Talking Curriculum, Learning Transfer, and AI with Cindy Blackburn

In which Dan chats with Cindy Blackburn, Director of Learning and Engagement at Toddle, about curriculum, that "dirty word" at many progressive schools. Cindy is also the host of the School Leaders Project podcast, where she interviews leading minds in progressive education. Dan and Cindy talk about why curriculum design and mapping can be so so sticky in schools, lessons from the International Baccalaureate, and the future of artificial intelligence in schools.

Mentioned in the show:
Toddle, a leading learning management system for IB and progressive schools
School Leaders Project, a podcast from Toddle and hosted by Cindy Blackburn
Streamlining the Curriculum: Using the Storyboard Approach to Frame Compelling Learning Journeys, by Heidi Jacobs Hayes and Allison Zmuda
11th Grader Takes An AI Tutoring Deep Dive, from Education Next
Two-Sigma Tutoring: Separating Science Fiction from Science Fact from Education Next

Connect with Dan on Instagram @BigIdeaEd and Blue Sky @dankearney

Music: Sunflower by Soyb (Youtube Audio Library)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey listeners, Dan here. Before I get to today's episode, I just want to give a huge shout out to the first responders, firefighters, uh keeping us safe here in Los Angeles. I teach in LA County, and I can say that everything you've seen on the news in the videos, uh, it was the real deal. It was actually worse than what you've seen. Uh my school was hugely impacted. So many schools in this area were hugely impacted with families, uh, in some cases losing everything. And uh it's gonna be uh a long road to recovery here. And uh schools are no doubt gonna play a big part. Uh so lots of love out there to all teachers uh who are working through this with their students, and again, huge ups, huge love to our first responders who still, as I'm recording this right now, are out there keeping us safe. All right, on to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

And that those aren't dirty and bad in themselves. So, like, if your school is using Next Gen, awesome. Like if your school is using Common Core, awesome. If you're using something you've created and has awesome. But I think everybody needs to know that. And everybody needs to know that, like, this is what we're all saying that we're having fidelity to. How and when and where you teach those throughout the year, how you bundle those to make sense, that's where the artistry and the flexibility and the creativity comes into things.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Welcome to What's the Big Idea? I'm your host, Dan Carney. I had a formative experience as a young teacher when I got to be part of a major curriculum design and mapping project. I was teaching overseas at the time, and we had this creative spirit head of school who wasn't afraid to roll up his sleeves and just create when he wasn't satisfied with what was out there. Well, curriculum mapping was one of those areas where he wasn't satisfied, and I got to be part of this project where we essentially created a structure for mapping our curriculum. And it was really eye-opening to me to see everything that goes into curriculum design and mapping, how important it is to schools. And as a young teacher, it got me hooked on curriculum, and I've been really interested in it ever since. And today's episode is a conversation with Cindy Blackburn. Cindy is the director of learning and engagement at TODL, a learning management system that, in my experience, integrates curriculum design, assessment, student portfolios, and a lot more, very elegantly and with great interfaces for all stakeholders. Toddl is also an excellent spot for free webinars and resources for progressive educators. Now, I promise this is not a toddl sales show. Cindy just happens to work at Toddl, where she's also the host of their podcast, the School Leaders Project, where a whole lot of high-level conversations take place with the likes of Jay McTye, Trevor Mackenzie, Rachel French, and other thought leaders and practitioners in progressive education. It's a really excellent show. And in fact, this conversation is a joint release on both our podcasts. How fun. I taught for years in the International Baccalaureate Program, as did Cindy, and there's a lot about the IB in our chat, but that's definitely not the main focus here. And no matter where you're sitting in education, no matter what program you teach in, no matter what school, I think you'll find a lot here. We talk about why curriculum can be such a thorny question in progressive and independent schools. We talk learning transfer and we talk artificial intelligence in education, which Cindy has some strong opinions on. As always, on what's the big idea, the conversation wanders a bit. I hope you enjoy. If you have any thoughts or opinions, questions, look me up on Instagram and Blue Sky. Uh I'm done with that uh X platform. On Blue Sky, I'm uh at Dan Carney. That's K-E-A-R-N-E-Y. Uh on Instagram, I'm at BigIdea Ed. Be sure to check out the show notes for links to everything we talk about, including Sydney's podcast, The School Leaders Project. And uh without further ado, Sydney Blackburn.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Uh, I think it's so fun to do this like co-release thing, and it's really weird to be on the other side of it. Uh, but I'm Cindy Blackburn and I'm the director of learning and engagement at Totl. My teaching journey was, you know, I was one of those weird kids in preschool who like knew I wanted to be a teacher by middle school. I knew I wanted to be an international teacher, got uh bachelor's in teaching and jumped right into classrooms in Florida. And I was handed a script and I was told, okay, uh, your principal's gonna come to observe observe you. And if the classroom next door is on page 12 when he's observing, you should be on page 13 when he walks into your door. And something about that just like really didn't jive, you know. Uh so I went back to school to get my master's in global and comparative ed to ask the question: how do the best schools in the world do it differently? And through that, found the IB, uh taught abroad for 10 years, Albania, China, Thailand, and Madagascar as a grade one teacher, grade five teacher, PYP coordinator. And that's kind of how I found Toddle. I was starting to make resources for my teachers and putting them out there online. And they really found me and said, Hey, we like what you're doing. Can you come make this stuff for us? Um, and so that was the partnership with Toddl. And I work with them full-time as their director of learning and engagement. So all the webinars, podcasts like this, ebooks, workshops, I just get to teach teachers around the world. It's the coolest job ever.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

That is a really cool job. I I'm I'm I'm jealous of the uh well, you know it is it's it's the creativity that I love. I love one thing I love about teaching is being able to be creative and uh be creative with the students, be creative in my own work. And we're gonna talk about curriculum, and that's an area where creativity I think is is a is a key uh disposition. Um and I I imagine in your work you have to get to have a lot of creativity. We'll have to we'll have to chat like Balkans.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

