Michael Conner: [00:00:00] Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to another episode of Voices for Excellence. I am your host, Dr. Michael Conner, CEO, and founder of the Agile Evolutionary Group, and of course, the proud host of the. And today's guest is a personal friend. Now, I have been following Rob's work for a, a very long time.

Michael Conner: We run around in the same circles and the same networks, and we actually had the chance to share the same stage at EdTech week on a panel with Julia Fallon and Jacob Kantor. Two of my other great dear friends to my heart. And Rob is a part of that group too. And you know, you just from the synergy of that panel, Rob.

Michael Conner: It was just so, it was great. There was roughly about 200 people. That was at our, our session at at tech week, and as I was sitting on the panel just hearing you talk about this word that I use very [00:01:00] frequently, even so as a part of the name of the title of my book, intentional Bold and Unapologetic. You used the word and you surgically unpacked intentionality in the context of advanced platforms, different AI solutions.

Michael Conner: And the partnership between schools leaders and ed tech companies and startups. And I was like saying to myself in intrinsically, I gotta get Rob on the podcast. So made the phone call to my audience. Rob and I are on various text message, text messaging threads, and it's just an absolute honor to actually bring Rob Dickson to you.

Michael Conner: Because we've had many, many geek out conversations, even geek out conversations on text threads with Saab, with Julia, with Jacob, and then yesterday, Rob, as I was looking over the questions preparing for this, I was like. Man, I got heavy hitters on this and don't even know we're all sharing different strategies and articles about ai.

Michael Conner: I was like, I can't [00:02:00] wait for my audience to be able to engage with you. So it is, without further ado, such an honor to bring Rob Dickson, who is the CIO for the Wichita, Kansas, or Wichita Public Schools in Wichita, Kansas. I don't know if I said it. School district. Public schools. It is just so independent school district.

Michael Conner: I mean, it is Rob, I tell you, across the country. It's just different, but it's just glad to have you here. Rob, welcome to VFE, my friends.

Rob Dickson: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm, I'm grateful to be here. Thinking about this whole year and the changes that have happened both on society, both locally in our school district, it's an interesting time, isn't it?

Michael Conner: Rob, I, I, I tell you when I talk about interesting, I always like to use the word that is a profound time. It is an unprecedented time, right? Because not only are we dealing with a variety of different economic shifts, broad, broad [00:03:00] transformations in education, and then also this evolution and revolution of artificial intelligence and technology that you and I talk about frequently, having all of these different variants come together within this conglomerate.

Michael Conner: It just makes it, I like to say this extreme dissonance. On how we truly move and scale an education and operating model to be in alignment with our generational, uh, generational learners. So this conversation, I would say is needed, but more importantly, I'm learning from you as well as my audience today.

Michael Conner: So, Rob, please don't hold back because you know, like I just stated, you know, within the text threads that were on the many conversations that we have, it would be selfish. That we do not disseminate and share all that information, so please be you Rob on this as well.

Rob Dickson: Will do.

Michael Conner: Rob, my first question to you is a fun question, right?

Michael Conner: And I couldn't wait to ask this to you because we always have serious [00:04:00] conversations, but we never really unpacked it this way. But Rob, you are a national voice and you are. I see everybody's coming to you, everybody. Speaks to you about ai, about technology, about innovative models and education, your recognized name, Rob and well respected.

Michael Conner: But Rob, for those that do not know your work in Wichita Public Schools and globally, what song I, I would love, I can't wait to ask this, this question ju uh, to Julia, but what song unpacks your leadership signature for impact and influence?

Rob Dickson: You know, I think it would have to be don't stop believing by journey.

Rob Dickson: And the reason why I would say that is because today with the amount of ambiguity and uncertainty like. You have to just believe that things are going to be better. [00:05:00] I think of the, you know, this last week, MIT just released a figure of 11% of jobs would be replaced by AI through a research study that they had and the impact of even 11% of jobs, right?

Rob Dickson: I think there's such an uncertainty as far as what jobs will be produced. 'cause I think we'll hit. You know, a little bit of this negative connotation that AI is going to replace some jobs, and I think it's gonna replace some tasks, right, and, and very narrow tasks in the beginning. But I think in the future it's going to generate more jobs than and, and newer types of jobs and newer types of work.

Rob Dickson: Than what we're used to. And I think I, I equate it back to, you know, like my grandparents and my parents thinking of, you know, I was just there over Thanksgiving and talking with them, you know, [00:06:00] how I work today is very different than how they worked. Right. And you think it's not fair, right? As a person?

