STEM Education: Effectiveness, Inclusion, and AI

00:00.83

Olivia Lara-Gresty

Hello everyone and welcome to Tech in EdTech. I'm Olivia Lara-Gresty our host for today and today we have Kelly Rizk, Director of Learning Experience at Slooh who's joining us. I've had the fortunate experience of working with the Slooh organization to help them really bring astronomy to students in a really innovative and cool way. And I'll let Kelly share a little bit more about what Slooh is doing these days but we're really lucky to have her on the podcast. We've got the chance to meet up over in Austin at ‘South By EDU’ and a couple of other different places. So just an awesome voice in the edtech space specifically in STEM. So I know as a former science teacher I nerd out a little bit when we get into science topics so I just want to give a warm welcome to Kelly.

00:51.57

Kelly Rizk

Thanks! Yeah so thank you so much for having me, I'm happy to be here. It's always nice to talk to you, Olivia.

00:57.40

Olivia Lara-Gresty

Yeah no, thanks for joining us.

01:09.31

Kelly Rizk

Like you said I lead the curriculum team at Slooh and what Slooh is - we have a network of high-powered telescopes around the world. And our members, including students and educators, schedule missions on the telescopes to capture really cool images of the moon, the sun, and really almost anything you can think of in the universe. These are five or ten-minute missions and we have an unlimited number of students who control the telescope and they can watch the live feeds of more than 800 missions on any given day and take pictures of more than 1000 celestial objects.

01:39.33

Olivia Lara-Gresty

You know, as I think about a lot, is the importance of helping students gather and connect with raw data and so that's really part of you know, every science class there are topics to learn but there really is that element of understanding the scientific method and understanding how to capture and gather raw data. And so I really love how Slooh really brings that into students' hands in such a meaningful way. So I love you know, all the updates you guys have. And I wanted to - you know before we get into more about Slooh and just some of the facets of STEM research and education. So will you just share a little bit more about yourself and your journey in the education space?

02:21.78

Kelly Rizk

I would say that my step into science education probably started in the sixth grade. I had the best science and language arts teachers. So, in sixth grade at my school was the first time you switched classes. And my science teacher was also my language arts teacher which I think is an unusual combination. It's always - it's often science and math - its one teacher and language arts and social studies. But in my school that year Miss Haber was my science teacher and my language arts teacher. And she just blew me away. She got me so excited about science and embraced my love of language. And so from there I knew I was a science kid and I wanted to write about science and be part of the science community. 

03:34.88

Olivia Lara-Gresty

Yeah I mean I love - you know and you're speaking to calls to the importance of those teachers that really just change our outlook on Science or I should say any subject that we care about. So I love to just connect to that and you know.

03:48.66

Kelly Rizk

Mhmm..

03:51.70

Olivia Lara-Gresty

As much as it's about the products and you know the curriculum that we're each using there is still such an important space for that teacher that really changes your outlook and we love that. I think, you know you kind of started to speak to it a little bit but today I really want to spend some time talking about the importance of STEM learning and the facets that really make it successful. And so I think as to STEM appreciators and people in the space I'm excited to have this conversation with you. I was wondering if you could just start talking about, you know given your experience, what factors you feel like play the biggest role and ultimately making STEM learning effective for students?

04:30.25

Kelly Rizk

So I think a lot of what makes STEM learning effective is what makes any learning effective. So if it's relevant to the kids and engages them in learning. And I think people learn by doing. I think of it as minds-on learning, right? Experiential learning - we think of it as always has to be hands-on, but really anything whether it's literally hands-on or minds-on where the kids are engaging in their learning and help them build a deeper understanding of the material. So if we can get kids actively engaged in the learning process and really reflecting on what they're learning and how well they understand it at each step, then we're building a deeper level of cognitive processing and therefore a better long-term memory of the content.

05:24.60

Olivia Lara-Gresty

Yeah I mean, no it's so important to to think about each facet there and I think you know, we start to think about what makes the learning effective but I'm wondering how you feel that compares to how schools - what schools examine when they're adopting STEM products specifically.

05:36.54

Kelly Rizk

Um.

05:43.90

Olivia Lara-Gresty

And maybe even you know from there any ways in which some edtech companies might falter when it actually comes to trying to think about what STEM products should be looking for or trying to achieve?

