The Reframe: AI as a Support for Culturally Grounded Instruction with Guest Adam Whitaker

Welcome to Middle School Walking Talk, a podcast series offering heart, hope and health to members of our middle school communities. Hosts Phil's Vaggle and Jessica McGuire talk all things self-care, student well-being, school culture and more. Middle School Walking Talk is designed to support the concepts found in the successful middle school, this we believe, and is a production of the association for middle-level education. To learn more, visit AMLE.org. Today's episode, The Reframe. AI is a support for culturally grounded instruction with guest Adam Whitaker. Hi, welcome to AMLE's Walking Talk, I'm Phil's Vaggle, I'm here with Jessica McGuire, and I'm also here with our esteemed guest Adam Whitaker. He is one of AMLE's rising star presenters here from Texas. His session at the conference focused on planning with AI, culturally grounded ELA instruction, and exploring how artificial intelligence can support middle school teachers in designing lessons that are both structured and culturally responsive. So welcome to walk and talk. Thank you Adam. I would like to hear a little bit more about what led you to do this work to explore that intersection of AI and culturally relevant teaching in your classroom. Sure, sure, sure. And so, like I started my session, I actually like to start our conversation with, I'm really not that interested in AI. And so what I am passionate about is ensuring that students have relevant lessons that tap into their funds and knowledge, their culture, that background. And so I know that we're in the space in our society where AI is taken over, and it's our job to be more technological and responsive AI. So how can I use this tool to support students, and how can I use this tool to support new teachers that may have different background or experiences from their students, but they're interested about tapping in to the rich, reservoir of experiences, language and culture that students bring to the classroom and use it as a catalyst for planning. So it's a tool to jumpstart your work to kind of bridge a gap, maybe based on like diverse backgrounds, maybe from teacher to student or even students being diverse themselves within one classroom space. How do you see teachers could use AI or other means to make lessons inclusive and reflect more of students identities. Like I said in my session, it starts before you get to AI. And so if teachers don't have strong content pedagogy knowledge, they can create the correct prompts to receive the information they need for the lessons. And so first it starts there. And so before jumping to AI to plan for lessons, it's important to first whether through pre-service preparation or end service, building teachers pedagogy or knowledge so that they have the curriculum and instruction background to create appropriate prompts. To get the necessary content to plan effectively. That makes a lot of sense to me and actually really speaks to me when you said you're not that interested in AI as somebody who also uses AI as a tool in my work with kids to teach social skills or interviewing skills. One of the first things people ask me is to talk about technology and to talk about AI. And I have to say, I actually don't know much about AI at all. I don't know much about technology at all. It is just a tool. And so that really we know about kids, but we know about kids and we know what kids need. And actually I would love to know what some of your favorite prompts are. I'm going to leave that open on purpose so that you can choose whatever context you want to place those prompts in. But what are some prompts that you've seen really get kids connecting to who they are connecting to who their classmates are and just more invested in whatever that content is. And so a lot of time when I talk about the concept of culturally relevant instruction, sometimes it makes people Larry. And so I think another part of the culturally relevant part is that not only is it culture is social and personal experiences. And so let's take for example William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. And so students can relate to the concept of loving someone your mom told you not to love or lacking someone that you know that your parents will not approve of. And so when I think of culturally relevant prompts, even if we're not step approaching the conversation of text from the culture standpoint, how can I create a prompt that is relevant to student experiences. And so one way to connect if we're talking about the literary canon to students lives is experience. And so if we think about Romeo and Juliet, loving someone that was prohibited, if we think about John Stomach's of my some man building relationships with someone or making a commitment to someone that you promise someone else. Along with the culture part of culturally relevant instruction is also this thing or this concept that as people we have things that unite us. And so one of the ways to make that connection into relevant prompts is through the themes of a text. And also that makes it possible to use these techniques in any class. Whether it's science or math or English. And once I imagine once you start working with teachers and training them in these strategies, suddenly the floodgates open at some point they get that all how I'm going, oh, I see what you're doing. And I think before so we can just backtrack just look I think even before the AI after developing teachers content, precaution knowledge. The next step is you have to know your students, and I know that sounds cliche, but you have to know the students that you're serving. My first year as a teacher in Dallas, Texas, I moved into the neighborhood where my students live. And so not only was I teaching them, but I can speak to the places that they would drive the streets. They were driving down into that. I can speak to oncosisers, tacos, stand with eight tacos in the evening with their family. I speak to them all today, because I immerse myself in the culture of the students that I was serving as well as neighborhood. And so I think the first step of planning for