Rob Dickson: 'cause you're like, oh, I had more struggles or I had this. I think for our kids it's, they're gonna live through a lot of. Changes, and I love sole bloom's quote that adaptability is the highest form of intelligence. Right? I finished reading that book, five Types of Wealth and I, I love that quote because I think adaptability is going to be something that we have to understand how to unlearn, relearn, and learn again.

Michael Conner: Yeah. And Rob, great point. Don't Stop Believing by Journey. Love that song. Uh, I, I, and, and again, I think what's more compelling, right? And provocative that you had said this, which is needed. I always say that the definition of transformation, Rob, [00:07:00] is not learning, but unlearning what you know. I think this unprecedented time of transformation unlearning to learning and this, this, I like to say competency, this leadership competency around adaptability, right?

Michael Conner: That we have to be adaptive, but moreover, prepare our students to be in an adaptive context of what I like to say, the AC stage of education after COVID-19, specifically with our, our learners today, generation alpha. Coming into our schools very shortly. Generation beta. Very interesting. Right? Very interesting that 11% of our jobs, this is the research that you stated, 11% of our jobs will be replaced with ai, but I love the fact that you said that it won't replace jobs, but it will replace tasks.

Michael Conner: That is like essential because there's this narrative out there that AI is gonna completely take over, but I always [00:08:00] reference Primo LA's. Sentiment where he always states that AI won't replace humans, but humans with AI will replace humans without ai. Uh, very good book that he wrote, you know, leading in the, leading in the age of ai.

Michael Conner: But, uh, this level of uncertainty. I think that we have to be clear that we are living in this environment, this educational ecosystem of uncertainty. I always like to say that it's this advanced level of VUCA and the, the advanced level of VUCA is vice uncertain. Volatile intersectionality, complexity, and exponential.

Michael Conner: So now we're not just living in this VUCA world, but we're living in this wound vice world where adaptability, as well as uncertainty, is going to have this polarity. With that, I really love how you say it, that we have to unlearn or we have to learn to unlearn, to read women. Um, very, very compelling for this time.

Michael Conner: To [00:09:00] my audience, just in that first question, please replay that because Rob talks about various strategies, about three to four different strategies within his answer that I think that is a part of culture, right? That we have to be mindful of cultural shift because again, we are unlearning. Which is a key, I like to say pinnacle for transformation.

Michael Conner: But Rob, I wanna extend on your response to that first question because it, it, it aligns to what we're facing today, right? Are kindergartners today, Rob, we're we're, we're getting old. My friend are kindergartners today are projected to graduate high school in 2038. They are projected. Wait, wait. Rob, listen to this.

Michael Conner: Let's hope we're around. They're projected to retire from their specific profession by 2087. All right, I, we'll, we'll be old my friend. We'll be, I think we'll be great [00:10:00] grandfathers at that time, but. When we think about it from a learning organization, school design aspect, I always like to say now with that data in front of us, we have to be what I call AC 2035 ready after COVID 2035, ready.

Michael Conner: Now, you're one of the respective voices, as I stated before, within the ecosphere, but provide a level set definition. Of what it means to be AC 2035 ready With this connotation that our kindergarten students are gonna be graduating high school in 2038, as well as GRA or retiring from their specific profession in 2087.

Michael Conner: What competencies are going to be needed to compete globally in the workforce and world?

Rob Dickson: I think COVID taught us some lessons. I've never, in my 26 years of education, handed out laptops in a parking lot [00:11:00] kind of thing, or did some of the things during COVID that we were able to do. I think what it allowed us to do as an educational institution is go back to cognitive skills.

Rob Dickson: Thinking about critical thinking, thinking about problem solving. If I had to think about what those futures look like, I, I got to start Creative Minds last year as a micro school within our public institution. It's a K six vertical classroom, which means K through six students are in one classroom together.

Rob Dickson: And if I were to break it down, I would say elementary school is learning by doing middle school skill discovery and high school is skill development.

Michael Conner: Can I interject because I want my audience to hear those three stages again. Can you repeat that one more time? Because wow, that was, that was profound.

Rob Dickson: So I think elementary is learning by doing, and I think it [00:12:00] develops those tangible cognitive skills. I think middle school skill discovery, so many times you look at CTE and other pathways and I think you'll see a lot more. CTE esque, like pathways in the future, developing skills. 'cause I think in the future it's, it's less about just having a high school degree and moving on to a post-secondary institution.

Rob Dickson: You're seeing more collaboration with post-secondary right now in our high school. So skill discovery is needed in that middle school area. I went through a program called Leadership Wichita, right? And so you go around you, you visit the different industries within the city, our highly aircraft industry, right?

Rob Dickson: So you go see Spirit Textron, you kinda understand what skills are needed in those industries. If I were to replicate middle school, it would be similar to that, right? It'd be like helping our kids understand what industries and what skills [00:13:00] are needed locally. To help them have an awareness. 'cause I lead our middle school STEM camps every summer.