I I I lived in Macedonia right next door to Albania for a while, so we can't blush right just if anybody gets a chance to go to the Balkans, like Albania, Macedonia, like you drink wine from the vineyards of Alexander the Great, and it's like seven euro a bottle.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

And they all and they made it in their garage or wherever, you know, it's like it's all homemade.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Where am I? It's heaven, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Um so you're the host of the School Leaders Project Podcast, which is a really excellent podcast. Uh you have some really uh incredible minds on your show talking about some really important things. You know what's interesting? I just want to share this with you. Like when I started my podcast, the thing that has continued to surprise me is how willingly people come on the show. People always say yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Yes. Well, because we're all educators, and I think there's like this almost belief that like when when you become like an edu star, that's what I call like Ron Richard and all they're the edu stars. You think of them as these almost like immortal beings or like, but at the end of the day, they are just teachers and they're just people, and it's so cool to talk to them and just and realize that they have questions too and things they're learning about. And it, they're just the funnest people to talk to.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, and that's it, right? They're they're they're curious. Those curious minds is part of what got them to their where they are, and they want to talk with new people all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

That was like the driving thing with the podcast. I was like, I don't want it to feel like me explaining things or mansplaining things, or like like I always wanted to come at every guest with just like a question and a curiosity that I genuinely wanted to know about. So I hope that comes through on the show. Just like I'm so excited and nerding out to be learning with these folks. So I yeah, it brings me a lot of joy.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah, it definitely comes through. I really like your show. Um I wanted to talk about curriculum. That's originally why I reached out to you at Toddle. Um, because progressive schools um have an interesting history, interesting relationship with curriculum. Um I I was a longtime IB educator, not at an IB school now, but at a progressive school. In your episode with Rachel French, she says curriculum isn't a dirty word.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

But why does it sometimes feel like that when we're in schools, uh, particularly progressive schools?

SPEAKER_02 9:20

It's such a beautiful question. And I think it's so interesting because you and I both come from the same world. We both come from the IB world where there is language and culture around curriculum and being curriculum builders. And I think coming back to independent schools in the US, that's been this theme that's emerged is this tension that emerges between autonomy and structure. Because I think the majority of teachers in these schools are coming from public school, or a lot of them are coming from public school where curriculum is kind of a dirty word. It's what I experienced in Florida. It's where you get this script and you have no teacher agency or autonomy, and you're just you're not a creator. You're not responding to your students, you're just being told what to do and to tick a box. So I think often when we hear curriculum, there are a lot of misconceptions that come up of over-stuffed curriculum and over-focus on testing, um, of cold, dry standards that aren't responsive to our learners, and ultimately of scripted purchase programs that just like sap the soul out of teaching. Would you say that that is like a fear you see in your schools too?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

I for sure. I think that you know, you talked about teacher autonomy. And I think to many teachers, that is one of the main anchors of their profession. You know, working with working with students, of course, and and feeling like they're making a difference. But, you know, we all know that teachers are not doing this for the financial compensation necessarily. And so when you start looking at the when you start looking at why teachers are so dedicated, I think autonomy or at least the promise of autonomy is one of them. I can certainly teachers I've worked with and myself. And and as soon as you start talking about curriculum, I think there is that fear that there's going to be uh something forced on them, some it's standards they have to check. Um and suddenly the classroom doesn't feel like an authentic creative place, it feels like a drudgery through a list of uh I can statements that have to be written on your board. Oh, yes, of course. If you don't have the uh to-do list or the uh today's goals, then uh the principal doc you exactly. Yeah, I mean I think that uh yeah, and I think that to to Rachel's point about it being a dirty word, I think some some teachers do get a little bit um even cynical, I think, sometimes because they wonder why what's the what's the relationship between the students they know on a one-on-one basis and this sort of um top-down uh curriculum, what actually teachers should be involved in developing curriculum.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Totally. Well, and I think also in independent schools, you kind of go the other way of teachers being like, well, this is what I know what I teach. I know what grade nine uh world sieve looks like. And why are you checking on me? Like, are you do you think I'm not capable of of figuring out what is worth teaching and learning and knowing? And so I think that's another tension, is just the in the effort to make things visible and collaborative and intentional, it feels like um handcuffs or it feels like micromanaging.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yeah. So you taught overseas uh in the IB, and international schools are interesting creatures. Um and the IB, and the IB is a very fascinating um uh program. And I'm curious, how did you find the curriculum development, curriculum um delivery in in your international schools?

SPEAKER_02 13:09

You walk into these schools that have been around for 20 or 30 years, and you're like, let's see your curriculum. And it's a weird, like dusty Google Drive folder that is just chaos or nothing exists at all. And you're kind of like, what's been happening? And like what you find, what I found, is that oftentimes it lived with teachers. And so when teachers left, the curriculum walked out the door with them. And so it was a lot of reinventing the wheel. It seems like every two or three years, as teachers turned over, and there was like skeletons, there's like clues of things that were done. And as well, in grade two, we do plants. And you're like, why do we do plants? No one knows, but there's a Google Drive that says. So I think that has been a cool thing of working with with Toddle, is that that's the goal that it seeks to undo. Like, have you heard of the hit by the bus principle?

SPEAKER_00 13:59

I don't know if I have.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Okay, I love it. Uh, it's like, how many people would have to be hit by a bus until the the culture in your school died, basically? And your goal is to make it as many people as possible. That like, if I left the school and if the principal left the school, and if 10 teachers left the school, is there enough documentation? Is there enough structure in place that like the heart of the school lives on? And so I think that's kind of the I don't know, the goal of curriculum documentation is creating a stronger blueprint of what your school is, what we teach, and what's worth learning.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Oh, we just were talking about this in my school. So this the curriculum has to live on beyond teachers.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

And so often we, especially in some of these independent schools, you get these incredible teachers that have created these courses that are so rich. But you do kind of find yourself wondering if that person leaves, is any of it gonna remain? And I think often the answer is no.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

