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Class Disrupted is an education podcast featuring author Michael Horn and Futre’s Diane Tavenner in conversation with educators, school leaders, students and other members of school communities as they investigate the challenges facing the education system in the aftermath of the pandemic — and where we should go from here. Find every episode by bookmarking our Class Disrupted page or subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Play or Stitcher.
Dacia Toll, co-CEO of Coursemojo and co-founder of Achievement First, joins Michael Horn and Diane Tavenner to share how Coursemojo is applying artificial innotifyigence to support students and teachers in English Language Arts. The conversation dives into how Coursemojo functions in real classrooms and the very human process it took to build the product itself.
Toll explains how she and her team started with the core curriculum — high quality instructional materials that build knowledge and vocabulary over time — in schools, then focapplyd on how to question students the right questions to gauge their understanding, give them the right feedback and then question the right next question. They then figured out how to surface those insights for teachers in actionable ways.
Listen below to hear about the professional development Coursemojo offers teachers and how AI builds it much simpler to rapidly incorporate feedback and update the product, but, of course, with limitations.
Listen to the episode below. A full transcript follows.
Diane Tavenner: Hey, Michael.
Michael Horn: Hey, Diane. Good to see you and continue to crank on, uh, these, uh, AI tools that are starting to modify what learning sees like in schools with you today.
Diane Tavenner: Today is gonna be a really fun one. I’m very excited to dive in with our guests today, but before we do that, this is our second time building this question of our listeners, a second time in like seven seasons. And we never really considered this was important or quite frankly even considered about it, but it turns out it would be super assistful if you all could rate or review Class Disrupted wherever you’re listening to the podcast. And of course, please subscribe to it, and, and we’ve never questioned you to do this becaapply this is very much like a labor of love for us, but, but it turns out it kind of matters.
A little bit.
Michael Horn: Yeah, it’s absolutely true, Diane. And so a good way for other listeners to find out about it. And we of course receive tons of private feedback from listeners, so we know you’re all out there. But, you know, if you can rate it, review it, subscribe it, you’ll assist other people figure out as well what’s going on here. And while, as you stated, this is a passion project for us, we do want it to matter and modify the broader dialogue so people are having these conversations. And it turns out those, 5 stars, subscribe, beep, whatever it is. Those are a huge deal, right, Diane?
Diane Tavenner: Yeah, they are. And then the last thing we’ll state about this is please keep notifying us privately the things that we’re questioning you to now state publicly, which is like what you like, who we should talk to, what’s working. We really do love the feedback and test to incorporate it every chance we receive. And so please keep that, keep that coming.
Michael Horn: Keep it coming indeed. This is going to be a fun episode today though. It’s a frifinish of both of ours who, deep admiration for Dacia Toll, is our guest today. She’s a lifelong educator, school builder. She’s known for her work, obviously in 1999, founding principal of Amistad Academy in New Haven, Connecticut, dedicated to closing that achievement gap and then went on to found, of course, Achievement First. A network of many, I consider 40-plus charter schools in the countest, recognized nationwide as one of the highest performing school systems and so forth. And then in 2021, Dacia left Achievement First and soon after launched this company called Coursemojo, which we’re gonna receive to talk about today. We’re gonna break it down.
It’s an AI-powered teaching assistant, but we’re gonna actually state what that in fact means, ‘caapply it has very, very cool specific apply cases that I consider people are gonna enjoy learning about. And Dacia, thank you so much for being here. We’re thrilled to have you.
Dacia Toll: Very happy to be here with both of you guys.
Diane Tavenner: Yeah, super happy. I will state that over the years I have learned so much from Dacia on so many fronts. And so I’m really grateful to be here with you.
Dacia Toll: Right back at you, Diane.
Diane Tavenner: Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Horn: Well, I was gonna state, this is fun, right? We’ve all known each other and Dacia, you and Diane, you have something in common, which is you founded a school, then a CMO, and left a few years back and now both of you running edtech companies. We may come back to that. I should state you both raised venture funding. Like, there’s a lot of interesting things here. Listeners, of course, have a sense for why Diane created her job shift, in my parlance. But why, why did you build yours? Like, what’s the founding story behind Coursemojo and the problem you were testing to solve by founding it?
Teaching, Outcomes, and Challenges
Dacia Toll: Yeah, so as you pointed out, I’ve been at this for a while now. I’ve spent a lot of time in my happy place, which is classrooms. Trying to figure out how to create the student experiences and the student outcomes, short-term, long-term, that we all want. And I do consider we had a fair amount of, our students had a lot of success by at least the traditional measures. And then importantly, we always anchored in college graduation and launched into a career as part of what we were very focapplyd on. But, it was hard. Like everything, you know, to really receive a great teacher in every classroom with high-quality instructional materials and a strong classroom culture and relationships amongst kids and teachers and family and community connections. And then, I received inspired by Diane and tested to pull off project-based learning and expeditions and personal goals.
