Below is a guest blog post written by John Sibbald, a specialist leader in education whose expertise were invaluable in developing our free AI Progression Framework.
Earlier this year I wrote an article on LinkedIn titled ‘Give the rabbits some shades!’ born out of my frustration regarding support for leaders and teachers in the wonderful, Wild West of AI and education. There was way too much noise with digital evangelism espousing the benefits and delights of AI tools – we were (and still are?) like kids in a sweet shop.
Way back in June 2023 I was fortunate to be asked to speak at Flying High Partnership’s inclusion conference. Flying High is a wonderful MAT, where collaboration is king and where an improvement area in one school will be supported by excellence from another. At a break-out event I asked eighty delegates who was using AI in their work? About ten teachers and TAs put their hands up. I then asked this group of pioneers if their leaders knew what they were up to – the answer? None.
Fast forward to July 2024. I was attending TPEA’s annual get together at Friends’ Meeting House in Manchester where I had asked Dr Jon Chippindall to deliver a key session on TeachMateAI’s stratospheric rise in the edTech sphere. It struck me that this ‘accidental CEO’ was incredibly busy growing his business, taking on community ambassador leads whilst ensuring their technical solution could cope with the rise in demand from zero to over 250,000 users worldwide.
I’d previously completed an evaluation piece with Michelle and Sonya at Create Education developing a 3D excellence framework for their BAE ‘Inspiring Lancashire’ programme. Working with the team we identified the main strands of 3D printing and where it could support design, printing and the D&T and careers curriculum. This programme has just completed a very successful second year evaluation and the framework not only supports schools in their 3D journey but also creates metrics where Create Education can identify where they can develop products and support schools further. It struck me that we could apply a similar approach with TeachMateAI….
So earlier in August I found myself catching a train to Leamington Spa to meet the very lovely Karen and Lindsay (her first day of work) TeachMate’s Community Engagement Managers. We spent a day developing our pre learning into the first draft of the AI Progression Framework. This would be used as a free tool for schools and would be a key part of the emerging TeachMateAI ambassador community.
We built strands to reflect the UK Government’s Regulatory Principles of Al in the UK, wording which has been echoed in the Ofsted paper published in April 2024.
We designed the framework to encourage reflection and self-evaluation on:
- Governance, leadership & guard rails
- Productivity
- AI Innovation and Teacher PD
- The AI Curriculum
For each of the strands above we created statements for ‘Emerging’ ‘Developing’ and ‘Confident’ to help schools assess their current situation.
Following a few tweaks here and there (thank you Dr Chips) we agreed to ‘stress test’ our draft at the inaugural meeting of the Ambassador community on 15th October. Karen very successfully corralled over one hundred and forty ambassadors into twenty break out rooms where delegates considered our draft and suggested improvements and additions. These comments were so useful and not only helped us to refine the framework but also consider elements to include in version 2.0.
I caught up with Lindsay to consider how we might develop the document we had created for schools. How could we adapt the framework into something that is both easy to use AND shows progression over time? One rabbit hole later and Lindsay, who has never coded in her life, has asked Chat GTP to create a Google Script to take Google Form responses and create and email a pdf back to schools and collect data over time. Amazing! As Jon said in his LinkedIn post “I hired a Community Engagement Manager and got a Coder….”
We formally launched the framework at the second Ambassador meeting early in December and initial feedback has been fantastic with over forty schools having used the framework to baseline their organisation and inform AI action planning. The next Ambassador meeting in February will focus on those areas where the framework has identified where schools need most help.
It’s been a great piece of work to be involved in and a delight to work with such a collaborative team. The TeachMateAI progression framework is unique and free for any school to implement. It’s wonderful to see that leaders and teachers in schools, who were being dazzled by AI, finally have a pair of shades to wear to support them in this complex and fast-moving area.
Rabbits are cool!