And that's how you wind up in these Frankenstein schools where you talk to a kid in fifth grade and they're like, Yeah, we've done three plants units, or we've done, we've done ancient civilizations four times. And it's like, oh man, what a bummer. What other beautiful inquiries there are that exist? But if every teacher is just kind of bringing in what they know and teaching the units they've taught, there's not that continuity, there's not that vertical and horizontal intentionality.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Yeah. I do want to talk about Toddle in a bit because it is a really impressive tool. You know, when I got when I first started teaching, um it was 2010. And I, as far as I know, as far as I remember, the only show in town was Manage Back. And even in 2010, that was it was dated, right? That was a very dated um program. No, no offense out there to the Manage Back people, but it was already a little hard to do.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

You're at tech, you have to evolve.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Well, that's it, right? And I and I I even further than several years after that, remember just thinking like, well, this is what happens when you don't have competition. I mean, this is like a this is like a case study for the need for competition. And so when Tile came along, it was like, wow, like the it was a really uh breath of fresh air for the IB. But back to this, this you talk about how the kids who get the plant unit every year, right? Frankenstein school. I really enjoyed this conversation you had with Heidi Jacob Hayes about curriculum mapping, but particularly storytelling and this idea that your curriculum should tell a story. Um could you talk a bit more about that, what you gleaned from her about that? It's it's it's really fascinating and much more difficult than it first seems. Uh, I was doing a little digging around after listening to that episode, and it's like, this is amazing, but this is this would be a big uh project for a school.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

So I definitely suggest Heidi and Allison Zamuta put out a book through the ASCD, and it's all about that idea of uh storytelling, storyboarding our curriculum by streamlining it. That it can become really hard to tell the story of learning when we have like these giant unit planners, these giant POIs that are programming inquiry for IB schools that are unreadable. Um, and what she encourages teachers to do is to really synthesize it down into the big ideas and to intentionally place the curriculum in ways that build towards connection making, right? So even if I'm going, let's say, from plants to civilizations, how do I make that transition smoother, right? That students are able to tell the story of what they learned here and take little pieces of it forward. Like you said, it's an incredibly complex process, but it's so powerful because it empowers not just teachers to see the connections, but students and families as well, getting everybody telling that same story of learning. I liken it, like out of all the conversations with Heidi, the metaphor that reigns with me is thinking of curriculum like a blueprint, you know, and that you might have a team of really creative architects all building a house together. But if they're not talking to each other, you are going to wind up with a house with seven bathrooms and no kitchen, right? The 10 plants units and no civilization. So the goal in curriculum mapping and in curriculum storyboarding is just to get everybody seeing not only the story of their year, but like this collection of novels that we're creating together and making sure that we have a balanced library so that our kids are able to go out and be successful in the world. Lots of metaphors there.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Yeah, it was well said though. Yeah, it's it's I found it easy to relate to I'm a history teacher. So that it's it's a story, the whole thing's a story. And so sort of looking at it from a six to eight, nine to twelve, K to twelve, but what but where it started to get fuzzier for me was sort of in math. I mean, I guess math is always tends to be a sort of a sticking point when it comes to curriculum. But it really is an interesting, um, an interesting way of looking at curriculum. But I I love what you said about streamlining. Because when you start mapping curriculum, and I anyone out there listening that's tried to map curriculum, how do you decide what are the essential elements that are gonna go into your curriculum mapping? Because I'm trying to think of the times that I've sat down and with other teachers, with administrators. I I mean, at my IB school in Oman, uh, we basically decided because we were so dissatisfied with Manage Back that we just were gonna create our own system. And that process was really, as a young teacher especially, was really um it was a big impact on me and seeing really the importance of curriculum mapping. But it was uh at times a very frustrating process, and part of it was deciding what's going to go into the curriculum map because you say, Well, okay, there's essential skills, essential content, uh, your statement of inquiry. But then suddenly, well, do we also need to include what about these standards? Because we are teaching some British students. What about adding? Do we want to add how many essential questions? And then suddenly this curriculum map is like, you know, five-dimensional. What what do you think when you think of curriculum mapping or even storyboarding, if we're gonna go with Heidi's um metaphor idea? What are what has to go into curriculum mapping in your view?

SPEAKER_02 20:36

That is such a beautiful question. I think, well, I think like let's talk about who needs to be at the table and what resources they need to be successful first.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Right. So for going into a curriculum mapping process, you need like clear and intentional teams. So in elementary school, that's gonna look more like you know, the grade five team all sitting together first. I think like I think first starting just like across your year level, what's being taught. High school and middle school is where it gets trickier because you have not only like subject that you've got to figure out, but also like interwoven. So I would say go by subject level, that was probably your first starting point. So who's at the table? Then like what do they need to be successful? And I think a question you asked there is like, what are the curriculum standards? So Heidi's work is really beautiful, is because she says curriculum standards are not your curriculum. They are a skeleton, right? They're taxonomies of what we expect kids to know.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Yeah, she even said, I like how she said, like, you're you're using the standards. You're not just sort of taking this group and putting them in there. You're using them to help tell the story.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

You need to find how they're gonna help you tell the story, not just sort of like grab this chunk and throw it in there just to show that you covered it.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Yes. But that being said, I think there needs to be clarity on which curriculum standards we've chosen and why as a school, and that those aren't dirty and Bad in themselves. So, like if your school is using next gen, awesome. Like if your school is using Common Core, awesome. If you're using something you've created in house, awesome. But I think everybody needs to know that. And everybody needs to know that, like, this is what we're all saying that we're having fidelity to. How and when and where you teach those throughout the year, how you bundle those to make sense, that's where the artistry and the flexibility and the creativity comes into things. But that like having a shared set of curriculum standards, I think is step one. Step two, then I think is bundling and grouping those, creating like a scope and sequence. And then from there, I think you can pull out those big ideas. So the big understandings, the big concepts, and those are what you use to craft your story. Like those are what you use to communicate with learners. Because if you give them a list of 20 content standards, ugh, as a teacher, that's hard to work with. So imagine you're eight years old seeing that it's nonsense. But as a teacher, your job is to do that cognitive work, that load of saying, these are the big important things we're going to understand and take forward. I think would be, I don't know if that adds any clarity, but that would be my biggest advice.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah, I I agree with all of that. I think I think one of the hallmarks of progressive education is emphasizing um depth over breadth. Right. And I think that that creates a natural tension because some of these standards are just bunkers. They're so long and they're so um wide. So what do you make of that tension?

