AI’s Impact on Language Learning with Noemi Rodriguez

Noemi Rodriguez: [00:00:00] With the AI conversations, it’s been pretty amazing to learn about how we can personalize our students language learning experience, really give feedback to them on an ongoing basis. And then for content creation for the teachers as well, just the level of scaffolds that we can provide, or if we’re like stuck on how to teach something, just having a brainstorming buddy available to us through. Generative AI has been fascinating. 

Justin Hewett: Hey everybody. Welcome to the ML chat podcast. My name is Justin Hewett. I’ll be your host today. I’m joined here by Mandi Morris, my co host. Mandi, how are you doing today? 

Mandi Morris: I’m doing wonderful. How about you? 

Justin Hewett: Oh, doing great. I loved our conversation today. We just got done talking with Noemi Rodriguez and she brought the low down on using AI to serve our. Multilingual students. That was fun. 

Mandi Morris: That was a lot of fun. And I love walking away from that conversation and just feeling [00:01:00] energized and curious. I think it’s easy to have this conversation. So they start to go very doomy and gloomy. And I love that she just kept it real. Like she said, at one point, like we’re just playing, we’re playing, we’re seeing what works, but you can cautiously proceed. So she had a really good perspective and how does it even start with integrating AI into your workflow? 

Justin Hewett: Yeah, it’s a little bit hard, right? Because a lot of times we want. The answers are in the back of the book or they’re in the teacher’s manual, whatever it might be like, we want someone to script it out for us and tell us what this is going to look like and how it’s going to end.

And I love that. She said at one point, we’re going to know a lot more in a few months from now. And I think that’s the right way to approach it and think about it. I just love that we’re having a conversation about AI. And I think we’re all trying to figure out a little bit how to use it in our work, right?

How are you and I using it? How can we use it at flashlight? How can we use it in the classroom? How are students using it? There are so many different ways that it’s being used. And I think that this is just [00:02:00] a wonderful conversation to talk about some of those ways to use it, ways that other teachers are using it. And I have to say, I just loved Noemi’s energy. She was so fun and she just really brings great energy. 

Mandi Morris: Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. You are going to enjoy this episode today. 

Justin Hewett: So let’s go jump in. Noemi is a veteran language educator who has been sharing and supporting teachers across the globe since 2005.

As an award winning teacher, she specializes in language curriculum, assessment design, technology integration, and reading and communication strategies. In 2014 and 2024, the Fellowship of Language Educators of New Jersey awarded her workshop Thank you. Best of NJ and the President’s Award for her continued leadership in language education.

She has presented at state, regional, national, and international conferences over the past 15 years. Noemi’s mission is to provide [00:03:00] ongoing customized support to ensure the best world language proficiency based programs in all schools. Noemi, we are so glad you’re here today. Welcome to the ML Chat Podcast.

Noemi Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you guys so much for having me. I really appreciate it. 

Justin Hewett: Oh, we are looking forward to this conversation. We’re going to have fun talking about AI, we’re going to have fun talking about creating community around serving our multilingual learner educators. We’ll talk about your Facebook group and some of these different tools and tips and resources that you’re building and putting out there and sharing.

We’re just excited to have this conversation. We’re really glad you’re here. And maybe the way to, to kick off and help us. Get moving is it tell us a little bit about what drew you to this work. Why are you here to serve multilingual learners and also their educators? 

Noemi Rodriguez: Yes, the origins are, my mom is a multilingual learner.

She came to the United States at the age of eight, not speaking a word of [00:04:00] English. And thanks to schools and all the supportive teachers that she had, she learned English. She still has an accent, which to me, an accent is definitely a sign of bravery because it takes so much to put yourself in another culture and really immerse yourself and learn a new language.

But that’s really the inspiration where knowing who my mom is and everything that she went through to become an American citizen and having those roots, that’s what drives a lot of the work that I do, knowing where I come from and what she potentially struggled with as an ML. 

Mandi Morris: So, take us back to when you made a decision as an adult.

