Cognitive Resonance just turned one—will it turn two?
Honest reflections on the challenges of social entrepreneurship
It’s a scary thing to start a new venture.
Ten years ago, I launched an education nonprofit organization called Deans for Impact that was (and is) dedicated to improving teacher preparation, using a healthy dose of cognitive science. By lucky happenstance, two people who had helped me birth that effort happened to join major philanthropic foundations, so I was able launch with real money in the bank. I was quickly able to assemble a crackerjack team and build out a real organization. It was fun!
Last year, I decided to go entrepreneurial again with the launch of Cognitive Resonance. This time around, my efforts have been much more “DIY”—by design, I’ve wanted to focus on doing the work that I think is necessary to help people make good decisions around the use of AI, and not run around fundraising. I’ve never worked harder in my life, and as you’re about to see, I’m proud of the work I’ve undertaken over the past 12 months.
The professional existential question, however, is whether Cognitive Resonance will endure. My friend Andy Rotherham of Bellwether Education Partners has been a great supporter of my entrepreneurial efforts over the years—Bellwether incubated Deans for Impact—and he said something to me last year that’s stuck in my head (not to say haunted me): “What you’re doing is so important, but it’s also thankless—the money is all on the other side.”
He’s right. To be clear, I have a healthy number of engagements at the moment, in fact I’ve never been busier, but it’s still very much an open question whether people actually want to think critically about AI in education, and spend the time (and money) necessary to build their understanding of how these tools work. The hype train continues to barrel forward. For example, I’ve been invited to speak at the ASU+GSV conference this year, and I credit the organizers for wanting to have a heretic in their temple. But here’s a sample of AI-related presentations that are on the agenda:
Is Education the Largest AI Application? The AI Era Belongs to the Curious
Preparing Our Kids for an AI Future
From Basics to Breakthroughs: Rethinking Academics and Operations with AI
Growing Minds in the Age of AI: What is Critical Thinking in the Age of AI Tutors?
Actually, that last one sounds semi-promising—I see my friend Greg Toppo is moderating—but the thought that we have entered the “age of AI tutors” makes me throw up in my mouth. Critical thinking about AI means considering the possibility that AI makes for a lousy tutor. It also means thinking about the broader social context surrounding AI and the organizations deploying it, and recognizing—per the wise words of Abeba Birhane—that AI “reflects human inconsistencies, limitations, biases, and the political and emotional desires of the individuals behind it and the social and cultural ecology that embed it.” Look around at what’s happening in America, I scream into the void.
With all that said, and with pleas for forgiveness for being a hustling entrepreneur who needs to memorialize his organizational activities somewhere, here’s the recap of Cognitive Resonance activities over the past year.
Deep Engagements
The University of Tennessee has been my anchor partner in developing workshops to help educators make better decisions around whether and how to use AI. Working alongside Dean Ellen McIntyre and the fantastic Dr. Emily Holtz, we’ve just put the finishing touches on a new workshop series we call Intersecting Intelligence that’s aimed at helping teacher-educators navigate the pedagogical possibilities of AI. I’m booked through the spring but Emily and I are both ready to host workshops starting this summer, so if you’re interested, please get in touch.
I’ve also got a hybrid version of this workshop for educators of any type, as you’re about to read.
Speaking of that new workshop, I’m literally just back from delivering a modified version with a group of UK educators brought together by their National Institute of Teaching—and, per feedback pictured above, participants really liked it. The National Institute is a new organization, birthed via government policy, to create a transformative educator-preparation program grounded in learning science and closely connected to teaching practice. I sit on the NIoT’s advisory board and continue to be so impressed with its efforts, and England’s broader efforts, to spread insights from cognitive science into policy and practice. Journalists, there’s a story to be written here!
And speaking of spreading cognitive science into policy and practice, the Australians have been sending delegations to England and now there’s a real movement “down under” to become the next nation to embrace the learning-science agenda. To that end I’m working with Teach For Australia to help build their organizational muscle around cognitive-science principles as they look to help drive these efforts forward. And I’ve been thrilled to collaborate with Dylan Kane in this effort, a teacher who exemplifies what thoughtful, cognitive-science-informed pedagogy can entail.
To continue in the international theme, I’ve been working to organize a number of current and former Ministers of Education from around the globe who are committed to “ensuring all teachers understand basic insights from cognitive science and how to apply them in the classroom” and “building support for the science of learning and the use of evidence at all levels of the sector: policymakers, school leaders, teachers, parents, and other stakeholders.” Of all my projects, this is the one that could easily turn into a free-standing organization with philanthropic support. We’re having our first in-person meeting in a few weeks in Europe so if you’re a funder interested in learning more, please get in touch.
