The discourse presented herein delves into the imperative of humanizing educational environments, as articulated by Dr. Janice Gobert, a distinguished professor at Rutgers University and the lead visionary behind the Inquiry Intelligent Tutoring System. Central to our dialogue is the assertion that the future of education is contingent upon the cultivation of hope and the creation of inclusive spaces where every student is empowered to realize their fullest potential. We emphasize the necessity of fostering environments that not only recognize but celebrate the diverse identities of students, thereby nurturing their creativity and equipping them to engage meaningfully with an ever-evolving world. Throughout this episode, we explore the intersection of technology and pedagogy, advocating for an approach that prioritizes ethical considerations and the holistic development of learners. Our conversation ultimately seeks to inspire educators to transcend traditional paradigms and embrace innovative practices that genuinely serve the needs of all students.

Additional Notes

The insightful discussion with Dr. Janice Gobert illuminates the critical need for a paradigm shift in education, advocating for a model that is fundamentally human-centered. As a leading figure in Educational Psychology, Dr. Gobert articulates a vision of schools as nurturing environments where hope is cultivated, and every student's potential is recognized and supported. Central to her philosophy is the Inquiry Intelligent Tutoring System, which exemplifies how technological advancements can be harnessed to facilitate personalized and meaningful learning experiences. This system not only supports educators in understanding the intricacies of student learning but also empowers students by making learning more accessible and engaging.

Moreover, the conversation delves deeply into the ethical considerations surrounding the use of artificial intelligence in education. Dr. Gobert stresses the importance of preserving the human element in the learning process, advocating for a balanced approach that integrates technology while prioritizing student welfare. The dialogue addresses the challenges educators face in implementing AI-driven tools, particularly in diverse and underserved contexts, highlighting the necessity of co-designing solutions that reflect the realities and needs of all learners.

This engaging dialogue underscores the imperative for educational systems to evolve in ways that foster dignity, agency, and belonging for every student. By focusing on humanization and the cultivation of hope, we can create educational environments that are not only innovative but also deeply inclusive and supportive. Dr. Gobert's insights serve as a powerful reminder of the transformative potential of education when approached with empathy and a commitment to the holistic development of all learners.

Takeaways:

• The future of education necessitates a profound humanization of our schools to support student aspirations.
• We must cultivate hope within educational environments to ensure that all students can thrive.
• The design of future-ready educational systems should be deeply rooted in humanity and inclusivity.
• Educational ecosystems must be built around the diverse needs of all learners, ensuring equitable access to opportunities.

Learn More about Dr. Gobert's Work

InqITS (Inquiry Intelligent Tutoring System) is an online educational environment for science. InqITS puts students in control of their own learning by leading an authentic inquiry experience through their NGSS-aligned virtual labs. Check out their website: https://www.inqits.com/

Join The Wheelhouse Company!

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Inside Below Deck, you’ll find our special segment: The Wheelhouse: All Hands on Deck, extended content from today’s episode —where purpose meets possibility and learning stays joyful, collaborative, and deeply human.

Join us at LearnHarbor.thinkific.com and become part of this growing movement to build Future Ready Schools — where innovation is always rooted in humanity.

Until Next Time Remember: Keep your doors open and your hearts even wider.

It's part two of our conversation with Dr. Janice Gobert, professor of Educational Psychology and Learning Services at Rutgers University and the lead visionary on Inquiry Intelligent Tutoring System, a virtual learning and assessment platform for science.

There's so much to talk about.

The future of education depends on a radical humanization of schools.

Places where hope is cultivated and opportunities are opened and innovation is harnessed to serve humanity.

Only then can we create futures worthy of each student's dreams.

We begin by cultivating hope.

We ensure possibilities are real and accessible.

We design futures rooted in humanity.

The future is already here, and it must be deeply human centered.