Rob Dickson: 800 middle school kids roll through our STEM camps and many of them are like, I didn't even know this place was here. Right? Because I go back to. How we grew up, Mike, where you know, your mom said, get outta the house and don't come, you know, don't come back until the lights come on. Right. The streetlights and you built a social fitness.

Rob Dickson: Right? Well, our kids don't grow up that way anymore, so we've got to build social fitness and cognitive skills together with these kids. And I think doing that through skill discovery is an important process of that. At the high school level. It's skill development. I think we will. You're seeing us here in Wichita Public Schools develop future ready centers, which are, they don't look like classrooms.

Rob Dickson: Our advanced manufacturing, FRC kids walk through and they learn material science. They're [00:14:00] learning, you know, how to build an aircraft. Uh, and that's being taught by Airbus as well as WSU Tech. And so our students are getting application level. Experiences and certifications. We just opened the hack this year, which is the hub for advanced computer knowledge and it's cybersecurity machine learning as an extension of computer science.

Rob Dickson: So it's hard to have a student choose which pathway they want in high school. That's so in depth like that when you haven't done skill discovery at the middle school level?

Michael Conner: Yeah. Yeah. And, and Rob, thank you for that. And we use VFV as a asynchronous tool for professional learning for leaders as well as educators across the globe.

Michael Conner: And to my audience, this is one of those answers that you need to be able to rewind. To be able to desegregate and unpack to his granular level [00:15:00] specifically around the three stages that Rob have articulated within this K 12 trajectory, or I should say pre-K 12 trajectory. Rob, I think I look at the, as you were unpack in the three stages, K through five learning by doing.

Michael Conner: Skill Discovery six through eight and Skill Development nine 12. I was associating each of those stages with various indicators from my 22nd Century Systems, the Learner Framework. And Rob, if you can continue, because we're gonna talk about your future Ready Centers and the Creative Minds Micro School that is, um, uh, in Wichita Public Schools.

Michael Conner: But can you unpack this social fitness. Developing of cognitive skills in this interconnected manner because I think that now within the AC stage of education, this focus on workforce development, creative and creating innovative pathways and alignment to development skills and competencies, I think [00:16:00] this holds social.

Michael Conner: Fitness is a thread that is obsolete within the integrated model to prepare our students for the future of the world, the future of the work. What does social awareness look like specifically at that six to eight level? The trans adolescent learner who is fundamentally different, the antithesis of you and I from to today, but again, social fitness.

Michael Conner: AC stage of education generation alpha and the trans adolescent learner six through eight. Just unpack that for my audience.

Rob Dickson: One of the things that's interesting is the size of their network, right? So I think of myself as a middle school student in the eighties, right? I'm, I'm pretty old. I turning 50. So whenever I think about my middle school age, my network was probably about 15 people, right?

Rob Dickson: I, it, it was my neighborhood and there wasn't internet. There wasn't the connectedness that our kids [00:17:00] have. Whenever I see, even, I have three daughters. They're in their twenties, right? So my 28-year-old, 26-year-old, and now 23-year-old, they even have a very different environment because technology was such at a ramp at that time that their exposures to social media was very different.

Rob Dickson: Even between the 23 and 28-year-old. And so I think you're seeing this microcasm, right? You see these generations are smaller, not because of society, but because of technology, right? I think that's something that we have to grasp as a society is that realizing that it's technology that changes generations, not necessarily the society underpinning it.

Rob Dickson: So whenever you, wherever you think about the network that a kid has today, if I'm 13 years old and my parents have now allowed me to have access to a smartphone that [00:18:00] has always on internet, my network is now millions or billions. And so there's a different level of social fitness and understanding of what level of connectedness, right?

Rob Dickson: Like. Mike, you and I, we text message, right? We've got connectedness via text during the day, and that connection is very different than the face-to-face conversation we're having right now, virtually, which would be very different than the conversation that we have at FETC, where we're literally in the same room together.

Rob Dickson: And I think Social Fitness today for a middle school student is understanding all of those different types of engagements. But also the level of relationships that are between all those, right? Because I think our kids think all of those are relationships, and it really depends on the depth of understanding and the connectedness with that other human right.

Rob Dickson: And helping our kids navigate that [00:19:00] when we didn't have to navigate that is very hard for us as teachers, as faculty to understand.

Michael Conner: Yeah. Yeah. And Rob, well contextualized because just this past Thanksgiving and this is Bring it and bringing memories back, right of what you were saying is just this past Thanksgiving, my son was on his iPad and playing games, you know, with various other, other kids throughout the country and you know, I got to meet some of his friends.

