ShiftED Podcast #97 In Conversation with Gina Tesorario: Get Curious Before You Get Concerned

Okay. Welcome everybody back to another episode of Shift Ed Podcast, plugging through the school year here, 2526. Getting to an end soon. I have a great guest today. I'm really excited about this chat. I reached out to her via LinkedIn and uh gladly accepted to come. I have uh Gina Tesserario, who is um an educator, researcher, uh a big advocate for uh STEAE or STEM learning. We say STEAM up here in in Quebec, but STEM is very awesome as well. Uh great experiences in New York City public system as a teacher, curriculum designer, a tech leader. Uh and she kind of bridges this classroom with the research. And for all of you that know me, I love research and looking at numbers and the stories behind those numbers. And uh, we'll explore a little bit about that today uh with Gina. So, Gina, thanks so much for for joining me today.

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

So, Gina, I guess my first question is kind of when did the classroom start to shift for you in a way that you wanted to move a bit more into the research area? Like, were there moments that you can recall that that where that connection started to happen for you where the classroom you wanted to start looking more at the research behind it rather than just being a teacher? I mean, just being a teacher is an amazing thing, but you know, expanding kind of into that research area.

Yeah, I do actually. I had been introduced very early on to STEM in the very beginning of its world in K-12, I think, by museums like the Hall of Science or the American Museum of Natural History through programs that they lead for teachers. And I started to bring that like design thinking and kind of STEM into my classroom. I was a self-contained special education teacher. So I taught the same 12 students all day long as their seventh middle school teacher. And I taught English, math, special studies, and science in the same class. But when I started to bring in STEM, I just noticed a lot of um different types of engagement than my students typically had in the typical kind of learning that we did in the classroom. And I wanted to investigate what about STEM was so special. And so that is why I decided to start the PhD program.

Nice. And have you you've completed it?

Yeah, I'm done. Yeah, I finished in November. Thank you. Or December was when it all got finally accepted. But yeah.

Right. And and what was your, I mean, thesis or main focus in the research that you wanted to do? Could you flush that out for us a bit?

Yeah, my research was focused on how how you know recent graduates of high school were using tools like ChatGPT, you know, to navigate their daily lives, academic lives, personal lives, all the things. And so I worked with two different groups of students, uh, or former students, students that had graduated, recent graduates of high school. One of those groups were my former students that were in my classroom when they were in seventh grade. So that was really exciting. And I just, you know, I talked to these students. I used Gen AI use case scenarios that were just basically descriptions of how different stakeholders are using these tools or could be using them, just to discuss what they think is inbounds, out of bounds, what kind of policies they think are good for them and for others to use with their data. And so some of those questions came up. And also I engaged with the my former students in Gen AI problem solving, where we took some things that they were facing in their lives that were challenging for them and kind of thought through it with ChatGPT and discussed, you know, really important things along the way. And so I talk about that too.

Amazing. That's really cool. And I mean, you work with a lot of you know neurodivergent students throughout your your career as a teacher and then into the research. Uh uh What do we need to change? Uh I mean, here in Quebec, I'll just give you an example is most of our students that, you know, have learning disabilities or, you know, physical abilities, disabilities would would be integrated within the classroom, um, which opens up a whole plethora of different problems and you know, management and strategic planning that needs to take place. How how do you kind of see that redesign happening where where there's more of this inclusivity and feeling like everyone is a part of what's going on within the schools?

Yeah, I think the first step for designing learning environments that are really truly like accessible, inclusive, empowering all the things we want for all the students in the classrooms is to design with them, you know, because every person with neurodiversity or no or not, they still have different preferences and um ways that they want to learn and a different learning profile. So I think it really takes just the time to sit and explore what's best for each learner, like through conversations or getting to know them in different activities and like really designing with them. Um, I think that that's the way I I've been able to do it in my classroom and in my research. And every time that you engage with a learner and try to design like to minimize obstacles or design where the obstacles don't even come up, um, it's made me kind of better at getting like a jump off for the next student next time because now I'm like, I have all these different experiences of what students prefer, you know.