The Wheelhouse exists to create an inclusive community of empowered educators who believe that together we can disrupt the transactional nature of schooling and reimagine what it means to lead, learn, and belong.

We envision districts, schools and classrooms where every student feels confident, capable, optimistic, well supported, and emboldened to be and to become more who they're meant to be.

Each episode of the Wheelhouse explores the knowledge, practices and stories that bring this vision to life.

Our team, Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa and Dr. Alicia Monroe, alongside our guests, take on the fundamental challenge of realizing what we most want every student to experience in school.

Dignity, agency and belonging.

A future ready school prepares students to thrive by honoring their identities, nurturing their creativity, and equipping them to engage with a changing world from a place of strength and purpose.

In episode three, we had an amazing conversation with Dr. Janice Gobert.

And like all of our episodes this season, we recorded part two of that conversation for the Wheelhouse.

All Hands on Deck, our after show.

Today we're bringing you that conversation front and center so you can HEAR More from Dr. Gobert and you can get an idea of what we're offering in the Wheelhouse.

All hands on deck.

Dr. Janice Gobert is a cognitive scientist with 25 years of experience and she's the lead visionary on INQ, it's inquiry intelligent Tutoring System, a virtual learning and assessment platform for science.

She's a full professor of educational psychology and Learning services at Rutgers Graduate School of Education.

She's the lead inventor on three patents with Ink Its underlying algorithm and methodology, and she also holds three other patents for eye tracking technology.

She received an Innovation award for Ink Its from her alma mater, the University of Toronto.

You're listening to season 11, episode seven of the Wheelhouse.

Let's dive in.

Welcome to the Wheelhouse.

All Hands on Deck.

The space where we slow down, breathe and look beneath the surface of the conversation.

In this after show, we ask not Just what we heard, but what it means for our students, our schools, and for us as educators navigating this work of humanizing education.

I'm super excited to continue this conversation around AI and how we can actually ethically use AI in this realm of possibilities as we think about how to create future ready schools.

Innovation rooted in humanity.

Welcome back, everybody.

Hi.

What a great conversation, Janice.

My goodness, it just makes us want to continue to learn and dig in and all of these pieces.

But I really am hopeful that we can go even further into this let our hair down conversation of reality versus everything you described.

You know, so how, how do we ensure that, that humanity.

Is not being replaced?

I think that goes to the ecosystem.

I've been really, really quiet and I've been taking it all in.

As one who really designs ecosystems.

We have to look at the human resource frame.

And when Dr. Goldberg said the human in the loop, that's pivotal.

That's what either makes the system work.

Or the system fail.

And our customers are our students, our scholars, those who we serve.

So as Dr. Gobert was talking, I was like, okay, so build social capital, EI relationship building, capacity building for teachers where they feel secure enough to be able to read the data, translate the data, accept that their practice may not be as optimum as they think they are.

Self reflection, right?

And then use that to develop this rapport with Johnny, right?

So that we could cultivate hope, so Johnny could see that, man, I can do something great.

I love a good system, right?

But it's how do we build up the humans in the ecosystem to optimize AI machine learning element?

I could go on and on.

And actually these are conversations that I'm engaged in.

I'm like, I think a good system is great.

Right?

But where is the accountability and responsibility of the human?

And how do we meet halfway to optimize the learning and engagement experience for the students that we serve?

You know, I think a key.

You pointed out lots of things which are important to this.

I think you've sort of elicited in me the notion of you have to design, co design with teachers and students and so many curricular platforms, technology platforms, et cetera, were designed and are designed, continue to be designed without those stakeholders in mind.

And it's almost like they're building technology and building curricular curricula for the platonic ideal of a classroom.

You know, sometimes I hear, and you know, I have to say, I mean I'm, I'm an academic, right?

But sometimes I hear academics talk and I, and I Want to say to them, have you ever been in a classroom?

There it is.

There it is.

We've asked that question before.

When's the last time you were actually in the classroom?

Yes, yes.