culturally relevant instruction and using the AI is a reading writing interest form. And so on this form, you want to gather content about the text that students like to read, the genres that they like to write, the last book that they read, things that they're interested in. Are they first generation Americans? Do they speak more than one language? Do they come from a dual household? And so part of the strategic prompting process is making sure that you have the background knowledge, the demographic information about your students to be able to write a prompt that is effective. Because if you don't have or introduce the knowledge of students, the prompt that you receive, the prompt that you use for AI, it won't be effective, but you won't get the strategies and writing prompts that you need that effectively align with the students that you're serving. I think it's a way to leverage student voice in and their their feedback, right? And I think a teacher needs to probably be a researcher of their own students is what you're saying essentially. So you know the people sitting in front of you. And so how you can make things relevant to them. I think that I'm going to swing back to ELA just a little bit, even though we kind of run it to obviously any content area. Earlier when you were talking, I just thought, okay, there's in my mind like different sides of the continuum of English language arts teachers, you know, and I kind of think it has to do with when you entered the profession a little bit and how you were taught to teach, but probably not always. If there's some English language arts teachers that I think have been in the profession and some of our listeners for a long time, who honestly started their career teaching the novel or teaching the piece of writing, right? So it not so much about like the critical thinking behind it, like I'm actually teaching this novel, if you'll hear teachers say that, right? Or bargain over at one grade level, do we read this versus this or I teach that I teach that novel, you can't teach in sixth grade, I teach it in eighth, right? Okay, so there's one realm of teacher there, right? And then you have this other realm, and I would say it's predominantly made up of initially like teachers who are newer to the profession, right? That are doing exactly what you're saying, like what is that the root of this? When we're reading this as a class or when I'm assigning this to my students, what is the root and the critical thinking around this? But I think it's scary for all teachers when you open the door, right? It shouldn't be scary, but I think it is because they're so caught up in also like tracking progress on standards, right? So how do I measure that if I open the door to just measure kids' interests, which in actuality what you're saying works hand in hand because you're going to move the needle further when you understand your students. But I guess what I'm getting at is what are some common maybe pitfalls or missteps that teachers on either end of that spectrum or anywhere in between might make when they're trying to design lessons that are going to engage the kids through the kid lens, when sometimes they don't have that. You said a lot. Sorry. No, no, no, I'll just say just be aware of some of the people just stereotyping. I think as people, we have a tendency, maybe not intentionally from a space of trying to hurt them. someone having a general perception of a person or a culture of a race. And so that's why, like I say previously, that interest form is so important because through their form, you're going to learn a lot about your students. One thing that I share often is that as a teacher, I was never the favorite teacher. But I was a teacher that year after year after year, even for whatever reason, college essays where students shared about how much they grew in my class. And so even though I wasn't a fun teacher or the teacher you'd go skip in my class, I was the teacher to challenge students. And so I'm saying all that the same is that the first pre-file would say avoid stereotypes and build those authentic relationships. And I think the second pre-file, which probably should be the first is that teachers really have to have content pedagogy knowledge. You cannot, and I don't think I can stress enough, you cannot create effective prompts to support lesson planning. If you are not knowledgeable of one pedagogy, and then the curriculum for your district. And so if you don't have those two types of knowledge in your willhouse, your prompts won't be effective. And then you also talked about the concept of or alluded to standard align instruction. And so Dr. Duncan Andredi once said is that you cannot be costly relevant without being academically rigorous. And so I think sometimes there's this underlying perception that if I engage in culturally relevant pedagogy that is so off the map from being aligned, and that's untrue. And so we can balance relevant instruction approaches with standard align instruction. So not only are we being relevant, but we're doing in such a way that is aligned to the standards. Yeah, you can do both at once. I just think it's like a misnomer that some it's hard sometimes for teachers to wrap their head around, I think, in that way. And I don't know why. It makes me think of students and how we're okay with them breaking grammar rules once I know the grammar. Once you have that foundation, then you can go out in the limb and experiment with writing and sentence structure. And it's similar with what you're talking about with teachers. If you want to experiment with AI and with prompts, have added, just make sure you know what that strong foundation is that leads you to not only know that kid, but know what instructional practices work. And I think that's the best argument for why this has nothing to do with AI. AI is just the tool. Actually, earlier today, we were talking to Jordan Rosak who did the Emily position paper on AI. And I said, how do you approach this with communities, parents, teachers who are just intimidated at the thought of using technology to teach? And he said, you remember Fred Rogers? Remember Mr. Rogers? Mr. Rogers used