SPEAKER_02 23:41

So what I would say there is we have a beautiful new tool to help us with that work, which is AI. Like, honestly, this is one of those skills. So I always tell this story in workshops that I was working at a school in Thailand, and I think the best principal ever, but she goes saying, you know, Cindy, I just think that the teachers need more time to unpack their curriculum. And I was like, Yeah. And then she kept saying it, unpack their curriculum, unpack their curriculum. And it felt like, are you a Shits Creek fan?

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

Just fold it in, David. Just fold in the cheese. You know, and I was like, what does it mean to unpack? And so finally she walked me through this process of like taking the standard that's worded with all this academic language and mumbo jumbo and just saying, okay, let's break this. What will kids know? What will they understand? What will they be able to do? And I was like, oh, that's so simple. Like unpacking your curriculum is just making this parsing it for yourself as a teacher. But that is such hard work to do, especially when we had these lists. I tell you what, pop those lists of standards into ChatGPT or Gemini and say, break this into easy to understand knowledge, understanding, and skills for this unit. Awesome. Now break this into a six-week scope and sequence of what I would likely teach first, next, then, and last. This is work that takes teaching teams hours to do that can be now done in five, seven minutes. You go back and forth, you edit it based off of your students, you add in context, and it's done.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

We could probably spend the next hour on AI.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Um and uh I know AI in education is currently a pretty, it's a new and I would say controversial among with some people, um a topic. I will say though, I wholeheartedly agree with what you just said. Um I I quick plug for Google's new notebook LM. If any educators out there have not used this um for projects, um, particularly projects around that require a lot of uh heavy lifting, like curriculum development, it is really incredible. And to what you just said, it can it can help us um streamline our thinking too, lift take some of the mental load off because it it will do a lot of organizing and and and and uh sorting for you.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

So awesome. Yeah, and I think as we become more confident with AI, like Ethan Mullock describes AI as a general technology, so like the steam engine. And I think the best thing that we can do as leaders in this space is not have separate AI workshops. That like when we're talking about curriculum, there should be automatically a section of curriculum of AI embedded in that. If we're talking about um grading or aligning our grading practice, there should automatically be an AI section that just as every teacher is a literacy teacher, I think that every teacher is an AI teacher. And that is our mindset and our shift that we need to make is that it's an embedded part of our practice.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

That is a shift, Cindy. I want to say, in my experience, what I see. So that's why I use the word controversial because I do think there's a lot of teachers out there that are very resistant to um AI. And I think a lot of it's just maybe lack of experience with it or and you know the fear of what students might do with it. Back back to the curriculum mapping, though, just to add the IB element to it, because there's also the approaches to learning.

unknown 27:09

Woof.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

There's the learner profile and the approaches to learning. I mean, that's I as a as a list of dispositions, it's really incredible, but it's it's uh thorough, I'll say that. And so how how about for an IB educator who is either feels they need to or is you know told that, hey, these I need to see this in your curriculum planning as well. So now you've got all the other things we talked about, and I need to see HCL integration, I need to see how the learner profile is showing up. Um what do you say to those teachers?

SPEAKER_02 27:40

I'd say that the IB is the UBD, is beginning with the end in mind, right? And that if we look at it that way, everyone is responsible for teaching the same thing knowledge, understanding, and skills. And in a way, the IB framework, don't think of it as an add-on. It's a way of making your life easier. So rather than having to think to yourself, like, whoof, what skills am I gonna teach in this unit? The ATL are just one of the frameworks that you have to support your planning. So when I'm thinking about knowledge and understandings, those are mostly for me content. They're coming from my my subject standards and and curriculum, you know? When I turn towards skills, I think of skills in three parts. There's disciplinary skills, and again, that's going to come from your content. You know, what are the skills of a scientist? What are the skills of an artist or of a what's a PE person called? An athlete? He said, what are your disciplinary skills? And then from there, we then turn towards our ATLs, which is they used to be called transdisciplinary skills. I so much prefer that language to approach to learning, because I think approach to learning is kind of confusing. So your transdisciplinary skill is just like zooming out and saying, not what we're just working on in math and not just what we're working on in science, but what are we working on above all of that? That like 10 years from now, 20 years from now, when they're not learning graphing, but when they're out in the world and AI comes into their lives, what skills are they going to have to be able to solve those problems? And how can we start to build the language and skills and dispositions of that now? So that's how I think of ATL. It's like I'm working on all of these disciplines, disciplinary skills, and the overarching skill that connects them together, that's my ATL.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Yeah. I think common language across uh teachers and disciplines helps there. I love this quote. You interviewed Guy Claxton, and he said, Deep down at the bottom of the river where the big fish live, those big fish are these dispositions of independence, adventurousness, resourcefulness, collaborativeness, intellectual humility, open-mindedness, skepticism, and so on. Oh, I love it. And even and and after and later said, dispositions are the skills we are disposed to use. And I thought it was just a really great way of getting to the heart of why we would try to teach these things to everything you just said, because 10 years later, that's as the world continues to change, those are the skills that are going to make people flexible and adaptable.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Well, and to continue on dispositions, another piece of guy's thinking that I think is really beautiful is he says that skills are great. They're your ability to do something in the world. But dispositions are your willingness and readiness to do those things independently. So the example I use in workshops is six-pack abs. Do I have the skills to build six-pack abs? Do I know the diet? Do I know the exercises I should do? Do I, yes, I have the skills, but do I have the dispositions? Clearly not. Right? So it's that fact that learning I believe in you, City. What do you say?