Michael Conner: One is in Florida. One is in New York, one was in, I believe, Texas. And he's been steadily playing with these kids via online, through the various games that he's on, whether it be Madden or Roblox. I hope I'm getting the games correct, but I asked him, Mikey, have you ever met any of these kids in person?[00:20:00]

Michael Conner: And he said, no. Now, it just brought a memory back to me where my friends, when I was growing up, just like you, Rob, we met the parents. We were in the house, we were outside playing, and then now Generation Alpha, they have these sustained relationships with other kids and they have never met them in person.

Michael Conner: Only have seen them, whether it be through FaceTime or whether it be through the gaming system or the games that they're playing are just radically different, Rob, than when you and I were growing up and I have a 10-year-old. So, you know, I'm going through these various stages and Mikey is entering or about to enter, you know, this trans adolescent learner stage where there's that confusion and identity theory, right?

Michael Conner: The confusion, identity theory of a trans adolescent learner. I wonder how that research is going to be challenged from a confusion identity theory in the [00:21:00] context of AI technology. And Generation Alpha, well stated, Rob, I couldn't put it any better, but I want you to go back to your leadership. Right, and just thinking about the trajectory over time, specifically now moving from the DC stage of education during COVID-19 to now this fourth industrial revolution, which is the AC stage of education after COVID-19, what leadership lessons.

Michael Conner: From the private sector, Rob, because I know you have a, a background in this from the private sector, you believe are driving scalable and more importantly, sustainable transformation at Wichita Public Schools. I know you built the Future Ready centers, the creative minds with the micro schools, but how do you interface strategies with that magnitude or kind of like a meta rupture from an innovation context in the district's operating plan?

Michael Conner: Instructional framework or even a technology roadmap for infrastructure rearchitecting? [00:22:00]

Rob Dickson: You know, I'd have to say it's an iterative approach. It has to be, and I think you have to be okay to fail fast and it it's necessary to fail fast. Having an agile or iterative approach is important. I think we moved away from rigid long-term plans.

Rob Dickson: And have adopted more iterative approaches to problem solving. I think it allows us to be more responsive to the industry. 'cause the industry is changing too, right? Like it, I, I think in the past, you know, every, every so often the state would change the state standards and you would have these standards that were changed and, and so now I think we're starting to understand and go back to this fundamental that our education is serving industry.

Rob Dickson: And listening to industry and listening to what is needed in industry and working our way back. And I think that's a [00:23:00] necessary component for scalability. 'cause then you understand how many of a product that you need to produce for that industry. So I think that helps for re relevance, which is. Like this foundational thing that somehow we removed out of education for such so much time, right?

Rob Dickson: Because kids today, if they sit in a traditional classroom and they're not engaged, it's because they've lost the relevancy of what's happening. And I think having that relevance ensures maintenance over time, but also cognitively for that student, a retainment. For a much longer period than like cramming for a quiz, right?

Rob Dickson: If I find high relevance in something and I value that, I'm going to retain that knowledge or that skill for [00:24:00] a, a much longer time, and I think that helps us, you know, I'm, I'm, it's hard for me to predict. Three years down the road now. I used to, I remember back in the day, whenever we had an E-Rate, we had to develop these five-year plans.

Rob Dickson: I can't imagine what five years looks like from now. It's hard for me to imagine what three years looks like from now. So I think having agile and iterative approach is something I, I liken it. April Webb, I, I got to listen to her at South by Southwest a couple years ago, and she likened it to Mike. You, you've driven on a icy road before, right?

Rob Dickson: So. When you're driving down an icy road, you don't make large adjustments. You make small adjustments. And so when you're steering into a corner on a icy road, it's those micro adjustments, and that's what I think it's like today, both in education and in the industry. It's your skill level has to be like driving on [00:25:00] a icy road, micro adjustments and continually unlearning to relearn.

Rob Dickson: What I learned in shared GPT in the last three years since it's just reached its third birthday, right. I'm, I engage with AI very differently today than I did three years ago.

Michael Conner: Yeah. Yeah. And Rob, well stated, right? Because again, going back to that theme from the outset that we have to learn to unlearn, to relearn wherever I speak, Rob, if it's a keynote or a workshop that I'm leading, I always bring it back to this and you stated it.

Michael Conner: We can't predict what three to five years would be from now. Uh, so having or developing static strategic operating plans or continuous district level or school level continuous improvement plans kind of defy where we're heading in the AC stage of education. But I always state, Rob that, you know, 10 years ago, would we have ever thought about getting in a stranger's car?

Michael Conner: At [00:26:00] 4:00 AM to take us to the airport, and this is 10 years ago, everybody would say absolutely not. But now is naturalized in our world because Uber and Lyft supplies that. I always say 10 years ago, Rob, will we have ever thought about spending multiple days in a state that we may have never uh, been to and go into a stranger's house where we take their keys.