Are you in college? Are you in high school? When’s that moment when my career is meant to be braided with English language instruction? You’ve got this foundational influence from your mom, but when did you really commit to this for your life’s work? 

Noemi Rodriguez: So it was in college that I really thought I want to go forward with [00:05:00] helping support language learners.

And I ended up pursuing A Spanish degree and then also obtained my ESL certification and little by little just working more and more to empower students who are maybe struggling to learn a language or have difficulty learning a language or English is not their first language. Whatever the case may be, just language learning in general has always fascinated me, especially to, thankfully, I’m bilingual since birth.

So I’ve had that upbringing and that has also served as a catalyst. 

Mandi Morris: Wow. So you focus on this in college. This is a passion of yours being continuing your bilingualism and biliracy. Where do you go next with that? Where is that? That’s like the beginning of your journey. Where do you go after college? It leads me right into the classroom.

Noemi Rodriguez: So I went to Rutgers university, completed their five year master’s program, and then jumped right into teaching. So I was like fresh [00:06:00] teacher, new to all the things. And when I first started teaching, I really was a deer in headlights and it took a lot of supportive colleagues and going to different workshops and reading a lot, and then going back to school for more.

degrees and certifications and just continuing to learn and grow as an educator. 

Mandi Morris: So what were those first classrooms like? Like where did you specialize? Did you have English learners in your class or were you like a grade level teacher or were you an ML specialist from the beginning supporting other teachers?

Noemi Rodriguez: So the beginning for me was really teaching Spanish and to understand how students acquired the Spanish language. And in the very beginning, I had over 300 students. And it was tough. Really the momentum to sustain them in the language was difficult when I was only seeing them every other day and just having these huge class sizes.

And then life took me down a path where eventually I got the opportunity [00:07:00] to work closely with MLs in my district. And then also serve in the supervisory role. So being able to wear those hats and working with families and kids and seeing how important that work is. And sometimes it does get overlooked, which I’m proud to say that in my district, we shine a very bright light and want to include everyone in the conversation, regardless of language background. So I’ve been spearheading a lot of that work where I am. 

Justin Hewett: Thank you for shining a light on multilingual learners. That is, at Flashlight, that is, that’s one of our like, so I don’t know if you did that on purpose or not, but either way, I love it because that’s where the whole idea of naming our company Flashlight Learning and our product Flashlight 360 came from, is that a lot of times our multilingual students and their educators, frankly, are marginalized.

And a lot of times, I can’t tell you how many EL directors I’ve worked with around the nation. And That I go to meet with them in their [00:08:00] office and it’s in the basement of the high school and it doesn’t have any windows. And you’re like, this is a closet, but that’s where they’re working from. And the other thing that’s interesting to me is how often our multilingual teachers are specialists is really what they are.

But a lot of times in a school they might be the only one supporting English learners in that building. And so there’s this sense of almost being isolated, but they’re marginalized. A lot of times they don’t have quite as much data. Uh. necessarily around serving their students, which is something that we’ve tried to really help with.

But talk maybe a little bit about that experience and why you’re so passionate about trying to build community to help meet the needs of those teachers specifically. 

Noemi Rodriguez: Yeah. In my supervisory role, I’ve had the. honor of working with rockstar amazing teachers. And in doing so, you realize you’re like, not everywhere is like this, right?

So in some districts, you are the one language teacher, you are the one support [00:09:00] teacher. And ML teachers, just from what I’ve seen to wear so many hats, they’re constantly checking in with many teachers doing all of the things to support potentially one or 100 mls in their district. And knowing how difficult that work is and knowing how important it is to lean in and seek support where you can find it.

That’s what prompted me to launch the Facebook group and to try to bring awareness to the power of community and how We can all help each other out regardless of what language we’re teaching. We can all find one another and support one another. 

Justin Hewett: Yeah, I love that. I think that’s fantastic. What a great work to be doing.

I think about all of our teachers have a great work to do. Anybody in education carries a load and a burden to some degree of making a difference for each of the students that they’re responsible for. I remember when I first got into education was working with principal. [00:10:00] I remember thinking, Oh my gosh, you have three full time jobs.