SPEAKER_00 31:00

I believe in you.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

I you shouldn't. I just, it's not happening for me. And I've accepted that. But we just we know that our learners are going to be out in the world learning independently. And so the dispositions and uh dispositions just go hand in hand with that. That it's that willingness and readiness and ability to independently put what we've learned into practice. And again, the IB helps us in that way because the learner profile attributes, those are the dispositions we're all working on from PYP to DP. Um, schools that don't have the learner profile, I suggest Ron Richardt's work. He has studied dispositions back and forth, and he's got a set of six of them that are a beautiful set. If if you're just hearing about dispositions for the first time, his work is a gorgeous place to turn towards.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yeah, the independence thing is interesting, right? Can we I think even it was Heidi who said that on that if you take any statement of or any any goal, uh learning goal, learning target for your students, if you add the word independently at the end, that's when it really becomes magical, right? I can, you know, uh write a uh claim, evidence, and reasoning paragraph independently. I can complete, you know, the formula independently. Um and I wonder how much sometimes our curriculum planning has that in mind, that the ultimate goal is not just for us to cover things, but for the students to internalize it and be able to do it independently.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

Well, to transfer it to new and normal situations and contexts. That that's our ultimate goal is not to be successful today. Being successful today is great, but it's almost like a formative assessment. And the summative assessment is life, to be able to thrive and learn and be capable and happy and joyous in life.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Yeah, absolutely. When I was first starting this podcast, um I was I had like a couple episodes. I was just experimenting with could I even do this? I I had uh um done podcasting with my students and realized like, oh, I could actually just I could do this myself.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Um ID teacher, he realized what these things are doing for your kids, you can do for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Right, exactly. Yeah, I could do it independently. Uh and uh and it was a couple episodes in, and I was just really just kind of figuring out. And I always be grateful to her, but for my third episode, Julie Stern came on the show. And I just, you know, even looking back, I'm always I think back on her and and um talking about transfer. Her work on transfer, particularly conceptual transfer, is so powerful. Um, can you talk a bit about what you learned from your conversation with Julie? Because this idea of transfer and really talking about depth over breadth. This is her work really gets into that and uh and and developing strong thinkers, flexible thinkers.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Gosh, Julie's thing, Julie's one of those masters that you you hear her speak, and it's a concept. It's you know it's a concept I feel pretty familiar with. I've read it lots of places, have thought a lot about it. And it was just like, oh, you are you are in it. You know, the the different types of transfer she unpacks in that episode. Like it really is, it's a worthwhile one just to go listen to because it's a masterclass. I could not summarize it. But just I don't to me, it really drove home the point that transfer is the driving why behind absolutely everything we do as educators. And then if we're not beginning with that as our end in mind, then we're failing from the start. That like so much of what we do in the in the education space is scaffolded and supported. So what happens when we kind of release those barriers? Do kids have the skills to do that on their own? Um, it's just yeah, it's one of those wonderings and questions that I continue to take forward into everything I do.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Sure. And the IB actually is set up for this really well with key concepts.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Um transdisciplinary themes too, are a really big lever for that.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

Yeah. And so I'd say any IB teacher, that's that's to me, that's the why of those, those, those structures in the IB to using that common language and helping students develop that kind of ability to transfer these big ideas subject to subject and also just subject to life.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Well, and that's I think why we're so it's so interesting to go from the IB into progressive schools because so much of like what the this sounds condescending, but like so much of what the IB figured out 15, 20 years ago really are just starting here in the States in these schools and like are new, big, overwhelming ideas. And so I think if you are an independent school and you're feeling this struggle, like I want to be more intentional about curriculum, the IB has a lot, the framework is a really beautiful thing. And it's one of those pieces, the more you figure out about the IB, the more that you learn about other educational theories and practices, the more that you're like, dang, like they did a really good job with this.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Sure. Yeah, I mean, I've had a lot of success just even using the subject criteria.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Right. They're just because I think sometimes teachers.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

Well, it's just sometimes back to our idea of the master teacher that has the great course, but is it going to live on after they leave? Often I find that teachers are doing this incredible work in the classroom. The learning experiences are amazing, their assessments are amazing. But when you try to pin down what actually it is they are like grading kids on, it quickly becomes very fuzzy.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

And that's where I think just the clarity of the criteria to your point about progressive schools can learn from the IB, that's one to me that's really clear.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Right. And I think, again, IB is UBD, is backwards design, is the best practice is best practice. So as a school leader, if you're not using IB, getting everybody rowing in the same direction of in this six week span of time, what do we expect every student to know, understand, and be able to do? And that everybody on your team should be able to answer that question without getting offended. That that's it's a non-negotiable. When you have that language, assessment culture changes. Because then it's really simple. The how-to is how do I know what they already know and understand and can be able to do? What's the next step in getting them there? And then how will I know? And what's the next step in getting them to the next step? Like it it changes your culture of assessment because it makes the goalpost clear as opposed to kind of murky and assumed and ambiguous.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Yeah. And it really is all about assessment. You know, it starting Jay McTie, right? It's like Jay McTai or Kevin Bartlett, just their clarity on the importance of starting at the end. And what I love too is how much they emphasize formative assessment.

SPEAKER_02 38:03

Yes. Process over product.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Yes. And and I I got to interview Jay uh a few years ago, another one of these, as we said before, people always say yes. I was like, Jay McTye, sure, he said yes to me. I'm I'm kind of surprised right now. But and his metaphor uh that um I've repeated many times and hopefully credit him every time I've done it, that you wouldn't to prepare a basketball team for a game, you wouldn't just have practices that were like looking at plays on paper. Right? You'd have them actually practice the thing before they did the game. And I've always loved that metaphor is the formatives really need to be explicit at practice for that summative. Like you're trying to get them somewhere, and that's somewhere, they need to have a chance to practice that somewhere before they get there.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

