Chris Colley: 0:14

So here we are, welcome everyone. Another episode of Shift Ed podcast coming to you. We're up in northern Montreal today and enjoying some beautiful sun finally Little touches of warmth coming through, which is great. And I have such a wonderful guest today, Michelle Cummings, coming in from New York and she's going to share. She wrote this. Well, she updated and added to this great book called the First Year Teacher Survival Guide, the fifth edition, and we're going to talk about that. But Michelle also works on AI through Brisk Teachings. Is that correct, michelle?

Michelle Cummings: 1:01

That's correct. I'm the education advisor at Brisk, teaching. It's an AI-enabled Chrome extension. That's right. That's correct. I'm the education advisor at Brisk.

Chris Colley: 1:07

Teaching. It's an AI-enabled Chrome extension. That's right. That's right, and you were previously teacher, pay teacher, also CAO as well.

Michelle Cummings: 1:15

Yes, the chief academic officer at Teachers Pay Teachers yes, for many years working with the teacher authors and the catalog there. Yeah, Cool.

Chris Colley: 1:26

So lots of great insight and information that Michelle will share with us today. And please go and check this book out, particularly if you're a first, second, third year teacher. It's a daunting task and we'll kind of get into that a bit, but this book is just full of great strategies and ideas and ways to support yourself as you become a teaching professional. So, Isha, before we begin here, tell me a couple of poignant moments in your educational landscape so far. What were some turning points or some moments that really stuck out for you? Some turning points or some moments that really stuck out for you as you were coming into being an educator and supporting educators consulting, etc.

Michelle Cummings: 2:12

Chris, good morning, and I'm delighted to be here having this conversation with you. My origin story as an educator goes back to childhood. I am one of eight children and in a big family I had a ready-made class of students. I had my first chalkboard installed in the playroom when I was probably six or seven. As a sixth grader, I asked my teacher, ms Beck, who's still a close friend of mine throughout my lifetime. I asked her if I could go teach the first graders how to read, and she set me up with an internship.

Michelle Cummings: 2:50

As a sixth grader. In high school I had read everything Ted Sizer had written and chose to go to college, to Brown University, to study with him. I got to work in the essential schools. He introduced me to Elliot Washer, who was then co-founding the Big Picture Learning Schools. These were all kind of mileposts for me, signposts along my journey. That said, I was headed in the right direction. I became a high school English and social studies teacher. I taught in Boston, I got to teach in the international schools in Switzerland, I taught in Oregon and then decided that I could help more teachers and more students as an administrator, and so from there I became a principal, both at the elementary level and then at the high school level.

Chris Colley: 3:45

I was an assistant superintendent and got to create entire programs and K-12 educational opportunities for students to improve outcomes for all the students in the community and I think that the through line in my work, in my career, has been that desire that, regardless of where a child happens to be attending school, to improve their educational outcomes and uplift the teachers that are working with them. Absolutely Wow, I mean beautiful journey so far and so much happening too. Like it always seems to you're at the forefront of these innovative practices that are coming out and, um, what great opportunities to kind of see into the future of education a bit well, sure I.

Michelle Cummings: 4:41

I was a curriculum director during the teachers pay teachers movement as it was starting, and so I could see from my teachers their need to have supplemental curriculum and the gap that they felt between the adopted curriculum and the students that were in front of them. And so to be able to be the chief academic officer at Teachers Pay Teachers and work with that incredible team and teachers around the world to share collective wisdom, you know during of AI and generative AI in education to help teachers not just with the efficiency and saving time in their work but with real student engagement and realizing the promise of personalizing learning and differentiating for students.

Chris Colley: 5:42

Absolutely which teachers tend to struggle with right that differentiation. We just did a bunch of work last year on it and I was surprised at how it's just. You know it, this idea that I have to create like eight lesson plans is just not the case. It's little tweaks here, little tweaks there, so that you can widen your walls a little bit, so that everybody feels like they can achieve. But getting beyond, you know, like the differentiation of what it is, yeah, it was always seemed a little bit of a struggle, but I totally agree with you. I think AI is opening those doors for differentiation big time right now, because it's all available. I mean just simply having to input a text and having a couple of different reading levels, just that alone is just wow. It really helps teachers a lot.

