks to Nick Polyak, Scott Rowe, Matt Montgomery, and the entire AASA Staff! The AASA Innovation for Transformation Consortium Spring Event was outstanding.
I’m grateful to Google, Stanford, JASON Learning, and Magma Math for support.
I’m grateful to so many for the tremendous insights, inspiration, ideas, innovations, empowerment, and more.
My two earlier blog posts highlight and detail learning and experiential opportunities. Gen AI usage as superintendent – Reflections from Google – AASA ITC Learnings from the Unfinished & Unlearning Leader #112Leads
So What – Now What – After learning, After studying, After reflecting, After sharing – now what? and … So What? Those are critical questions I consider each time I learn, study, do, act, and attend or lead a conference. In this blog post, I’ll reflect on our power-packed visit to Stanford as well as a few of my own “now what/so what” ideas!
On our final day, we visited Stanford University – WOW! Beautiful, Iconic, Serene, Cool, Fun, Nice, Impressive, Innovative, Inventive, Creative, Forward Thinking, Cutting Edge … I could go on …
We enjoyed fabulous lectures and presentations by Isabelle Hau, the Executive Director of Stanford’s Accelerator for Learning, whom we also met on our first day, the Dean, Dean Dan Schwartz of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford and some other really inspiring folks at Stanford who are making a difference each and every day!
We explored concepts like,
What do people need to learn, and how should people go about this? We pondered …AI and Automation – we were reminded of an old but very important study that implicates “automation” and our industrious approach as a nation over decades to learn more and do better … we pondered the 1897 “Curve of Improvement” where people studied productivity in terms of the number of letters people could send per minute… morphing into the number of weeks of practice…
This 19th-century example resonates with our 21st-century Gen AI “automation” craze in which we are living right now. Discussions of the The curve of improvement – “Power Law of Learning” -80/20 rule – when you first learn, you learn really quickly … all of this relates to our leadership development and teaching PK-12/20.
This is what AI does – automate… so many cool and provocative concepts for our thinking, reflecting, and ultimately for our “So What Now What moments – so much TIMELY and RELEVANT insights from the dean and the faculty! We ideated and thought about how we are using AI for Learning – Automation and Efficiency – kids taking speeded tests – no mistakes … scrounging – end of with personalized automated tutors – ONE Trajectory… so many ideas and thoughts … the lectures were great, the preparation was meaningful and we felt highly valued and cared for on our learning visits!
Sometimes, as an educator, teacher, researcher, student, superintendent, human, after we visit a really cool and impactful set of places, like on this AASA consortium visit, it takes a while to reflect and “unpack” all of the learning. I’m the kind of person who likes to get his thoughts out in writing (like via blog posts) in an effort to synthesize and integrate new learning with existing learning. My aim is to learn and grow as a person with a growth mindset, and to also learn and grow so I can best support the adults who support the adults who support the students in our organization.
So my “now what so what” is multi-phased. Now what? I read, I reflect, I write, I think of ways to share this learning with colleagues, leadership team members, the Board of Education, teachers, students, and the community. I reach out to others and reflect together on potential joint projects. I do something with what I learned so that the value proposition is to “pay it forward”.
For example, at Stanford, we learned how to build an educational/teaching “bot,” and it was “hands-on,” and it was inspiring. With guidance from Josh Weiss Director of Technology and Innovation, Stanford Accelerator for Learning, and Reuben Thiessen, Emerging Technology Lead at Stanford Accelerator for Learning, we gained really cool exposure to a sophisticated, yet elegantly simple “bot” to build for learning support. This was so powerfully impactful for me that we followed up after the visit. Members of my team and I will be attending a follow-up training session. Part of my own learning includes reviewing my notes, the audio files, the transcripts, the slides and resources the partners shared, and more!
As an example of applied learning, the “building a bot” experience allows us to consider engagement and creation via “Bloom’s Taxonomy” – the original taxonomy of the cognitive domain that every teacher learns in college – “knowledge, comprehension, application – then analysis, synthesis & evaluation”. The “updated” taxonomy is similar, “remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, creating, evaluating”. With respect to “what can Gen AI tools do” – as an example – well – they can do a lot … tutor, advisor, teacher assistant, thought partner, etc. One of the coolest parts of the building a bot from the Stanford expert thinkers is that it allows the creator to contemplate various roles at the outset to “guide/train/help” the AI do it’s “job”. Creating the persona, users, tone, learning theories, process, limitations & adjectives is all at the “front end” of the design – Gen AI is not just a “fancy search tool” – on the contrary -with the proper thinking and input it can be so much more.
So now we move into the Age of Creation … we pondered some motivators like what people do for hobbies (when they “CAN”) vs “work” when they “HAVE” to do something. Motivational goals are essentially set forth so that “we” do something to get rewarded – an example was that some people take “terrible” flights, just to get more “points” and so on! Beyond that, we also got to think and see in a robotics environment – we got to see, learn about, and touch OceanOne Thanks for all the inspiration … we have so much to learn, do and consider.
Our School District’s motto is Inspire, Innovate & Engage – the experiences this past week fully illustrated the essence, spirit, and illustration of our motto!