Right. I guess that's kind of differentiation in you know, meets UDL design, like where the voice of the student is in a part of the planning of. Um that there always is this struggle of how do I differentiate a classroom where, you know, how do I get to the wide walls, you know, where everyone feels like they're getting what the lesson is or whatever theme we're working on or topic, content area. Um what are some of your like best strategies that you've noticed personally through differentiation with, you know, with the more of the academically struggling students, I guess, that that we we need to widen those walls for?

Yeah, and I think the difference here between like designing with the students and like the typical way we do things is that we get to know the students before and as we're designing. It's a collaborative thing. It's not like it's something created and then changed for each student. It's something that is created with all of them in mind, which is harder when teachers don't get time to know their students or um have too many students or all the things teachers have to do. But so it's it's really about an intention, intentional designing from the beginning with, and so every every assignment would look different in each classroom and in each year. But it's also being really clear on what your goal is for that assignment or that activity. Um, I see a lot, there's just, you know, if our goal is really for students to um, you know, use like observations to inform like questions or something about a document or a a lab experiment or what whatever subject it's in, then then focusing on that, you know, and it doesn't matter if they're writing about it or if they're putting making a play about it or if they're drawing about it, like if they're doing the thing, um, then um we just have to find more ways to accept what that thing looks like. But it's also that a lot of the ways that subjects are structured, um, it's not the way that students are going to learn best. And so it it starts with even student voice before we decide what the curriculum looks like.

Right. And there's often that kind of like clashing of doing the school part with doing what we know what works best, you know, like we know strategies, but oftentimes those strategies are very hard to manipulate into this outcome-based kind of you know, pedagogy that we that we have to deal with. How do you how do you navigate some of those kinds of structures? So we have these structures we have to follow, we need evaluation, we need to, you know, follow all of that. At the same time, how do we get kids' voices and their inputs and their choice? And like, is there a bridge that we can, you know, put across so that we can join these two, or are they just destined to be, you know, a struggle all the time to like find the connections?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I, you know, I hear it a lot, and I think I would answer this um answer it differently as if I were in the classroom or me now from away from that space a little bit. But I think you know, we know it works isn't really a a true statement because we know it works for I don't know, 60, 70% of the students. And so that it does that's not working. If a bridge works 70% of the time, nobody would go over it.

That's very cute.

And yet we uh, you know, we have sometimes 70% graduation rates in in in some of our US schools. And so are they are they successful? So is what is happening working? Is the first thing I would say. But like if we're working from a place where, yeah, the standards are the standards and that's what we teach, then I think we sit and have, you know, a talk with each student or groups of students and talk about it and say, hey, these are the five main things we need to learn this year. Um, and if that's impossible because the standards are so cumbersome, then maybe we need to reconsider things. But to say, like, these are the great five things, like which one are you interested in? Maybe you can help me design a unit for the class since this is what you're interested in. And then, like, you kind of have like a student helping you design this. They may be a leader for this unit. And then, you know, I find students are way more willing to engage with what their peers have created for them. Um, and um, so it just takes us thinking outside of this is what works, because we have to be honest that it hasn't. It doesn't work for everyone. And so taking those folks who it doesn't work for and talking to them, you know, a lot of times we do student voice efforts and we gather student voice in a genuine intentional way and in a way that informs design. That's great. But who are we asking? Are we asking the students who all excelled and got top of the class that year? Are we asking the students that are able to stay after school because they don't have to take care of their like young brothers and sisters? So making sure that the people we're asking, though, are ones that struggle too, that that might be able to tell us, um, you know, because we keep asking the same kids, we're gonna get the same answers that the teachers keep telling us because the teachers are just like those kids that excelled in school, if that makes any sense.

