Empowering Student Voice by Building AI Ethics Frameworks

Speaker 1 (00:12.654)

Hello everybody and welcome to the TeacherCast Educational Network. My name is Jeff Bradbury. Thank you so much for joining us today and making TeacherCast your home for professional development. On this episode of Digital Learning today, we're going to be talking all about artificial intelligence.

creativity in your students and how your students can be energized and invigorated doing some amazing activities. If this is the first time you're checking out our programming on TeacherCast, don't forget to hit that like and subscribe button. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and over on teachercast.net slash YouTube. And we appreciate you guys.

Making TeacherCast your home for professional learning. My guest today is the Director of Innovation at the New England Innovation Academy, where he's supporting students on their journey of growing their compassion and character in today's digital world. It is a pleasure to have on today, Mr. Greg Merge. Greg, how are you today? Welcome to TeacherCast.

Thank you so much, Jeffrey. I'm having a great day so far and I appreciate you having me on.

Thank you so much. You were giving me a tour of everything around you. And for those who are checking this out over on our YouTube video, you are sitting Greg in front of an amazing audio video innovation center. Tell us a little bit about what you're doing up in Massachusetts and what kind of a school do you have there?

Speaker 2 (01:25.762)

Yeah, thanks so much. So I work at New England Innovation Academy. The acronym is NEIA, but we use the term NIA for short. And like you said, it's an innovation academy. so one of the shorthands I use for folks is that if you send your child to a parochial school, you expect sort of religiosity to be woven across their experience. And if you send your student to or your child to New England Innovation Academy, you can expect innovation and entrepreneurship to be woven into every facet of their experience.

And what does that look like exactly for those who aren't quite up with the definition of what innovation is?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so there's a few sort of like key hallmarks that you can that you would expect to find. Like we have a dedicated innovation studio class that's required each year students enrolled here. So a student takes that as like one of their core classes. We also have a lot of marquee spaces that are utilized across the curriculum. So we have a collegiate level maker space. You already called out our story forage, which is our digital digital storytelling space.

We have a student entrepreneurship center where students can launch and run their own companies out of. We have a room scale VR lab where students undertake VR experiences in a multiplayer room scale way. And then sort of beyond that is that because we're a young school, everybody who's here is very pedagogically aligned. We don't have pockets of our school who are resistant to change. People come to Nia knowing that they're going to integrate with each other.

that they're gonna collaborate across departments and across grades, and that the expectation is really to think about the future and how do we set our students up for that inevitable thing that's coming down the pike that none of us can quite wrap our arms around.

Speaker 1 (03:16.844)

Now you mentioned that you're a relatively new school and you're seven to 12. Did you open up seven to 12? Did you start with the younger grades and it moved up? How did the whole program get started?

We are seven to 12 right now. We're gonna go six to 12 next year. And the school, we're in our fifth year. And so we have two graduating classes under our belt and we've slowly been adding since the beginning. We're currently at around 125 students and excited to grow.

That's awesome. That is amazing. What when you're looking for students, what are you looking for? Exactly? Are you looking for students who are moving into those STEM fields? Can anybody apply? Are you bound to take any type of student? there what is the application process?

Yeah, that's a great question. We are not a STEM specific school. If you're into STEM, that's great. We absolutely support that. if you're a humanities kid or a theater's kid or a graphic design kid like we are, our of bread and butter is students who are passionate or who are curious. And so one of the phraseologies we use is helping students to find their pin, which stands for passion.

how they're going to take that passion and make an impact and then what's next after that. And so we help them find their pin if they don't already have something identified or if a student does have something they're already passionate about, we provide the avenues for them to really lean into that and make it more than just a hobby.

Speaker 1 (04:50.104)

Now mentioned that you're interested in students that are passionate. So I got to ask the question, what do you look for in teachers?

that's so interesting. We look for really thoughtful teachers. And I think, you know, especially with a young school, right, like we are sort of in the process of forming the culture. And so we want to make sure that the people who are in the building, the people who are in the process of coalescing a school like out of nothing are thoughtful and intentional about what they're creating.