You know, because they're thinking about the student who comes to school, who's got a lot of prior knowledge, who has a lot of social capital at home, who doesn't come to school hungry, who has all the private tutoring and everything else.

That is a fundamentally different student than the student who doesn't know where their next meal is coming from.

Right.

So one of the things that happened during COVID as you all know probably better than anybody, that students, many students who were having their breakfast and lunch at school weren't being fed.

So, you know, in some communities.

The kids were going to the library and getting a, getting a free lunch.

For example, I live in Montclair, New Jersey.

It's a, it's a wonderful community.

It's a very charitable community.

And we had, and we have this, I think, still in the summer, where kids can come ready, have a free lunch, local vendors are supplying the meals.

And this happened during, during COVID to my knowledge as well.

And some companies were also funding, you know, if the, if the parents, the parents could drive by and pick up the lunch for the student.

And you know, this is, this is really important too.

Right.

Because all learners don't come to us with the same social capital.

And that's really, I think, you know, in some cases, the best predictor, which is that's not the way it should be.

Right.

That's not the way it should be.

So if you have, if you have a system that's more oriented around humanity and recognizing that, that kids are bringing different things to the table and still able to assess where they're strong and tell them where they might not be getting that motivation from home, they might not be getting that, that one on one at home and say, hey, you did a really good job at this.

Sometimes they're practically falling off their chair.

They can't believe it.

They're like, you know, in our experience of multiple years working with kids one on one, sometimes they'd even want to skip their basketball game, come back to our lab, be like, hey, I thought you had a game.

They're like, oh, no, we wanted to come, we wanted to come and, you.

Know, and do this work, relationships.

Wow.

Comes down to, you know, and, and how do we ensure that there's a, a balance of not putting adult needs over student needs, you know, so all of these things that are happening and ensuring that we're supporting and we're not taking those.

Those adults and the supports that are ne.

Too many times, it's.

Well, the adults can't do.

Or they.

We put those over the needs of students who have no control over the environments in which they're living.

They don't choose that.

They don't decide that.

You know, so when we make decisions, it's about the humanity.

It's not about, well, too bad.

You know, they would if they could, but they can't, so they won't.

It's on them, you know, and that's.

That's my.

That greater fear that, honestly I have, that then we're just gonna put tools, we're gonna supplant, and then more and more students are gonna fall, and those that are the most tend to be the most vulnerable.

We're talking about ethics here.

We're talking about ethics, and we can talk about ethics with or without technology, because those same teachers are just as unethical.

Yes.

Whether we put a device or a platform in their hands or not.

Right.

It's about the ethics.

As I was listening to.

Janice, I love hearing you talk about this topic.

I love hearing what you're doing.

And what I love about it is a first.

You make it sound really easy to understand.

So.

You know your stuff.

Right.

But as you think about, you have done all of this work with students and with teachers and with an equity lens.

It's obvious in listening to you talk, right.

That that's where you are.

And yet so many of our teachers.

I'm working with a couple of districts now, and they're still fighting over cell phones.

Right.

I'm like, oh, my gosh, we're so far away.

Right?

So, I mean, if we're still struggling with how do we help kids ethically use a cell phone in class?

Really?

Right.

And you were spending millions of dollars buying plastic bags to put them in so that we restricted children from using technology to learn.

And you think about.

How.

What you're doing and you're helping create these ethical ecosystems where teachers with ethics themselves have to figure out how to use these amazing tools that are created.

And they also have to figure out what's a good tool and what isn't a good tool, because there are lots of tools, as you talked about this unsupervised.

These unsupervised algorithms.

I mean, those are dangerous.

Well, we've been in all 50 states.

Our platform is actually used.

It has been used in 94 countries and in all 50 states.

So we have the full kind of gamut.

You can't design for the platonic ideal, right?

You have to design for the kids who need it most.