technology to teach. And it was very effective. And I don't know what he would think about AI today, but my guess is is to be pretty curious about how you could use it to help students. And I wonder what you do to help people feel less intimidated by incorporating these new strategies into their approach? First of all, just shout out to Mr. Rogers. So I grew up on him and so definitely, I don't think I'm the educator today without Mr. Rogers or Sesame Street. But in terms of making it less intimidating, I don't take their lens. I actually hope that people are intimidated by. And I say that from the standpoint it is in the conflict and the struggle is when we grow the most. And so if you're not scared just a little bit, if you're not intimidated, if it doesn't feel overwhelming, then you're not doing the right thing. And then if you feel these feelings and then you stir away, you're still not doing the right thing for kids. And so the goal is that you feel, and so that overwhelming and emotional feeling that you may be encountering is because you're being stretched. And through that stretching, the hope is that you embrace it. You look at the students in your classroom, you honor John Steinbeck's of My Some Man, the old man in the seat, Scarlett Ivis, the most dangerous game. You take all these pieces from the literary canon. And for lack of better words, you make it cool for students. Students love most dangerous game. Right? They love it because of the action. They love it because you have these men. They're lost at sea. And so they're trying to figure out what's his hunt that he's talking about. What's his prey that he's talking about. And so I look at coastly relevant pedagogy as a way to make learning cool. When I was in high school and outside a teacher, Dr. Louis White, and he made thinking cool, you know, and so one of the summers I remember at a young age was watching the Lion King and him challenging us to do a literary analysis about the movie. Who does that? So take one of Disney's finest. And now I want you to do analysis of the Lion King. And so that is an example of coastly relevance. And so now I'm going to bring this move into classroom discourse. And now I want you to do analysis. What does it remind you of? Does it? Are there connections to society? Are there connections to culture? Are there connections to people? And so I like to look at CRP development as if that makes sense. That's a reframe. I like the reframe of putting teachers in an area of a little bit of productive struggle. Like we ask students to be in all the time. So yeah, and the teachers can be authentic with the kids that this is new to them. I mean, that's such great role modeling too. So that on this season of walk-in talk, Phyllis and I are ending every episode with one practical strategy-based question that our listeners can go away with. Well, and I'm going to change our question from what we had just based on our conversation. We were going to ask you what's one low burden for a teacher, high impact for student strategy, but I'm not going to ask that anymore. Okay. Because I think we're asking teachers to stretch themselves a little bit, which I think is good. Yes. So I feel like that question was too watered down. Okay. So what is one way any teacher in any content area in a middle school can can put themselves out there and extend themselves a little bit and in a way that puts them in that productive struggle that will bring in more culturally relevant responsive practices to their classroom. Look at the movies, the appropriate ones, the music, the appropriate music, language practices and popular culture. Yeah. And so don't be afraid to at times look through life from the lens of your students. What music are they listening to? What moves are they watching? What reality shows engage them and what popular cultural practices align with what you're teaching in the classroom. And so if we're teaching and have old school perspective about grammar and mechanics and so if we're teaching grammar and so I love sentence diagramming and so when I did it in my classroom, I did it with a new twist and so we're talking about grammar. How can we pull some of those phrases from their reality show that's appropriate for class and then have students refrain how someone says a sentence or to refrain how they use a specific word. What about a movie? A short clip that we can copy the text and use it as a do not now and have conversations about coming a series to use as a semicolon or a colon. But no m dashes because they'll say aye. No m dashes, no dashes. As a solidific m dash user, I feel like stifled in my writing now. Yeah, no dashes. And then so yeah, I think just finding ways of things that students are experiencing and making connections in class discussion. One year, I forgot the context there was either show on the news this concept of that so diabolical. And then ironically, one of our words of the week was diabolical. And so now students can have that academic and real world context. And so now everyone in my class saying diabolical diabolical. It is a good word. Yeah, and using it in the correct context. Thank you for those practical strategies. As you were answering that question, I was thinking a lot of times at schools, we talk about the school culture, just the culture within the school. And as an administrator, sometimes we talk about it like first I'm working on my staff, my staff and the adult culture, and then it's going to trickle down to work on our student culture. And it just frankly shouldn't be that way because we influence each other. And instead of living us as adults and them as students, I like the concept that you're just presented, pushing ourselves to learn a little more. We know about their world, but live it a little more. So our culture is one culture already and overlapping. Thank you so much for this conversation. Where can the listeners connect with you and find out more about your work? On LinkedIn, AC Whitaker on LinkedIn, or email lead youth [email protected]. All one word, but LinkedIn is the best way. Okay. Thank you so much Adam, it was great to talk with you. - Likewise, likewise. - Thank you.