Michael Conner: We actually stay there for three to four days, not knowing anything about this person. 10 years ago, we would say, absolutely not. You're crazy. But now Airbnb is the preferred method. Then hotels. So you are absolutely right that, you know, is hard from this predictability standpoint that the education model underscores that we cannot operationalize like that anymore.

Michael Conner: Bringing this level of relevance, I really love that because Rob, you stated that [00:27:00] you know where sometimes we. Cram for a quiz. We have this hyper perseveration on outputs of standardized assessments, but in reality, those students are only using 15% of those skills embedded within the test in their naturalized lives.

Michael Conner: So we do have to take an economist perspective when we have to listen to the industry to be agile and iterative around the redesign or design of our models. But. You know, Rob, when we think about artificial intelligence, I kind of wanna seamlessly move into this because your last answer really segues into this, right?

Michael Conner: When we think about diverse intelligence systems from this impact, a broad impact. You and I know, you know, within various learning organizations across the globe, across the globe, and again, we're building capacity simultaneously, there's a level of ad hoc implementation because of the depth and the complexity of redesigning the model.

Michael Conner: [00:28:00] Learning to Learning to unlearn. To relearn. To relearn, right. But change management in this analog sense is complex because what we had to do is apply research, science, prototyping, and, and progress monitoring all at the same time. Arduous and context. You and I know, but in your words, Rob. What methods and strategies can be successfully or used successfully to implement diverse technology and AI into the operating model for this key word coherence.

Michael Conner: And then second, from this classroom practitioner lens, what does successful AI adoption look like within, let's go back, bring it back to oldie oody, the instructional core teacher, student content.

Rob Dickson: I get the opportunity to set both operationally and instructionally in this district. And so I love having the two different lenses and being able to participate in [00:29:00] both.

Rob Dickson: I've had the opportunity to, I absorbed the research department in the spring and moved it underneath my AI specialists, so now it's research and intelligence. So I think operationally there are an immense amount of efficiencies. Next, next level things that we can do. And what's interesting is, you know, even just a year ago whenever I would talk with district leadership on the operational side, they're all in on, on making ai.

Rob Dickson: And then, and then once you start to move instructionally, it's like, ooh, there's like this sacred cow, right? You, you don't wanna, you don't wanna disrupt the instructional side. And, and it, and it's understandable, right? Because. You have, you're, you're moving to a different style of computing 'cause AI and generative ai.

Rob Dickson: Well, I would just say generative AI tends to lend itself to probabilistic computing, which [00:30:00] means every time you're gonna get a different answer. Right. And that, I think that brings some complexity to the conversation of learning. I think it gives us an opportunity to look at. Even us as humans, right?

Rob Dickson: When you think of the percentage of hallucinations today are about 2.3% out of the frontier models, I would always ask that question of what percentage of hallucinations come out of humans 'cause, right. If you wanted to compare this, right, I, I think you need to compare it. We're human species, we like comparisons.

Rob Dickson: And so whenever I think instructionally about AI and what's needed. I think about first the ethical considerations, right? I need to make sure that it's safe and secure for staff, students, the data, all those pieces as a, as a CIO of the district, obviously that that rides on me, right? Knowing that companies need to be able [00:31:00] to not use our data to train on, right?

Rob Dickson: So I think you're seeing AI being implemented. In two different fashions. There's AI as a product and AI as a service. And so when I think about those ethical considerations, we're even even changing our app approval process. The re go through and vet when company has introduced generative AI as a, as a function or as a feature, because I think it's important to.

Rob Dickson: To walk that walk, especially with families. And in Kansas, we have a lot of, we have a lot of things that we have to get permission from parents on, and apps are one of those that we get active permission. It's not passive. So every year I go through a process of asking, and parents go through our online enrollment and they, they vet that process.

Rob Dickson: But helping, I, I think one of the most [00:32:00] important things that on the instructional side of ai, and I, I say the ethical side of this. Is that it's informing students, informing staff, and informing parents because no one else. Uh, and I liken this to social media, like I think one of the, the bad parts of social media as a society that we didn't do was we didn't educate parents how to navigate social media parenting.

Rob Dickson: Right. That should really, I guess, land on education at some point. I think the same way with ai. It will need to be that way. Whenever I think about those ethical considerations, when I think about professional development, it's constant and it has to be quality. I think of when we first started training and we trained, so if Chat GPT came out that end of November-ish, 1st of December, three years ago.