I love that. Yeah. And beyond, like, I think so many times we get wrapped up in those summative assessments, these like big like shows, these products, the final paper, the whatever. And like my thinking on summative assessments is that by the time you get there, there should be no surprises. You should have evidence of students' capability in every single thing that's gonna be assessed on the summative. And like the summative should show growth from the last formative assessment, but it shouldn't be a shock, you know? And that's when people are like, but the kids are gonna use AI to cheat and we're not gonna know it. I'm like, then you're not assessing properly because you should have 15 pieces of evidence to go, whoa, whoa, whoa, you went from here to here to here to here. Like you should be able to show that it helped me understand how your thinking changed and went from here to here. When you see those kinds of leaps, that's how you know AI's come into the picture. But if you've been collecting evidence along the way, there shouldn't be the ability for those kinds of surprises.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Sure. Yeah, that that like really authentic documentation. Um, it promotes such great conversations with students and and their families, and yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Rich data.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Yeah. Yeah, I I had such a great, like proud moment recently just seeing my I was looking over my daughter's uh shoulder. She's in an Ivy school, and she was on her toddl, and she was looking at the rubric for the assessment she was working on, and she was just looking and she was looking through the uh uh all the uh criteria, and then she was telling me about how she had the practice she'd had on a formative, she already knew the rubric, and she was working, and I thought, oh, this is just great, and and just to watch her use it like that was uh was really a gratifying thing to see.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Well, can you fathom how different your life would be if you learned that skill when you were 12 years old, when you were 15 years old? Like the ability to go, okay, let me look back at what success looks like and use that to inform my performance. Like, what that's not how we looked at rubrics. When I was a kid, you looked at rubric as the thing that you got at the end that told you you did a good job or a bad job. It didn't inform the entire process. And I think like, as teachers, if we can begin with the end in mind and make that clear, then learners develop that skill as well. And I think that, again, assessment capability is just transfer of assessment skills.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Sure. Maybe just showing my age here, but I don't think I'd even heard of rubrics until I became a teacher. I think I think when I was a kid, it was like this is a fun class. I like my teacher. And then the report card comes like B plus. Like, all right, cool. I guess I got a B plus this class. I don't know. Couldn't tell you why. Yeah, exactly. Like literally just like that's it. That's all it says. Uh but uh yeah, we've moved on since then. So on this last point of me having the proud dad moment, let's talk about Toddle. Um, Toddle is a really uh incredible tool. I'll say that. Um I I don't use Toddle currently, so I uh this is not me just product placing right now, but I uh uh it's um it's remarkably um effective in communicating with all stakeholders. I think that's what what I love about it the most. Um and I wonder if you could talk a bit about how Toddl um works for students and how it works for teachers and and why it it is so effective.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

Gorgeous. Uh so we started in IB schools, and we started as like a school solution. So in Ahmedabad, India, they have two schools there, and they realized that their teaching teams were using like I think 15 different platforms. So, you know, one for lesson planning, one for curriculum planning, one for assigning students, one for communicating with families. And it was just chaos. And they're like, okay, how do we create one interconnected ecosystem to do all of this? And that's really where Toddle has been born from, and that's where we've iterated from is this idea of teachers do a lot. How do we capture that in one beautiful and integrated space? So to me, it kind of all begins with that, with a curriculum piece. I think that's part of why it's so hard for progressive schools, or not hard for them, but it's just a shift in thinking, is that Toddle believes that teachers are curriculum designers. Right? So it begins with a canvas, it begins with a space to say, what do we think is worth learning? When in the year do we think is worth learning it? And how do we design that in an interconnected way? Schools upload their own sets of standards, and then teachers use those to create their own curriculum maps. That's like the primary first teacher work. From there, it also supports all of your lesson planning. So I've got my curriculum, I've got my curriculum map. Within that, I can say, here's my six week unit, here's my lesson plan, I'm gonna tag the learning. Goals I'm teaching today. I'm going to use AI to generate my lesson plan. Boop. And then I'm going to assign that to students. So all of that teaching, all of that thinking work and mapping and planning is happening in one space, but also the student side is happening, as you said there. So on the student side of it, I'm receiving a piece of work. It's got clear learning intentions for me. I've got a portfolio to record my thinking and record my growth and respond with my teacher. And then my families get to see that too. So it's kind of one space where we all can see the learning and teaching that's happening. Also, then we zoom out at the end of the year. I can look back and get insights into which standards were taught when, how many times, how did kids do? Are there any gaps in my curriculum? Are there any areas where we focused on a lot and areas we neglected? So it's just it's clarity and it's beauty. And it's one space that tells the full story of learning from big picture planning to daily planning to students completing the work and what that means for us as a team.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

And I should point out that Toddle is not just for IB teachers. Right. So someone listening who's who's, if this sounds wonderful, but you think, well, I'm not in an IB school.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

Yeah, you have a UBD.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

We've got a UBD template, and we also, it's completely customizable, which was part of the intention of the design is that however your school, whatever language and culture your school has around planning, Toddl can be set up to mirror that.

SPEAKER_00 46:06

You had a couple episodes with Trevor Mackenzie. Yes. Um he he's uh really wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

There you go. But I was thinking about his, he talked about learning journeys, I think, and and how it's because my head was still kind of an assessment, and he was talking about grading and how grading you know sort of inhibits the the learning journey and the story that we're telling in our classrooms. But I wonder, in your experience, where I'm going with this, is how much does do um external top-down pressures, college applications, extracurriculars, building that portfolio that starts to happen when students now it's not even in high school anymore, it's now in middle school. How much does that start to um frankly like you know, hurt this? Yeah, the students' learning journey, the students' um authentic, uh I'm thinking about in terms of the curriculum. We want to build these experiences, we want a backwards plan to ensure that there's transfer, and but how much is the outside world making that increasingly difficult, do you think?

SPEAKER_02 47:21

I think a revolution is starting. I think it started with COVID and it started when the ACT and the SAT kind of got put on pause. Um, or I guess me backwards tracking to say that I think that the biggest barrier right now is the college admissions process and that, like, especially in the high school, you see it even in the DP that that schools are readying that like transition into college as their primary function, which we know is no longer serving learners. A lot of our students aren't going to attend college or their college experience is gonna be really, really different. And that revolution is starting to happen. We're seeing shifts. We're seeing things like the Mastery Transcript Consortium that's moving away from a transcript with just a letter grade.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

I love that organization. They're so cool. Oh, wow. Okay, good. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

Well, and a new report, I think it was Joe Feldman just came out with a new report about um grade inflation. And that like so much of what gets put into a final grade is so bizarre. You know, it's like it's attendance. It's did you do your homework? It's did you uh were you nice to everybody in class? It's not purely academic.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Oh, and that's what going back to the point about the the power of using the criteria.