That is an amazing answer. And the website, if anybody is interested in learning more about this amazing program is neiacademy.org. Greg, I want to talk to you about so many different things from podcasting to curriculum, but let's talk our favorite subject here, artificial intelligence. Sure. You guys are doing some pretty interesting things with it, both on the student side and on the academic side. Talk to us a little bit about where your school is, where your faculty is. How are you navigating

an AI driven world.

We are taking our next best step. And I think because it is such a rapidly changing landscape, part of the mindset that we've put in place is that we are not looking for perfect solutions. We are looking for sort of like our next best solution. And even in these first few weeks of school, we've already iterated on our opening approach.

Speaker 2 (06:21.42)

And I have really been communicating with parents and guardians and with our student body and our administration saying the fact that we're changing our approach isn't a sign that we did something wrong. It's not a sign of weakness. In fact, I think it's a sign of strength in that we are willing to respond to a landscape that's evolving faster than anybody can really keep up with. so currently we, our students have access to a variety of different forms of AI.

Depending on their grade and maturity level, some students have access to Gemini for Teens, which is sort of a broad spectrum LLM. We've leaned into Notebook LM as a source-based AI that, again, supports a universal design for learning approach. And then we've also leaned into the personal learning coaching side of Khan Academy, providing that sort of coaching through their Khan MeeGo product.

Sort of like a variety of different entry points and it's not required for students to use. We don't mandate anything, but we do provide it as options. And while we piloted some of these platforms last year, we're really looking at this year as a data gathering year to sort of see what usage looks like.

when you're putting these concepts together, bringing in AI, many school districts that I've spoken to are still, you know, optimistic, but nervous. And many of the school districts still have those questions of the what ifs. Sure. So take us through those meetings. How do you say to your staff, we're going to take what is probably the most awesomest technology that's ever existed. And yeah, your kids are going to have it. Or did you do a hefty amount?

of training and prepping before you launched it to the kids.

Speaker 2 (08:14.606)

Uh, interesting question. I, um, am of the belief that, you know, uh, perfect is the enemy of action or perfect is the enemy of good. I'm exactly know that quip, but waiting until everybody is fully trained, waiting until everything, you know, like all the stars are aligned will just result in inaction. And so instead we've put forward a model where we ask teachers to co-learn with their students. So, um, acknowledging that every teacher is not going to be trained in, you know, uh,

in a perfect world or sort of to the level that everybody feels comfortable at and that some students will be out in front. And instead, we tried to put durable structures in place that ride across the school. And so for every assignment, we have an AI usage scale that is used on every assignment in every class and every grade so that a teacher can really clearly communicate what their expectations are around AI. And that scale ranges from a human only assignment to sort of like fully open

You know, use all the AI you want. And then we have a few modifiers sort of in that policy that help teachers specify with granular clarity. You know what tools they can use, what part of the process they can use AI. really gives the structure for the teacher to communicate their expectations. And so it's less about a sort of tool by tool approach and more about a like a structure or systems approach. Just to go on a few minutes more, we also have an AI ethics and advisory board.

that's comprised of both students, staff, and teaching faculty. And the main goal of that advisory panel is just to keep the finger on the pulse about how this is impacting our community. It's not to promote AI, it's not to tamp down on AI, it's just to keep a constant check. It's putting a system in place so that we can continue to respond to an evolving landscape.

Now with those committees, has there ever been a situation where action was needed to be taken because students decided to be students? And what have the results been from that? Are you finding that students are embracing this? Are you finding that students are abusing this? And no matter what those answers are, how does the community feel about this in general? Are they accepting that AI is here or are they going, not sure about this yet?