Rob Dickson: Following January, February, we were training teachers [00:33:00] already in staff meetings, how to use chat GPT, and there wasn't a Microsoft copilot or something that allowed us to do it. In a way that we could teach data privacy and, and data literacy real. Really it's about data literacy. There's all these functions of literacy that we need to teach our teachers and students about.

Rob Dickson: Data literacy is one. Obviously AI literacy. Digital literacy, just navigating all those. So I think professional development is, is super important. It has to be ongoing and job embedded. Because remember, as you're using generative AI right now, you're, you're eating a cake, right? You're, you're experiencing this cake, and while you're eating this cake, there's another cake in the oven that's bigger, better, and more accurate, and it's got different features than the cake you're currently eating.

Rob Dickson: And so you're gonna experience another cake. It's not this growth that's like this. It's such a jump [00:34:00] every time you see a different model with different features. And so the importance of that professional development each time that change happens is important. And I think the strategy to be coherent is adopting all of that together as one and it being a single voice.

Rob Dickson: Because, you know, it, it's, it's about the storytelling. It's about what could happen. I think wonder and curiosity have to be a component of professional development with staff, helping them understand the ways to use it personally, so that then they use it professionally. Because I think this is such a, a, any general purpose technology.

Rob Dickson: Is going to affect everyone personally and professionally, and to get somebody to adopt it themselves, they've got to use it personally before they use it professionally. Yeah,

Michael Conner: Rob. Excellent way to [00:35:00] put it. I started laughing because when we talk about hallucinations, right? Specifically with ai, I love the aspect that you said, what's the percentage of human hallucinations and, and that is.

Michael Conner: I'm gonna, I'm gonna steal that and, and copyright that and say, Hey, that's, that's Rob's, uh, human hallucinations. But Rob, well stated. What I really took from that is this whole focus around ethical considerations, professional development, professional learning, but this whole literacy focus on building literacy and really building social capital around this in coherence.

Michael Conner: You're absolutely right. Storytelling, allowing teachers. Allowing leaders the wondering and curiosity around implementation, which I think will be the residual of this level of innovation. Rob, I want to touch upon this because it's very contentious. Whenever I bring this up, people [00:36:00] kind of like. Ignore it, and it's a negating factor.

Michael Conner: And I think it's important specifically now in the AC stage of education where education is moving towards, from a legislative standpoint, not more in the lines of a isolated state of implementation, but more this national strategy. And people kind of be like, Ooh, you know, bringing this up. It is kind of like taboo, but public education is gonna be in this crisis.

Michael Conner: If it fails to innovate. And the reason I bring that up, because market-based competition and reform is starting to move into education, right? It's becoming a competition for families and for students. And when we think about this whole choice voucher system, that's gonna be part of our national strategy.

Michael Conner: Public education has to innovate because again, we're gonna be, uh, competing. Against [00:37:00] various models, right? We talk about the Alpha model. You have already created Creative Minds, which is a micro school that lives within a district in itself. But I wanna ask you specifically, because I know I can have this conversation with you now with a lens from this disruption to meet market needs, IE students and families in this 21st century global economy.

Michael Conner: Stage of education. How will public schools and public education have to adjust to this new evolution of market-based competition and reform? Now, you have done this already in Wichita. This is a business sector ideology and strategy. How do we do this by 2030? Because again, it might compromise public education and the continue expansion.

Michael Conner: Public education in itself.

Rob Dickson: I think if you go back to thinking [00:38:00] about that iterative approach, right? I, I really do think in public education we're, you're gonna see a lot of changes happening. Uh, you're seeing it now in post-secondary, right? People are questioning full year degree. I, I think you're gonna see that shift down and you're seeing a lot more collaboration with post-secondary, with our institutions right now.

Rob Dickson: So I think at that level, at the end, right? If I were to work my way back, it would be, I think you're gonna see more and more industry and embeddedness if you were to go to any of those future ready centers. They don't look like a classroom, right? It doesn't even look like a school. It looks like you're walking into a business almost.

Rob Dickson: So when I think about that and then I start back to Creative Minds, which is our K six critical classroom, one of the things we had to do was start to listen to parents. And it's crazy, right? You know, to think about building community. 'cause many of our [00:39:00] schools used to be like the cornerstone of the community.

Rob Dickson: And somehow we've gotten away from that. And I don't know if that was just over time of. Things such as No Child Left Behind and some of those initiatives over time, creating this cloud of difference between school and family and also family disconnecting from school, but, and Creative Minds. What I've learned, because even at Creative Minds, whatever we started last year, the schedule looked very different and we changed it about six times in the year.

Rob Dickson: Now we're down to what I think is right, but it, I'm not saying that it couldn't shift. So I think having a back and forth conversation with families of what their needs are and also instilling in them some skills to help them parent as well. 'cause [00:40:00] I think going back to the social media case, like one of the things we didn't do was help a parent navigate social media parenting with their kid.

