Category: Thought Leaders

One of my most influential mentors over the years has rattled around in my brain for decades, particularly so on the subject of WHEN an important decision is to be made. He advised me to “take as much time as is allowed to make important decisions, collecting as much data and feedback as possible before doing so. Understand, however, that the best decision in the world made one minute too late … is of no consequence.”

Dr. Blair’s counsel has guided my thinking and served me well over the years. And continues to do so. 

Difficult decisions always hinge on a myriad of mitigating and confounding variables. Those variables include things like…

• Affordability
• Implementation contingencies
• Time constraints 
• Available talent
• Legal considerations
• Political contexts

I recently read Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning, by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson (2024).

My top takeaways were:

Ø  Ethical use of AI must be baked into our curriculum and practice.

Ø  AI can always produce C-level work, more cheaply than humans.

Ø  AI has created new ways to analyze DNA, music, computer code, and brain waves.

Ø  AI also generates (interesting) misinformation.

Ø  Relationships with humans take time and care; relationships with an AI do not.

Ø  AIs are much more focused listeners than humans.

Ø  We are going to be able to think differently using AI, maybe even better.

Ø  Those who use AI well will have an advantage in the marketplace.

Ø  Used well, AI is a collaborator.

Ø  An emerging learning outcome for schools is AI literacy.

Ø  We are experiencing only the first wave of AI-inspired jobs; subsequent waves are still unknown.

Ø  Ideally, the AI does not think for us but helps us think better.

Ø  AI is exceptional at weeding out the 99 bad ideas to get to the 1 good one.

Ø  AI is recursive in that everything it produces also goes back into the dataset, as does every question we ask of it.

Ø  The ability to think and adapt is golden currency in the workforce.

Ø  The range of quality in responses from AI is consistently higher than that of humans.

Ø  It is just as easy for faculty to build a case to accuse any student of cheating with AI as it is for students to cheat using AI.

Ø  Asking the right question (prompt) is the premium human skill.

Ø  Language barriers will disappear as result of AI.

Ø  Historical definitions of plagiarism no longer apply.

Ø  More encouragement and less instruction = better effort, higher self-efficacy, and more learning.

Ø  The easy out would be to say that AI can be used for everything or nothing; not likely, not doable.

Ø  A motivating model for effort: I Care, I Can, I Matter.

Ø  Just-right challenges are not too easy or too difficult: at either extreme, we quit.

Ø  “All assignments are now AI assignments.” (p. 198)

Ø  Good writing is good editing.

My favorite quotes:

“If the internet changed our relationship with knowledge, AI is going to change our relationship with thinking.” (p. 2)

“What we call cheating, businesses see as innovation.” (p. 5)

AI will eliminate some jobs, but it is going to change every job: those who can work with AI will replace those who can’t. (p. 28)

“Most problem solving, however, is a combination of both divergent thinking (what might I be missing? How else could I look at this?) and convergent thinking (What is the best solution?).” (p. 46)

“Still, the way to get better at everything is to get better at something.” (p. 105)

“Pedagogy is about improving the odds that students will learn.” (p. 130)

“It would be much simpler if we could either say that AI can be used for everything or nothing, but neither seems likely or prudent.” (p. 143)

“Feedback is essential for learning, and we’ve long known that the best feedback is like a tennis net: objective, immediate, and specific (Chickering & Gamson, 1987).” (p. 162)

“Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” John Wooden, Hall of Fame basketball coach and player (p. 184)

“I may not be there yet, but I am closer than I was yesterday.” Misty Copeland, Principal dancer, American Ballet Theater (p. 235)

“Education, parenting, and democracy have always managed an uneasy tension between what to think (content) and how to think (process). As the internet provided more immediate access to content, it profoundly shifted that balance to process. Our new future is teaching students how to think with AI.” (p. 238)

I read this book in a team study with other interested educators. A most worthy learning endeavor. I can highly recommend it to any educator at any level.

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning. 

We are…

• What we think.
• What we read.
• What we eat.
• Who we admire.
• What we believe.
• What we listen to.
• Who we love.

Rituals are collective habits. They provide symbolism for our culture. They’re almost like social tattoos.

Why are rituals so important in promulgating our culture?

• We schedule them regularly, thus making them habitual.
• They showcase the best version of our culture.
• They remind us of what really matters.
• They motivate and empower us.
• They pull us together – cognitively, physically, spiritually.
• They provide a clean, clear, and fairly simple expression of “our brand.”

Rituals make us richer.

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning. 

A well known tenet in the field of psychology is the rule of reciprocity. In essence: “I’ll give you something, then you feel compelled to return the favor, somehow.” We see this strategy deployed all the time, particularly in sales and con schemes. 

The idea of reciprocal bounceback is compelling, but it’s grounded in egocentricity.  The bedrock of servant leadership, however, is just the opposite. Rather than giving with intent of return, servant leadership is service with an outward rippling effect. 

Not only does that outward rippling occur, it gets magnified by those influenced by the servant leader. 

Think of it as ripplefication. 

GO!

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning. 

Leadership occurs whenever two or more people are involved/engaged in some kind of relationship. 

Whether we’re in relationship with only one other person or with tens of thousands, our thinking, intent, and behavior influences that of “the team” (ourselves included) and, thus, the outcomes we achieve.

Think of it as the Gitter-r-Doner effect.

Some of the best Gitter-r-Doners I’ve observed follow a very pithy script:

• CLARITY – Keep the direction our team is going worthy and simple. Tattoo and bumper sticker worthy messaging increases clarity and coordination. 
• TRUST – Having trust among and between the individuals and organizational teams is worth its weight in gold. Transparency, vulnerability, and honesty are priceless as trust generators and sustainers. 
• PEOPLE – All the fancy tools and technology in world cannot replace committed humans. Investing in the people is the surest way to positive achievements.

I have observed a lot of leaders over the last five decades. Some do an OK job of “staying open and staying legal.” The literature aptly describes this as “satisficing.” Good enough is good enough.

A few of the leaders I have observed, however, are masterful at their work. For them, good enough is NOT good enough. Part of the skill set of those folks includes their ability to see and seize opportunities that present themselves. 

From watching those Opportunity Maestros, here are some of the things they do in that regard:

• Their eyes are always on the horizon, gauging the trends, the changing landscape, the shifts.

• They are prolific networkers, building relationships beyond their profession, wheelhouse, and age cohort.

• They foster cultures that support and reward risk taking with the team.

• They personally own “the failures” while giving credit to others for “the wins.”

• They mine both soft and hard data relentlessly, from all directions, then make consequential decisions based on those data.

• They work mightily to embed adaptability into both the processes and the people. 

Continuous LEARNING is the assumed mindset of those Opportunity Seekers. 

Look at the horizon. What see you?

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning. 

Most of us look at ourselves in the mirror each day. Probably many times each day. A quick look at pictures of ourselves over the years irrefutably documents that what we look like today is NOT what we looked like 10 or 20 or 50 years ago.

Our beingness — who we are —  has also changed similarly over the years. The work we do or don’t do or have done or haven’t done with regard to our physical appearance cannot be ignored, nor denied.

The same goes for the work we choose to do on who we are becoming as a person. Arguably, attention to our beingness is even more important than our physical appearance. 

Step 1: We think intentionally about who we aspire to be. 

Step 2: We go to work shaping that person we envision.

Just as in the physical domain, it will most certainly mean abandoning some habits and acquiring some different ones. 

Today is a good day to start. The only day, really. The footprint we leave on the planet matters.

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning.