Ad break

So what the heck should kids be studying today!?

That's my opening question to Khan Academy's Chief Learning Officer, Kristen DiCerbo, a learning and AI expert who is back for her second appearance on the show. 

We discuss:

• Kristen's advice for what to study today: fundamentals, AI literacy, and critical thinking
• How helpful should AI be? 
• Why the productive struggle is critical to learning, but also why we shouldn't "fetishize" struggle
• When should AI be Socratic — "and why do you think that?" — and when should it just give you the answer?
• The "5% problem" — why edtech that's proven to work still barely gets used
• How Khan Academy overhauled its classroom platform and evolved Khanmigo from a standalone chatbot into something woven into the whole learning experience
• Personalization that actually works 
• How Khan Academy uses LLMs as judges to evaluate 20,000 student interactions a day
• The scenario planning report that imagines deepfakes of school principals and AI going underground in schools
• What parents should be asking their kids' schools about AI right now
• What it looks like when a school implements AI well — and what it looks like when they don't

Chapters:

• (01:44) - What the heck should kids be studying right now?
• (03:55) - Teaching critical thinking in the age of AI
• (06:37) - What successful schools are doing differently
• (08:37) - The real risk: not that kids use AI too much, but that they don't use it enough
• (10:52) - My 13-year-old has to check five apps just to find his homework
• (11:52) - "Beyond the AI inflection point" — three scenarios, none of them great
• (16:30) - Should we just make every school a trade school?
• (19:41) - What should parents be asking their kids' schools?
• (22:27) - Khan Academy's Winchester Mystery House problem
• (26:28) - Personalized learning — what works and what surprisingly doesn't
• (29:32) - Kids are bad at asking questions and that's actually the point
• (32:01) - "I DON'T KNOW" in all capital letters — the Socratic method's breaking point
• (34:26) - Should an AI tutor give tough love?
• (37:01) - Why Khanmigo is fundamentally different from ChatGPT
• (40:11) - Don't fetishize struggle — but your kid still needs it
• (42:39) - Khan Academy's productive struggle: building evals from scratch
• (45:41) - What gives Kristen optimism

• Follow Dan on LinkedIn
• Get the free Future Around & Find Out newsletter
• Become a paid subscriber and help future proof the podcast!

Sponsor the show? 

• Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@futurearound.com

---
Music by Jonathan Zalben