Rob Dickson: And not that there's some, we oversee all of technology in society, but as an educational institution, I think we're going to have to have a heavier hand in helping our parents navigate a trajectory of parenting that they don't understand. Right. So I think it's a lot of back and forth with parents. We, we have creative minds.

Rob Dickson: It's not in a district facility, it's actually in what's called the Learning Lab. There are five other micro schools there. We collaborate with those micro schools on a day-to-day basis. And it's, I would say if I were to bring one of our Wichita Public Schools teachers in and they see all the other micro schools, they wouldn't understand it.

Rob Dickson: It would be foreign to them, but that's the kind of exposure that I think is needed for, to help us change as a public institution, [00:41:00] because somehow we got stuck in the bureaucracy of education and not around the intention of what it means to produce a citizen. Right? Someone who gives back. I think of what we've learned in creative minds is, you know, art, music, PE is enveloped into all of our project based learning.

Rob Dickson: So we only do two and a half hours of instruction and the rest of the afternoon is project based learning. And we in, we have a, a STEM rapper that comes in, teach kids music. We have a ballerina dancer that comes and teaches kids dance. We do art is, is enveloped. There are showcases of learning that happens multiple times a year where community members come in to see those things.

Rob Dickson: I think giving our schools autonomy to do different things will be important in the future to take risks because I think [00:42:00] as public education, we've been kind of risk averse. And worried, worried more about test scores than we are about the, the whole child.

Michael Conner: Rob, I apologize if I sound fragmented because I'm just writing down various ideas that you had stated.

Michael Conner: The key theme I take from your answer is around taking risks and if education specifically the vertical of public education, do not take the risk for innovation. I think it would be in a crisis within the next five years leading to AC 2035. Um, you, you have done it right with Creative Minds. You have done it with your Future Ready Centers, where now you started to build innovative models within the traditional public education business model.

Michael Conner: We have,

Rob Dickson: but isn't it inter-

Michael Conner: go ahead, Rob. Yeah,

Rob Dickson: I, you pointed out something you said there's a lot of different, [00:43:00] and I think what. You just said like there's not a one size fits all model. It's a lot different models. And I think that's important in our public education setting and our systems, especially large districts like ours, it has to be a lot of different experiences to meet the needs of a large, diverse community.

Michael Conner: Yeah. And Rob, I wanna extend this out, that how do we, and this is more of a catalytic. Type of question for leaders specifically in public education is how do we now take that strategic risk, knowing that we have to be iterative and agile to the prototype more broadly, to the archetype of being able to create the flexibility of various threads within the operating model of public education to have those designs in alignment too.

Michael Conner: Generation, alpha generation, [00:44:00] beta families, because we're starting to see, you and I are talking about this even on our text message threads of these new designs that are coming up and families are choosing to go to these new designs and they're leaving the traditional bureaucracy, public education. So how do we now take strategic risk?

Michael Conner: In lieu of being risk adverse. This question, we could spend another hour on this, Rob. So I just love talking to you, my friend, but here's a question that I want you to reflect on. Okay? And when you think about all of the things you have done now, and this is kind of like a, a, a static question because I know what you're gonna say.

Michael Conner: You know, it's gonna change, you know it's gonna change in the next. Month or two because of how education is so rapidly evolving. But what do you hypothesize Rob will be the most significant legacy thread that you will leave [00:45:00] in WPS? When you think about technology, artificial intelligence in all the innovative models that you created in Wichita, what is that legacy thread that you are going to leave?

Michael Conner: Generation alpha and generation Beta.

Rob Dickson: You know, if I, I, I love the word intention, right? And, and I said that in the last podcast. I think I, I, I'm gonna shift it. I'm gonna use another I word. I'm gonna say innovation should be expected. And if you see. If you could foresee the future, and I hope at some point we were able to actually just project out three to five years to help a kid understand, or, or either help them cope with uncertainty and ambiguity.

Rob Dickson: 'cause I, I think it's a hard place to set [00:46:00] in for a long time. Whenever I think about the adaptability, the innovation that needs to happen, all of those. Seemed to stand around being able to be resilient in waters that you don't understand. And I think to myself, for myself, what I would love to leave is that change is constant and it should look very different after I leave than while I was there, and very different after the next person's here, because that change needs to be constant.

Rob Dickson: I don't think that's necessarily a legacy, but it's just, it's necessary. It will be a necessary fuel, right? Like technology is a fuel. It can be used for good, it can be used for bad, but that fuel is going to be constant, and right now is like a fire hose, and it's going [00:47:00] to continue that way for the unforeseeable future, at least for now.