05:52.71

Kelly Rizk

I think teachers and administrators are looking at whether - they start out by looking at whether - you're hitting the standards that they need to hit and doing it in a way that they find to do it. Teachers have very limited time. They can't waste time figuring out how to use your product by trying to teach their students how to use your product. It really needs to be intuitive right from the beginning. They also don't have time to spend on material that doesn't help them engage students in understanding the content that they need to learn. But having said that once it's in the classroom, students and teachers will keep coming back to your products if it's relevant, engaging, and motivating your students. If you can hit those 3 things then kids will learn and engage with the product over and over. And that's really what we're all hoping. And I would say that how do we all falter? I think there are several ways right? And I think a little bit depends on the background of the company that's making the edtech or at least the group of people involved in the product development. Teams are filled with people who've been only working in more traditional analog educational publishing less and less now, but even if they've worked this on the textbook whether it's delivered digitally or analog; we sometimes are just substituting digital for the analog version and not really thinking about what's the best way to deliver content. What's the best use of digital? And you know putting a lot of words on the screen is just not very effective. Students don't have the bandwidth for that. And sometimes I hear people say like students don't/won't/can't read and there's always truth in this, there are always kids who can't and won't read but, more I think they just have so many more efficient ways to gather information. They don't want you to waste their time and they want you to get to the point right? And so if you're going at it with the analog history, you're not going to capture these kids. But then companies that come at education - and are really software companies or game companies - they also need the instructional design. And so they might focus so much on gamification or the fun and then miss the real in-depth learning. So we all just need to find the balance, provide instruction patiently, and engage students in their learning path so that they see the relevance and the value in your product curriculum.

08:56.32

Olivia Lara-Gresty

Yeah, that's great. I mean I love what you said at the beginning too, about you know, what causes students and teachers to come back to the product. What gets them to return to it again and again and it's that you know, as you said I think students are, many are motivated to learn. But if the information is too difficult to access for whatever reason and then it's just unnecessarily burdensome you know like you said there are other places or ways that they can get there and they're not going to engage on the platform itself and so I definitely think that you know finding a balance is tricky but being able to find that balance without, as you said you know making it completely gamified or something that just makes it fun at the expense of the actual content learning. It's definitely something we've all seen before and are all trying to avoid. Can you talk a little bit about some best practices you've seen either at Slooh or just in general that can help us, you know, in the edtech space to improve the ways in which STEM products are designed and used?

10:07.45

Kelly Rizk

I think there really isn't a magic bullet of the best practice for this sort of delivery format. But I think I learned reading ‘Design for How People Learn’ by Julie Dirksen and she has this great metaphor which I don't think was hers, but was an important part of her book about the elephant and the rider. And the idea is that the rider is our conscious responsible brain and the elephant is automatically emotional you know, driven, fun, or whatever is interesting at the moment. And as you can imagine it takes a lot of energy to force the elephant to do anything, except for what the elephant doesn't want to do. So for a little while the rider knows what they should be doing or you know working on some path but they might be able to drag the elephant along, but eventually the elephant wins. So I recommend and Julie Dirksen recommended you know, using storytelling with a mix of surprise and intrigue and mystery. So you're setting it up so that the elephant part of your brain wants to figure something out, wants to learn, and then the rider is not fighting against the elephant, their elephants coming along for the ride. And I think like the NGSS standards, they work really well with this metaphor. Historically, Science class is often like a lecture or a series of lectures followed by Confirmatory Lab at the end of a unit but in an NGSS-aligned classroom instruction starts with a phenomenon Earth problem right? and so you're engaging students in wondering - noticing, and wondering what the heck is going on? Why is that happening? I really want to know. And then they have to do the work to figure out the answer which brings the elephant along for the process of learning.