Like you are, your community outreach and working with parents, you’re managing a team, you’re like, it’s curriculum and budgets and all that kind of stuff. And I think for our ML teachers that are working in a building, in many respects, they have more than one full time job as well. Yes, they are there to support the education, the language development of students, whether it’s in the classroom or out of the classroom, and then working with teachers as a part of PLCs and planning and training and doing some of that.

But in addition to that, the thing that we’ve seen that our very best ML educators are doing Is they are, they’re truly advocates for their students within the building, yes, but also for their parents and for their community. And it’s a really magical thing to see. And so I love hearing about that. And I think that a lot of times those folks are on a little bit of a crusade of some sort, right?

And they’re on it independently and of their own. And so it feels [00:11:00] really valuable to build community where they can come together and talk through some of those things. And I know that you hold free monthly meetings as a part of your Facebook group. And so maybe tell us a little bit about what you do on those group in those meetings and what that looks like.

Noemi Rodriguez: Sure. Depending on really what the Facebook group decides we’re going to chat about, I try to put out a poll so then that way the power is in those that are a part of the group to select what it is that we talk about. 

Justin Hewett: Power to the people. 

Noemi Rodriguez: Exactly. Always. They don’t want to hear me talk. Let’s build this capacity and let’s see what everybody’s interested in.

So depending on what’s cited, then I organize the meeting in a breakout room style. So I invite guest panelists to join us who I believe are experts on that particular topic and whoever’s there, we do three rounds of breakout rooms with guiding questions. And then when we come back from the breakout rooms, we chat with guest panelists about that question and we hear [00:12:00] from them.

So really we’re, even though we have some specialists and experts joining us for the call. We’re all in it together. So we’re all dialoguing and we’re all sharing about what our thoughts are. And then I keep a collaborative Google Doc going, of course, with like resources and things that come up throughout the time.

And that’s really it. And then I’m usually able to award a PD certificate as well, because why not? We’re there. We’re dialoguing about professional things and topics that are of interest to us It’s usually a very fast 

Mandi Morris: hour. I love that space that you’re creating where people can balance ideas around with one another.

And it’s a really low risk environment. And sometimes at work, there’s this agenda and you’ve got to stick to the agenda and you have the outcomes for the meetings. And it can be a difficult time to brainstorm or work through ideas. There’s just not always time in the day. I love this concept of coming together, having some facilitators, being in breakout rooms, it’s, this is generally the topic we’re talking about by.

Let’s [00:13:00] bounce ideas around each other. I would love to hear from you. What kind of topics have you been covering? What are people interested in these polls? So 

Noemi Rodriguez: twice we’ve talked about AI. Two times the group voted to chat all about how AI is assisting us in language education and language teachers. For two of the meetings that I’ve held, because I only started holding these meetings last year.

So they’re relatively new, but with the AI conversations, it’s been pretty amazing to learn about how we can personalize our students language learning experience, really give feedback to them on an ongoing basis, and then for content creation for the teachers as well, just the level of feedback.

Scaffolds that we can provide or if we’re like stuck on how to teach something, just having a brainstorming buddy available to us through generative AI has been fascinating. 

Mandi Morris: And when you hear about usage for AI in the classroom, where are you seeing that teachers are [00:14:00] using it the most? Are they using it to take a science lesson, for example, and to have AI create scaffolds?

Are they creating assessment with AI, language targets, content targets? Talk to us a little bit more about how are teachers really utilizing it or where do they want to go with this? 

Noemi Rodriguez: So, from what I’ve seen is there’s still a lot of fear surrounding the use of it. So we’re still, even though it’s been over a year now, we’re still scratching the surface in terms of folks really diving in and seeing how this tool can assist them.

The teachers that I’ve been able to work with, though, have been creating content. They’ll use sites like diffit. me or even going to an LLM and having the LLM, such as ChatGPT or Gemini, create different scaffolded readings and tiered readings, easy, medium, hard, for example, has been a game changer for a lot of teachers because it used to take them hours to do that, to really take something that’s at [00:15:00] a particular Lexile level and then level it back enough where it feels manageable to a student operating really at a beginning language level or a novice language learner.

So teachers have been using it I think primarily for content. I also think teachers like if they’re stuck on I have to reply to this parent email and I don’t know how to frame this in a really professional yet kind way. AI has been assisting teachers with that which is very difficult sometimes. I’ve definitely had emails sent in my inbox for some time not really sure where to start there.

And then there’s this one tool in particular that I really appreciate. It’s called Mizzou, and it serves as an interactive chatbot for kids to practice their language. So I love the idea that our students can be paired with a chatbot for free, right? It serves as a tutor. So thinking about providing access and making sure that everyone has a chance to [00:16:00] develop their language in a low stakes way, the capabilities that these chatbots provide.

Justin Hewett: Oh my gosh, I think that’s fantastic. Let’s dive in. We gotta get a little bit deeper here. There was a few things that rolled off your tongue as if you are very familiar with them. I think. Everyone probably hears LLM and here in Utah, there’s all these MLMs where multi level marketing. They’re like, Oh, I’ve heard of that before.

No, it’s not one of those. LLM is a large language model. And what the heck does that mean? Tell us about that. Dive into that. 

Noemi Rodriguez: Yeah, so a large language model is essentially like the chat GPT that’s out there that started this whole revolution. Open AI created chat GPT, there’s a free version and a paid version.

And what it does is it gets to know who you are based on what you [00:17:00] provide it and what data you inform this machine. Little by little, it has the capability of learning who you are, what it is that you’re looking for it to do, how to potentially create things that you need or that you request. I’ve worked with some educators too, where you can’t tell the LLM please, because then it might come back at you a little bit, which we don’t want that.

We want a polite, courteous machine to, to work with and to bounce ideas off of. I’ve personally found that although Chat GPT is wonderful, I keep diving into Gemini, which is Google’s LLM version. I like the integration that Gemini has across obviously all the Google tools that they provide. So for me, I’ve been living a little bit more in the Gemini land when I’m looking for content creation or assistance with writing something, or again, if I’m stuck and I need some ideas.

[00:18:00] Going to, to Gemini to get some ideas has been pretty cool. 

Mandi Morris: So we’ve been talking some about how adults are using AI. I’m wondering the teachers that you’re meeting with who are having these conversations, which I’m sure these conversations, I’d love to be a fly on the wall. I imagine they quickly turn to students using AI.

So I wonder, how are teachers thinking about students using AI? Are they kind of just accepting it like this is going to be the world that these kids are living in? Or is there still more of a closed door policy as there’s no room for AI here? I can use that as the adult to inform or plan instruction, but And students are not allowed.

Noemi Rodriguez: I think it depends on where you are. And I think in some schools, they’ve embraced it fully and they’re having AI literacy committees and discussions with stakeholders and bringing in, let’s say, budgetary funds to support either workshops or tools that the teachers are finding to be [00:19:00] really helpful. So it really depends on where you are.

I’ve definitely spoken with teachers too about, Oh, we already know our kids are using this, so we might as well just address the elephant in the room and then set some parameters as to whether or not, if we’re having the kids create something, whether it has full AI, like just let us dive right in and use it, or we’re not going to allow AI to be used in this particular assignment.

I do fear about our students relying, overly relying on it, and I’m curious to see how that develops over the next few months. Because it’s not so much cheating, because it’s creating something original, but it’s replacing our thought process with, here, let me brainstorm this, let me try this out, let me write this down.

Here I have this tool where if I give it enough information, it’ll create something for me Demonstrates my understanding or demonstrates my knowledge, [00:20:00] which I’m curious to see how things go, but there’s so much newness surrounding it too, that there’s more questions than there are answers. 

Justin Hewett: Yeah, I think of it.

In regards to having a tutor, right? And it’s somebody that you can work through. I think as longtime listeners have probably heard, I’ve talked a little bit about my kids that I’ve got a grundle of kids. I’ve got a sixth grader who right now is trying to test out a seventh grade math. And he has to go through and it’s a self paced course and.

