AI in Education: Bridging Gaps for Students

Vicki Davis: I’m so excited today for us to be talking with Jean-Claude Brizard. He’s a prominent education leader and reformer, and he’s currently serving as President and CEO of Digital Promise — a global nonprofit focused on advancing innovation and equity in education. He was born in Haiti, and his early life was shaped by his family’s flight from political persecution, which deeply informs his commitment to educational opportunity for all of our students. Jean-Claude, you began your career teaching incarcerated youth at Rikers Island. That’s quite a beginning to a teaching career. What do you want to share about that beginning experience?

Jean-Claude Brizard: Vicki, first of all, thank you for having me on your show. How I got to Rikers was interesting — and many teachers I know in New York City understand this. I had a job at a high school in Queens, and I was bumped. I was excessed or displaced. They sent me to Rikers to go teach. So I didn’t choose to go there. I was sent there. At the same time, it was a formative experience for me to really understand what happens if we don’t do well by young people in our communities. I was sent to Rikers. I was barely 21, 22 years of age, and the young people who were there were up to age 19, maybe even 20. So they were basically my age. I had to grow a beard and put a tie on so I wouldn’t be mistaken for an inmate. The experience I had, which has been sort of foundational, was meeting a young man who looked just like me — and he couldn’t do basic math. He had stopped going to school in the fourth grade. In one semester I was there, we were doing algebra work. Brilliant young man. I really believe we lost a mathematician. We lost a brilliant contributor to our society. I don’t know what he did, but he brought joy to my life and really made me go back and say, okay, I’m going to stay in this profession longer and see what I can do to support young people on the other side, before they get incarcerated. That was 38 years ago.

Vicki Davis: You still remember — because I think sometimes the best educators are those who can picture in their minds that student that we have to reach. We have to be passionate about reaching them. Do people ever say to you, you can’t reach all of the children, so why do you even try?

Jean-Claude Brizard: I’ve heard that. That’s what I hear about the average pass rate, the average graduation rate. I always tell people that I have children — and if they’re not in the average, if they’re the ones who are failing, then I really, really get angry as a parent. So I developed this attitude, this philosophy, that every child is a work of art. Our job is to create masterpieces. Not a single one should be left behind, because that individual child is really important to that parent, to that family. So we have to do everything possible to make sure that we’re reaching every single one of our children. One person can’t do that — clear about that. It takes a community of adults to really support this push: that every child matters.

Vicki Davis: Jean-Claude, you’re speaking my language. My listeners will know that the name of my classroom is Masterpiece Theater, because I believe that every child is a masterpiece. So we are totally connected here. As you work to bridge gaps — reading is a fundamental entryway into every other subject. What’s going on with Digital Promise in reading that can impact classrooms across the country?

Jean-Claude Brizard: We work at the intersection of learning science, research, technology, innovation, and practice. We center practice in everything we do. So one example of how we’re thinking about reading and technology and learning science is an amazing project that was funded by the U.S. government called the You Gain Reading Center. We’re taking a science-of-reading platform, Amira Learning, with a bunch of teachers and principals in seven school systems right now, working with MDRC, Penn Graduate School of Education — and of course, we’re leading the effort, with folks who are experts in multilingual learning. So we’re taking an existing platform and, through a co-creation construct — meaning teachers are involved with technology developers — we’re extending the platform to serve multilingual learners. You think about intonation, you think about dialects, you think about what we face in so many parts of our country around kids who are coming from different places that perhaps the science-based platform was not designed to serve. Right now we’ve got districts in Texas, in Maryland, Washington, D.C., who are involved in this co-creation project, taking a platform and extending it — using what we know about multilingual learners, what we know about the science of reading, and what we know about AI. All that comes together in a beautiful salad that will serve so many, many young people across this country.

Vicki Davis: So it sounds like you’ve got your beta testers. When will this be available to a wider group? Because you’re going to have a lot of teachers who listen to this and say, Jean-Claude, I need this now.

Jean-Claude Brizard: It’s going to be available immediately to those who are using that particular platform — who are part of it. But ultimately, what we do is we codify the knowledge and we disseminate it. It’s going to happen over time, meaning that you’ll see reports come out in a year, then in two years, in three years. So I believe within three years we’ll have this whole thing actually completed. But you’ll see iterative development of this. We’ve already published articles on this. So I would tell your viewers: look at our website, keep track of what’s happening, because we produce a lot of information. Ultimately, our goal is to make sure this shows up in every tech platform, in every science-of-reading platform that serves not just our nation, but the world.

Vicki Davis: This is a good use of artificial intelligence — because I know that so many people are critical of AI. But if you look at some of the greatest promises that AI holds, it’s for bridging multiple languages, isn’t it?

