Conceptually Speaking – Détails, épisodes et analyse

For this episode I'm joined by friend of the show Rod Naquin, a Louisiana based education leader and doctoral student whose research and writing explores the intersection between dialogue, learning, and large language models. Drawing on thinkers and theories from his research, Rod invites educators to stop viewing artificial intelligence as a completionist tool or sentient machine and instead regard it as a new form of dialogic computing. His articulation of LLMs challenges common perceptions of AI as merely a productivity tool, instead proposing a more interactive, discourse-driven approach to using language models in educational settings.

Rod offers concrete examples of how educators can apply this approach, emphasizing AI's potential as an analytical partner rather than an omniscient source. He advocates for a nuanced approach that leverages AI's capabilities while preserving essential human elements in the learning process. This episode provides valuable insights for educators, researchers, and anyone interested in the future of AI in education. 

Key concepts explored in this episode:

1. Dialogic Computing: Reframing AI interactions as collaborative dialogues rather than simple input-output exchanges
2. Paradigm Shifts: Examining parallels between historical communication changes and current AI-driven transformations
3. Post-Literacy: Considering the emergence of an era where AI-mediated text takes on speech-like qualities
4. Dynamic Equilibrium: Balancing AI assistance with human comprehension and critical thinking
5. Affordances and Constraints: Understanding the capabilities and limitations of AI in educational contexts

In addition to his research on dialogue, Rod has deep expertise in high-quality instructional materials and hosts The Science of Dialogue podcast. A husband and father of twins, he resides in Bayou Gauche. You can find Rod on Twitter/X.com as @rodjnaquin and read his writings at rodjnaquin.substack.com.

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To say we’re living through a moment of education polarization would be a mild understatement. Considering the digital echo chambers we all find ourselves in, I believe it’s more important than ever to engage with people who may move in different circles and have different perspectives, but share some foundational beliefs about democracy, wisdom, and advancing the public good. My guest this week is Dr. Ashley Rogers Berner—and she was the perfect person for just such an exchange. As the director of and professor for John Hopkin’s Institute for Educational Policy, she is well versed in the history of educational policy both in the states and abroad. One of the more compelling parts of our dialogue was Dr. Berner’s insight into the way many European systems fund and operate their schools. In fact, her comparative research serves as the basis for the fairly unique, heterodox views on educational policy explored in her recent book: Educational Pluralism and Democracy. Though we have contrasting thoughts on a number of pedagogical approaches and policy prescriptions, Ashley was a generous interlocuter who shares my love for the Humanities, pluralism, and the fledgling project of American democracy. Considering I don’t have too many policy conversations on the podcast, I think I learned more in this episode than in most others I’ve recorded. I hope you find it as informative and thought provoking as I do.

Dr. Ashley Rogers Burner's Faculty Page

Educational Pluralism and Democracy: How to Handle Indoctrination, Promote Exposure, and Rebuild America's Schools

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This week on Conceptually Speaking, I had the pleasure of chatting with fellow teacher and friend of the show, Garreth Heidt. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of crossing paths with Garret on Twitter, he teaches sophomore English as well as an innovation and social entrepreneurship class called NOVA lab at Perkiomen Valley High School. I met him in the days of teacher Twitter yore before COVID, culture wars, and Elon Musk took the shine off the place. As you’ll be able to tell by our dialogue, Garreth is the sort of veteran teacher who has been blazing trails folks are only now discovering. Our wide-ranging dialogue, which bounces from post-modernism to ChatGPT to The Good Life perfectly encapsulates the depth and breadth of his knowledge as well as his heartfelt commitment to more meaningful education. This episode feels like the exact sort of existential, reflective conversation teachers need to have (or listen to!) after the last few years of mayhem. I hope you enjoy.

