Revolutionizing Education: Insights With The AI Educator, Dan Fitzpatrick, pt. 1 

Full Transcript

Dr. Emma Zone:

AI is here to stay. So how can we innovate in a way that matters to educators and students? This episode is all about shedding some light on AI in the classroom. Through our guest’s lens of ethics, philosophy, and design thinking, we’ll explore the latest big ideas of AI in education, and provide some actionable and practical takeaways.

Audio:

Welcome to Teach and Learn, a podcast for curious educators brought to you by D2L. Each week, we’ll meet some of the sharpest minds in the K-to-20 space. Sharpen your pencils, class is about to begin.

Dr. Emma Zone:

I am thrilled to introduce an authority and thought leader in the artificial intelligence and education space. He’s an international keynote speaker, bestselling author, podcast host, and I am a loyal listener to his podcast, and an award-winning digital and educational strategist who works with schools, colleges, and businesses across the globe.

Welcome to Teach and Learn, the AI Educator Dan Fitzpatrick. So happy to have you here.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Thank you for having me, Emma. It’s great to be with you and to connect with you across the Atlantic. I’m here in the Northeast of England. If my accent doesn’t sound like a traditional English accent, that’s because it tends to be a bit harsher the more north you get.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Love it. Well, we’re a global company. We have welcomed all voices from across the globe. So happy that you’re here. Like I said, I first found you on LinkedIn and have been an avid now follower of your work. When I said to our team, “I really want to try to have a conversation with Dan,” so it’s always great when this comes full-circle. Thanks again for agreeing to be with us today and to have a little chat.

Before we move into AI in education though, I’m big on understanding people’s origin stories and how you got to where you are now. From what I understand, one day you’re a high school teacher, I’m a former high school English teacher, so love that connection that we have. But what happened? What inspired you to take a pivot and lead you down this career path?

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Yeah, I was a high school teacher. I think I always tried to … I was one of these people, I think I’ve been this my whole life where I’ve always been a bit of a rebel. I’ve always wanted to go, “Okay, this is how we’re doing it, but can we do it another way? Is there a better way? Is there a way that’s going to make more sense?” I suppose I’ve always been in the pursuit of innovation, no matter what I’ve done really.

That started from a very grassroots way. I remember when I was training to be a teacher, of coming across Google Drive. Even just that, thinking, “My goodness, why isn’t everybody in the organization using this? It would mean we could share our content easily with our students.” Pursued a route of educational technology at first, especially cloud technology. And trying to, I suppose for want of a better term, to evangelize the teachers around me, and try to get us to work smarter and harder, and try to get us to think, “Well, how else can we do this? How can we do this better?”

That always took me down paths where I would always be doing projects outside of my job. Working with ed tech companies. Started a podcast a few years ago called Edufuturists with two great guys, Ben and Steve, also from the north of England, who are still doing it, still going strong.

Then, yeah, I guess I always wanted to write a book. I always had ideas, had ideas with friends. Sat down, planned them out, and just never got round to doing them really, and always admired those who could do it. Then I suppose, I was working, I’d become a leader in secondary education here in the UK and then moved into college education. Because I was really passionate about technology and there’s just not the money in secondary education in the UK to really, really go deep with technology, and experiment with it, and so on. I moved into college education, where there’s a bit more funding. Was working on digital strategy for a large group of colleges, and that’s when I first came across artificial intelligence in its current guise I guess, as generative artificial intelligence.

That meant, when ChatGPT came out, I wasn’t entirely surprised. I’d played around with earlier versions. Straight away thought, “This can help us, I know can help us, because I’ve been trying this.” I suppose, yeah, I just started sharing resources and got really passionate about, again, going back to the roots of who I am, I got really passionate about wanting to evangelize people. And go, “Have you seen this? Have you seen who cool this tool is? How it can help you time?” Then I suppose, those early first few weeks after ChatGPT came out, there wasn’t many educators doing that. I quickly found myself in demand very quickly for people wanting to know more. People asking, “Are you doing webinars,” and so on.

I decided to write a book, which was The AI Classroom, which came out in March 2023. Yeah, my life’s been a crazy whirlwind since then.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yeah.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

It’s been amazing. Like you said, I get to go around and talk to people around the world about this. I get to work with administration teams, leadership teams, and strategically integrate this. I get to write books. I write for Forbes now on AI and education. Yeah, that’s what’s happened the last couple of years, anyway.

Dr. Emma Zone:

I love that. We’ll get to the books, because I want to dive in on the differences among the books that you have out, as well as you talked about the Forbes pieces.

I’m chuckling. I can’t imagine, if you were excited about Google Drive, imagine how mind-blowing gen AI has been.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Yeah.