12:15.28

Olivia Lara-Gresty

No, I love that. I think that you know, the inquiry-based model is what I was - when I was a teacher in the classroom - definitely something that I found really effective with students was that you know students are naturally curious, but I think that they often don't…you know there is some guidance to getting them to tap into that set of their curiosity. I would often - you know, at the beginning of a unit, when we hand students some kind of phenomenon to uncover - sometimes I'll admit I was met with very blank stares when I asked what questions do you have because students are just kind of like “Why? That's work, I don't want to think of questions.” But as you kind of add a little bit more and more information or kind of show them the places in which they don't have a full understanding, you can see those light bulb moments of “Oh!” Maybe a light bulb moment isn't quite the metaphor because they're not citing the answer yet, they're just realizing that it doesn't work the way they think they work and that's where that kind of spark happens in that level of intrigue. And I think to your point, yeah you know getting them to have that spark happen so the elephant is going in the right direction and the students are following. I love that as a framework for how we can design STEM products. I wanted to, you know, think a little bit. You know we think so much about how the products are designed for the general user. The sort of you know the student who has a persona as you know, distractible on those types of things. That is true to many students but I want to think a little bit about how we can make STEM learning inclusive and how big is that mandate for accessibility inclusion over at Slooh.

14:00.45

Kelly Rizk

It is huge. It's in our mission, right? We are a space for everyone. And basically, you know, children, all children around the world throughout time have been inspired by space and by space exploration and everyone deserves equal access to learning about space and our place in the Universe. So as a company, it's very important and it's very important to me personally. I want to encourage students of all backgrounds, of all interests to get excited about Science specifically. But even more importantly, just about learning in general. And so as part of that you know if every kid went through something like Slooh we would increase the diversity. But I personally, even more importantly, we would open the kids’ eyes to all the opportunities that they have and astronomy is you know so good for that, for including everyone because Astronomy is deeply rooted in the culture incorporated all over the world. And you know it's not new that humans have looked up at the sky and wondered what was going on. And we at Slooh want kids to see Astronomy is relevant to their own stories. And some of the ways we do that - we tell stories from all over the world. Some cultures - old and new and explaining what is happening - or even sometimes they're not explaining. They're just using the universe as a backdrop for the story and we have these learning activities that are written specifically to share myths and stories from around the world. And we're always looking to add more of those.

15:57.65

Olivia Lara-Gresty

Yeah, representation is really important and I think it's often mentioned but can't really be overestimated. Are there any other inclusion considerations for STEM learning that you'd like to share with our listeners? I think representation is really huge but any other ways in which you all have seen or are trying to promote inclusion when it comes to stem learning?

16:21.10

Kelly Rizk

So we’re just trying to make sure that our product is as accessible as possible. We're working on that. But just making sure the screen reader and any other accessibility tools are available and work well with our products, but it went around inclusion or representation. One thing that I find really important is I like to include the people who I'm representing. I don't want to be telling a story about another culture. I want someone from that part of the world or who has a real relationship with that culture to tell their own story. And I know like at the Museum of Science, our activities where users started with us always with a story. And the story was - the scenario is a student who had a problem they wanted to solve. And the students were kids from all over the world and they had different religious backgrounds, and racial backgrounds and lived in rural and urban societies. And, we wanted to represent those families whose artists and writers who knew that environment and could represent those families authentically and honestly and respectfully.

18:02.30

Olivia Lara-Gresty

Now I think that's important to to think about where these stories that show representation are actually coming from. And I think I wanted to touch on you mentioning the accessibility piece and I think it's so important to think about - you know when we think about accessibility it really is about universal design and making our products easier for everyone to use by thinking about making sure any type of user can use it. It actually often provides enhancements for all the users that end up using our product. So I think it's great to hear that you all have made it a priority for your product.

18:25.53

Kelly Rizk

Yeah, yeah.

18:37.88

Olivia Lara-Gresty

I wanted to just think a little bit about you know some of the trends in STEM learning. You know you've been in this space in a couple different scenarios and different organizations and I was wondering what you think about - you know of course we can't get through a conversation without  mentioning AI these days and I was curious if how you think AI might have a role to play when it comes to enhancing the accessibility of any STEM programs?

18:57.52

Kelly Rizk

Um, right.