Garreth's Personal Blog
The NOVA Lab Blog

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Lately, it feels like the world is both literally and figuratively on fire. As a mere English teacher researcher and content creator, there are times when feel kind of powerless in the throes of political upheaval, culture wars, and social unrest. I’ve always believed English class is a place where students can cultivate the wisdom and discernment needed to create a more just, liberatory future, but I always wish I could do more. Luckily, last summer I stumbled upon the work of Dr. Mark Bracher, an English professor at Kent State University and the author of Literature, Social Wisdom, and Global Justice: Developing Systems Thinking Through Literary Study. Dr. Bracher’s research leverages the latest scholarship from cognitive and neuroscience to develop a systems thinking approach to literary studies that fosters four key cognitive functions: causal analysis, prospection, social cognition, and metacognition. Through the cultivation of these practices, Bracher believes (and I agree) students can cultivate skills and habits of mind that allow them to not only recognize the social injustices within our social, political, and ecological systems but intervene with wisdom, discernment, and empathy. Many of you who know me personally, know I read a lot of books about education. I’m nerdy like that. So trust me when I say, this is one of the most compelling books on English teaching I’ve encountered in a very long time.

Dr. Bracher's website
Dr. Bracher's published works
American Dream(ing) Project Overview (10th-grade unit I co-designed based on Bracher's work)

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How often do you find yourself wanting to hit pause in your curriculum? To slow down and notice more deeply? Read more closely? Maybe even engage in some playful fun? Like most teachers, there are times when I find myself sprinting through the next novel or text set, slipping back into the grips of covering material instead of exploring it. Luckily, my guest today is Brett Vogelsinger, a 9th-grade English Teacher in Doylestown PA author of Poetry Pauses: Teaching With Poems To Elevate Student Writing in All Genres, and a contributing author to Moving Writers. As his book title would suggest, poetry pauses are his specialty, and there are few other teachers I know who are as good at integrating poetry into his curriculum in meaningful, intentional, and powerful ways. Our conversation is a deep dive into the pedagogy of teaching poetry Brett has plenty to share about the powerful ways poetic forms can lead to playful and powerful learning. After hanging out with Brett at NCTE this year, I knew he’d be a great podcast guest. As you’ll soon learn, he didn’t disappoint. Enjoy!

https://brettvogelsinger.com/
https://30gopoems.blogspot.com/

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 As melodramatic as it may seem, I’ll never forget the first time I encountered The New London Group’s A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. After an evening of mindless scrolling in the summer of 2016, I clicked on a fortuitous Facebook post from a fellow English teacher. As I read I became increasingly enraptured. It felt inspiring. It felt fresh. It felt innovative. I assumed it was cutting-edge research. Then I saw the publication date. 1996. Reading that publication date made it abundantly clear educational practice had fallen well behind educational scholarship. It’s a disconnect I notice more and more as I move through my own dissertation. It’s also a lament shared by my esteemed guests. This week I was joined by Dr. Troy Hicks professor of English and Education at Central Michigan University and the Director of the Chippewa River Writing Project and his co-author, Dr. Kristen Hawley Turner: Professor of education at Drew University and director of the Drew Writing Project. Our discussion is coming hot on the heels of their recent publication Digital Literacy (Still) Can’t Wait: Four Questions to Reframe the Conversation around Technology in the English Classroom, a follow-up to their 2013 publication No Longer a Luxury: Digital Literacy Can't Wait. Though I’m sure they wish such clarion calls weren’t still necessary, I’m thankful for scholars like them who continue to fight the good fight to bring powerful ideas to practitioners and pose poignant questions about how we use technology in our classrooms. Whether you’re a techno-skeptic or ed-tech enthusiast, Kristen and Troy’s four questions are an invitation for us to use technology in more transformative ways. Enjoy!