Rob Dickson: So whenever I think about our kids and what they need to be okay with as an educational institution, we need to help them adapt and help them just be good and uncertainty. And I think curiosity is that skill, right? I think it, I think we've got to continuously help our kids ask questions. And the question is more important than the answer today, and helping them stay critical and stay curious is what will be needed.

Rob Dickson: I, I love Saba's. She used this slide where, as a human, AI human, you define the problem, right? And you define environment that AI does this level of tasks for you could be agent-based, it could be human [00:48:00] nature. Then you're reviewing, you're adding emotion, you're doing, and so that structure of how a person does things in the future needs to be templated across every industry, every learning facet, even how we learn is going to be that way in the future.

Rob Dickson: Fundamental because. I mean, the calculator is the closest thing I can think of to how I grew up. Right? There was, I remember math class and my teacher being like, Nope, you're not using your calculator today. And I'm, man,

Michael Conner: hey. Right. How about this, the TI 80 when I was growing up?

Rob Dickson: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. And so now it's commonplace and I think it just takes time for culture to adopt.

Rob Dickson: That workflow, but that's the future of workflow. Like a human's gonna start it. They're gonna define it. [00:49:00] AI is going to do a good chunk of the low level tasks that you see that are monotonous, that we don't need to do anymore, and then you're going to review it. There's a judgment piece that humans are going to do, and I would say critical thinking skills and judgment, subjective.

Rob Dickson: Questions I I, if you think about the six levels of problem solving out of Arizona State University, if there's one site I would give someone to go to is that Arizona State University, six levels of problem solving. You have the first three levels are kind of where academia sits. So first problem, you've got a problem and a answer, and it can't be anything else.

Rob Dickson: So it's highly verifiable That can be replaced with ai. Definitely because it's verifiable. It's when you get to level five and level six, which is like COVID, sustainable development goals, uh, climate change, a range of answers aren't going to [00:50:00] solve the entire problem. So then when ara, when that's not verifiable, it needs subjectiveness and judgment, and that's where the human comes in.

Michael Conner: Rob, well stated, and a mutual friend of ours just love her work, Sabbas work. I, I really loved how you unpacked her three stages of define. Using the AI and then reviewing from this human intelligent lens that that's the ethos of, as you know, Rob, my Agile diagnostic and the AI platform. Kind of going through that trajectory for strategic performance management.

Michael Conner: But you gave a great definition of Moore's Law, right? That equilibrium between humans and machines as he put it. I always like to. Reverse that from an educational lens to put human intelligence and artificial intelligence working in this punctuated equilibrium together. Great way to state it. This phrase that change is constant [00:51:00] and we always wanna build the pretext for somebody else, the legacy, to continue to build on what we've already started.

Michael Conner: Then following kind of like that synergy or that trajectory of everybody's just building off of the legacy work that has already been created. Rob, this has just been an absolute great episode, but our last question is this. I don't know,

Michael Conner: Rob, I, i, I've, i've known you for a while now, Rob, and you and I, we like to talk, but I'm going to try attempt to be able to limit you two.

Michael Conner: Three words, only three words, my friend. But what three words do you want our audience to leave with regarding organizational and school preparation for design or redesign to be AC 2035 ready [00:52:00] in this fourth industrial revolution?

Rob Dickson: Um, my first word is humanity. I would say humanity is at the center of all that we do.

Rob Dickson: Right. And uh, somehow in ed tech we kind of de-emphasized humanity in some ways, and I think we could get back to that agency. Students need, agency staff need agency. Too many times I see our classrooms where we have. Pacing guides and you need to be right where this is at, at this time of year. I think agency is needed across the industry.

Rob Dickson: And then audacity, I think you need audacity for risk, I think. I think you need to be able to challenge the status quo. I think you need to dream big. Yeah.

Michael Conner: I love that, [00:53:00] Rob, the three words to my audience from Rob Dickson Humanity Agency, and we gotta have the necessary audacity to change the status quo. Rob Dickson, thank you for being a guest on VFE and if any of my audience want to be able to reach out to you via email or social media to be able to extend on any part.

Michael Conner: Any segment of this episode, how will they be able to get in contact with you?

Rob Dickson: So my handle is @showmerob, and that's on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, or X or whatever you wanna call it. And then my email address is rdixon@USD259.net.

Michael Conner: Rob, my friend, I'm, I'm, I'm sure I'll probably talk to you tonight on one of the many text threads that we're on, but from my heart.

Michael Conner: Thank you, my friend. This was just a necessary episode, a necessary conversation to really deepen and extend the work in the [00:54:00] AC stage of education. Rob onward, my friend. Thank you.

Rob Dickson: Thank you.

Michael Conner: And on that note, onward and upward. Everybody have a great evening.