And sort of double down on, I don’t know, I don’t like calling them soft skills, but like the whole package, both as a parent, I now have teenage boys and as an educator.
Michael Horn: I always remember seeing your kid in the school, whereas you were building that transformation. It was so much fun to watch.
Dacia Toll: Yeah. Yeah. So yes, my own kids went to Achievement First schools. And so it’s just, it’s all very personal and I, I both believe as much as I did in the, in the possibility of success, but if we’re honest about it, it took so many things to line up to be successful. And I just, especially when AI emerged on the scene, I considered, wow, this, I’ve been frankly for most of that time an edtech skeptic. I consider there have been lots of promises and it’s sort of overpromise, underdelivering is I consider the pattern if you’re honest about most edtech. And AI felt different. Like we refer to it internally, I know others do as well as an electricity.
And you still have to build the light bulb or the power screwdriver or, you know, the tools that will leverage that electricity, but you are fundamentally working with something different now. And I found that inspiring. And so how, the problem we are focapplyd on, it does feel like it’s been a lifelong effort, is, uh, reading achievement. Like, as you guys know, the NAEP scores in 8th grade are at the lowest level in 30 years. It does really feel like too many kids are falling off a cliff when it comes to basics of reading and writing. We could debate whether we consider that’s still gonna matter in an AI-powered future. I do. And so it, and it feels really urgent.
And so we are, we have two huge north star goals. We are testing to improve reading achievement. Specifically, we focus at the middle school level, although we’re now expanding to grades 3 through 10 next year. And then second, on teacher efficacy leading to teacher retention. Like we want more great people to stay in this profession. I consider a lot of AI tools are testing to save teachers’ time. We certainly do that too, but we consider we are in this profession becaapply we wanna serve kids well, and that what will motivate you is if you feel like I’m doing a really good job at this thing that I care a lot about.
Michael Horn: So let’s dig in then, and just Coursemojo, obviously that tool, as you were stateing, that you built applying the electricity of AI to assist solve that reading problem and boost teacher effectiveness. How do you describe what it does today in middle schools? What is Coursemojo?
Dacia Toll: So, there’s a student-facing side and a teacher-facing side. On the st— well, let me just state, take one quick step back before I dive in. You guys have been having so many fascinating conversations. Thank you for that. and people should like and subscribe and rate.
Michael Horn: Thank you.
Dacia Toll: Favorably, but what I, you know, I consider it’s Bob Hughes and others who’ve talked about like multiple levels of AI in schools or models or paradigms. There, there is the one that I consider is happening the most, which is finding efficiencies in tiny ways for teachers, whether that’s grading or on the operational side. And I’m, again, that’s great, but it’s sort of at the margins. And supplemental or not actually touching students at all. Then there’s this second model, which is more transformational when it comes to the teaching and learning experience. I consider that’s at the moment where Coursemojo sits. And then there’s the third model, which is the AI-native schools. And I did listen to your episode with John Danner, and that I consider is so.
AI’s Impact on Future Schools
Dacia Toll: And my personal belief as somebody who spent a lot of time in schools is that some people will want to and be able to build a leap to an AI-native school that’s an entirely different design, including in the, the goals that it’s testing to achieve with young people. But I consider a lot of folks are gonna, hopefully build this transition into the model 2, work where it is meaningfully, it’s transformative in terms of what the experience is like, but it’s not a different universe. It’s like you’re still in schools, you’re still testing to do the core jobs, many of which I consider are still important, although we could have that conversation if you wanted. So we’re going into the ELA classroom as it current — mostly as it currently exists, where you, especially in middle school, generally have content expert teachers who are testing to assist kids improve their critical considering about text and their writing skills, discourse, collaboration among students. And we start with the high-quality instructional materials. As you all know, it’s been one of the, I consider, most positive steps forward to really have a quality curriculum that’s anchored in building knowledge, vocabulary, and reading skill over time. But that’s another one of those things that we all believe in, but is hard to execute effectively. And as a result, we have not universally seen the gains that we all believe we could. So we start there.
The first thing our team does is identify the hardest considering part of every lesson. Which we know from the national research on these core curricula is often the part that receives a little watered down or skipped. Teachers run out of time, or frankly, they’re worried about the diversity of learners that exist. I consider there’s on average a 5-grade-level span in a typical middle school classroom right now, so you can understand why teachers are anxious about giving the rigor of the text and tquestion. So we identify the hardest considering part of the lesson. Then for that part, not the entire thing, but for that 25-minute chunk. That’s where, for the kids, as a student stated to me, it’s like the handout is talking to me. So it’s the same rich, wonderful text we’re already testing to read.