So little known fact, I was also trained as a school psychologist and worked for over a year in a, in a setting where kids were not in resource classrooms, they were actually separate, they weren't even mainstreamed and working in assessment.

So this is kind of deep to my core, right?

Understanding the needs of these different learners.

But you raise a good point because if teachers are working in, in schools, which many, many are, that are underserved in and working with populations where the kids are just dealing with a whole swath of issues, the tools that they need are potentially different tools, not entirely different tools, but you know, they need to be able to get the information.

About an individual student in order to best support that student.

And if you're only designing a student for the quote unquote high flyers, it's not going to capture what, you know, a student might need who comes from a very different background with a lower prior knowledge, lower social capital, etc.

So that's why, you know, you build your AI on a diverse, diverse set of learners and you, you cross validate using a held out test set and you make sure that you're doing this iteratively, that your, your algorithms are not being biased towards certain learners.

Right?

That's really, I think that's really the, the way in which we can try to mitigate bias.

I don't think anybody can say for certain that their algorithms are, are completely unbiased.

I believe that mine are.

However, you know, if you said, are you 100% sure?

I don't know that I, we can be 100% sure.

Um, but we have certainly done our best to do so, so that those teachers, as you say, who are operating with so many more, so many more hurdles, have what they need to support those learners, right?

Like the co, co teacher functionality.

That's fantastic.

Assuming they have a co teacher, right?

If they have a co teacher, they have the co teacher functionality, right?

To do differentiated instruction.

So if you have a class of 50, and let's face it, in the United States some of the ratios are really problematic.

But you, you have the technology that's giving you the data, you can see.

And, and during COVID teachers used our stuff in such creative ways, they would literally put kids in breakout rooms and say, okay, I know this, these kids are having trouble forming a testable question.

I'm going to put them in this breakout group.

And these kids are having trouble collecting data that's, you know, controlled data.

I'm going to put them in this breakout room.

And we didn't come up with this idea.

Teachers came up with this idea and then they were going from breakout room to breakout room, helping the kids and also moving kids.

So like, hey, now you really know, figured out how to do this.

Teach the kids in your group, tell them how you, how you do this, tell them how to do it and execute it in, in the way that you need.

They need to.

Right.

So teachers were using the technology in such creative ways and we would not have come up with that idea.

I don't think like they, you know, you have to leverage what they know about educating students because we're not classroom teachers.

I've not been a classroom teacher.

I, I, I'm completely honest about that.

I've spent my whole career building software for students and now teachers, but I've never been a teacher.

But I've been in classrooms like constantly.

I've been in classrooms all the time and you know, run a tutoring center, as I said, for this after school program.

But you know, building that technology, as Alicia says, for the ecosystem and ecosystems that are not just the quote unquote, high flyers.

Right.

Because those kids are going to learn no matter what.

They're going to learn no matter what.

I care, and I think we all care obviously about the kids who's going to fall behind.

And we know that we close the achievement gap.

And any strategy training tool can't be about the best and the brightest kids.

You know, post Sputnik, we're trying to develop a scientifically literate base of the population.

So even if they never go into science as a STEM major or they don't become a scientist or an engineer, you want them to be able to pick up the paper and say, gee, should I get vaccinated?

Should I have my house tested for radon?

Should I have genetic counseling?

And you need them to be scientifically literate where they can interpret that data.

Right.

And so we design with that in mind as well.

What is the goal?

Not just to build all the future scientists and engineers and the best and the brightest, because we've not had that philosophy of learning since, you know, since post Sputnik, really.

So before we move on, and I know we're getting ready to close out, Michael, I want to respond as well.

Culturally responsive teaching is not the responsibility of machine learning or AI or technology based curriculum.

It's the responsibility of the educator in the classroom.

So Whether it's black and brown, a student that is.

Challenged with the identity, somebody who is impoverished, somebody who is neurodiverse.

Right.

I could go on and on.