Totally, totally. Well, I mean, I've seen this too, and I'd love to hear your opinion on it. Like when I do a lot of makery, right? Like making stuff, and you know, we bring in maker spaces and creative spaces for kids, we'll come in for a day or two in a school and and you know, engage the students in hands-on. They get to kind of decide how they want to approach whatever you know, stations we've set up or activities that we've put in place. And it we've always are surprised with the teacher's comments of, I never thought that that student would be able to do it, you know? And the opposite, the academically strong students are the ones that are like, oh boy, I'm not touching this thing because I don't want to make any mistakes with it. Uh do you notice that? Like, is there a connection or in in the in your experiences, uh, does that ring true that as soon as we kind of get rid of this blanket of like you sit there and listen, and I'll tell you, you know, our school structure, and you get more to a hands-on student kind of openness to it, that we start to expose the greatness in all of the students and also some of the weaknesses where we need to develop a little bit more of example resilience when it comes to, you know, facing challenges. What's your take on that?

Yeah, that that uh makes a lot of sense. I've actually saw that when I created a STEM course with another teacher at my middle school, um, it was offered to the very higher achieving advanced students in the school. And I was noticing when I was working with them that they had a harder time with open-ended, you know, things that didn't were outside of a rubric kind of idea. Meanwhile, in my self-contained classroom, you know, they're just trying and trying again, getting creative and thinking outside of the box, things I would never think of. And, you know, I once, I really one of my students summed it up for me when I was describing like the design process and like, you know, like a, you know, with a visual and with words that just, you know, they're not in a line per se, but it looked neat and organized. And one of my students said, Miss, no offense, but are you really trying to teach us that if we fail, we have to try again and like keep doing it, like that it's not something we do every day. And it was just a whole, like it kind of, you know, changed my perspective on that. And yeah, and and in the the we called it the SP program, when the SEM kid there, there, they wanted to know what the right answer was and like what was worth what points. And they were worrying about things like um, so all of this is to say, I wonder sometimes if there is uh room for some growth in the types of skills we're looking for. Like, I think the the next generation science standards in the US like are moving in that direction. We're trying to make learning more about like practices and not about just content that's static. And I think it's um a step in the right direction. But yeah, I think we need to look and see, you know, what are the standards that we that our students think are most important for them in the futures that they perceive. You know, in some ways, we're also very unable to see the future that's beyond what we know like technologically. But the students, I feel like, have like a bigger view of what could be possible in the next 10 years, you know?

Yeah. I totally agree. And I think listening to those students again, coming back to listening to what they're saying and kind of co-designing as with them equally, I guess it brings me to this kind of what you were talking about with AI, with other artificial intelligence. How can we how can we engage more of our neurodiverse students with these powerful tools? Like you said, we're all going to be using these. We're gonna need the skills and we're gonna also need the soft skills that come along with it. What are some pathways into that and and using more of generative AI to again widen those walls in our classroom?

Yeah, I think it starts with curiosity with our learners because they're using these tools. And so it's important for us to ask how they're using it. I think a lot of spaces are making it not a comfortable place to talk about using Gen AI tools. And that is a scary road because we want these youth, these recent graduates, young adults, our friends, our parents, like we want them to tell us how they're using these tools so that we can think through it with them and learn new ways to innovate together or ways that we have to be extra careful. And the thing is, the the opportunities and risks of Gen AI tools change every day. And if we're not creating the spaces where we can discuss these with everyone we care about, um, if we're not able to discuss it, then we really risk missing a missed opportunity, having missed opportunities where we could help dive more into critical digital literacies with them and improve our own digital literacy in this new world that's that's kind of moving faster than our policies and practice. You know, there's always something that gets through the cracks that we're like didn't think about. And so I think that happens when we use these tools in little silos where we're not talking about it and creating the space where it's okay to talk about how you explore with this really helpful tool.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I kind of see we've we're we're talking a lot about the tool instead of like what you're saying about the ethical use and support, you know, like the conversations that need to have be had about a powerful tool and how it influences society and what we do. And like I think those conversations too are so important to have and that everybody has a voice in those. Um, because like you said, I mean, we're at such a clip here with the turnover of AI tools, like it's impossible for the educational system to ever I mean, if you think of kind of like the mindset of where it is, it still seems kind of back in the past a little bit, how it's designed.