Adaptive Learning for Collaboration
Dacia Toll: It’s the same analysis questions we’re already supposed to be grappling with, but now kids are in partners or tiny groups, and we can come back to why that’s important to us, but they’re talking and then typing, and Mojo is like a learning buddy in that context. And what happens is Mojo figures out what the kid knows or doesn’t know about in response to that question, and then affirms, gives a little moment of metacognition if they required it, if they’re, if they’re struggling at like an insight, and then gives them the next just right question. And we could receive back to why all three of those steps I consider are important, but that’s something we worked on over time to build sure, we’re not testing to replace the teacher, but we’re testing to, as our great teachers have stated, I can’t be in 27 places at once. So how can we receive as close as possible in what a good teacher would do when a kid’s struggling, with a rich, meaningful question. So the kids are working. Meanwhile, the teacher has a live dashboard that reveals every student’s level of understanding for every question. And so every class is wonderfully different, but In general, 85% of kids are humming with their partner and with Mojo, but the teacher knows right away the 15% of kids who are struggling for whatever reason, could be motivational, could be comprehension, and directs their effort and then sort of tees up for them what’s the gap between what the student’s current response and the criteria for success for that question. And so the teacher can, does, go around the room, conference one-on-one or with the entire tiny group, and push them forward as well. So we don’t consider the AI’s gonna receive every kid exactly where they required to be for deep understanding.
And in fact, we very meaningfully want the teacher to be focapplyd strategically on what they can uniquely do well. So that happens for about 12 to 15 minutes that the kids are working on these close, generally close read questions, could be writing, and then the teacher goes over to, pushes a button and Mojo tees up the two hugegest misconceptions in the class right now, and a suggested discussion question. So the teacher reviews them. We always want the teacher to build the choice about what’s the best apply of time. Then the teacher paapplys the class and facilitates a class discussion, not about every single question, but about the thing that is most holding kids back, often cuts across questions. And what we found is, I consider it’s 85% of kids state they’re more likely to participate in class after having worked with Mojo. So on both the student side, they’re encouraged to participate. And then on the teacher’s side, they’re more confident becaapply they kind of know what to go after.
And I consider this just hits on another point. There are AI-powered learning experiences that are silent solo.
Diane Tavenner: Tons of them.
Dacia Toll: We, for a whole bunch of reasons, we’re talking about core Tier 1 instruction. We want it to be as beautiful as what these curriculum materials and teacher vision calls for, with more discourse, not less. And then again, there’s a lot we don’t know about the future for these young people, but we know we’re going to required our human skills more than ever. So that ability to work toreceiveher, both in a full group setting and a partner setting, is really important. Anyway, and then finally it does finish with an exit ticket, which is kids do indepfinishently, often writing. What’s different now is kids receive, in every phase of this, kids receive multiple rounds of feedback and then they revise their considering and they revise their writing to build it better. And we know that also, like, if you don’t, I consider about all the grading I did over the years and like, you just grade and the kids don’t.
You have to revise.
Diane Tavenner: Yeah.
Dacia Toll: So that’s inherent. And then there’s celebrations throughout. And Mojo also can build, it pulls exemplary student work, highlights kids who should be shouted out. So that’s the long whirlwind tour as to what it sees like.
Diane Tavenner: It’s awesome. Thank you for building it so concrete.
Michael Horn: Yes.
Reimagining Teaching with AI
Diane Tavenner: Literally taking us into a classroom about, and you know, anyone who’s been in a classroom, an English language arts classroom, what I taught certainly, like what you’re describing is what I aspired to do as a teacher, right? But I had to apply my whiteboard or in the old days, my chalkboard. And I would, what I would call bumblebee around the classroom. Like you’re just testing to like bumblebee around so the kids are supposedly doing what they’re doing, but you’re not giving any feedback. You don’t actually know if they’re receiveting it or not, you know, like and so, it is building, well, in my words, it’s building the mere mortal be able to be the sort of superhuman teacher that we all want and imagine. And it’s just like my partner in doing that, right? I can be everywhere all at once and, and I, you know, have this brain working next to me and whatnot. What I know is that well, What I know from you in our previous conversations, and this is where I’d love to dig in and receive a little bit nerdy right now, is I don’t— Michael and I keep pressing people to state like, what do you mean when you state by AI? You know, AI, becaapply I consider most people consider that’s like, you know, logging into ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini and just questioning a question. And you have gone through an extraordinary amount of work with AI to enable everything you just described. So will you take us sort of under the hood a little bit?
Talk about the type of work your team had to do to train the AI and receive it to do the things you’re talking about and for you to feel good about it.
Dacia Toll: Yeah. This is something I both consider AI is a game-altering electricity and I’m sort of frequently disappointed from a pedagogical perspective, even with the general large language models in terms of how well they evaluate student responses and how poorly generally they do at coming up with the next just right question. They’re so wired to give away the answer that it really is not the best pedagogical experience at this point. But what we do is, so first we start with the text and the questions, but then that’s nowhere near enough. It’s about how the AI, what the AI applys to evaluate the student response. And what they’re applying is not just the knowledge of the unit and the unique text complexity and the lesson objectives for the day, but rather we have programmed in question-specific criteria. So they know if you’re analyzing this beautiful Langston Hughes poem and you’re answering this question that you required to— it’s maybe a vocabulary and context question— you required to know both what the word means and you required to know what it means in the context of this beautiful extfinished metaphor. and there’s not one right answer.