Whatever intersections those beautiful scholars possess, there is that human relationship, that human in the loop that must prevail.

So if we're talking about moral and ethical imperatives, we have to look at our own practices first.

Do we know the curriculum?

Do we know how to unpack it?

Do we know how that aligns with the technology piece that we're using to supplement excellent education and instruction and engagement going on in the classroom?

Can't have one without the other.

So I want to leave with asking Dr. Gobert one last question and then we'll wrap up this after show.

So we know I could listen to you talk about this for like on and on and on.

Hopefully you'll be willing to come back in a future episode and talk more about this.

But you know, I also work with so many districts where they are afraid.

Teachers are afraid and resistive to this technology.

Right.

And I don't, you know, and of course I don't understand why they should be like, well, come on, let's go.

Right, let's go.

So could you.

Because you know so much more about this than I do.

For a teacher, for a district, for leaders who are afraid of this technology, what do you want them to know?

Like, how do you, what, what's the first thing that you would tell a group of educators who were resistive to this kind of technology?

How would you, how would you lure them to, to this work?

What would you say to them?

I would say, give it a try.

We do offer free trials, by the way, and we look at that, those data points and go over the data and show educators what they're able to know with a system like mine that they could not know any other way, right?

The student who is good at this part, but not this part, right?

In this very fine grained way.

Students who are really good at the doing of science, but not good at the communicating about science.

So teachers who are typically using a lab report, those kids are going to fall behind.

Like if English isn't their first language, for example, or they're going to be assessed as, as not knowing as much as they do.

So I would say give it a try.

Don't be intimidated by it.

Give it a try.

Give, you know, give us a call, we'll help you out.

We have many training videos, we have many webinars that we offer and walk teachers through how to use the system.

And the other thing is, is that I think it's kind of buyer beware.

Like, you should know.

And I.

And this is part of the European ethic around transparency.

You should know how those algorithms are built and like, to a certain level of description, transparency has to be key and you should know kind of how to leverage the system in order to make actionable decisions.

Right.

And, you know, software that's, that's worthwhile should be transparent, should tell you what practices are being scored kind of what are the sub competencies of those practices?

Because it doesn't help a teacher to say, 90% of your class doesn't know how to form a testable question.

Well, what are they going to do with that?

Right.

The software has to say, you know what?

90% of your class doesn't know how to form a testable question because they don't understand the difference between an independent and dependent variable.

Here's some vetted, empirically tested conversational conversation starters that we call tips.

Here's how you can stop the class and start the conversation.

And this has been really rich.

Like, teachers have sent us emails, called us, and said, you changed my life.

Kids were collecting all this confounded data.

I stopped the class.

I got an alert that 80% of kids were changing too many variables at once.

I stopped the class.

I put somebody's data up, and I had a whole class discussion about how can we interpret this data.

And as a class, we came to the conclusion that you actually have to target your variable that you said you were going to target and keep the rest the same and then run iterative trials so that you can determine the effects of X on Y.

And teachers have said things like, this was the most powerful instructional moment of my life.

And I'm like, wow, you know, I built.

You know, I spent most of my career building software for kids.

No kids, including my own three have said, you changed my life.

But, teacher, you changed my life.

And I'm like, yes, I'll build teacher tools till the cows come home.

What a great example of science literacy in that moment.

Because we can't do that on our own.

That level of understanding, that depth of understanding, to be able to tear it apart and think about all those pieces for 35 kids all at once.

We cannot, no matter how smart we think we are, we can't do that on our own.

Right.

We had a teacher who, you know, was a master's in chemistry.

Her name's Nancy Foote.

I'll give her a shout out from Arizona.

She's now retired but she said, I thought kids didn't know how to interpret data.

And I thought that for 30 years until I used your system.

And I realized that kids, many kids, don't know how to collect unconfounded data.

So she said, I always thought the problem was they couldn't interpret it, but in fact many of them couldn't collect unconfounded data.