Speaker 2 (10:36.694)

Yeah, we have by and large our communities accepting of it. And I think we, you know, we're not blind to the fact that if we don't provide viable options for students to explore this, they will go out and find their own own options for exploring it. And so, you know, we're sort of not sticking our head in the sand. Of course, students have made mistakes and like, that's fine. We expect that and anticipate that and have restorative conversations around that. We

don't really view this through like a hard punitive lens and instead are really trying to stay focused on how do we teach lessons now so that people don't make larger consequence mistakes in the future. And then the last piece of this is really helping our community grow together. Nobody is standing in front saying I have all the answers and this is what we're doing. It's really about sort of

Like I said, keeping our finger on how this is impacting our community and how it's helping us as a learning community. And I think that's one thing I want to highlight is that, you know, we're not, you know, we're a school that focuses on human centered design. And so we really, we try to center the human in all of our design solutions and really thinking about school as an environment for learning. Like what tools are we putting in place? What systems and structures are we putting in place that enhance learning?

not centering the coolest technology or not centering the easiest workflow, but instead, how do we center learning?

One of the things that we've talked a lot about on this show is the definition of AI. And I think as soon as people who might not be in the AI world, if you say AI, they think of the chat GPTs, they might think of the Gemini's or co-pilots, the what we call the LLMs of the world. But there's so many more options available. You can open up any type of application that does slides as an example, and AI is helping you design that.

Speaker 1 (12:36.738)

the options to create images from prompts. That's also another version of AI. Does your school district see all of that as one bubble or are you looking at saying using Gemini is one set of rules but creating images is another set of rules but hey if they want to use you know Canva as an example hit the little button and it redoes the slide for you. Sure. Is all of that looked at as the same or do you have different lenses.

depending on the technologies being used.

Great question. We use the term generative AI. But even, like you said, when you say AI, people think chat GPT, they think the robo dog from Boston Dynamics, they think about the Roomba. The term is so slushy that it ceases to be meaningful in a functional sense. And I think that's where we lean into that AI use scale, where it's tool agnostic and teachers have the power to specify and they can say,

You can use this tool, this portion of the project. The output needs to be such and such percentage. It really gives the teachers the control to specify what it is they want for their learning exercise. And the other side of that coin is that what it does is it asks teachers when they assign something or when they create a project to think on the front side of it, how does AI interface with this project? How does it enhance the learning goal? Where could it undercut the learning goal?

By having that as part of our culture here at school, it sort of brings AI to the table every time we assign something.

Speaker 1 (14:13.206)

I want to switch a little bit from doing the AI, is basically, you know, it's supporting the creativity to again, let's talk about this amazing thing that you have behind you. You have an entire creativity center here. Talk to us a little bit about the Genesis of the room that you're currently in. You've got podcasting, you've got audio, you've got video. What are you guys working on up there with your students? How do students get involved? And

This is more of the personal question. At what point do you go from teaching to standing back and letting the students create their own?

That's a great question. It's like has several different pieces to it. I'll just I'll talk a little bit about the Genesis because I think this does highlight that pin concept that I raised earlier. This digital storytelling suite actually grew out of a student interest. And so we had a student who is enrolled and they said, hey, I'm really passionate about sort of digital music, music production, digital audio production. Like, how can I, you how can I help level up this interest? And so it was a multi-year project where this student

you know, demonstrated with, you know, just a little bit of money and a little bit of space, like what could be produced. And then that was the foundation for a larger ask and it coincided with a renovation. And like next thing you know, we have this like incredible sort of like industry standard recording space. And I think that's something that Nia does really well is we help students identify what their passions are and then provide them the tools and the on-ramps to realize them in a way that's sort of, yeah, that's

professional and meaningful. How is this space applied? It is applied in a really wide variety of ways. have, like I showed you earlier, we have like a music recording studio and we've had I think four full albums recorded out of that space. And so that's where students come in and they, you know, they will record in it's like 18 channels of zero latency input. Like it's really, it's a professional grade recording studio. We also have