Michelle Cummings: 6:34

Yeah for sure. Changing reading levels is one. Changing languages for comprehensible input you think about. You know, I got to work with Carolyn Tomlinson and all of her differentiation strategies and creating learning contracts or rafts for you know, english instruction. It is so easy. Now we talk a lot about the 80-20 rule in generative AI that there is yeah, no, there is no replacement for teachers expertise and their knowledge of their students, and so AI will get you 80% of the way to completing a task. But that expertise of a teacher is so important, but yeah. So I brought all of that into the writing of the first year teacher survival guide and I was just so delighted to be able to support new teachers in this way.

Chris Colley: 7:31

Absolutely yeah, we work a lot with pre-service teachers and it's an interesting clientele. And I guess one of my questions I wanted to ask you about first-year teachers again, in your experience and what you think is did first-year teachers go into their teaching profession and tend to always teach the way they were taught?

Michelle Cummings: 7:59

That's a great question. I think that, like muscle memory, that the experiences we have with our teachers are very the profession and experienced teachers to really intentionally identify how their education has informed who they are as a teacher and to be able to say these are the things that work within the classroom for my students today, and these may be things that had worked previously for me as a student but no longer are effective strategies.

Chris Colley: 8:52

Right, right, and in the fifth edition. So this is the one that you were updating and the latest, one of the first year teacher's guide survival guide. When do you determine to like do an update of it? Like when would a new edition come? Like what would inform that that? Okay, we need to do some updates on on this, because when was it originally published? This the first edition, do you?

Michelle Cummings: 9:19

the first edition was published in 2002 by julia th, a high school English teacher, and she has since retired, and Josie Bass invited me to update her work. The most recent edition had been 2018. And, of course, much has changed since then, um and so so I was able to talk with Julia, while she wasn't involved in the writing of the book. I, I feel like we accomplish nothing alone, um, whether we are in a classroom or or writing a book, and so I benefited from talking with her, from interviewing 65 teachers who are currently in the classroom before writing the book, and you think about all that we have learned from the pandemic moment whether it's digital tools and generated AI or I think we've gotten much more sophisticated about social emotional learning and the behavioral needs, the behavioral support needs of students, and so I really worked hard to infuse all of those learnings into the book as well.

Chris Colley: 10:39

Great, great. And what are the biggest you think misconceptions about those first years, like teachers going in thinking one thing and then quickly realizing that, okay, I got to think about management or my relationship building or how am I going to keep developing as a professional? I know that you talk a lot about those within the book student engagement as well. Do teachers come in to their first years teaching with certain misconceptions about how to do these things?

Michelle Cummings: 11:17

Yes, it's a great question, chris, and I don't think that we can paint with too broad a brush. There is a idealistic impulse that brings teachers to the profession. I feel it to this day. It is a way to change the lives of children one by one, classroom by classroom, school by school, and that that drives them, and when you talk to a group of teachers about their why, they're really great at articulating it.

Michelle Cummings: 12:20

I think that, um, that some teachers come to the profession to teach a subject and they realize that there's a shift in paradigm, and in order to be successful as a teacher, you have to connect with your students and you have to teach your students first, and the content is a vehicle for that um, for that relationship. And so I think that there is a real need to think about classroom management differently. Of course, you asked about classroom management, and that is the number one subject that people want me to speak about, but you can't talk about classroom management without talking about the relationship development and talking about the ways in which you connect students and connect with students and connect students with ideas.

Chris Colley: 13:20

Yeah, my pre-service work with teachers. I have them do this activity where I give them a prompt right and I ask them what does your ideal classroom look like, feel like? And they can make something very concrete. They have to make a little prototype with dollar store stuff, just so that there's a representation, and then they have to speak to it and over and over I hear I want it to be a welcoming class, I want them to want to come into my class and I want to be able to support them, help them grow and I'm like I love it. And then I ask how are you going to do that? And those front ideas, those first initial, like you know, welcoming, know, welcoming, warm class, they trust me. But to go beyond that, like, how do I start establishing, what are strategies that you will use to start building that? Um, can you offer some strategies or suggestions for that, because it is so crucial, those relationship building building? How would a first year student, a teacher, start to kind of get that vehicle running?

Michelle Cummings: 14:30

Sure To move from the hope and the goal and the big idea to practice.

