Category Archives: Professional Development
(If You) USEME-AI: The Book
Available from April 1 2026 on Kindle, including Kindle Unlimited subscriptions. Print version is out Now too!
In the space between EdD phases, I’ve been working on a special project… writing my first full book. This has been a real labour of love over the last many months of weekends and evenings, and it’s finally out.
(If You) USEME-AI: Learning for Hope & Agency in an AI World is is a love-letter to education in a time of accelerating change. It builds on 20 years of experience in IB schools, the last 15 years on this blog, ten years of engagement with Cultures of Thinking, four years of work on AI and three years of EdD studies, all pointing in the same direction: a focus on hope, agency and co-creating futures of education that might possibly shine a light on something better. I’ve been writing about this since about 2014 and feel that we need this now more than ever. To do that we need to understand much more than the clicky-click of AI tools.
It frames the reader as a pragmatic idealist, someone who holds onto their values and vision whilst recognising the pressing challenges of now, approaching them with a level head and focus on workable solutions. Across 12 chapters it works through the elements of (If You) USEME-AI, with SideQuests on Mitigation, Adaptation & Innovation, Assessment & Feedback and the TEMPERed Learner along the way. Explore the chapters here.
As we go through the book, it connects learning theories and approaches, aiming to ensure strong foundations so that we can engage with AI with intentionality, purpose and a strong focus on protecting powerful thinking, learning, ethics and the capacities that make us uniquely human in an increasingly automated world. It challenges us to think deeply about what is important, connect new ideas and hold onto a vision of learning that is optimistic, informed and grounded. It makes many connections to UNESCO & OECD guidance and competencies. It aims to balance caution and ethical approaches with suitable applications of AI that might inspire students to do something special and help teachers develop their own practices.
Throughout the book, we spend a year at “Wayfinder International School“, with vignettes from fictional characters Ziggy, Izzy, Ozzy & Jazz, teachers and students approaching the challenges of AI from different perspectives. Meet them here.
Each chapter across the (approximately) 350 pages goes from the balcony of big ideas to the dancefloor of practical strategies, calling at the DJ booth of research. I’ve written it to be as conversational and approachable as possible, whilst connecting it to current research. There are hundreds of references across the book; pretty much everything useful I’ve read in recent years. Each chapter includes a lot of reflective questions, “try this” moments, and prompts to help model your learning as you go.
There is also an extensive, open-access support site for the book. This includes materials for each chapter, a reflective journal (hosted locally), buckets of resources, downloads and a large library of Poes and Prompts to try. The Environmental Impacts Estimator lives here too, with lessons, research and workshop materials. A few more surprises and resources are scattered across the site. The site will be updated as new research emerges or ideas pop into my head. The blog page curates posts from here related to the topics of the book.
The book cover is human-created, by my daughter Anya. It has a swirl of Ginkgo leaves over circuitry, representing connections between the enduring past (Gingko is a ‘living fossil’), the natural world and technology-mediated futures.
My fingers are aching, my brain is mush and my heart is full (I think). It exists! I hope you like it even just a fraction of how much I’ve enjoyed creating it. I think I’ve left everything on the page.
Huge thanks to my friends, family, colleagues and researchers who have inspired and supported this work.
The book will be published first on Amazon Kindle. Links here. It’s available to buy for GBP 8.99 or equivalent. That’s less than the coffee and tiramisu I ordered while writing this post. If you have Kindle Unlimited, it will be free on there for 90 days. The print version will be available very soon.
Hattie & Yates: Visible Learning & the Science of How We Learn
This is my review of John Hattie’s new book, Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn. If you’re interested, head over to my personal blog to read more.
Samudra, mini-me, having a good think about cognitive load.
This brief review of John Hattie and Gregory Yates’ Visible Learning & the Science of How we Learn (#HattieVLSL) is written from the multiple perspectives of a science teacher, IB MYP Coordinator and MA student. I have read both Visible Learning and Visible Learning for Teachers, and regularly refer to the learning impacts in my professional discussions and reflections. While reading the book, I started the #HattieVLSL hashtag to try to summarise my learning in 140 characters and to get more people to join in the conversation – more of this below.
EDIT: March 2017
This review was written right after the release of VLSL, in late 2013. Since then, the ideas of ‘know they impact‘ and measurement of learning impacts have really taken off in education, particularly in international schools. Critics of Hattie (largely focused on mathematics or methodology) are also easy to find, though the
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First Unit Reflections: Is It Working?
This is posted over from my personal reflections blog, but it is about my current IB Biology class. I love these students – they are can-do, and give really useful feedback.
Today we took the opportunity in the IBBio class to reflect on the unit we have just completed, including the tasks and assessment. As always with CA students, the results were constructive, positive and useful, with a general affirmation of the value of what we are doing as a class. The feedback included our personal GoogleSites project, with most students keen on continuing and feeling it helped them learn and with some interesting alternatives for those that it is not.
This kind of feedback is really useful once the class has settled in. They are open enough to be able to be honest, but it is early enough to change practices where needed. We will make some adjustments, though we are generally on the right track with this group. I’m really looking forward to seeing the process and products of the students who have elected to become science writers…
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Processing Data: A Department Student Learning Goal
In the 2012-13 school year, our science department worked on a collaborative Student Learning Goal to improve student performance in Criterion E: Data Processing. Click here to find out more about the process, outcomes and next steps.
What are we really learning from practical work?
As we study science, a lot of our time and resources are devoted to implementing an engaging practical scheme of work. Are we really making the most educational use of this time, these resources and the opportunities that we have?
Teachers all over the world use experiments and demonstrations to engage students in the concept being taught. But does this actually improve student learning? Two recent videos have got me thinking about this issue, and before you read on you should watch them both.
The first is from UK science teacher & communicator Alom Shaha (@alomshaha), half the brains behind the sciencedemo.org website. The video was produced for the Nuffield Foundation’s new Practical Work for Learning resource. He refers to a number of research papers in the video, and is also one of the leaders of the #SciTeachJC (science teachers journal club) twitter discussion group.
Do you recognise those labs and how do you use them? Do the labs we do really help us teach the concepts we intend them to, and how can we rethink (or at least evaluate) our use of labs.
The second video is from US Chemistry teacher Tom Stelling (@ChemistTom), on his “vRant” about students asking to “blow something up” and the dangers of ‘wow’ demos as distraction rather than education.
https://twitter.com/ChemistTom/status/332685283105587200
Note: this post rambles a bit from here on. If you want to know more, please read on. Otherwise, all the good bits were in Alom & Tom’s videos.
Engineering a Classroom Brand
This looks like a great way to turn a classroom into a community, building ownership of learning, by Gary Abud. For a full post on the idea and more inspired ideas and some great posts on modeling chemistry (#ModChem), head over to his blog: Productive & Constructive.
i-Biology 