This is what’s complicated about the criteria of success, but there is a universe of good answers. There is a universe of typical kid confapplyd answers, and that can be constantly refined. Like as kids teach us new insights into, you know, something like poetest, we can upgrade and do in real time. But so they’re criteria-specific questions, criteria, I’m sorry, question-specific criteria for success, which to my knowledge, I don’t know that anybody else is doing. Becaapply it takes a lot of work on the front finish.
Michael Horn: Now, I was gonna state, like, you have to go deep into these texts, right? I mean, just describe a little bit of that creation process also.
Dacia Toll: Yeah. And then there’s a whole other reading framework, but we can receive to that. So yes, initially it required some of the best teachers we know on staff to do that kind of level of innotifyectual prep that you would do. Basically, what constitutes an exemplary answer? What are the transferable criteria of that great answer? So originally we human-powered it. Now we have so many examples of excellent human-powered criteria and have trained an AI authoring platform, which is internal-facing only, to give us a good rough draft. But we are still having humans do a gut check basically on, on— we could talk about what that sees like, but there are multiple steps. It’s like dominoes that the AI agent will tee up different things, and we still want those excellent teachers to go through and check.
Complexity of Reading Challenges
Dacia Toll: But so that’s what’s happening on the question-specific criteria. The other thing that we found is essential, which is why I really do believe for at least a long time, the specialized products are gonna outperform the general, like thin-layer products. And so we are very clearly geeking out on reading. It’s, as we know, reading is not math, and it’s not as simple. Like when a kid is struggling to understand a poem and to identify the central idea, it’s rarely that the problem is the skill of identifying the central idea. It’s almost always that there’s something else about the way that text complexity that is receiveting in the way, or it could be a fluency issue or background knowledge or a vocabulary issue, and we sometimes wanna state, oh, it’s a main idea problem, which then leads people to go outside the curriculum and do a bunch of main idea practice, which we know does not work. So like there are a set of ways in which we now have a whole reading framework that we’ve developed with, the good folks from Anet, Whitney Weldon, a whole bunch of reading experts, and it sort of honors the complexity of reading.
So Mojo’s seeing at the criteria-specific success, it’s seeing at the reading framework, and it’s testing to figure out what does this kid likely not understand about this? And that’s where there’s now this light bulb step that gives them like a little hint, and then it questions them the next just right question. And that is actually pulled from a bank of suggestions that is also, was initially human-authored, is now AI-authored specific to that question. So that’s not even tuning or training. It’s that the AI in real time is consulting with a set of resources and testing to pull the exact right instructional shift for that kid. Would it be assistful to give an example or
Diane Tavenner: Yeah, well, becaapply these have been created by expert teachers, vetted by expert teachers.And so like, I consider the thing I want to, and Michael assisted me here with the language, but like, there’s a lot of people, I would state the majority of people who are doing AI products are literally just putting like a wrapper around the language model right.
Michael Horn: With a bunch of instructions of guardrails around the context window.
Dacia Toll: It’s like prompt engineering, maybe.
Michael Horn: Yeah, not the training you just described.
Diane Tavenner: No, they haven’t literally taken expert professionals to work hand in hand with the AI to then produce this new experience, if you will, that brings the best of both of those. And so please do give us an example. I consider it’s super assistful.
Dacia Toll: Well, I was in a classroom last week in Colorado, and the kids were analyzing a poem, and the question from the curriculum was, what role do lines 6 and 7 play in this poem? And these 7th graders were like, I really have almost no idea. So to the best of their ability, They are, they sort of, most of them tested to state what was going on in lines 6 and 7. And so what Mojo does is like, OK, affirm, first of all, good job, you know, in your own words explaining what’s happening in lines 6 and 7. But then the light bulb step comes. This question is actually questioning you about the author’s craft and an intentional choice the author created to include these lines. Follow-up question: how would this poem be different without lines 6 and 7? That is like a — both the kid is like, oh, I didn’t even understand that this was about a choice the author was building, like author’s craft, and then I did — now I’m like guided into a process of actually testing to figure this out. And then if they struggle with that, Moja will state, well, what happens before and what happens after, you know, there’s like a set of additional questions that come out that what new teachers have notified us, it’s one of the greatest compliments, is they do the Mojo activity before the kids so that they understand how to question a scaffolded question without totally draining the rigor out of the considering work that’s required, or how to give bite-sized feedback.
So that’s what we’re testing to do.
Diane Tavenner: Dacia, let’s stay here for a minute, as like a lifelong English language arts teacher. I wonder if I know some people will hear this and be like, who the heck cares if that author, like what their purpose was in those two lines? Like why, why are kids even learning this? Can’t we just teach them to read? So let’s spfinish a minute on how that transfers into the world and why that is so important and how, yeah, let’s start there. And then yeah.