Chris Colley: 14:36

Reality.

Michelle Cummings: 14:37

For sure, for sure.

Michelle Cummings: 14:40

Larry Ferlazzo recently asked me what was an underutilized low prep strategy that teachers could use for this, and I said relationship development can start at the door.

Michelle Cummings: 14:53

You know, it takes a lot to be able to greet students at the door students and to give them a fist bump or a high five and greet them by name and check in on how the game went or how a sick parent is feeling. All of that matters, and if you can greet students at the door and welcome them to their day if they're in elementary school, or to their class period, it goes a long way to setting the tone and getting students ready to learn. I think that there are things that we can do within the way that we design curriculum to invite students' voices and to invite them to share themselves, and so, whether it is in the early days of the school year, making sure that there are everybody knows everyone's name. There's four corners exercises where you are asking students to vote with their feet and choose a corner to go to, based on whether or not they like 80s music. If they like it, they don't like it.

Michelle Cummings: 16:13

They're neutral on the topic and then they can talk to other students in the classroom who share that same opinion and you can build a community of learners. It's not just the relationship between the teacher and the student, it is the whole community of learners. I had a health teacher at the high school, where I was a principal, and she would always ask students to write on an index card what she needed to know to be their best teacher, and it revealed so many things. When you make that invitation to students to be in relationship. You can find out that they need glasses, you can find out that they live in their car. There are all kinds of insights that you can get, but we must have strategies to ask.

Chris Colley: 17:06

Yep, yep, and I like that. You said too that the relationships, the content will come through. That, like it seems, this fixation on oh, we have all this stuff, we got to cover, got to cover, got to cover, and we kind of forget about the humanity that exists within your community. And I like it's not a class, it's a community yeah, and, and you're working together yes, I have.

Michelle Cummings: 17:30

I have a wonderful example of this uh teacher who's now in his second year of of the profession. He teaches multilingual learners and he really has a value he brings to the profession of being in relationship with students. He sets this very high bar of wanting all trip with students to visit a local college art exhibit. The students then modeled their artwork and their poetry and writing off of this exhibit that showed silhouettes of people with their stories pulled in poem format inside those silhouettes. And the students, he said, dived into this project, interviewing their family members and community members to hear their narratives. And the students worked harder on this project than anything all year and shared incredible insights about themselves, their lives, their cultures, their humanity and they felt so respected, so uplifted, so seen that they he talked about how they saw themselves and their families in a different light after that experience. And I think that's a great example of how a teacher uses that relationship development to explore the world of ideas and to deepen students' academic strengths and deepen their learning, while inviting a deepening of the relationships.

Chris Colley: 19:22

Absolutely. I love that idea too. I often tell teachers that you got to get their, their hearts involved right. They got. You got to spark some kind of like something inside them that interests them or talks to them. And then you also got to get their hands involved creating, making, drawing, poem, but then also the cognitive as well. And if you get those three things running, you know you're gonna have some good learning. That takes place, or it's gonna. It will stick with them.

Chris Colley: 19:52

You know, like I always have this concept of letting getting. How do we make it stick? So it's not like in one ear at the other, um, and we, through our our work with teachers, we've noticed that. Think about those three parts as you're designing something, and I think it's very similar to what you're saying about that example you gave, where all those three components are involved and it's just like humming, learning happening, um, so fascinating. Well, that's a great story too. You know we don't talk enough about these great, positive, amazing stories that mean they happen all around us. Sometimes we get so fixated on the issues rather than the beauty of what's already happening and what happens daily.

Michelle Cummings: 20:53

That is so true. You know, I had a really great question from a first year teacher recently and I was able to to give her some, some, some good strategies. She was really taking on a big question and that was around how do we create a classroom community where civil discourse, where respectful discourse, occurs and so layering onto those relationships and the high expectations for students being able to really unpack for them how to have respectful conversation. How to have respectful conversation and I had observed a fourth grade teacher who was really great at providing sentence stems that focused on I statements for students, things like I suggested that or I'd like to add, or I respectfully disagree because you know, or I respectfully disagree because you know and literally laminated those things on the table for students can have conversations and add on to each other's ideas and respectfully disagree and provide evidence for their claims.

