Last year’s theme was VUCA, the year before that UBUNTU – to know more about each of these check out previous posts. This year, 2023-24 we are focusing our efforts on GOOD to GREAT (G2G) building on our work with UBUNTU and VUCA. G2G stems from the work of Jim Collins and his best seller, Good to Great. Exciting times ahead especially as we incorporate the use of AI more effectively by both our teachers and our learners (middle and high school.). During summer all staff were challenged with completing a Good to Great project. Here is a link to the task and teachers’ results.
As the school year has begun our focus continues to be ‘Good to Great’ and for the first six weeks the secondary school team has signed up to each take a different week to share their ‘superpower.’
First week of sharing is tomorrow (25Aug)- so we will see how it goes!
21Jan.24
Fast Forward- we are mid-year in our theme of Good to Great and as with all teaching we have come to a point where we have to get grounded once again in the text and what it really means to go from Good to Great as a school. This week in our PD session we did a deep dive with the Last Word Protocol to discuss the text and be sure we are all understanding the key elements. Knowing that teachers have little time we tapped a summary written by Aniket Ambekar. Here is the link.
Added Bonus: AI Staff Development
To help ground our understandings and learnings about the role of AI in education, our senior coach, Dr. Mara Simmons shared a presentation to folks at the Festival of Education. Here is a re-cap. It is important for us to collectively understand our intentions with the use of AI as we don’t expect to replace teachers with the tool. Mr. Andrew Flowerdew compiled this very helpful guide from what UNICEF shared awhile back, Key are these 9 considerations when thinking about AI and children. Here is the link to his document.
Link to UNICEF policy recommendations
Here is a link to a student/staff use policy that we wrote with the assistance of ChatGPT 3.5.
Teaching Hacks 4 All 
Dear Readers,
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a topic of great interest and concern among many people, including myself. As we become more informed about different technologies, it helps us to make better decisions about how we use and integrate them into our lives.
At first, I was apprehensive about using AI, just as I was with smartphones, social media, and other technology in the past. However, after becoming more comfortable and informed about these technologies, I began to see AI as a tool to help people be more efficient, just like spell check.
My previous fears about the dark web, security concerns, and how AI may affect education were all factors that made me hesitant to use it. However, the more I learned about AI, the more I began to understand the potential benefits and positive uses it can have in our daily lives.
After reading up on how AI is being used in Finland and Allegheny County, I have realized that like most technologies, it is continually evolving. We can use these good models to reap the benefits and alleviate any security worries that may come with the rise of AI.
It’s important to keep an open mind and continue to educate ourselves to make informed decisions about how we incorporate AI into our lives.
Thank you
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Thank you for your comment! Absolutely agree that we need to keep an open mind and continue to learn… Being cautious and mindful of one’s security is also important. Looking forward to the new frontier. Cheers, Mara
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