And we know that even adults who are not trained in science don't actually know how to collect unconfounded data.

So how are they ever going to interpret it?

How are they going to warrant their claims?

How are they going to do the mathematics?

How are they going to write a claim evidence reasoning statement if their data are all confounded?

Right.

It's a lost learning opportunity.

So it's important that teachers get this actionable information in order to stop the class.

And kids are kind of, you know, they're shooting around in the dark if they're not getting real time feedback and then they're looking at their data going, I can't make heads or tails of this.

I must be dumb.

I must not be as smart as, you know, Susie down the row here who seems to be finished the lab already, right?

And so this is just a game changer for students.

And they're like, oh, wait a second, I have to.

And we discovered this, by the way, working one on one in the after school program where I could see a kid.

And this is where educators know so much about the kid, right?

I could see the kid, he's like struggling in his chair and he's fidgeting and I go, he's stuck.

So I go over to him and I say, hey, what's going on?

And he goes, it's asking me, you know, what my data is telling me.

And I'm looking at it and I see he's collected all this confounded data.

And I say, so, so what does it tell you?

And he goes, well, that's the thing, I, I, I don't know.

And I said, well, why is that?

And he said, well, here I change this and this, and then there I change that and that, and there I change this, this and this.

So we have this conversation and I'm trying to put down the smallest breadcrumb because I want him to come up with the strategy that he has to vary only the variable that he said he was going to test and keep the rest the same.

We have this conversation, it lasts 45 minutes.

He says to me, all of a sudden I have an idea.

I go, what?

He goes, I'm going to go back and I'm just going to change my independent variable.

I'm going to change it and I'm going to keep the other variables the same and I'm going to run a bunch of trials.

What do you think I said that sounds.

He figured it out and that that was a game changer for that kid.

Right?

He's like, oh my God.

Rather than me tell him.

Right.

And that's what our system does.

It doesn't tell them.

It gives them these little breadcrumbs.

And kids who are used to technology that just gives them the answer.

They're like, I'm just going to click down, get the answer and get out the door, get back to Facebook or whatever as quickly as possible.

And we've had teachers go, oh my God, the kids are complaining about the AI tutor.

And I said, tell them that the AI tutor is there to help them and if they follow the hints that the AI tutor is giving them, they'll eventually figure out how to do this on their own.

And even simply teachers saying that to students is a game changer because they're like, oh, wait a second, you know, so I, I really think that the sooner we get back to school as a place where you go to learn things, right?

Yes, you need, you need lots of things in schools, but you really need students to have the kind of epistemic agency and want to real want to develop those critical reasoning skills.

Because otherwise they won't.

If they're just clicking and getting what's called the bottom out hint and doing no reflection and doing no kind of internal thinking about that, they're not learning anything.

They're just clicking through.

And this is why technology gets a bad name.

And deservedly.

Right?

Deservedly.

If you're going to give a bottom out hint, they're going to use it.

Right?

Thank you so much.

This brings us to the end of the wheelhouse.

All hands on deck.

We look forward to engaging in conversation with you, Dr. Janice Gobert.

I hope you will come back again and talk to us some more about this.

This has been a fant.

We'll see you next week in the wheelhouse.

Pause.

1, 2, 3, 4.

Ready for the after show.

Welcome to Below Deck.

Sorry, that's not right.

I got to do a commercial too.

I forgot to mention, I forgot to mention that.

So we're going to go three, two, one.

I'm going to try to do this.

Yes.

If you'd like to hear more of this amazing conversation, then we have a second part or an after show called the wheelhouse.

All hands on deck.

Only available at Learn harbor.

So join us in the wheelhouse below deck@learnharbor.thinkific.com.

This is the wheelhouse.

All hands on deck.

Where reflection fuels direction and our shared humanity remains the true north of everything we do.

Until next time, Remember, keep your doors open and your hearts even wider.

Sam.