Jean-Claude Brizard: Yes, that’s one. There are language platforms doing an amazing job of human and technology together, serving us around global languages, multilingual learners, et cetera. But I am really bullish around Gen AI and what it can do for curriculum, for instruction, for pedagogical practice. I just presented to the Pennsylvania Tech Conference, to about 1,200 educators who are interested in Gen AI and curriculum. We talked about math, real examples in mathematics, real examples in biology, in American history, in reading — where Gen AI has the real potential to revolutionize, to uplift what we do in pedagogy. Let me be clear though: technology is not going to revolutionize education. People will. Teachers will. Principals will. The technology is going to be an enabler. But what we’re seeing already in Gen AI and curriculum is that it can bring things to life and make it real. I’ll give you an example. In American history, I saw a project at ASU — at Arizona State University — where they are shifting your mental model of American history by actually having a conversation with real Americans who were part of the Revolutionary War. One example was a housewife in Georgia who captured seven British soldiers by herself. And you can engage her in conversation about who she was. So it’s not about the founding fathers, but about the average American. And so many of us who teach history, who learn history, don’t often get the perspective of the average person on the Hill in World War II. The average person fighting the Revolutionary War. Now we have the potential through Gen AI to have that kind of conversation about figures in history — but yes, also about the average person in history.

Vicki Davis: Yes — and you kind of hit on something that’s an opportunity but also a concern. Because there are a lot of folks who say, well, AI makes mistakes, and how do we know that they’re authentically representing people, because AI is biased. Do you have a concern of the bias that could come in — that they may be speaking as that person, but what if they aren’t truly representing that person well?

Jean-Claude Brizard: That’s a great point. We talk about mitigating bias. We can’t eliminate it because technology is created by humans, and humans have all kinds of implicit biases. But one of the things we push — You Gain is an example of co-creation. Where you have teachers and principals who are involved in the building and designing, you mitigate the kinds of issues and worries that we have about this. We do a lot of work on AI literacy — for teachers, for administrators, for students, and for parents. We often tell teachers, please be crew and not passengers in this effort. AI is here. It’s going to sharpen every tech product you’re using, whether you like it or not. We are pushing for transparency, so folks know it’s in there and what it’s doing. We push very well in our acceptable use policy that we created with the federal government, that if you want the AI to be removed, you have a right to have it removed. But you have to know it’s there. You have to be an informed consumer, an informed user. You have to be crew, not passengers. So yes, there are real issues of bias. But fundamentally, if we have systems where learning science exists and the educators are part of the design process, you can mitigate a lot of the challenges and issues that we have in AI right now.

Vicki Davis: What you’re saying is so important — that educators are part of the process. We just got on the other side of ISTE when we’re recording this, and there’s, you know, let’s create this or let’s create that. I always try to dig and find out — were there educators involved in this process? Because there’s so much about teaching that someone who’s not a teacher just does not know. Someone who hasn’t had that student across the table like you’ve had, or like I’ve had — they just don’t understand. As we move forward, that’s just so important. As we finish up, are there any other challenges that you want to just say to the classroom teacher, to the IT coach, to the principal, who’s moving forward with artificial intelligence but just has a little bit of anxiety in the pit of their stomach? “Oh no, this does things that I don’t understand.”

Jean-Claude Brizard: We are pushing very hard, and ISTE is a partner in this effort, that everybody needs a coherent instructional system. It is about that particular system. The best relationship in education is between students, teachers, parents, and content. That is the work of education. Technology can accelerate, can enhance, but the technology comes after the fact. It does not design the instructional program. The technology supports. So what I tell people is: make sure you know what you want to teach first. Then bring the tech. And second, make sure the tech is certified. Safe, equitable, done in a way that is research-based. All of that is part of certifications that we produce at Digital Promise. ISTE produces them. CoSN — a lot of us do this kind of work. It’s called the Tech Index at ISTE; we all use it. So we tell educators: make sure that what you’re using is certified, because then you have a really good chance of this thing doing what it’s promising to do. Because there’s a lot of fluff, there’s a lot of shiny objects, a lot of magical thinking that exists in the tech world. But let’s make sure that it exists to serve the children who are in front of you. And the best way to do that is to make sure it is a certified product.

Vicki Davis: Excellent. Jean-Claude Brizard, President and CEO of Digital Promise. Thank you for coming on the show, and thank you for advocating for the way forward — because AI is here. It’s not going anywhere. There are wise uses of AI. There are inappropriate uses of AI. As we all have these conversations moving forward, that’s what needs to happen. We need to be partners together. So thanks for leading the way for us, Jean-Claude. And thanks for coming on the show.