Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
I met two young, gifted students yesterday, interested in attending our school next year. It’s fascinating to meet 13 year old kids who aren’t just good students but passionate learners. Kids who see school as places to connect with friends and get exposed to ideas that they wouldn’t get exposed to if they stayed home. Kids who want to go to school because it’s more interesting than staying home.
It excites me to think that these kids will come to our school and part of their day will be dedicated to them perusing passion projects that they design. They aren’t just going to be taking notes, do practice questions from a textbook, or comple ‘cookie cutter’ styles projects where most of the final products look the same.
I think some kids learn despite the system they are in. These kids I met yesterday would be successful no matter what school they attend. But they deserve an opportunity to attend a school where they get to shine… Where they get to try something that can fully engage their passion for learning. Even where they can try something too big and fail, but learn that this too is a learning experience.
When I see kids with a passion for learning, I see kids that should have some autonomy over their day at school. They want to learn, let them discover, explore, and innovate. Let them follow their passions and interests. Let them own some of their own learning.
I remember my oldest daughter asking me a question when she was just 4 years old. I don’t remember the actual question but I do remember that after I responded, “I don’t know,” she walked over to our desktop computer and asked Google. I remember being surprised that she thought to do this, and amazed because when I was that age, if my parent didn’t know, I might have looked in our Junior Encyclopedia Brittanica, but I probably would have just accepted that I wouldn’t know the answer.
I remember a time, years later, when I would ask a question of my social media network first, rather than Google. Not for a general knowledge question, but for things like how to use a certain tool, such as accessing a feature on a wiki or blogging platform. People were better that generalized Q&A pages at pinpointing the information I was looking for, and I good hashtag on Twitter would put my question in front of the right people.
And now there are times when I would go to YouTube first, before Google, for things like car repair. Don’t know how to get the cover off of a car light to replace it? Simply put your car name and year into YouTube with the information about what bulb you are replacing, and a video will pop up to show you how to do it.
AI is changing this. More and more, questions are being answered right inside of search. Make a query and the answer is not just links to sites that might know the answer, but an actual answer based on information that is on the sites you would normally have to click to. That’s pretty awesome in and of itself… having instant answers to simple questions, without needing to search any further. But what about more complex questions that might require learning something before you can understand all the concepts being shared? What happens when you ask questions with complex learning required?
This is where I see the power of micro-learning. And this term is being redefined by AI. Want to learn a complex concept? AI will do two things for you. First it will curate your learning for you. And secondly it will be adaptive to your learning needs. Want to learn a complex mathematical concept? AI will be your teacher. Got stuck on one particular concept? AI will realize what mistake you are making and change how it teaches you that concept to better meet your leaning needs, and pace.
It’s like having content area specialists at your finger tips. And soon intelligent agents will get to know us. Like a personalized AI tutor, we can pick just about any topic and become knowledgeable by creating small (micro) learning modules that are based on what we know, what we want to know, and how we learn best.
The AI can deliver a lecture, but also ask questions. It can provide the information in a conversation, or it can point us to videos and experts that would normally have taken considerable research to find. And the idea that it can adapt to how quickly you pick something up or if you struggle with a concept, means that you are getting the learning you need, when you need it. Micro-learning with AI is the new search of 2025, and it’s just going to get better and better.
How will this change schools? What will AI assisted lessons look like in classrooms? How will the learning be individualized by teachers? By students? How will this change the way we look at content? How important will the process be compared to the content?
I think this will be a year of experimentation and adaptation. Micro-learning won’t just be something our students do, but our educators as well. Furthermore, what micro-learning means a year from now will look a lot different than it does now. And frankly, I’m excited about the way micro-learning is adapting to the powerful AI tools that are currently being developed. We are headed into a new frontier of adaptive, just-in-time, micro-learning.
At Inquiry Hub we don’t just have genius hour where students spend an hour a week on a project. Instead we have a full for-credit course that students take to follow their learning passions and interests. Yesterday I got to see a couple progress presentations, where students shared where they are on their current learning journey.
I’m always surprised by the diversity of questions students choose to tackle. Students find both creative topics and also creative ways to express their learning. But what I enjoy most is seeing the enthusiasm with which they go about learning. Having a specific course that lets students pursue their interests and actually get credit for it, rather than it be something extra that they do, adds an element of purpose to the project.
