RESOURCES:
Ypsilanti Community High School
TRANSCRIPTION:
Caroline MacGregor: This is 89.1 WEMU, I'm Caroline McGregor, and I'm talking today with Dr. Carlos Lopez, the Assistant Superintendent of Ypsilanti Community Schools. Thank you for joining me today!
Dr. Carlos Lopez: Well, thank you for having me here!
Caroline MacGregor: We're talking about a new initiative at YCS, the AI Ambassadors program, which turns the tables a bit, so to speak, by allowing students to basically train their teachers about AI tools in the classroom. And this stems from the addition of your new AI lab just a few months ago at Ypsilanti Community High School. It was recognized as the first HP AI Spotlight School in the country, which is really quite an honor!
Dr. Carlos Lopez: Oh, yes, it is! And it's timely, though. You know, since ChatGPT got rolled out, one of the biggest pieces from us here at Ypsilanti is to ensure that every student and our staff are really at the cutting edge of AI technology. Caroline, one thing is 90% of my job now is all AI. And if people are not utilizing AI, it would be kind of crazy, because it just provides you the opportunity to give your quality of life back and also just the whole perspective that there's a lot that you could do from securing grants to do all kinds of initiatives that really can help you to move forward. And I'll tell you, the relationship I find through AI, I'm smarter than I've ever been before. I'm learning things that I would have never explored. And I had like a hybrid relationship. Remember when the laptops came up to be? And I don't like anybody touching my laptop because it's part of the brain kind of thing. AI is just a tool, but it's a great thought partner that allows us to really venture in that direction. Now, if I'm having that fun at 65, I want young people to be in this world no different than I am. And so, the goal for us here at Ypsilanti was that, "Hey, we want to create that space." When our superintendent, Alena Zachery-Ross and myself spent a lot of time together with our executive team and our teachers and whatever, we got in a deep conversation when we saw AI and the potential that, hey, this will leverage the playing field. I mean, the opportunities I enlisted. I was in one of our classrooms the other day, and you walk in and you see the students using not only Con Amigo, but another AI too. All these were English language learners. And to see students at high levels of algebra one, just the discussion, the richness, using Con Amigo, it was just impressive as heck, right? One of the biggest piece that was awarded to us, as you know, is that AI HP Lab as being a spotlight. One of the biggest things that I like about digital promise is that I've been able to go to a number of visiting schools throughout the nation. And our superintendent just came back from Uruguay, where they had the opportunity to see a country that utilizes AI in very different ways incorporated. So, the biggest thing for us is being in this world of learning with co-partners and people who are not fearful about AI but are using AI for creativity. You know, one of the biggest things this year, Caroline, that we did here at Ypsi, we spent a year working with our community of students, our families, et cetera, to identify that portrait of a graduate here for YCS. And what came from the community and the partners here was they want our students to graduate and being lead learners, reflective thinkers, creative innovators, adaptive collaborators, and future-ready designers. And to do that, we have to think differently. We have to create from that space of curiosity. We are in this district reconnecting with play and how play at every level, from elementary to secondary, really promotes that experiential learning that needs to be taking place. Because sometimes, we think everything is one way for all these innovations. But on the other hand, how do we tie the human side of AI, which means that we want students to sometimes close the laptop, put the cell phone aside, so they can connect with Earth and nature because that provides mental health and also connect with each other. How do we find that common balance in our classrooms that allow for that? That's where our AI Youth Ambassadors came on with I thought about, as I was talking to young people, I realized, "Hey, they're the natives in this AI world, and they're really enjoying this." So, time has passed a little bit too aggressive this year, Caroline, and I decided to go slow to go fast because I want to roll the program out more in the fall. I want make sure that we use the summer to develop young people in AI tools. In this district, we use like 30, 40 different AI tools that are used with fluidity. But then, I'm trying to figure out how do we continue to innovate utilizing other AI tools. I believe in students as leaders of their own learning. I want to have a delegation of 50 to 100 students that are accessible to go into the classroom to support the younger students and also to support teachers who themselves may be in that transition of embracing AI. Listen, if I can learn, Caroline, I'd rather not be in this world because, to me, learning is like breathing. And so, if I have this love for it, I feel, "Okay, all learners!" The part of learning as being engaged with something of substance, etc. So, we thought, "Well, we have all these young people," who sometimes, when I was walking into the classroom, they're utilizing AI, but they're feeling like, "I'm not gonna say that I'm using it because they'll think I'm cheating or something." So, once I'm in an open space and I'm having good conversation with young people about the ways that I use AI and ways that how you use it, they open up and let you know, "Hey, I use it for this, et cetera." So then, it becomes a conversation of moving from cheating to more about what are ethical ways of utilizing AI.