Speaker 2 (16:18.478)

Spanish classes coming in and doing podcasts in foreign languages. We have students completing their humanities assignments by writing a song and mastering it in the music mastering suite. We have students in our innovation studio curriculum taking product shots on the photo backdrops. So it's really employed across the curriculum and it's an approach that we take not just in this digital storytelling space, but really in our maker spaces, in our libraries, in the VR suite.

look to democratize those spaces so that it's employed across the curriculum rather than just a segment. And I think all too often in high schools, you find maker spaces where it's the purview of like the engineering kids or the robotics team or a science teacher who loves 3D printing. And here it's used in all of our classes. It's used by clubs. It's used by students individually. And so in the lunchroom, if you ask who's used the 3D printer, every hand goes up. And I think that's

That's special.

It's one thing I think to stand in front of students and say, we're going to make a podcast. And it's another thing to stand back and watch this happen. Take us through that process. What does that look like? What does September one look like? What does November one look like? I'm asking personally, I'm going through this amazing transformation in my school. We're putting a bunch of kids together and I'm starting that first step of

This is what we're gonna do. And I gotta tell you, I'm nervous. I'm looking at this going, I don't know what they're gonna say. Not that everything has to be recorded and put out there, but how do you start to take them from zero to podcasting superstars?

Speaker 2 (18:05.292)

Yeah, I mean, we are a design and innovation school. And so the idea of sort of iteration and prototyping is second nature to our students. And we lean into the idea of failing forward and failing fast. And so we point out that, you know, we can do a take and then we can delete it if you don't like it or we can do, you know, three versions of this podcast. It's. Yeah, we just don't assign a lot of. There's not a lot of weight or pressure.

for a perfect final product. in fact, we lean away from that strive for perfection early on with the idea that you're going to learn and grow by making those mistakes faster and sooner. And so, yeah, on September 1, we don't have a training course that everybody takes. We use projects or we use people's personal interests as the on-ramp for the space. And so when a student comes and they want to...

they were going to record a voiceover for their project, like that's the on-ramp that we use to help them enter the space and learn the tools. You know, just to share a trick or a hack is one thing that we found is that having some asynchronous video materials on how to use your space or the software you're using is a great tool, not because we expect the students to learn that asynchronously, but it gives us a common language when they do come in person. So that's...

You know, when we use the phrase like adjust the gain, like we're not explaining what the gain is each time, right? Like you can do some of that work asynchronously.

What kind of tools are you currently using?

Speaker 2 (19:40.174)

We, again, we say we're sort of like software agnostic, but in-house we mainly use Logic Pro and a lot of students like using GarageBand because they can sort of slough the files back and forth between our in-house computers and their personal Macs.

That's amazing that you guys are doing that. And is the process of going through this, I mean, do the students get the fact that you're pushing them and going on that creative journey from what is this to? I mean, I would only imagine that if they wanted to, they could hit the button and there they are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify.

Yeah, and I think one thing that's helping students realize like what an incredible resource this is, is like as we have more graduating classes, more alumni, they come back and they share that access to these resources is not as open in university or in college, right? Like you need to be part of the broadcasting major in order to sort of access the digital audio workstations or maybe you need to be.

you know, part of the fabrication, you know, whatever the first robotics team in order to get access to the maker space. But here we really seek to make sure that everybody has access. And I think one thing that's really exciting for me is that once a student, you know, maybe comes into this space for their humanities class, like soon they feel like these spaces are part of their own tool set and they're able to realize their own goals or their own ideas.

through these spaces. And I think that's an exciting change for me is when they start to see these tool sets as being their own.

Speaker 1 (21:17.388)

You mentioned a few things already today, one of them being that you're not necessarily looking for STEM students, but you've also mentioned that the school is growing in younger years. Is your curriculum set up so that way everybody gets a chance to play in your area at least once, or is everything that you're sitting in currently an elective and they have to choose to be there?