Every once in a while, he’ll come across a question that he just, he really doesn’t know how to answer it. And so I’ve had a lot of fun, like sitting with him and tutoring him and working through it with him. And it’s actually been really fun for us. But every once in a while we get something, I’m like, ah, I don’t really remember how to do that.

So we pull up our favorite AI tool and we jump, we copy and paste it and say, help us walk through this, solving this equation. And it was so interesting to see how helpful that was for us. It’s almost like [00:21:00] having a tutor in your back pocket. Yeah. And I think about my other son who’s in fourth grade and we’re working through writing an essay on why people come to Utah.

And it was just interesting, like, all the work that he and I put into building an agenda, if you will, or an outline of how we wanted to approach it. And then he spent a lot of time with his mom and then with me writing each paragraph. At fourth grade, learning to write a paper is a big deal. It dawned on me afterwards how easy it would have been to have prompted our favorite AI engine, if you will, and asked, create an outline for me of why people come to Utah or help me write a paper.

And so it is interesting what a shortcut it can be to some degree, but then there’s not the connections necessarily being made by the students themselves. It’s the artificial intelligence that’s making those connections. And so how do you think about that as far as compounding that out into the future?

We’ve got original [00:22:00] work done by a student and then we’ve got AI supported, but I’d love your thoughts on that. Like, how should we be thinking about that? And should there be a filter of, Hey, just your own work or use AI or whatever it might be? 

Noemi Rodriguez: Yeah. I think you bring up such a great point too, about your son with the writing process and how writing really is a process and to go through those steps to really learn how to do those things well.

In a case like yours, I appreciate that it took the time that it did to go through and really understand how I’m going to put this into my five paragraph essay with my thesis statement, right? So I can become a good writer. I, in an assignment like that, I wouldn’t have wanted to use AI, even though, yes, it could have served as a very easy shortcut to me.

But then it takes away that learning that I did all throughout, which is still incredibly valuable. For our students, but I do wonder how schools will shift [00:23:00] and how we as teachers can serve as really like the facilitators and we can partner with AI to help us with our students in mind. But I don’t know what it looks like yet, but I’m very interested in seeing, right?

Like your son, for example, what does next year look like in that writing class? 

Mandi Morris: Something you said earlier, Noemi, was It’ll be interesting to see in a few months what that looks like and that really stood out to me because when we think about pedagogy and methodology and education, we have shifts in our career over years, but it takes years to go from one pedagogy to another and research and what you really pointed out with that statement was what we’re talking about now is how education is being informed and shifting and in these little in months.

And I think it’s got to be really challenging for teachers and administrators to [00:24:00] even really wrap their minds around trying to keep up with that. And the example with Justin’s son next year, how might that look different? How might AI be applied differently to his learning experience and how do we as parents and educators keep up with that?

I wonder if you have any perspective on that or what you’re hearing from others in your conversation. 

Noemi Rodriguez: I think it’s important to just take everything one step at a time, and to not dive in headfirst. I think it’s important to just stay optimistically cautious, if that’s the right way, if that’s the right frame of mind, because you know it’s here to help us, right?

And it can be really beneficial and can hopefully catapult some of our students with their language proficiency and their language learning. But we want to, just like with anything, take some time to really get to know and understand its usage. And everything will continue to evolve and change rapidly, but we are also still in control.

And depending on our comfort level, how much we’re interested in, Are we dipping a toe? Are [00:25:00] we dipping a whole foot? Are we going in face first? It’s okay to just proceed with some caution. And still, good teaching is still good teaching. That’s not going to change. So we know what we know about how students learn.

But it goes back to what will classrooms look like? Knowing that generative AI is part of potentially our classroom. 

Justin Hewett: So interesting to me to think about how AI is going to really work and. In schools and in education and when it comes down to is it is a tool. It is a tool that we need to understand. We need to figure out how to utilize it.

And I think that more tools will be built that will make using AI more approachable and more easy for your lay person, but it was interesting. We just got done with talking with. Tatiana Vadovina in one of the things that we talked about was just how tools make complex work more approachable. And we were talking about it specifically in terms of assessment and formative assessment, [00:26:00] and especially formative assessment of language.