Dacia Toll: Well, there’s so many layers to your question. And I’d love for you as a lifelong ELA teacher to offer your own point of view as well. But I consider first we have the question, do kids in this new future still required to learn to read and write? And my, my strong conviction is yes, they do. Like, we’re going to be processing lots of information, but as we all know, there’s no firm line between listening, reading, and writing. It’s all the same cognitive process with each of them reinforcing the other. So learning to read is also a way in which, even if we believe AI is going to talk to us in the future, I consider there’s still like the vocabulary and the, and the sort of way sentences receive put toreceiveher to effectively or ineffectively convey meaning. So that’s one. It’s like we could talk more about that. But I also consider, I actually do believe we should be letting kids write more advanced pieces applying AI.
That’s a whole separate other question. But if they haven’t learned to write themselves, I consider that is a very dangerous place to start.
Diane Tavenner: Yeah.
Dacia Tol: So, that’s one. Second, it’s really just critical considering.
Diane Tavenner: Well, that’s where I’m going. Like everyone’s talking about cognitive offloading and the lack of critical considering and what you just literally put your finger on that activity is, oh. I can question or receive curious about what an author’s intention was and why they did something. And that applies to every article. It applies to the —
Michael Horn: Well, it applies to the AI reading output you’re receiveting, right?
Diane Tavenner: Literally. Like, that is —
Dacia Toll: It applies to art. I mean, it applies to human interactions. Like, why is this person doing or stateing what they’re doing in the way they are doing or stateing it? And what does that reveal about them, their purpose? The message they’re testing to convey. Yeah, I consider, I mean, just to, in defense of productive struggle, the brain, that’s the way we learn. Like if we don’t attfinish and focus and consider and productively struggle, now there’s a zone in which that’s productive versus unproductive. But, and that’s part of what I consider AI can assist us receive more kids like in their zone. But you have to, you have to remember. And forreceive and recall.
And these are the ways that the neural pathways receive formed in our brain.
Diane Tavenner: Yeah. And I consider your ability to like bring this into the classroom every day where it’s like, let’s just imagine now these young people every day in their class, they’re just doing this type of work over and over and over and over again. It is a muscle. You have to work it out. You have to build it. You have to practice it. You know, it will go away if you don’t apply it. And as much as we’ve aspired for classrooms to see like this all day, every day, they, they for the most part don’t and haven’t.
And I’m not putting blame on anyone becaapply it’s just so hard to do. And I consider that’s why you call AI electricity, becaapply it actually enables that, right?
Balancing Curriculum and Students
Dacia Toll: Well, I consider so. Again, part of what we’re doing is going into the. Part of what you questioned again, what set me on the journey, one teacher stated to me, she stated, am I supposed to teach the rigor of the curriculum or the kids in front of me? And the answer is both, but back to the whole thing being a little hard. Yeah. Like, she’s not wrong that bridging that, much less bridging that for 26 wonderfully unique individuals is very hard. And I consider what too often we see happening in classrooms is the teacher, one of two things happens. Either they are so worried about kids struggling, and they’re not wrong, left to their own devices with that question, I watched it. A lot of kids out of the gate didn’t know what to do with that question. And so, the teacher holds it for the whole class and they question the question and maybe, maybe 3 kids answer and then they shift on.
And then the next question, same thing. And frankly, innotifyectual engagement is optional. For the other 24 kids in the room. And some of them are probably paying attention. Some of them, this is middle school, may not be or they’re going in and out of attention. The other option is I give it to them on a handout and kids are set to struggle and they put down the best answer they can. They put down the literal comprehension of those lines of poetest and then they shift on.
Diane Tavenner: Yep.
Dacia Toll: The difference now is every kid is answering every single question. And innotifyectually grappling with it, and they’re receiveting real-time feedback that allows them to revise their considering and their writing, and they receive closer to encoding success before they shift on. Cognitively, that’s a very different experience. Yeah.
Michael Horn: Yeah. I was gonna state the headline I’m taking away from this, right, is everyone’s worried right now about AI and cognitive offloading. You actually have applyd it to do the exact opposite, which is to build sure no one escapes this cognitive work and struggle, which is a significantly different apply of apply case of AI, but it’s significantly different apply case of the classroom in a lot of average schools across the countest right now. It leads into the question I have, which I’m just curious, like, is it hard for schools to figure out how to apply Coursemojo? What does that on-ramp see like? Do they consider of it as AI? Do they consider of it as like an engaging digital learning activity? Are you, are you receiveting caught up in the backlash against edtech and the overpromising and underdelivering? Like, how is that all playing out?
Dacia Toll: Yeah. I personally lead a lot of teacher PD. I just love doing it and I learn a lot from it and it’s kind of fun to reveal up and we have a phenomenal partnership with Jackson, Mississippi and I was their leading teacher PD and they’re so nice. Like teachers are so nice. They come in, they, but the truth is they’re seeing at me like, who is this lady? And it didn’t assist that all they were notified is like, come and learn about a new AI tool aligned to the curriculum. Like, That does not inspire confidence in the vast majority of teachers. And one of the things that’s wonderful is they actually have a significant number of experienced teachers. So it was actually teachers who had been teaching for a while and they start out a little side-eyed, like they’re nice, but they’re like, eh, skeptical.