19:04.33

Kelly Rizk

I think it will. AI is a tool just like the calculator is a tool and it will definitely change the way teachers teach and students learn as you figure out how to implement it in the classroom. But right now I think we're at the risk of like adding the new shiny object because it's there and it's not necessarily the right tool for our product. But having said that it is absolutely valuable in the classroom and it can provide lots of opportunities, say to automate administrative tasks for things to give teachers more time to spend on what they really want to do and why they're teaching like guiding student learning. And it can be used to provide personalized learning paths and immediate feedback to really deepen learning. And in that way, it lowers barriers to learning and helps more students learn more content more deeply. As far as accessibility, I think it'll get there. It is getting there, right? Companies are using AI readers, and voiceovers to help people read the text, and if you want in a lot of ways we just still need to be careful.

20:26.52

Olivia Lara-Gresty

Yeah I mean I think that you know in that sense I'm curious where you think our listeners should be wary when it comes to AI-based products or do you feel if maybe there's a better use case for using AI on the backend when it comes to developing curriculum? Or, you know, for teachers or for students? Where do you think our listeners, whether they are those that are the creators of edtech products or the users - where do you think they might be the most wary and where do you feel like might be the best use cases to try out you know, incorporating AI into your product?

21:00.60

Kelly Rizk

Right. So I think right now teachers are wary and they're afraid that kids, especially older kids, will use it to teach. But I don't think we can ignore it then and just think they don't use it at all because kids are going to grow up into an economy where it's really ubiquitous. So we need to teach kids how to use it and Solvably is a company right now that's working on AI literacy and helping kids learn. And they're learning their AI literacy and helping to practice their critical thinking skills and collaborative problem solving while also you know explaining the limits and the strengths of AI. And I think AI becomes more and more available in everything we do. We need to make sure kids are not illiterate, that they know how to use it and what it's for. I also think you know we have to be careful when we're building an AI tool or using an AI tool, of knowing the source of the data. And if the data are biased as so much of our personal material went in, then the tool will continue to perpetuate those biases or misconceptions and when that happens it will hurt the most vulnerable students. So that's just another reason to engage in cultural communication and co-create with diversity with a lot of different backgrounds so that we have better sources and we're noticing our biases. So that instead of perpetuating those we are able to build AI tools that are used to support and uplift. 

22:59.81

Olivia Lara-Gresty

No, I think that's great. I think you know like we said, there's so much possibility there. It's just about maintaining that responsible use and for many of us, we're still navigating that path. But I think with the right intentions it's very possible. Well, I wanted to just you know I'm I love talking about the STEM education world with you and it's really nice to to think about how we can really advance the space for all of our learners in a way that really empowers our students. And I think Slooh is doing a really cool job of putting students kind of in the driver's seat when it comes to STEM education. And so you know, given what you all are working on, I was hoping you could just share some parting thoughts or advice for other leaders in the edtech or education space on how we can really improve STEM education and making it really, as you mentioned, engaging and exciting for students?

23:54.95

Kelly Rizk

So I would say, don't lose sight of the kids and don't fall for the generational hierarchy that so many - seems like every generation falls into at some point right? If you hear a sentence that starts “Kids today…” walk away or at least take it with a grain of salt. Get out and talk to some kids. And I find, I'm always inspired by their passion, their brilliance, their creativity. And you know if we stay in our own little generational boxes, we miss that. And then our product suffers because of it. But then I would say for STEM product developers in particular, we would say be mindful of all of the kids. I want the artistic kid, the quiet kid, and the dreamer to be inspired to learn from my product. We don't need everyone to grow up to be a scientist, in order to consider my product to be successful. We need the dreamers and the artists in the world to be scientists or not to be scientists. We need them. And I want every kid to grow up knowing how to think and how to learn and how to share their gifts with the world, whatever that gift might be.

25:13.30

Olivia Lara-Gresty

No, I love that. I think you're right. You know you don't want to place students in a box, but we also want to make sure that the students have that you know, designing in a space where students can feel successful; whether it is, you know, because they want to be a scientist in the future or not. It is just important that especially given, I think the context in which students are growing up where there is so much information out there. You know, being able to understand science and be scientifically literate is so important even as an average consumer. So I love thinking about as you said, keeping sight of the kids involved so we’re able to design products for them. I love that. Well, Kelly, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure chatting with you and I look forward to speaking again. To our listeners, thank you so much for listening. Yeah, thank you Kelly you really enjoyed it.

26:02.49

Kelly Rizk

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

26:07.16

Olivia Lara-Gresty

Thanks, everyone.