And the reality is having tools that help us harness the power that is AI in a way that helps prepare this next generation to utilize it, right? Because. Maybe it’s simplistic to compare AI to a calculator of some sorts, but I think that the reality is to some degree, that’s what we need to be ready for.

We need to be preparing students to utilize AI. And so, yeah, in a few months, we’re going to figure out how far we come. And I’m sure it’s going to happen again a few more months after that. And it’s just going to compound and grow exponentially as we move through it. So I think your comment is really well said.

In terms of AI today in regards to serving our ML students, are there ways that you’re seeing our ML teachers use AI to, to promote additional language development with our English learners? 

Noemi Rodriguez: So that for me has been the light bulb moments. Whenever I come [00:27:00] across a tool and I think, wow, this could be really helpful for, to our students.

So for example, there’s a music creation tool. So you can create a song. about any topic in any language. So if your students are, in a particular unit of study, let’s say in their social studies class, but they’re newcomers and they just don’t understand that particular concept, and it would be way fun to create a song about that concept in their language, right?

Like, why not? We can create a pop tune in seconds. using that technology. So a creative way like that is fun. I’ve also seen where we can take these avatars as well, give them different voices, give them different personalities, have them act almost like a chat buddy, right? With our students in real time, which is like, what?

Like it can do that. It can become someone from history. You can have A discussion with someone who is deceased, but was a really [00:28:00] important figure in history and you can have that live dialogue that I’ve also thought, regardless of what it is that we’re teaching, like how cool that we can put our kids.

in situations where they’re having conversations with these really important people from history or even present day. I know that there’s been some back and forth to about people’s voices being used, like certain famous people right now that their voices are being used, that AI is copying their voice to the point where They want to sue, but who do we sue, right?

So something as crazy as that, but the fact that it can replicate and be these individuals is for our kids, I think, super engaging. You can have a conversation with George Washington about what he did in the war. Why not? If that’ll help you understand a little bit better. And it makes it a little bit more interesting and engaging.

I think that could be really interesting and fun. 

Mandi Morris: It fills that background [00:29:00] knowledge in a completely different way than teachers have had access to, is what I’m hearing from you. And I think that’s a real struggle, and especially when we see students coming to English as a new language in the secondary level, in middle school, in high school, and their peers are already have these bolts of background knowledge on filling the topic in these content classes.

And what you’re talking about is some really fun and creative ways of thinking about filling in some of that background knowledge piece. How open are teachers to using these tools? In general, what kind of responses are you hearing from people? Curiosity? Or they’re ready to experiment? 

Noemi Rodriguez: Yeah, I think the way that, too, I’ve been able to frame workshops with folks that I’ve had the fortune of presenting to is that we’re just playing and we’re just experimenting, right?

And then if you want to practice this with your students or if you feel inclined or you’re able to try this out with a group of [00:30:00] kids, like, why not? And I think too, once the kids experience that and you get that feedback as the classroom teacher, that’s potentially where it really sets things into motion, where you see, wow, the kids really enjoyed that experience, or this was the feedback that I heard from the students about that activity.

Let me try that again, or let me make some changes and do this instead. But I think having the conversations with the kids about how they’re experiencing the generative AI is also really eye opening. My background is high school, I’m used to working with high school kids, and usually they’re very open, they’re very frank, so you get all the information very quickly.

And I appreciate that, though, about the canter, the high school students. 

Mandi Morris: I’m thinking about an experience I had recently with my son. He was, he’s also in sixth grade, just like Justin’s, and he was studying for an end of unit summative assessment. And he’d been studying, he’d been prepping and he had these long essay questions he [00:31:00] had to answer and we’d been studying with him and he decided to use chat GPT to help him write sample essay questions so that he could study the essay questions.

And I was cleaning up in the kitchen and observing him do this. This is just so interesting watching how Natural, this feels for him at not quite 12 and talking to my sister in law, her daughter is 17, finishing her junior year of high school. She’s observing that even the difference between her 17 year old daughter and her 13 year old daughter, how they think and are utilizing AI is so different.