Resources:
An Interconnected Framework for Assessment of Digital Multimodal Composition
Dr. Troy Hicks' Twitter
Dr. Kristen Turner's Twitter

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 According to cognitive linguist and philosopher George Lakoff, “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.” And that is what today’s episode is all about. On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Matthew Slocombe, a secondary school teacher specializing in educational design and technology and a doctoral student and researcher at the Center for Educational Neuroscience. Matt’s research interests relate to the development of children’s reasoning and the role of conceptual change and transfer in analogical reasoning. Matt and I connected during the early days of COVID while I was working on Learning that Transfers with Julie, Krista, and Kayla and he put us on to some fantastic research into the role of analogical reasoning in conceptual change and learning transfer. And, much to my joy, he helped us realize analogies are so much more than fanciful things used by poets: they are the essence of how we make meaning. So, get ready to accommodate and assimilate some new knowledge into your pre-existing schema and let’s begin.

Center for Educational Neuroscience
Analogical Minds YouTube Channel

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When you reflect back on your most recent professional learning in-service days, what springs to mind? Rich educational experiences filled with meaningful learning? Or cringey icebreakers, one-size-fits-all lectures, and flavor-of-the-month fluff? Based on the research shared in this episode, the vast majority of teachers lean towards the latter. This is a problem that Chris McNutt and Nick Covington, former teachers and current directors of the educational non-profit Human Restoration Project know too well. That’s why are developing ways to do professional learning WITH educators and not to them.

In this episode, we’ll hear more about HRP’s mission to inform, guide, and grow more humanizing educational systems. More specifically, we’ll be deep-diving into ways they design and provide purpose-driven professional growth opportunities inside and outside of school.

https://www.humanrestorationproject.org/

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 Picture this: A group of passionate fans is huddled around their devices. Their favorite outlet has just dropped the latest response to a hotly contested article that has divided their community. As the group reads through, they debate, discuss, inquire, and post in their chosen social network. They make reference to other similar works, cite compelling evidence, and have different perspectives on the future direction of their community. Now, what kind of community did you have in mind during this scene? Were you imagining a group of teens debating the latest controversy from The Real Housewives or Keeping Up With the Kardashians? Or what about a group of literary scholars discussing a new interpretation that challenges the consensus on a canonical texts? What if it was referring to both? That might surprise you, but it’s an overlap that’s incredibly familiar to our guest this week—Assistant Professor of ELA Education and SUNY Empire State College, Dr. Karis Jones. Dr. Jones is a self-styled acafan activist studying the interpretive and discursive practices that happen in fandom spaces. Like me, she believes this broadening of how we conceptualize literacy can have transformative implications for how we frame and teach the discipline. So, whether you’re a literary scholar, Marvel Movie fan, or K-Pop enthusiast, this episode has much to offer. Enjoy!

Follow Karis on Twitter
Check out her website here

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What comes to mind when you hear the word YouTube? Depending on your age and level of “online-ness” it might be anything from cat videos, to videogame steams, to TedTalks. But what about sociology? Philosophy? Cultural studies and critical theory? What if I told you were are enthusiasts, graduate students, and tenured professors producing accessible and insightful video essays with all the intellectual heft of a published journal article? And that they’re getting hundreds of thousands of views? That’s what today’s episode is all about–finding the intersection between scholarly pursuits, multimodal composition, and the wild west of web 2.0. Joining me on this conversational adventure is one of my personal favorite YouTubers, the man, the myth–F.D Signifier. A teacher and ABD sociology student turned YouTuber, F.D has north of 350 thousand subscribers and 12 MILLION views. For those of you who aren’t hip to YouTube–that is A LOT. Enough that producing video essays and digital content is now his full-time gig. Luckily for us, he was generous enough to stop by and share how he leverages his training as a social scientist to create accessible, nuanced, and seriously entertainment videos exploring topics ranging from Black Masculinity to Bridgerton. Whether you’re a zealous believer in critical media literacy or a reticent skeptic, this conversation has so much to offer. F.D’s has an inspirational level of commitment to his craft, but also doesn’t shy away from sharing the potential pitfalls of micro-celebrity and cultural analysis as edutainment. Get ready to like/comment/subscribe… and enjoy this episode.

F.D's YouTube Channel

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