Um yeah, and it's exponential, you know, like with these new tools becomes the possibility for new tools that we don't even know yet. And so if if like digital literacy, critical digital AI literacy isn't a part of every conversation in every class. It's not the technology teacher's job, it's not, you know, the guidance counselor's job, it's everyone's job. It's everyone's job to talk about tools, like how do they use it? We want students to be transparent, our teachers being transparent, talk about it, explore, be like open, make like open the door to your private gen AI use is is going to create the kind of digital literacy that we need to to handle any new technology that comes.

Right, right. And how are you how are you hearing like what are the stories about usage? Like what are the tools that get used the most often in your field and and and and maybe why if you have have those answers as well.

Yeah, for me and my research, I specifically just looked at ChatGPT. It was easy, it's what I used at the time. It was free. We could sign in privately or not. And so that's what I focused on. But what really came out was some like empowering things. One of my former students, Lucia, used um Chat GPT to make her own writing tutor in grad school that would ask her questions one by one for a task. She would answer verbally using voice to text. And then she just had this like talk back and forth kind of tool with Chat GPT at any hour. You know, she was a full-time teacher and working, going to school part-time. So she couldn't really have access to all the resources that were available to her. So she needed a writing tutor. And, you know, watching her experience that. They lacked these conversations about what is responsible use. But through their help, we ended up, through their engagement, we ended up learning how ChatVD can use to help them find jobs and identify some bias in the hiring. So it was a very cool tool for that. And then finally, the last case study in my research is one of my former students who was very much a leader in the co-design of this research. And he used it in a way I wouldn't really be supportive of that seemed a little copy and paste. And I had to approach it, you know, with curiosity and talk through it with him to learn about why. And what I learned from that experience is that whether we are okay with how people are using ChatGPT or AI or not, we need to be curious about how they're using it. Because when we learn how they're using it, it tells us what we're missing in the learning environment that that they need it. So at the very least, if you don't like ChatGPT or anything, looking into how it's being used can tell you how to create a better environment, learning environment.

Absolutely. I love that. I love that. I love too that your student that creation of a custom bot, you know, like forget it. I'll just make my own. Like, and it will help me with exactly what I want because I'll tell it this is what I need.

It's empowering, right? It's like this empowering, it's so it's like a learning partner when used correctly. But I think what's important is that the same way to use it correctly is not going to be same the same every day. And so we need to always talk about it. It's an evolving, changing monster, you know, that that um that we need to just be 10 steps ahead of, if at all possible, you know?

Right, right. And well, Gina, this has been really it's just a great chat. I've really enjoyed it. And I just I have one question that I love to just leave on. What were some of the surprises in your research, maybe happy surprises that you discovered that kind of excited you and kind of like informed your practice more than you expected?

Um you know, I think it was how beautiful it is to ask um, you know, recent graduates to design for their peers and how much like care comes out when we're creating like a shared goal of a co-design. So I learned so much about my students, my former students who I'd known for already 15 years, some. And so I learned even more about them and even more about this group that I didn't have a former relationship with. Um, just I learned about who they were as a person, what they prioritize. I learned so much about them from how they designed for their peers. And it it was just, you know, a really beautiful experience. I think co-designing or engaging together with ChatGPT and talking about it, like, okay, well, what can we trust and what can't we trust, or how can we learn to trust it? And just having those critical conversations around that shared object really opened up opportunities for me to learn about these really important pieces individuals that I didn't have before.

So yeah. Amazing. What a great research, what great lesson you pulled out of it. And again, I just feel very appreciative that you took some time to share all this with us. I love it, Gina. Thanks so much. I really appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.