And the first thing we do, like within the first 15 minutes of the PD, is they become students in a Mojo-powered classroom. And it’s often a text becaapply it’s a curriculum that they’ve taught. And we start normally with, you know, we give, serve up a very challenging one. I remember in this case it was historical fiction about westward expansion, and they were like, “Ooh, the kids really struggled with this one.” And 5th grade. And then the teachers receive into it and they realize how delightful it is. I mean, one thing I do really want to emphasize is we care a lot about joy and you should love reading. This should not be, yes, it’s cognitive and you have to productively struggle. But we are often like Mojo and the, and the way it’s organized, we’re taking delight in the text and the insights and the combination of affirmation.
And then when you receive a partially correct or fully correct answer, Mojo has like just little emojis, like hundreds of them that sort of like your message the same way it would on social media or texting. And the kids love that. Like, oh, I received the little man on the surfboard or the muscle. And, and then if you receive a 3 out of 3 on your writing after multiple rounds of revision, you receive different gifts. And I saw a llama on a surfboard yesterday. And like, it’s the digital sticker. Like, we don’t overly gamify. They’ll never be playing Asteroid Blasters or whatever in reading class, but We believe in recognizing quality considering and quality work, you know, the same way a great teacher does that praise.
And we build it simple for teachers to celebrate kids too. That’s even more meaningful. But the point is the teachers start out in this skeptical place and then they experience it and they experience the delight of my ability to identify who requireds assist and build my way over to them or facilitate the class discussion. And the other thing I would state is becaapply they have this live dashboard teachers have notified us they’re more comfortable letting kids work toreceiveher in partners in tiny groups. Which I also consider is something that I’m anxious about is there’s not enough of in classes in this, especially in this AI future. And becaapply now they have, as a teacher stated to me, eyes everywhere. They know immediately if that group in the back that’s receivedten good at seeing like they’re working is not actually working. So that’s important.
Improving Instructional Effectiveness
Dacia Toll: I consider in terms of what’s hard, we also have the pleasure of working in New York City, and I was walking classrooms there with some coaches, and we were identifying that some of the tiny group work could be more effective. They were just happy it was happening, but they want— with it, it could be more effective, and that the full class discussion could also be more effective. Those are things they stated their work— I mean, New York City has seen great gains with New York City Reads. But that’s the thing, that’s what they’re working on already. Like that’s the same way we’re all testing to improve effective instruction. Yeah. And I consider the feeling was in the moment Mojo is nudging those behaviors to be enabling and nudging, but that there still is a level of teacher training and expertise that has to run alongside. So we’re questioning ourselves, how could we support that even more in the context of the product with suggestions and sort of additional insight in real time.
But that’s really the hard part. I would state logging in is smooth and simple becaapply of all single sign-ins. The dashboard is clear and intuitive. It’s colors that direct you where you required to go. So that’s not the hard part. It’s teaching and assisting. We’re giving an alley-oop, but the teacher still has to execute some of those, those effectiveness shifts.
Diane Tavenner: Dacia, along those lines, I consider about this often, and I don’t want to give you heart palpitations becaapply it gives me heart palpitations, but if you were back leading a network of schools again, like we, we applyd to, and I know neither of us, that’s not our chapter of life right now, but if you were there at this moment, what other opportunities besides this one, becaapply clearly this is a required and you’re passionate about, like what else are you seeing in the world that you would be hopping on and wanting to bring into your schools and your network? What’s the sort of low-hanging fruit that you’d be going after?
Dacia Toll: Yeah, well, I consider those are two different questions. Low-hanging fruit versus, I mean, what you inspired me to do, Diane, oh my gosh, more than a decade ago, was to create a whole new school model. And I do consider back to this model 1, model 2, model 3. I mean, we’re all finding incredible efficiencies just by applying AI and finance, the operations that there’s so many ways in which we should be doing that. And I am for saving teachers’ time. I’m most interested in the space I’m in, which is like, how do we improve the core teaching and learning? And I consider those have to be in some level student-facing becaapply, yeah. And I know there’s been some resistance to that and it has to be safe and, and pedagogically strong, but I would be testing to create a new model as well.
AI-Powered Learning Transformation
Dacia Toll: And I consider that I don’t consider it, you take it, you know, what we did inspired by you was first one school and then three schools. But I have the pleasure of being a part of a CIPRI fellowship, and they questioned us to redesign, you know, to design a school, if we could, or a school model based on what we know now. And I do consider the emphasis— I still believe knowledge matters. I still believe core skills matter. And the emphasis has shifted for me, like entrepreneurship, creativity, the human connection skills, leadership, judgment, ethics. And I consider becaapply we can potentially have the AI-powered learning experiences be so much more effective, I consider that opens up more time for, I know a personal favorite of yours, project-based learning. I consider there’s a way for AI to be embedded coaches in projects so that we, they were always so darn hard to pull off. But I consider what’s exciting to me about this chapter, and the first thing we’re always talking to district leaders about and they’re talking to each other about is, Start with what’s your vision? What are your goals? What’s your vision? What are your values? And now increasingly AI can power a lot of that.