Imagine being an inquisitive student who spends their entire day learning what is on someone else’s agenda. Go to class, get the work for that specific subject, then go to the next class and repeat. Then lunch, then repeat for two more courses. The courses could be engaging, the teachers can be fantastic, but the choice of what to study is completely predetermined.
I think genius hour is great when there isn’t a full inquiry course to take. So are assignments where students have choice to make the assignment follow their interests. But maybe students should have inquiry/passion project time every week, at every grade… Scaffolded more in the younger years, but provide to every kid, every week.
Who owns the learning in a school? Who should own it? If you think students should at least partially own their own learning, then at some point in the school day or school week, they should be allotted time to do so. School should be a place where students have a say in what they get to learn.
“Just watched my 5-year-old son chat with ChatGPT advanced voice mode for over 45 minutes.
It started with a question about how cars were made.
It explained it in a way that he could understand.
He started peppering it with questions.
Then he told it about his teacher, and that he was learning to count.
ChatGPT started quizzing him on counting, and egging him on, making it into a game.
He was laughing and having a blast, and it (obviously) never lost patience with him.
I think this is going to be revolutionary. The essentially free, infinitely patient, super genius teacher that calibrates itself perfectly to your kid’s learning style and pace.
Excited about the future.”
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I remember visiting my uncle back when I was in university. The year was somewhere around 1988-90. So, at least 34 years ago. We were talking about the future and Joe Truss explained to me what learning would be like in the coming age of computers.
He said, (loosely paraphrased, this was a long time ago):
‘In the future we will have virtual teachers that will be able to teach us exactly what we want to know in exactly the format we need to learn best. You want to learn about relativity? How about learning from Einstein himself? You’ll see him in front of you like he is real. And he will not just lecture you, he will react to your questions and even bio-feedback. You look puzzled, he might ask a question. He sees you looking up and to the left, which he knows means you are trying to visualize something, and so he changes his lesson to provide an image. He will be a teacher personalized to any and all of your learning needs.’
We aren’t quite there yet, but the exchange Andrew Wilkinson’s son had with ChatGPT, and the work being done in virtual and augmented reality, suggest that Joe’s prediction is finally coming into being.
I too am excited about the future, and more specifically, the future of learning.
There is no doubt that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to influence the way we do school in the very near future. I have been pondering what that influence will look like. What are the implications now and what will they be in just a few short years.
Now: AI is going to get messy. Unlike when Google and Wikipedia came out and we were dealing with plagiarism issues, AI writing is not Google-able, and there are two key issues with this: First, you can create assignments that are not Google-able, but you are much more limited in what you can create that is un-AI-able. That is to say, you can ask a question that isn’t easily answerable by Google search, but AI is quite imaginative and creative and can postulate things that a Google search can’t answer, and then share a coherent response. The second issue is that AI detectors are not evidence of cheating. If I find the exact source that was plagiarized, it’s easy to say that a student copied it, but if a detector says that something is 90% likely to be written by AI that doesn’t mean that it’s only 10% likely to be written by a person. For example, I could write that last sentence in 3 different ways and an AI detector would come up with 3 different percentages of likeliness that it is AI. Same sentence, different percentage of likelihood to be AI written, and all written by me.
So we are entering a messy stage of students choosing to use AI to do the work for them, or to help them do the work, or even to discuss that topic and argue with them so that they can come up with their own, better responses. We can all agree that the three uses I shared above are progressively ‘better’ use of AI, but again, all are using AI in some way. The question is, are we going to try to police this, or try to teach appropriate use at the appropriate time? And even when we do this, what do we do when we suspect misuse, but can’t prove it? Do we give full marks and move on? Do we challenge the student? What’s the best approach?
So we are in an era where it is more and more challenging to figure out when a student is misusing AI and we are further challenged with the burden of proof. Do we now start only marking things we see students do in supervised environments? That seems less than ideal. The obvious choice is to be explicit about expectations and to teach good use of AI, and not pretend like we can continue on and expect students not to use it.
The near future: I find the possible direction of use of AI in schools quite exciting to consider. Watch this short video of Sal Hahn and his son, Imran, working with an Open AI tool to solve a Math question without the AI giving away the answer.