(And yes, with apologies, I used DALL-E to make that very temporary and unofficial logo just now. Not pictured are the words “Global Learning Siens Allance” underneath. Sic sic sic.)
Workshops and Speaking Engagements
I’ve been pleased to deliver workshops and speak to a number of organizations over the past year, including:
Intellectual Architecture
Of all the things I worked on this year, producing Education Hazards of Generative AI feels most broadly significant. Working again with my long-time collaborator Dr. Paul Bruno—who also helped create The Science of Learning—we developed a short guide on, well, the education hazards of generative AI. I’m proud of this work and putting something out into the world that complicates the AI hype narrative. I’m less proud that I failed to activate a download counter until weeks after it was published, but even still, my web guy tells me it’s been accessed more than 22,000 times. Multiply that by…3x?…and I think it demonstrates there is widespread appetite among educators and others for materials that do not just cheerlead for AI.
Continuing in that vein, here’s some of my media engagements over the year:
And there have been podcasts! Most recently, there’s the live-recorded podcast was hosted by The Disagreement at EdTechWeek in NYC and featured a live debate between me and Alex Kotran, founder of aiEDU.
The conversation with Fonz Mendoza proved to be one of my favorites of the year, he asked thoughtful questions from the perspective of a tech-curious educator.
In another live podcast debate hosted by The Disagreement, I crossed swords with Neils Hoven, founder of Mentava, about the future of AI in education.
Plus there should be two more podcasts coming soon, one from The 74 another from, well, aww shucks, Deans for Impact, the organization I founded, celebrating its tenth birthday.
What’s on tap
I am hopeful that the Intersecting Intelligence workshop will get traction with education organizations that want to build understanding of how generative AI works, and whether and how it can be used in harmony with human cognition. Yes, I’m plugging this again! They’re interactive and stimulating and unlike any other form of “PD” (professional development) that I’ve seen around AI.
As I mentioned last week, I’m helping to organize the Stand Up for Science rally taking place this Friday March 7 in DC and Texas and many other state capitals. This week is going to be insane, but the looming question is—what comes afterward? The lead national organizer Colette Delawalla appears to be a superstar and I am sharing thoughts with her on how to turn Stand Up for Science into a sustained movement. It’s such vital work.
Relatedly, I’m undertaking organizing efforts related to AI skepticism in education. I can’t share more about this yet, but against the backdrop of what’s happening politically in the US, this may prove to be the most vital work that I personally undertake.
I’ve partnered up with someone brilliant—and with a great voice—to potentially launch a podcast around AI and education and cognition and technology and so on. We’ve recorded one episode, by which I mean we hit record on a Zoom call, so it remains tbd if we can translate this to a “real” podcast, but we’re gonna try. Stay tuned.
Several months ago, one funder asked me for my biggest “blue sky” idea. Here’s what I fantasize about: We need a new institution dedicated to exploring human thinking and technology and education that brings together a few brilliant cognitive scientists and educators and technologists…and then gets out of their way. Something kinda like what Abeba Birhane is doing, and sorta like the Santa Fe Institute, but more education and cognition focused. I’ve written up a very short sketch of this idea, so if you’re a MacKenzie Scott-like billionaire—or MacKenzie herself!—and interested in doing something different from the rest of the philanthropic AI hype crowd, do get in touch.
THANK YOU!
Last, but oh so not least—there’s you, the readers of this Substack. Thank you for being here, you are the best. Only the diehards will have made it this far but when I launched last year the most intimidating aspect was putting these thoughts out to the world with zero established audience. Now, the readership has grown to more than 1,300, which is great, but more importantly (to me) there’s a broad range of really smart people who are reading and commenting—I see the email addresses for cognitive scientists I admire, teachers doing the important work, journalists with broad reach, and even funders who are using my stuff to ask hard questions of their grantees (or so the grantees tell me). And I’m told that my open rate of 47% is quite good.
I hope that you continue to find this content stimulating, and that we work together to improve our collective cultural cognition. Thank you for helping Cognitive Resonance reach its first birthday.
Thank you for your work! I very much appreciate your thought and views on AI in education. As someone who tries to cut through the hype, I sometimes feel that our voices get left out of the conversations and the same people are presenting and hyping themselves up at many conferences. Keep your the great work and thank you for your shares!
Congratulations on your 1 year anniversary! I have learned so much from your work and it's helping me to advocate within my school district by providing the rationale and even language to coherently discuss this with district leaders. As you consider ways to broaden your reach, might I suggest considering keeping parent advocacy in mind. There is a rapidly rising tide of parents pushing back against edtech within the education system and any resources we can use to help us advocate locally, like your Education Hazards of Generative AI doc, are very appreciated!