SPEAKER_02 48:40

Right. Showing teachers.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

Yeah, exactly. What you have to be able to show me how you're assessing each of these in your in your assessments, not the homework completion, not the yeah, exactly. I did just show up on time.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

I mean, but until we align behind that as educators, until we make that part of our professional practice, we invite things like standardized testing and SATs. Because how the heck else will a college know what a kid is capable of if what an A means in Texas is different than what an A means in Florida? They need some kind of a standardizing body. But I think my hope in general is that we start to see standardized testing. I don't think it's a bad thing, but I think it's the floor and not the ceiling. I think if you're doing great practices, your kids should be able to show basic reading and writing and math proficiency. That shouldn't be like a scary thing that we like bulk away from. Like our kids should be able to show that competency and that ability. But ideally, it becomes more the floor and that we have more space for that storytelling that that the number and that final weird test isn't what's driving the bus.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

Yeah, I we use the international schools assessment. Um I say, and it's it to your point, it it really serves exactly that purpose. I think it's it's a really quality, standardized test, but it gives some really um helpful information without becoming the whole story. Um and it's actually prompted some really yeah, and it's prompted actually some really great conversations with families. You know, we have meetings, the curriculum, um, our curriculum head meeting with parents to kind of go through what the ISA is, what it isn't, and what that means for their student, and without becoming um, you know, the thing that we're obsessing over.

SPEAKER_02 50:27

Totally. Yeah, and I'll say that again for the room in the back. Like, your kids should be able to perform on these tests. These are supposed to show basic proficiency. And I think maybe that means changing those tests too of what exactly are they assessing and what like what is success on those tests look like. But yeah, if those are what's driving the bus of your school, like woof, like there's so much more important curriculum.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

Sure. So you're really interested in AI.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

Really, really interested in AI.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Yeah, you've done and you've done a few episodes on yeah. What what are your I um what what have you gleamed so far about what the near future in education looks like with AI? Okay, I'll say this as somebody who I I I'm quite interested in AI myself, and I I as I mentioned before, I I I do use a couple um different products, and but I but it's very fascinating in in the education space right now, I think, because there is something so human about teaching. Yes, and then when you introduce AI, it's just a really interesting tension there. And I'm curious what you've gleaned so far.

SPEAKER_02 51:37

Well, let's talk about where AI already is in education. So, like Toddle's goal with AI is to save teachers 10 hours per week. And I would say we're pretty nearing that goal. So AI is already being used in um the lesson planning process. So anything that's iterative, brainstorming, where there's not one right answer and you're trying to create multiple options, AI is amazing at. So things like lesson planning, definitely using it for that. Um, we're already using AI for reporting. So if you've already collected all this evidence and data, why do you have to spend three hours writing comments? Let AI make the first draft of that. Uh, we're using it for family communications, that weird, hard letter that you spend 40 minutes thinking how to how to say that he won't stop like putting his hands in his mouth and not not sound mean when I say that, right? So the parent communication. And we're and we just released AI Tutors. So that's the student-facing AI. Think of it like another form of formative assessment where kids are interacting with an AI that a teacher has assigned, and you're getting insights into their performance. So all of this is already happening, is already like well established, working well in classroom spaces. What I think is coming very soon, like I would say in the next year or two, is the shift is towards what's called AI agents. So the idea is that rather than AI happening like siloed and in isolation and like using it for specific isolated tasks, you're going to have agents that are able to perform multiple tasks. So, like a student comes in and they like do their assignments, and like the AI agent will be able to like grade the few assignments, notice that they are uh performing differently in another classroom, and we'll be able to schedule a meeting between you and that teacher to talk about what are you doing differently than what they're doing, so that you guys can come together to make a learning plan. Right. So it will start to take actions on account of students, that every student will have their own agent or every teacher will have their own agent who's aware of the kind of whole ecosystem of their performance and is able to spot things sooner for us. Ultimately, I think the function of all of this will be saving time, catching patterns more quickly, and having a more personalized learning experience for our learners.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

The saving time and the um seeing patterns, I think um sounds great. And I think a lot of teachers would, you know, get behind that. That last point though, um, creating a more, how'd you say a more authentic experience?

SPEAKER_01 54:22

Personalized.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

Personalized, that was a personalized learning experience. I do think that's that's where I I'm still a little stuck on seeing uh that.

SPEAKER_02 54:32

Um have you played with tutors?

SPEAKER_00 54:35

I have not.

SPEAKER_02 54:37

Play with tutors. So there are some free ones out there you can fiddle with. Um, but it comes back to research that came out in 1984. Bloom came out with what he called the two sigma problem, which was that he did three comparative analysis traditional classroom, a mastery-based classroom, and a classroom where students receive one-on-one tutoring. The students who receive one-on-one tutoring went from performing in the bottom of the class or the middle of the class to the top two percentile. They outperformed by two sigmas, like just crazy next level high performance. And so, like, the how-to of great learning has been really clear. Kids need personalized, individualized learning paths. The how-to has always been impossible because you've got one teacher and limited resources. And to me, AI is the bridge between the theory we've known and the practice we've not had the resources to implement.

unknown 55:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

We're talking about feedback.

SPEAKER_02 55:33

Immediate feedback, immediate personalization, um, immediate insights into teachers, into what's working and what's not working, 24-hour support. So if I learn best at three in the morning and I have a question, I can go and talk to an ever-patient AI who can support me. You know, all the benefits of private tutoring that were reserved for the rich and the wealthy and the very privileged are now accessible to more and more learners every single day.

unknown 56:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:04

I like it. I like it, Cindy. I just uh I'm so excited about it. I mean, I have I have used, I've shown students how to take a piece of writing and just ask chat for feedback on it. And and and it's and it's it's great. Um, it's just that sometimes what then chat does is say, here's a better version. Here's a better version.