Michelle Cummings: 22:14

And I thought that this was a moment where a first-year teacher was really bringing forward something important that experienced teachers needed to hear as well, and so I've started adding those recommendations. I have a section in the book about teaching for civil discourse as well, and I think that's also an example of a moment when a first-year teacher brought their fresh impressions and their fresh perspectives in a way to a whole faculty that could improve teaching and learning across the school. I think that's one of the things that I encourage principals and cooperating teachers to do is to share those fresh impressions and that fresh energy of new teachers to improve practices across their departments and across their schools.

Chris Colley: 23:18

Absolutely, absolutely. Let's shift gear a little bit. We're going to connect this, though, but with your new work with AI, are you finding that? And we can even apply it to first year, second year, third year teachers. Are they understanding AI? Like are the misconceptions about AI interfering with the tools being used? Absolutely.

Michelle Cummings: 23:46

That's a wonderful question. Ai literacy is not just for our students, it's for educators as well. Do you know that March 28th is AI literacy day?

Michelle Cummings: 24:00

And there are going to be activities all across the world for AI literacy day. Of course, it's not just one day, but it will bring attention to the topic. So new teachers, experienced teachers, are often all in the same boat when it comes to generative AI. Administrators who are trying to lead their districts in emerging technologies can have a pretty steep learning curve, and so it is vitally important that we know what AI is and what it isn't, what the capabilities are.

Michelle Cummings: 24:37

I think that, as I said before, teachers are able to use AI for all kinds of efficiencies.

Michelle Cummings: 24:46

We know that's happening across industries.

Michelle Cummings: 24:49

We know that teachers can create lesson plans, can create behavior support plans, can create high-quality instructional materials to engage students, and that frees them up to have more time for those interpersonal interactions with students.

Michelle Cummings: 25:08

We know that it is critically important just as we want AI to be a tool for students to use for learning, not to replace their learning we need to make sure that that's true for the professionals as well that teachers are not creating a resource and not reading it, or giving feedback and not reading it. One of the reasons that Brisk has such an incredible feedback tool is that it will put inline comments on a student's Google Doc, but the student will not be able to see them until the teacher has read them, revised them, clicked comment to make sure that they are appropriate to the learner that 80-20 rule. But I believe that generative AI is having a powerful impact on teachers feeling like their job is doable, that the overwhelming workload is now doable with an AI assistant, that having a brainstorming partner to think about how you want to approach a particular unit of study or a lesson is powerful for provoking creativity and thought. But it cannot replace that teacher's expertise and their knowledge of their students.

Chris Colley: 26:37

Right, that's what you have to bring in. That's your 20. And also making sure that it fits within the context.

Michelle Cummings: 26:47

Yes, your professional judgment matters. Your leadership in the classroom matters. Yes, your professional judgment matters. Your leadership in the classroom matters Absolutely.

Chris Colley: 26:54

Right, and what do you think the uptake is right now, Like percentage wise, with teachers using AI tools? Do you do you have a feeling of how many in the U? S are you know dabbling a little bit? Is it a high number or do you think it's pretty low still, Like we're just kind of starting off?

Michelle Cummings: 27:14

Chris, from what I have read, you know educators can be cautious adopters of new technology Right now, I know, at risk.

Michelle Cummings: 27:27

We have approximately one in six teachers in the United States are using our product.

Michelle Cummings: 27:34

I believe that there is a lot of interest and that districts can often be cautious in their approach. There are some that are very innovative and very entrepreneurial in the way that they work and have, you know, adopt multiple tools to explore and do some research and development, and others who really want to make sure that they are clear about the you know all of the policies and guidelines and concerned about academic integrity, of course, and making sure that those building blocks are there before they move forward with adopting new tools. But I think that, in the same way that we were talking about differentiation, that one of the things that administrators are understanding is that high quality instructional materials from publishers and their adopted curriculum only go so far and that there are needs of the students that are not met by that, and that something like generative AI and brisk teaching, used in conjunction with those high quality instructional materials, can really create unlimited potential for students, create a situation where you can infuse education with students' interests and questions and provide a 24-7 tutor for those students.

Michelle Cummings: 29:05

I was talking with an amazing group of students recently with students for innovation, and they are advocating for their teachers to talk to them and teach them about generative AI and they see the writing on the wall, don't they?