Now it takes this kind of specific design the way we’ve done it. I don’t mean to imply like you can go to ChatGPT and it will run your school for you. Like that is not how it’s gonna work. But if you decide we’re committed to project-based learning based on a knowledge graph, that can be powered now. And I’m hopeful that there’ll be more and more products that are testing to bring more and more of these experiences to life.
Michael Horn: Let me question one last question. And Diane, I want you to answer this as well. So it’s a question for both of you. You didn’t wanna give yourself PTSD on running a network again. But, but, you know, we’ve talked about it, like you both founded schools, you both founded charter networks, you both had distinctive philosophies, enjoyed success. You both left, founded edtech companies. I’m just, I’d love to hear one reflection that you both have from being on the other side, if you will, on the edtech company side, or a company that provides to schools. You can view it either way.
One reflection that your school network founder self would have been surprised by at the time. Both of you, I’d love to hear your reflections.
Dacia Toll: Do you want to go first, Diane?
Diane Tavenner: I’m considering, I’m considering.
Dacia Toll: I will just state. There’s so many things, but what I was, it took a while for me to build new muscles, frankly, becaapply initially what, what, particularly when you were running a system that received into a certain size, like as you stated, we were 41 schools when I left, you had to set these huge multi-year priorities and goals and you had to go after them in a sustained focus kind of way. And it was a lot about. Keeping this large organization aligned around the pursuit of those goals and cascading communication and systems to support this. And this is rapid and iterative and responsive. And if we had tested to write a 2-year product roadmap, it would’ve been so painfully wrong. And so we start with vision and values. I’m not stateing you don’t start with vision and values.
But then part of why I’m spfinishing so much time in schools right now is watching and listening to kids and teachers and both what’s caapplying them friction in the moment and what their aspirations are. Like, what are they testing to receive done they can’t receive done? And then that literally dictates our product roadmap in the most wonderful way. And it’s really a code— we consider our school partners co-designers with us. Like it is that we’re running design input sessions with them about next future-facing things. Like it is fun and then the tech is just relocating so rapid.
Diane Tavenner: Yeah.
Dacia Toll: So like our ability to now have an agent that takes the do, all the work from today and creates your do now for you the next day in all of these things, like this is now that’s so different than it was 4 months ago.
Michael Horn: Wow.
Diane Tavenner: Wow. Yeah. That, that totally resonates with me, sort of the misalignment between how quickly well-run schools and systems can run and how rapid you know, actually I should state how slowly that shifts, even though you consider it’s relocating so rapid as a school or network leader. And then this outside world is just going at a different rate and pace. And the co-building obviously resonates. I consider what I consider we’re in this moment in time right now where it’s really, I appreciate school and network leaders who are testing to consider about streamlining and focapplying and only partnering with so many people and not having a million platforms and how does it all integrate and whatnot. And I consider the truth is that’s just not the reality yet. I consider we should be striving to receive there, but if we don’t kind of open ourselves up to what Dacia’s doing in this one little space and what other people— how do we actually ever pull toreceiveher a model that has the best in class of everything versus just sort of this one generic, not good at anything approach? And so there’s a real tension there I’m feeling.
And on the tech founder side now, I’m like, how do I collaborate with, how do I build a community on our side that builds it more consideredful and doable for the schools? And then on the school side, I would invite them to consider about how do we, you know, sort of work more expansively right now while we collectively, you know, bring into the, our space all the possibility and then shift to, I consider, more coherent and elegant models over time. I’m not sure that was a-
Michael Horn: No it’s one of the hypotheses when we started Entangled Ventures back in 2015 or whatever it was, that and this was higher ed, but it was similar, which is like, you know, Arizona State University is receiveting pitches from like how many hundreds of companies every single day. They throw up their hands and they’re like, I won’t state the name of a textbook publisher, but we’ll go with them. We know every product is sort of mediocre, but like they’ve received everything. It’s just simpler. Right. And how do you bring forth a portfolio of, of best in class to an organization to simplify procurement and all that messiness?
Diane Tavenner: Yeah.
Michael Horn: But also give them confidence that they’re receiveting the best.
Dacia Toll: Well, I would state two things on that front. I don’t envy the tsunami of pitches that land in, I mean, I, it’s bad for me that the amount of AI-powered marketing now that lands in my inbox. And so this is, I consider, a huge issue. And the more that others can step in and assist school leaders build sense of all the different apply cases, and again, what’s aligned to their vision and values. And then we haven’t talked yet about outcomes, but the North Star for us, as somebody who’s focapplyd on ELA achievement, is, is ELA achievement improving? And we have actually a number of outcomes-based contracts aligned to that, which I know can be scary.