When I see something like this video, made almost 6 month ago, I wonder, what’s going to be possible in another couple years? How much will an AI ‘know’ about a student’s approach to learning, about their challenges? About how best to entice learning specifically for each student? And then what is the teacher’s role?
I’m not worried about teachers being redundant, on the contrary, I’m excited about what’s possible in this now era. When 80% of the class is getting exactly the instruction they need to progress to a grade standard in a class on the required content, how much time does a teacher having during class time to meet with and support the other 20% of students who struggle? When a large part part of the curriculum is covered by AI, meeting and challenging students at their ideal points of challenge, and not a whole class moving at the class targeted needs, how much ‘extra’ time is available to do some really interesting experiments or projects? What can be done to take ideas from a course across multiple disciplines and to teach students how to make real-world connections with the work they are studying?
Students generally spend between 5 and 6 hours a day in class at school. If we are ‘covering’ what we need to with AI assistance in less than 3 hours, what does the rest of the time at school look like? Student directed inquiries based on their passions and interests? Real world community connections? Authentic leadership opportunities? Challenges and competitions that force them to be imaginative and creative? The options seem both exciting and endless.
The path from ‘now’ to ‘the near future’ is going to be messy. That said, I’m quite excited about seeing how the journey unfolds. While it won’t be a smooth ride, it will definitely be one that is both a great adventure and one that is headed to a pretty fantastic destination.
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Update: Inspired by my podcast conversation with Dean Shareski, here.
Principal Dave Truss of Inquiry Hub and Coquitlam Open Learning as he discusses revolutionary approaches in education, student agency, and personalized, student-centered learning environments. Gain insights into the challenges and triumphs of running innovative educational models that support self-directed, passionate learners. Explore the impact of technology and AI in modern classrooms, and learn about fostering both student and teacher autonomy for effective teaching. Hear personal reflections on the importance of mentors, lifelong learning habits, and discover local hiking treasures like Bunsen Lake.
00:00 The Drum Set Decision 00:59 Defining the Ideal School 01:40 Introducing Principal Dave Truss 03:01 A Day in the Life of Principal Truss 03:47 The Birth of Inquiry Hub 05:10 Student Projects and Independent Studies 06:14 Collaborative Learning and Student Agency 09:09 Challenges and Opportunities in Alternative Education 17:55 Teacher Autonomy and Professional Development 21:20 The Evolution of Innovation and Technology in Education 29:00 Reflecting on Teaching Challenges 29:10 Embracing Technology in Education 30:18 Student Presentation Skills 31:15 The Role of AI in Learning 32:14 Teacher Comfort Zones 33:29 Leadership and Technology Integration 39:31 Balancing Leadership and Management 44:51 Personal Reflections and Advice 47:03 Hobbies and Interests 51:28 Hidden Gems in Coquitlam
I’m very excited to share this episode with my long time friend and colleague Dave Truss. Dave is the principal at the Inquiry Hub and Online Learning schools in School District No. 43 (Coquitlam) What he and his team have created is pretty special. Shout outs to Dave Sands and Stephen Whiffin who he credits for mentoring and leading this work as well.
“It used to be about ability. And now, in a changing world, I think what we should be looking for is agility. I want to know how quickly do you change your mind? How fast are you to admit you’re wrong? Because what that means is you’re not just going to be reacting to a pandemic or to AI, you’re actually going to be anticipating those problems and seeing around corners, and then leading change as opposed to being a victim of it.” ~Adam Grant
It’s more than just anticipating problems, it’s about being agile, understanding challenges, and addressing them while they are small. It’s about understanding your strengths, and the strengths of your team… as well as weaknesses.
It’s about Agile Ability, which is why I titled this ‘Ability AND Agility’, rather than ‘Ability VERSUS Agility’. We need to embrace our failures and learn from them, recognize problems early, even predict them and be preemptive. This is so different than a culture of accountability and blame.
The desired student, employee, partner, colleague of the future will learn what they need to on the job. They’ll be exceptional because of their agility and willingness to learn, not just because of what they came to the table already knowing.
I’ve been working with Joe Truss on a project called ‘Book of Codes’, where we are examining the building blocks of the universe. The main premise is that we live in a Tetraverse, a universe where the smallest possible length in the universe (the Planck length) must be the edge length of a tetrahedron.