Caroline MacGregor: If you're just joining us, my guest today is Dr. Carlos Lopez. He's the Assistant Superintendent at Ypsilanti Community Schools. We're talking about a new initiative at YCS: the AI Ambassadors Program. Tell me how this program accommodates teacher buy-in and eases that transition to AI.
Dr. Carlos Lopez: So, the perspective, for me, was to get a cohort, like I said, of young people who are going to be able to be in schools and help the adults to navigate systems that they may have not. And if they sit in coaching sessions with these young people, their world would shift. And I remember when Google first started, I had the hardest time with my iPhone and all that stuff. I had a 14-year-old nephew who would figure this out for me, sat with me, coached me through it. I had mentors of every age. But it's fascinating with this world, watching grandchildren from my sisters and their children's children. And I watch these young ones, and one-year-old, two-year old, they know how to operate the cell phone better than I can. We're in the first quarter of the 21st century, and you see that, this year, we jump into the beta--babies that are just born this year. But the alpha generation is very different. It's just very engaging. They're born to this technology. You know, learning is everywhere, Caroline, and it's not about the four walls that you call the school. At Ypsi, one of the things that we've done is we're taking classes outside. So, we're building outside classrooms. We're gardening. You know, when you look at young people and when they have a meltdown, the first thing they do is they run out the building. As soon as they get outside, they stop because they just were overwhelmed with so much stimulation going on in some of our environment. So, I just think the perspective is how do we create that balance, so that students that know how to use AI efficiently, effectively for what they're creating and innovating. What AI has done though for me is to challenge our teachers to think differently. If your assignment is one that students can get an answer from AI, then guess what? Your assignments are not challenging in any which way because kids don't need any more information. They need how to make sense of the information. I'm old, but I go to restaurants because I don't cook. And what I see is the pacifier for every child is an iPhone or an iPad. Every single person in the family are eating and they're all on their own individual device, and no one is really connecting. So, the perspective here is co-designing real meaningful opportunities for young people to coexist with each other and be able to do assignments where you have norms like, "We're gonna listen. We're going to paraphrase." So in essence, they feel seen, heard, valued, respected, and loved. Because I think that every student want to feel that sense of love from an educator. You understand? And I just think it's important. Their longing is deeper. And so, that's why what I wanted is meet our students halfway. And by putting them in a seat that they're actually teaching their teachers how to use these tools. It positions the students as, "Hey! Boy! The educators here value me for the skills that I have and what I could bring." I just think it's creating those spaces of where humanity sits. You know, in 2027, Tesla will have, and I want to pilot a bunch of them here, the teacher robots. I would like to be part of that behind the scene to feed the robot how to work with diverse students, how to with multilingual learners, how to work students with IEPs to make sure that the robots are culturally sensitive and responsive to the needs of the individual students because they're coming. And so, we're not going to operate a fear here, and I know that people are a little biased about feeling they are a robot in the classroom. And I think what I like about the AI tool is the AI tool does not make you feel incompetent. It doesn't judge you, so it adapts to build your skill and without judgment. I think the human is, "Oh God! Have you not learned this yet!" You follow me? I don't mean to be disrespectful, but that's the human. I just think sometimes we don't have the patience as educators, and I'm not interested with the robot being the teachers yet, but if the robot was in the classroom tutoring small groups, that could be another tool to help us move forward. Growing our scholars in the field, et cetera, training the staff or whatever is to make people comfortable, because when we bring these AI robots, I want our students to feel very comfortable in those environments. So, the perspective here is that "Hey, it's what we use it for. We're going to use it creativity. We're going to use it to create greatness. We're not going to use to hurt people." Those are our boundaries. And the other thing, the model that we have, is we start with a practice of what we're doing. And then, we ask a question: Do we need AI to be involved? If we don't need AI involved in what we doing, we just keep going without it. AI is used to solve a problem that we identify that we want to use this for.
Caroline MacGregor: I've been talking with Dr. Carlos Lopez, Assistant Superintendent of Ypsilanti Community Schools. Thank you for joining me today!
Dr. Carlos Lopez: No problem! Take care! Be safe! Thank you, Caroline!
Caroline MacGregor: This is 89.1 WEMU-FM Ypsilanti. Celebrating 60 years of broadcasting from Eastern Michigan University!
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