Michelle Cummings: 29:22

Well, they say we will. This is a tool that we need to learn how to use, or it's going to use us. This is a tool we need to use for college and career readiness, and if we don't get to learn about it in schools, where are we supposed to learn about it? And they were using AI to learn about things that were interesting to them that maybe their teachers couldn't teach them. Yet One student had created a chatbot that was teaching him all about nanotechnology. It was fascinating.

Chris Colley: 29:56

Yes, that's cool that you make your own bot to teach you. You know, it's like the world just the doors just fly open when kids can harness that kind of power open um when kids can harness that kind of power.

Michelle Cummings: 30:14

Um, yes, students can learn from anyone, anywhere in the world at any time. They can now learn with a generative ai chatbot who has access to a great deal of information in the world, and um and schools will be um manifesting this and seeing this implemented within their classrooms as a powerful tool to unlock learning.

Chris Colley: 30:37

Yeah, for sure, we're working a lot with teachers with the AI ideas and we're still kind of waiting on students a little bit. However, I do encourage teachers to talk about AI. You know, how are models made? Is it ethical? Is it like there's so much you can talk about without them having to interact? And I'm talking just because of age restrictions. Up here in Canada, anyway, we have certain age restrictions that have access and others that don't, and teachers are like well, they're too young. What do I do with you? Know, talk to them. There's so many resources out there that you can use that. Get those conversations happening and then multiply it. You get to know your kids more, what they think, how they feel about it, where they think it's going and those conversations super rich, and also get to know your kids.

Michelle Cummings: 31:30

Yes, absolutely. That is so true. I think that one of the things that I love about Brisk is that we have a boost product that is student-facing, and so students can experience that personalized tutor that meets them where they are and ask them questions to help scaffold their learning where they are and meet the learning objectives that are that are part of that experience. But that can be a tutor, that can be a brainstorming, that can be preparation for a debate, can be preparation for a debate. I was in a classroom of 11th graders who were working on fine-tuning their argumentative essays about a particular article that their teacher had given them and they were using Boost to fine-tune those arguments that they would then write about. And when you see these modalities that allow students to really engage in critical thinking and have those light bulbs all turned on simultaneously in the classroom, it's very exciting.

Chris Colley: 32:44

Very special. I mean, this feels like this conversation light bulbs are just firing off, michelle. Your insights are just so amazing, like it's just really been a pleasure talking with you and having this. It's a fun conversation and I love that we're putting this positive spin in finding these great stories that fear should never exist. Go do it, give it a try, find your supporters out there, find your champions out there and keep moving forward, cause the world will. We don't keep going forward too yeah.

Michelle Cummings: 33:23

Yeah, I'm wondering if it would be okay if I read just a little bit from the book to end because, excuse me, I I so honor and respect and um, and I'm in awe of people who are going into education now and I want to um share with you how I start the book the First Year Teacher Survival Guide. It says congratulations on your choice of profession. Every day that you are a teacher you will know you're making a difference in the world. Something will make you laugh every day and you will never be bored.

Michelle Cummings: 34:04

Guaranteed Teaching can also be complex and a stressful career. My hope is that you will find in this extensive reference book the strategies, tools and activities you need not just to survive but to thrive in a long career as an educator. And because the word courage is nestled inside of the word encouragement, my hope is that this book speaks courage into the hearts of first year teachers. May the encouragement you find in these, this book, give you the courage and confidence to teach in a way that uplifts all of your students. And that is my invitation to those who have the courage and the passion to join us in a long and fulfilling career as educators.

Chris Colley: 34:53

Absolutely One of the best professions in the world, in my opinion, because you never know what's going to happen in a day. But there are tears, there are smiles, there's laughs, there's. You feel it all.

Michelle Cummings: 35:07

Isn't that the?

Chris Colley: 35:08

truth. Yeah, yeah, and I mean the future should hold all that as well. We're hoping. Well, michelle, thanks so much. Go and get this book people, particularly teachers. I think it's like, even if you're an experienced teacher, there's so many nuggets in this book the First Year Teacher Survival Guide. Get the fifth edition because it's the most up to date, so you'll have all the nuances in. There is the 2025 that we're in. So, thanks again. So much fun, so much fun.

Michelle Cummings: 35:40

Thank you.