Dr. Emma Zone:

I love finding those little pockets of where the innovation is happening.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Yeah. To be honest, I think some people still need told about Google Drive, a lot of people. We’re going back over 15 years or so there. Yeah, I think when you step back and look at that, that journey, this is happening really fast, really fast.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yes.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Then that then brings out in me the strategic side of, “Well, how do we prepare for this?” I always frame things within what’s called the Three-Box Solution to innovation. It’s buy a guy called Vijay Govindarajan. I talked about this in my new book. The whole idea, and I realized I live my life by this as well, which sounds really sad, it’s a business strategy.

I love it because it’s about three boxes. It’s about what are you doing currently, what’s working for you, what successes are you trying to achieve, and what system have you got in place, what processes have you got. Then it recognizes that even though that might seem really stable and it might be working really well, but one day it might fall apart. It might become irrelevant. I suppose, a school might look and go, “Right, actually, is this the way education’s always going to be? It hasn’t always been like this.”

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yeah.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Also, the world around us is changing so fast. Chances are, it’s probably not always going to be like it now. Do we start to prepare for that?

I suppose you could take that into your own life as well and go, “Well, this is my day job, this is what I’m doing.” You might get laid off the next week. You might be made redundant. You might, God forbid, have an accident. Have you got anything else you’re working, any innovation in your life that you can build for yourself, I suppose? I’ve always lived like that.

Now, this is the root of the innovation strategy I use with schools and businesses now. Going, “Well, how do we move from box one to box three?” When box three is all about creating the future, creating something new, putting resources, and time, and effort into building something else. Then the middle box, box two is what might you have to let go of-

Dr. Emma Zone:

Wow.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

… in order to go from box one to box three?

Yeah, that seems to be the framing of my life and how I try to help school leaders understand innovation at the moment. I think it helps.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yeah, for sure. Do you consider that framework to be your greater vision for this work? To provide some type of schema or mental model for people to navigate these murky waters?

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Yeah, I think so. Because for me, that is strategy.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yeah.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

I know strategy has become a buzzword and it can mean so many things.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Right.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

I think what most people, judging by what I see on LinkedIn and in reading in books, I think most people when they say strategy, they mean the plan. I suppose you can have a strategic plan, but that plan must be linked to a strategy and a plan isn’t a strategy. I think a strategy is something like that box three solution. Of going, “Right. Well, here’s where we are, this is where we want to be. What is the route to get there?” Then the next level down is you go, “Right. What’s the current plan?”

I often think about this. My dad, when I was younger, whenever I was faced with a challenge, I remember he always used to say to me … By the way, I always used to think this was a thing. As I got older, I started to say this to people and they’re like, “What? I’ve never heard that before.” You know when your parents say things to you as you’re growing up and you just think it’s a normal thing. Then you start verbalizing and you realize, no, it was just your parents. What my dad used to say to me, “If you ever come up against a challenge, if you ever come up against a wall that you need to get over and it looks impossible to get over,” he said, “Well, take your hat off and throw it over the wall.” He said, “Then, if you want your hat back, you’ve got no choice but to find a way over the wall.”

For me, that is strategy, that is the three-box solution in action. Because you go, “This is where we are.” Now we need to go, “Well, where do we want to be?” Now the route there might change. We might come up with a lovely plan. Sit down in a boardroom, we all chip into it, we get AI to help us, we turn it into a PDF. We’ve got a roadmap, we’ve got everything, all of this lovely stuff. It goes on the school website, or whatever. But actually, this time next month or this time next year, that plan might not work anymore because the technology’s gone really fast, because some government regulation’s just come in which means that we can go down that route anymore, the technology isn’t going as fast as we expected, and so on.

The plan can adapt. Just like I can stop climbing over that wall and go, “Actually, I’m not going to get over the wall going this way, this is not going to work.” I need to climb back down and try another route. The strategy is exactly the same, but I’ve got the flexibility to try and figure out different ways, and I acknowledge that I might be failing and go back to square one, and so on.

Yeah, I think as a simple, strategic framework, I think it works really well. For me, it addresses a lot of what we need to do because it’s not about just jumping from box one to box three. It’s about I think good leadership holds both in harmony. Because you can’t just give up everything you’re doing now, because then you’ll not have a business, or a school, or a life to come back to.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Right.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

You need to manage that. But while managing that, you need to balance, I think, weaving the future and trying to figure out this future of how we’re going to get over the wall. Then bringing everyone with us, and figuring out what might we have to give up in order to get there.

