Using AI in Designing and Facilitating Transformational Professional Learning
I've been wrestling with AI for the past few years. When it first came out, I stress-tested it on making facilitator guides and being a brainstorming partner for professional learning. It was no good. As AI has evolved, I've continued to see where it has utility in my work, but I still have concerns about its guardrails. As a party of one in my business, I've had to build my own. I'm not an authority on AI. I'm a tinkerer. What I am an authority on is designing and facilitating professional learning, and that's the lens I bring to this work.
My biggest worries about AI use are ethical ones. AI has become a better research tool, and a good sparring partner for my ideas. And now that it's less sycophantic, it gives me better critiques on ideas and pushes my thinking further. But I fear that we are heading down the path of outsourcing the productive struggle that makes us human. I'm not so sure we've figured out our collective ethics around AI yet even though policies and thought leaders are starting to point us in that direction (while also pointing us in some dangerous ones, too).
When it comes to tech, I'm often an early adopter. I like gadgets and tools and ways to make learning more accessible, efficient, and useful. I’ve played with a lot of different AI models to determine where it’s most helpful, and where it’s still just plain useless. I've landed on some principles that make it helpful without overriding my hard work. This approach is inspired by my colleague Eric Hudson, who writes about taking a "human first, human last" approach to AI. That framing matches how I've been working with it. In essence, AI doesn't get the first word or the last. The questions are mine; the problems of practice are mine; the learning is mine; the human-centered approach is mine.
When I co-wrote The PD Book, AI was still something only a privileged few were taking advantage of; it hadn’t gone “live” yet. Now it's everywhere. For those who haven't read The PD Book, I suggest you start there if you're new to designing and facilitating professional learning. For those who want to know how to add AI into the mix as a complement to the approaches outlined in the book, I made a resource for designers and facilitators. It's free to download, share, and use with your teams. I'll admit, AI was part of the compilation process, but the ideas and final writing were all mine.