Great question. We do have some electives that lean into these spaces more heavily than others, but these spaces are open for students to use across the curriculum and independently as well. think some things that set our program apart is that we have designed entry points sort of regardless of when you come in. So in your first term of being a student at NIA, you'll take a course called Innovation Studio Foundations, where you learn the basics of all of these tools.

And the idea is that once you've sort of taken that half a semester quick hit of all these different workflows, then you can really start to sort of employ them. And so, yeah, we designed that entry point into the curriculum.

knowing that your students have the background to use these tools, do you find that there are core curricular classes that are taking advantage of this? Are your social studies teachers asking the kids to go make a video and go make a podcast knowing that you've got this amazing studio or are you finding that these are still separate programs in your school?

No, that's, mean, I think that's one of the amazing things about Nia is, you know, I'll just take our VR studio, for example, like we have our Spanish classes in there where students are speaking the target language on a train in Spain. We have our art classes in there where kids are doing VR graffiti art. We have our architecture classes in there, you know, designing buildings in VR. We have our science classes in there, exploring different environments for the robots they're building. You so it's like, it is really infused across the curriculum. And I think

Speaker 2 (23:14.158)

That's one of the things that makes NIA special is that there are no walls between the faculty, whether it's grade level or sort of the different disciplines. People are interested in stepping into an innovation space. I mean, that's the reason they came to an innovation school.

Talking today to Greg Mertz from NEIAcademy.org. Of course, we've been saying it as Nia here. Greg, I wanna ask you few more questions as we go through here. As you're going backwards in those grades, and this is coming from somebody who's father of three sixth graders, and I'm teaching sixth grade, seventh and eighth grade right now, how do you see this devolving into the lower grades? I'm not expecting my sixth graders to be learning Adobe Premiere.

I'm teaching them some of the easier applications to have them do that in the high school. How do you see that pyramid going into the elementary grades as you guys progress?

Yeah, so mean, we, know, sixth grade will be sort of like the bottom of our, the lowest grade in our middle school. but we, you know, we do on ramp them into Adobe illustrator and Adobe Photoshop and logic bro. And, know, we, maybe the scaffolding is more, the complexity is a little bit less, but we see these as foundational tools for the things that they're going to create.

And so again, we have a designed entry point where we know that students are gonna be coming in and needing to skill up on those. And that's one of the ways that we are able to take advantage of these spaces is knowing that our student body all has the same foundational skill set and then they're upscaling from there.

Speaker 1 (24:50.634)

Greg, you have an amazing program and I would love the opportunity to do a part two with you, maybe with some other teachers, maybe with some students if you're interested. But I think you guys have something absolutely amazing and I would love the opportunity to continue this conversation. In addition to the website, how can people reach out and get in touch with you guys? mean, are you out there on Twitter's and on YouTube's? How can somebody learn more about your great program?

Yeah, think starting at the website is a perfect start. And then from there, we'll see, you know, you see all of our socials linked on the bottom, but that's a, that's a great way to sort of get a feel for the school. We do have open houses running around the calendar year because we are a new school. We are excited to sort of get, get our voice and our name out there. And yeah, if you're in the greater Boston area, please swing by.

Greg, thank you so much for being on this show today. It's been a pleasure having you on and would love to have you back on in the future as we go through. Greg, thanks so much for your time today.

Jeffrey, absolute pleasure. Thanks again for having us. I'm looking forward to part two.

And that wraps up this episode of Digital Learning Today. this is the first time you're checking out the episode, please hit that like and subscribe button. You can of course find us over on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and our YouTube channel. And all of our episodes are archived over on teachercast.net slash podcast. We hope you guys had a great time listening to this. And on behalf of everybody here on Teacher Cast, my name is Jeff Bradbury, reminding you guys to keep up the great work in your classrooms and continue sharing your passions with your students.