Yeah, I love it. I think I like it because it’s simple. I think simple ideas travel. I’m a simple person, so it’s great for me as well.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yeah. Well, when we talk about … I want to get to the multidisciplinary approach that you’ve taken with a lot of this work, also. But as I hear you talking about letting things go and creating that schema, whether you’re a school leader, a classroom teacher, the notion transcends your position in the system as well, which I think is also welcome. Because as you’ve mentioned, with the fast, rapid pace of these changes, when I think about, as a former classroom teacher, my day-to-day plus this meta world around me of this ever-changing technological landscape, certainly appreciate having that three-box mindset to think through. We take this day-by-day, and yes there’s a greater strategy, but there’s more to it than that.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Emma Zone:

I would love to hear some of the … We’re going to get into some of practical pieces. You have this really interesting multidisciplinary lens that you bring to this work. Can you talk a little bit about how you’ve seen educators in particular? I know there’s the school leader piece, but those who are working with this day in, day out, how have they been adapting? Have they been, or are they struggling? What is the reality of what you’re seeing with the current landscape of AI in education?

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Absolutely. I think, again, to put it in that framework, I think on the ground, our teachers and our educators on the ground, I think we’re operating in box one. We’re doing what we know how to do, we know what we’ve been trained to do, the current systems, the current success rates and metrics, and so on. Innovation happens in that box.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yeah.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

But it’s a linear innovation. It’s about going, “Well, where do I need to get to?” The framework, the system isn’t changing. But, “Can I get there faster? Can I get there more efficiently?” I think this is where we’re seeing AI plug in quite easily at the moment, into the day-to-day practices of a teacher.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yeah.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

You see that. You see it in the marketing activities of ed tech products. You see it in case studies. The people saying, teachers saying, “Well, this is saving me three hours worth of time a week,” and so on. I think that’s where the benefits are coming from at the moment. It’s allowing teachers to get some time back because of the, I suppose, the ease of resource creation. The ease of being able to ask an AI for ideas, and bounce ideas off it, and do some idea generation. The ability for people to even just basic admin things, like write reports, write emails.

I think it’s the low-hanging fruit I think, when it comes to artificial intelligence. But we need it. Educators need it. We’ve seen a crisis. I’m looking, I get to work in education systems around the world, and pretty much every education system apart from Finland at the moment is going through exactly the same troubles in terms of lack of finance, lack of staff, staff retention, and so on.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Burnout.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Yeah. Exactly, yeah. I think, my goodness, we need it.

I think that it’s a mixed bag. I think I probably live in a bubble when it comes to this stuff, because-

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yeah.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

… I get asked to go into the schools who want to learn about it. I get asked to go into the schools where they are already starting to develop their skills.

But I think what we’re seeing at the moment is, for the most part, we’re seeing individuals using AI. There’s still a lot lack of training out there. There was a study done by Twinkl about a month ago. I think it said 74%, and this is in the United States and in the UK, 74% said they hadn’t received any sufficient training in artificial intelligence. That’s a quarter that have, which I suppose is a good sign. But I think what we’re seeing at the minute is just individual users.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Sure.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

I suppose those innovators, teachers who are into ed tech, who like ed tech, or a friend has shown them, or they might have a spouse who works in AI or uses AI and has showed them some things. I think that’s what we’re seeing at the moment.

I suppose it’s the early days, isn’t it? It’s how a new technology starts to infiltrate a society, in that we start getting those first users, with some schools starting to go off ahead.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Sure.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Mainly, in my experience, private, independent schools who’ve got a bit more resource, got a bit more cash to spend, and teacher time on their hands that are pushing down the line. But yeah, I think we’re still in the early days there.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, I’m hearing also, as you’re describing those individual use cases and it’s similar to what I’m hearing in the field, whether you’re talking higher education or our K-12 educators, around those who are tinkering. We just are working through some research right now through the Online Learning Consortium and this has come out on the student side as well, around tinkering or using it as a way to save time and create efficiency. I think that’s a common thread.

What I’m curious about though, as we’re thinking about the tension of maybe some of the historic education systems that we have in place being a barrier to really scaling this work, especially as I think about what learners are going to need in the future related to these skills. What is that tipping point? What’s the vision of how we get there? I get the training side of it. But as you’re doing these keynotes and people are invited you in, how do we move from that, not one-off, it’s more than a one-off, but those individual use cases, to really thinking about this from an systematic design perspective?

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Yeah. I think there’s two camps here. That is, the first one, and it all comes back to the three boxes for me. But it comes back to that first box, in that I am seeing a lot more traditional schools in the UK, we got a lot more traditional-style schools heavily influenced by a lot of educational philosophy coming out of the United States over the last 20 years, in terms of teach like a champion, and so on. Taking those teaching practices and distilling them down into the essence, and then trying to replicate them to get results.

I worked in high schools that were like that, that focused really, really strongly on getting students the best grades that they possibly could get because that’s how they could help with social mobility, in terms of making sure students had the best opportunities. I think by doing that, I think we’ve missed the other side of the coin, and I think that comes back to what you were saying, in terms of preparing students for afterwards.