SPEAKER_02 56:26

And that's the difference between tutors is they have the guardrails that they won't do that. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:31

That's you're right. Because it it's it's so difficult. You know, I I was even thinking about this uh yesterday that how teachers who have already been creating authentic writing tasks, writing prompts. I think right now they suddenly find themselves like way ahead. Yes, right, because they're already making tasks that aren't AI ready.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

This sort of text-to-self reflective writing tasks. Whereas I think teachers that have more sort of traditional writing prompts, writing assignments are really freaking out because they're they're realizing that everything they give the student to write about is just can go right into chat. And even for something though, where I'm I'm having them do writing that I feel like is pretty um authentic, to ask chat for some feedback and to run the risk of the chat just saying, here's a better version, as you say, and then it feels oh, it just feels kind of gross because it's like, am I am I kind of undoing all the all the great learning we've done? Because at the end of this, what they've seen is that actually chat just gives a great version of it. So this tutors is an interesting.

SPEAKER_02 57:39

But the thing is, they're gonna have access to that in their workplace. And so the question, the question of our generation is not if AI can, AI can, and I probably can do it better than than you, right? It's what work is worth my cognitive load? And having that discussion with students of, okay, this is our success criteria for the unit. Let's talk about why this is important in your life, and let's talk about what you've already shown mastery of. If you've already shown mastery of it and you know how to do it with proficiency, go ahead. Use ChatGPT to do it. But if you can't get, and you're gonna use ChatGPT as a crutch and you're never gonna learn that skill, how might that impact you later on? And so that, I mean, if we're doing that thinking for our students, this is worth their cognitive load. So I'm gonna ban ChatGPT because they have to be able to do it. We're robbing of them them of that autonomy, that agency to make that choice of I'm choosing to do this work, not because it's gonna be faster for me to do it by myself, but because it's work worth doing.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

Yeah, no, I I I agree for sure. I I I'm not um, you know, I think students need to know how to use these tools because you said that's I mean, I I use them. So why would we would make sense to say they can't use them? And I and I think um asking the right questions, you know, um, I think is a big part of that too. It's it's I was listening to someone recently say that this is this is the first time in history that computers speak our language.

SPEAKER_02 59:13

Right?

SPEAKER_00 59:13

Previously, if you ever want to talk to a computer, you had to be a coder.

SPEAKER_02 59:17

Talk to like machine.

SPEAKER_00 59:18

Talk to like machine, right? It's also the first time that computers have open-ended, infinite possibilities for how it might respond. It's not a menu that you're clicking on, a button you're pushing where you know it's only going to do certain things. So how you talk to chat, how you talk to a chat bot, the questions you ask, because if you've ever seen like a middle school student, I'll say, for example, use Google, sometimes it's remarkable to me. Like they'll just take a full sentence prompt and just type it into Google, right? It's like, it's like the idea of like keywords, and it's like, oh, okay, that doesn't actually just come naturally. You have to really teach that because they're just putting full-on sentences in there. And the same thing for chat. You how you talk to a chat bot is, I think, what you're asking is as important as what you get back.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:10

Well, and Ethan Mollock's advice is my favorite in this. He says, don't think of it like a machine, think of it like an alien human. Like it's like a human that just thinks really differently than you do. Right. And so when you're prompting, if you think it like it is more like a human than a machine. And it's a weird new skill to learn, but gosh, is it fun to play with?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:30

It really is. It really is. Um, okay. So um as kind of as we come to the end here, just to bring it back to curriculum. Um, I'd love to ask, love to end my episodes with advice. What advice my guests can give teachers who are listening. Um so for a teacher out there who is in uh maybe a curriculum review process, is rethinking their own curriculum, maybe he's been frustrated with their curriculum, maybe came to a Frankenstein school and said, What is this? Google Drive, great, there's some folders I can't make uh, you know, um what's the phrase? Head heads or tails. Um what advice would you give that teacher? Where to start? Um, what are some things that they could do today to start the process of making their curriculum awesome?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:27

Great question. Figure out what exists first. You know, I think that's the key thing is there's gonna be somebody in your school that might be your curriculum person, that might be a principal. And just ask about it. And this can be kind of a sensitive question, but just get clear on like what exists already and and what standards are we all working from? I think it's the biggest one that like often gets missed by new teachers in a school. It's like nobody ever mentions, oh yeah, we're using Common Core. And it's like, I wish I had known that. So get clear on that. Like, what exists, what are the boundaries that already exist for me? And then start with just one unit and just think to yourself, okay, I'm an expert here. What is most important? If I've got six weeks, what should every single student know, understand, and be able to do? And if you're struggling with that, use AI to help you. But get just really crystal super duper clear on what every single student would need to know, understand, and be able to do to show success. And I think if you do that, honestly, the rest really falls into place. I think it was Yang Jiao that says, I believe anybody can do the how-to, right? Especially with AI. We can do the how-to, but it's figuring out that what is the base first and working backwards from there. Begin with the end in mind.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:53

Love it. Um book recommendations for teachers out there?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:00

Most transformative read for me as a teacher was Rachel French's um concept-based inquiry and action. And I think it was beautiful as an IB teacher. I think it'd be even more groundbreaking if you're not an IB, because it would just expose you to a lot of the ideas you and I have talked about today. It's a beautiful curriculum agnostic way of thinking about these things. So hands down that book.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:23

That was a great interview, too. Your interview with her.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:26

So that one was like a dream come true because she's one of those people who just loomed larger than life. Because that because that book was so transformative for me. And yeah, that was a very special moment for me.

unknown 1:03:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:36

And make sure to link all this in the show notes so people can find them. Um so fun, Cindy, talking with you. Um, you're just uh you you just a fountain of ideas and knowledge and love your podcast. I mean, it's really it's it's so cool. And you you you get great people and ask great questions. And uh, I think for any educator out there wanting to know where education's going, I think I think that's what I love most about your podcast is that it's very future focused. Oh, and it's thinkers who are um talking about where we're headed uh rather than where we've been.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:14

I appreciate how much of it you've tuned into, and it was like a trip down memory lane for you to to call up these like amazing conversations and pull them into this. So really artfully done, and just you're a really wonderful host.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:26

Thanks, Cindy. All right.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:27

Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

Thank you.