When I had this conversation with my son, it’s great if you can get that down from AI and it’s helping you practice, but do you understand it? Can you replicate it? Are you internalizing that? So I think teachers, I’m sure are going through this same process as parents are feeling with homework around, you can gather that information, but how are you synthesizing it and really using it as a tool [00:32:00] because you’re not going to have that when you’re doing your assessment in class.

Have you noticed in students how high schoolers are responding to it differently from even kids a little bit younger than them that are just like picking up on it so quickly? I think 

Noemi Rodriguez: it’s great that you talked about how natural it seems to your son. Our students are definitely early adopters and I also witnessed a student recently.

I think he was in college and he happened to be sitting next to me on a train and he was just like moving and grooving. Doing all the things in chat to PT. And I thought, wow, this in itself is a skill to be able to leverage the power of this tool so easily and to know what to ask it to do for you, which is where sometimes in the education space as well, we’re still like wondering, how do we do this, but prompt design, regardless of being a teacher or a student, that’s something that.

is an incredible skill to have and to grow and to develop. So I imagine that your 12 year old is probably [00:33:00] very well versed in prompt design and could probably educate some of us adults on how to write the best prompt to get what you need for that essay 

Mandi Morris: assistance, right? So interesting. I was at a conference a couple of months ago and talking with Maria Cieslak from the Center for Applied Linguistics.

We were talking about AI. It’s coming up a lot in her training that she does nationally. And she had shared with me a really interesting example where students, like international students in the States at university level are saying, we’re not going to use chat GPC for everything. Like essentially our American counterparts are being lazy.

Like they’re not putting in the work. They’re not doing the work. And we’re really doing the work, we’re putting in the time, the effort, the energy. And because of that, they’re feeling like we’re going to have the tenacity, the persistence, the follow through that’s going to be more valuable for us in our career after university.

And I’ve been thinking about that so much since I had that conversation with her a couple of months ago because I think [00:34:00] that’s a struggle that I’m trying to understand as both a parent and an educator. You’ve got to do your outline. You’ve got to know how to, cause you need to develop your own voice.

You need to develop your own writing skills. You need to understand how to connect your intro to your conclusion, how to have your opinion supported with evidence. And then when do we say actually this tool is going to take this task half the amount of time and we should be utilizing the tool? 

Noemi Rodriguez: I wish I had a great answer for that.

I’m not entirely sure. I think it depends on the assignment. I think it depends on how much time you have, what it is that you’re looking to do. And whether I think the learning process doing something without the AI is more valuable than just deflecting right away and using it. I think that there’s a lot of skills that our students get with the processes that they engage in as a sixth grader, an eighth grader, a 10th grader.

There’s different skills that they’re taking away from all of the courses and all of the [00:35:00] different areas that they’re studying. So to answer your question, I’m not sure. I’m curious too about that. That’s a great question. 

Mandi Morris: I think it might as educators have us going back to the standard and really trying to understand what is the skill.

So your point of what you just said, what is the skill that students really need to demonstrate here? And can they show proficiency on that skill, or is this a time that they need to do it independently to show proficiency on that skill, or is this support over here not related to the skill I’m trying to measure?

And I wonder if it’s going to have us thinking about objectives, learning objectives, both content and language objectives, and standards in a really different way in education in upcoming years. 

Noemi Rodriguez: I think our assessments, too, are going to shift tremendously. I think based on what you just shared, too, just understanding that if we’re skills based and we want to measure how those skills are seen in these different assessments, [00:36:00] that’s where I think we’re going to have to take a hard look at what are we, how are we assessing kids?

What are our expectations as classroom teachers? And I think some of those like antiquated multiple choice, they may kick the bucket. So just. They may no longer be a part of the classroom experience, which is fine. Like I don’t necessarily believe in the a hundred question, multiple choice assessments.

I don’t think that’s valuable to the student or to us for feedback. 

Justin Hewett: What are we going to use all those old scantrons for then? 

Noemi Rodriguez: And now death to the scantron machine. 