It’s interesting. I’m just taking out some new life insurance because I’m moving house soon, and the insurance company sent a nurse around to my house this morning to do a medical thing for the insurance. Actually, she does this work on the side and her main job is she’s a nursing lecturer at a local university. We were talking about AI in my living room. She was say she teaches new nurses, lectures at a university for new nurses. Even she was saying they’re learning the information, but they have very little communication skills, interpersonal skills, the ability to work closely with another human being.

I remember when I was in secondary schools years ago, I used to look after careers education as one of my leadership jobs. I remember local business people saying something similar. I believe that this isn’t something that has just appeared because of AI. I think this is something that I think the education system as a whole has been struggling with for a while now. That is how do we make sure that we’re not just filling minds with information, but we’re helping to form healthy, competent human beings? Because, okay, we might be giving them the grade to get that interview, or giving them the grade to get into university, however once they’re there, on day two, they don’t have any skills to be able to then … That’s a broad, sweeping statement, I know it is.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Sure.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

I think some of the education system has neglected that side of things. I think AI does actually shine a bit of a light on it now, because if the core of education or if your whole core philosophy of education has been to get information into the minds of people, well, we now live in a world with advanced computers that can think intellectually. They’re probably quite close now already, and within the next couple of years, I imagine, will surpass us at that ability.

Now when I say that, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t learn anything because the computers know everything. Of course, we still need to learn. We need to build skills. But I think we need to start to look at what could we pull back? Why does six hours a day, constantly every single day, have to be about learn this information, now learning that information, learn that information? Why can’t we pull back and look at some of the more wider skills, some of the more what we call softer skills, I guess? I think some of that will be how we use artificial intelligence.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yeah.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

I often say to people, if I was employing someone and I had two people. One of them was a straight-A student, perfectly the most academic student, great grades. And I had somebody who was a C-student, but knew how to use AI really well. I’m going with the C-student every day, every single day, because what they’re able to do in terms of collaborating with artificial intelligence and how much more there will be to do just by default as the AI gets better is going to be much more than just this other human being that has just learned things and tried to pack as much learning as possible.

I think it’s a state of where we’re at at the minute. That when I talk like this, I think some people … I’ve been on panels at conferences and said similar things. Some people take offense, or they get quite-

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yeah, they probably get nervous, right?

Dan Fitzpatrick:

Yeah. Some people go, “Oh, well, you’re just trying to throw out knowledge in favor of skills.” Then you get the skills versus knowledge argument. You get the traditional versus progressive argument. Actually, it’s a straw man argument. I understand pedagogy, I’ve trained in it. I know that we need knowledge, I know that knowledge is the building blocks to skills, I know all of that. But what I am saying is don’t just focus on that.

I think it’s going to be interesting I think, because I think we’re going to see a lot more schools and we’re going to see a lot more startup schools. The fastest growing school in the UK at the moment is an online school, a company that was just formed during COVID. It’s essentially a business that started … This guy, I know the guy really well, a guy called Hugh started a school and has grown it from strength to strength. I think we’re going to start seeing other educational entrepreneurs think, “Actually, why don’t we make this type of school, or this type of school?” I think there’s going to be a lot more choice for parents, choice for students going forward. I think it’s going to be an interesting time.

I say in my new book, I think we’ll probably see the decentralization of education. We’re seeing that phenomena in finance. There’s a big push in medical care at the moment for decentralization. I think we’ll start to see it in education. I suppose you don’t need to tell me, I suppose you guys in the United States try not to get political here, but you guys in the United States are, I suppose with what your political system at the minute is doing with the federal Department for Education, you might be there a lot sooner because of the political situation. Not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing, because I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing to be honest. But I think it’s probably the phenomena that we’re going to say. Therefore, state schools and regular schools I guess, for want of a better term, are going to start seeing more competition I think.

Dr. Emma Zone:

Yeah.

Dan Fitzpatrick:

I think it’s that crunch.

Dr. Emma Zone:

You’re talking about different choice around the innovation piece, too.

We’ll continue this conversation with Dan Fitzpatrick, the AI educator, on the next episode of Teach and Learn. Until then, remember to look for us on social media. You can find us on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook @D2L. And subscribe to the D2L YouTube channel. You can also sign up for the Teaching and Learning Studio email list for the latest updates on new episodes, articles, and master classes. And if you like what you heard, remember to rate, review, and share this episode. And remember to subscribe, so you never miss a thing. Bye for now.

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Resources Discussed in the Episode

• The AI Educator
• The Three Box Solution
• Forbes | Dan Fitzpatrick
• AI in Education Daily