I think this is quite insightful. I’ve been thinking about how to use this tool since I shared it by putting my blog posts into it and having it do a Deep Dive on the content. Since then, I’ve read a few things that have questioned just how useful this kind of podcast really is?
Alan Levine says in ‘Wow Us with your AI Generated Podcast…, “In one sample listen, you might be wowed. But over a series, Biff and Buffy sound like a bunch of gushing sycophants, those office butt kissers you want to kick in the pants.”
And in a comment response Aaron Davis mentions my blog’s Deep Dive, “I agree with you Alan about the initial amazement about what is possible, I am not sure how purposeful it is. I listened to David Truss’ podcast he posted and was left thinking about my experience with David Truss’ writing. I imagine that such tools may provide a possible entry way into new content, but I am not sure what is really gained by putting this into an audio format?”
It’s true, I’ve done this a few times and while it can be impressive, I do see that this can get a bit old pretty fast. Except for one thing… I think that if you are asking it for a general summary of light content, you are going to get a light and fluffy Deep Dive response. However, if you want to understand something really challenging or different or dense, this could be a really good way to get a general understanding of tough to understand content. The Deep Dive into the Tetraverse video actually did a really good job of describing new content in a clear way. I found the kaleidoscope metaphor it mentioned an insightful analogy and I think that listening to the audio first would help someone appreciate the video even more.
Like any new and shiny tool, this Deep Dive podcast on Google’s Notebook LM will get a lot of play and then dwindle in use… but that doesn’t make it useless. I think it will find it’s rightful place as a way to take dense material and make it digestible. It will be a great content introduction, an insightful entry into new learning. It won’t become something you go to listen to where you also listen to your favourite podcast episodes. Still, it will have a purpose and you might find yourself going to it, or to a similar tool, when you have too much content to summarize, or if the content is significantly challenging to parse.
“The hallmark of expertise is no longer how much you know. It’s how well you synthesize.
Information scarcity rewarded knowledge acquisition. Information abundance requires pattern recognition.
It’s not enough to collect facts. The future belongs to those who connect dots.”
Pattern recognition and synthesis are the path to innovation, ingenuity, and invention. The collection of knowledge is not enough. Wisdom comes from recognizing how to make connections across different fields, how to make meaning out of relationships that not everyone sees.
Artificial Intelligence can give us the knowledge we seek. It can dumb down the ideas to our level of understanding, and even teach us with relevant examples when we are stuck. More information won’t be what we seek. Instead we will seek new connections, patterns, and relationships.
The desired experts of tomorrow are probably not the siloed experts we once sought. Instead they will be information generalists who understand how to take information from different fields, identify relationships others don’t see, and synthesize information such that they can tell a story others won’t know to tell.
How are we preparing the next generation of learners for this new future? How will schools need to change to help students prepare for the future in a world of abundant and easily accessible information? It certainly won’t be by feeding them content. Instead, the future of education lies in creating challenges where students need to synthesize information and recognize connections and patterns across different fields of study.
There is a cliche saying that, ‘There is no such thing as a dumb question.” Tell that to a teacher who has just started an engaging discussion in a class and a kid undermines the flow of the conversation with a dumb, often unrelated question. The reality is that questions have innate and even measurable value and there is depth and quality to good question asking.
Think about how important good questioning is in the new world of AI. We need not look far on social media these days to find a post about how to generate intelligent prompts… intelligent questions, well posed, and designed to give you back optimum responses. Design the right question and you increase the chances of an ideal answer.
What’s the best way to promote good questioning in schools? How do we teach ‘Asking good questions?’
At Inquiry Hub we have students design their own inquiries. They take a course developed around the students figuring out what their inquiry question is, then answering it. And they don’t do this once, they do this several times over the year for their first two years, then in Grade 11 they design a full year course.
All the while, students are asking questions, then seeking answers. It’s the practice of asking the questions and not just seeking the answers that makes this process special. They aren’t just asking questions Google or AI can produce answers to. They are not answering a question the teacher asked. They are forming the questions and thus the direction of the learning.
You don’t start asking better and better questions just by answering other people’s questions. You don’t ask better and better questions without practicing forming the questions yourself. Students need to be designing the questions. Because if they are only in charge of answering them, there will be tools and upcoming technologies that will find the same or better answers, faster. The future innovators of the world will be better at writing the best questions, not just answering them.