Justin Hewett: Hey, you know what? Filling in those bubbles. That’s a, that is a good skill to have. Hey, what a wonderful meandering conversation here. No, I think I’m, I feel more comfortable.

I think all of our listeners are going to feel more comfortable kind of diving in a little bit, understanding that it’s okay to make mistakes with AI because everyone is making mistakes with AI and everyone is figuring it out and nobody knows exactly how this book will end. Stay tuned. A few months from [00:37:00] now, it reminds me of one of those old radio shows.

Yeah. Shadow knows. But I think that ultimately at the end of the day. What’s important is to jump in, is to start experimenting and to start figuring out how it can work and what it can do. And so one thing I know that you do is on a weekly basis, you’re sending out different tips and tricks and tools that you’re identifying and discovering.

Maybe tell us a little bit about that if you don’t mind and what people can expect or can see in that. And maybe tell us a little bit also about where. Where they can go sign up for that, the tools and tips and tricks from Noemi Rodriguez. 

Noemi Rodriguez: Every Tuesday, I share out a Tuesday tip related to language instruction and really making sure that teachers, hopefully, if they’re stuck or they’re like, I’m not sure what to do this week I just came back from spring break.

Here are the top, my top CI prep, no prep, excuse me, activities. Give these a shot to get hopefully some inspiration if you’re just returning from a break and you’re like, what do I do? [00:38:00] So those are accessible through my website. I also within the Facebook community, share those out each week. And then if you follow me on any of the social media channels, whether it’s X, Instagram, LinkedIn, even I’m always sharing and trying to keep that support net as wide as possible for everyone who’s tuning in or watching.

Justin Hewett: Those are all really great tools. And I think that it’s something that people can get a lot of benefit from. I know that you also. Sometimes do different webinars talking about different AI tools that can be used and that you’ve even designed a course that teachers can go through to learn more about AI and in regards to language.

But it sounds like the best place to figure that out is just following you on your socials. Do you have a website that we can just post in our chat? 

Noemi Rodriguez: I do. It’s lologramosconsulting. com. 

Justin Hewett: Okay, LoloRamosConsulting. com, we’ll put that in our show notes. 

Noemi Rodriguez: Thank you. 

Justin Hewett: You bet. So, I guess our last question here, before we wrap up, is [00:39:00] just if you had a chance to sit down, let’s say with a brand new educator, they’re just coming out of school, they’re just getting started.

They’ve got their first class, right? What would you say to them, right? Whether it’s putting their fears to bed and you’re giving them some advice on that front, or it’s creating a vision of what’s to come. What would you share with that new educator, if you don’t mind? 

Noemi Rodriguez: I think it always goes back to remembering your why.

I don’t want to sound cliche, but regardless of what’s happening in the classroom, if there’s dynamics that you’re like, oh my gosh, what’s happening here, or you’re feeling super defeated, just go going back to remembering your why and why you became an educator, why it’s such important work, and hopefully letting that happen.

support system that you have either within your school community or within your virtual community or your PLN, wherever that may be, relying on those folks to help you remember your why. To get back to, this is sometimes a very thankless job, but it’s so important. We are [00:40:00] very often, especially some of the MLs that I’ve had the pleasure of working with, sometimes we’re their lifeline.

And sometimes we’re Their families, the only real advocate for that family to, to get that information and to get that insight and to get that support. So keep doing what you’re doing, even though we know it’s all really hard. 

Justin Hewett: That’s right. It’s hard and you might not know what you’re doing all the time, but just remember why you’re doing it and you’ll figure out some of it.

Pieces. I love it. Thank you so much for joining us today. What a wonderful conversation. And, and it is really a mysterious conversation because we have no idea how it’s really going to end when it comes to AI, but I love it. It’s fantastic. We’ll look back and then we’ll look forward and we’ll say in a couple more months, we’re going to know a lot more.

Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for all the work that you’re doing in our community to. serve the educators that serve our ML students. We really appreciate you and your work and look forward to continuing to work with you in the future. So anyways, thank you so much for being here on the ML chat [00:41:00] podcast.