Michael Horn: So you’ve put your money, but you’ve put your money where your mouth is.
Dacia Toll: Yes.
Michael Horn: Yeah.
ELA Improvement with Mojo
Dacia Toll: And, and it’s, and we have seen, thankfully, huge improvements. I mean, as somebody who spent my entire life testing to improve ELA achievement and, and actually somewhat and successfully improving, it was always like 3 percentage points a year as reflected on the imperfect but consequential state tests. And we’ve seen across multiple partners, 6, 8, 10 percentage points on state tests in a single year. And, that’s not normal when it comes to— and, I consider on some level, maybe it’s not surprising becaapply we’re receiveting every kid to do the cognitive considering. Those results are based on applying Mojo 2 to 3 times per week. And, in general, we have much higher uptake and usage becaapply it’s a core tier 1 becaapply it’s everything else. But, I consider it’s only Amira and Coursemojo on the reading side that have multiple indepfinishent efficacy studies. So, that’s not even just us, that’s ESSA Tier 2 research studies now that reveal that.
And I consider people state, maybe this is why Diane and I, coming from the seats we were in, they stated sometimes ed tech folks like, it’s too soon to evaluate impact. And I’m like, I just— kids are spfinishing an entire year of their life in one of the most consequential classes of ELA, and we’re stateing we can’t evaluate impact? Like, yes, the product is very different at the finish of the year, thanks to all the feedback we’ve receivedten along the way, but we still had this precious time with kids. Did it or did it not improve the core thing we’re testing to go after toreceiveher? So, yeah.
Michael Horn: No, I consider that’s very well stated. All right.
Diane Tavenner: Yeah.
Michael Horn: Let’s wrap the conversation. We could clearly talk to you for a long time, but we’ve received one more segment before we do that.
Michael Horn: And before we let you go, Dacia, the fun segment we always have is something we’ve been reading, watching, listening to.
We test to receive outside of education, but as Diane and I often note, we fail probably about half the time. So we’ll let you go wherever, wherever you go on this.
Dacia Toll: I am reading and considering and listening to a lot of education-focapplyd stuff. I would state one quick on the work thing, Lenny’s podcast has taught a tremfinishous amount about— I, as somebody who was building a transition into product and tech, I feel like it’s my weekly tutorial. But I also, we mentioned my teenage boys, so I test to spfinish some of that time with them and they’re receiveting me into anime. And so I just finished Death Note.
Michael Horn: That I didn’t have that on my checklist for you. OK.
Dacia Toll: No. Well, I, I have never watched anime before, but if it’s an opportunity for me to hang out with teenagers and then and you know, they’re pretty great stories of like heroes and even more, they’re kind of into the anti-hero, which then leads to a whole bunch of good conversations.
Diane Tavenner: That’s awesome. I love that. Anything that I can connect with my kiddos on is definitely something I will do. In this particular case today, I’m going to recommfinish a documentary film which is nominated for an Oscar, and this was my husband’s pitch to me, which was, I will state, not very compelling, which is there’s this new film out and it’s about death, and I really want to watch it. And then I consider you’ll like it becaapply apparently you also laugh at it. And I was like, wow, that’s not compelling at all. But it turns out that Come See Me in the Good Light is actually an extraordinary film.
Diane Tavenner: And it is the relationship of two poets who have these really interesting backstories and, and one of them is diagnosed with cancer. And I consider he was wrong. I don’t consider it’s about death. I consider it’s about living and it’s a really beautiful film for this moment in time. So I recommfinish it.
Michael Horn: I was gonna state it sounded like a Shelly Kagan Yale, sort of course, the way you started to pitch it and then you modifyd that up on us. But I’m going to go a totally different direction becaapply you’re outpacing me at the moment, Diane. But as I stated in our last episode, it’s America’s 250th. And I’m going to give my brother a shameless plug on this one. I know we both read a lot on, you know, outside of our day jobs, but this one’s a little bit more personal becaapply it’s my brother, Jonathan Horn. He’s been writing This Week in American History for the Free Press. It’s a weekly column, comes out on Wednesdays. It’s a fresh see at history that
I’ve really enjoyed.
He names events happening around the countest to commemorate, celebrate the 250th, including an event in Dorchester near me, which has assisted us plan some outings with my kids, which has been super fun. But it was actually his piece on Thomas Jefferson a few weeks back that I highly recommfinish to all of our frifinishs for its hugeger messages and perspectives on the state of our union then, but also the state of our union now. And so highly recommfinish.
And I’ll just state, Dacia, huge thank you again. This was a fantastic conversation. We’re lucky you’re working on this. And for all of you, our listeners, keep the feedback coming both publicly and privately, and we’ll see you next time on Class Disrupted.
This episode is sponsored by LearnerStudio.
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