3 Ps in a Pod: An Education Podcast Arizona K12 Center

It’s another election year, and we’re talking with Gina Roberts of the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission about the Civics Classroom Curriculum, a free and available resource to all Arizona teachers. 
3Ps host Donnie Dicus welcomes Gina Roberts, the voter education director of the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, to the podcast. The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission is the state’s non-partisan voter education agency. The commission helps people learn about the logistics of voting and the candidates and the roles they’re running for. It also advocates for participation in the political process.
The curriculum includes lesson plans designed for grades 4-6, 7-8, and 9-12 with a variety of hands-on activities that can work in both an in-person or virtual setting. The curriculum is also aligned with Arizona State Standards.
Gina speaks to how the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission is a voter-created state government agency that is mandated by state statute to provide non-partisan, non-influencing voter education. The curriculum reviews the election processes, the roles and responsibilities of different elected offices, and media and information literacy skills. She also shares about ways students can become more civically involved aside from voting in elections.
Gina also announces that the commission will soon be releasing a comic book to supplement their Civics Classroom Curriculum. The comic book follows the conflict between the hero Captain Activate and the villain Doctor Apathy who aims to create apathetic voters. 
Find this free Civics Classroom Curriculum at azcleanelections.gov/civics-curriculum.
Learn more about the Arizona K12 Center at azk12.org.

Rachel Martinez is in her first year of teaching third-grade in Tolleson Elementary School District. In this episode, 3Ps in a Pod host Kathleen Paulsen talks with Rachel about the support she’s received at her school and the learning she did at the recent Welcome to Teaching event with Dr. Doug Fisher.
 
She shares how struck she was by the six levels of engagement that Dr. Fisher shared and how he showed how even very young students can be aware of their engagement level and know what they need to do to be more ready to learn. She and Kathleen also reflect on the four types of learning: focused instruction, collaboration, guided learning, and independent learning.
 
Rachel shares about the support she’s received in her school and district, including working with a mentor. Rachel’s mentor is Michelle Doherty, who Rachel also had as a professor at Northern Arizona University. Rachel talks about how Michelle supports her and builds her confidence as she goes through her first year of teaching. 
 
As Rachel nears the end of her first school year, she says she’s excited to reflect and see the growth that both she and her students made during the year. She notes how important it is for her to reflect on her work and growth for herself but also to model the expectation and power of that for her students.
 
The Arizona K12 Center is also having Dr. Fisher back for another event based on his book Welcome to Teaching this fall! You can learn about and register for that event at azk12.org/24BTS2.

Learn more about the Arizona K12 Center at azk12.org.

In the final episode of this podcast series on AI in Education, Dr. Chad Gestson and Dr. LeeAnn Lindsey chat with Lauren Owens and Lindsey McCaleb about where teachers can go from here — where to begin, where they can find guidance, resources, and additional professional development for using AI with confidence.
Dr. Gestson and Dr. Lindsey are both a part of the Arizona Institute for Education and the Economy, a part of Northern Arizona University, while Lauren Owens is the director of information technology for Agua Fria HS District and Lindsey McCaleb is the principal of an online school in the Balsz School District.
Lauren and Lindsey share how they have started to work with AI in their schools and districts and the discussions they’ve had with school leaders and teachers to move toward using AI. They reflect on the process of planning, implementing, and assessing when integrating any new technology or change initiative. 
Today’s episode also focuses on how policy creation, at the state or district level, can be much slower than how quickly technology is developing. Dr. Lindsey shares how only nine U.S. states have developed some guidelines for AI use in schools. The Arizona Institute for Education and the Economy has been working to add Arizona to that list of states and will soon be releasing an AI guidance document to help inform state, district, and school policies.
That guidance document will be available on May 13 at nau.edu/aiee/azai with a corresponding webinar, "GenAI Guidance for Arizona K-12 Schools," on May 15 from 3 to 4 p.m. To sign up to receive the webinar link, click here.
Learn more about the Arizona Institute for Education and the Economy at this link and about the Arizona K12 Center at azk12.org.

Ready to see how AI can improve your work and impact student learning? In this third part of our series on AI in Education, we’ll dive into some AI tools you might consider trying in your teaching.
In our last two episodes, we explored a bit of history of artificial intelligence and contemplated if using AI is cheating. Today, we look at what we can actually do with AI.
Guest host Dr. Chad Gestson focuses on the heart of teaching and learning. He and Dr. LeeAnn Lindsey chat with Dr. Michele Wilson and Alec McDaniel about best practices for using AI to impact student learning. Dr. Wilson spent 38 years working within education systems and is now an education consultant. Alec is an educational technology specialist in Florence Unified School District.
They both share about what makes them excited about AI and talk about what “good use” of AI in the classroom looks like before they explore several of the tools they encourage educators to check out and consider how they might support their work. They also discuss the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and Arizona Technology in Education Association (AZTEA) as great resources to learn more about using AI.
Here are links to the tools and resources referenced in this episode:
T-PACK Framework
SAMR model of technology integration
MagicSchool AI: magicschool.ai
Diffit for differentiating: diffit.me
Forbes article, “The Hot, New High-Paying Career Is an AI Prompt Engineer”
ChatGPT
Other large language models like Gemini, Google Bard, or Copilot
SchoolAI: schoolai.com
Curipod: curipod.com
Canva’s Magic Tools
Adobe Express
Khanmigo: khanmigo.ai
Skipit: skipit.ai


Learn more about the Arizona K12 Center at azk12.org.

In this second part of our four-part series on AI in Education, guest host Dr. Chad Gestson asks the question that is on many educators’ minds: “Is AI cheating?” He and Dr. LeeAnn Lindsey talk to Dr. Punya Mishra about academic and professional integrity, and why AI should be a catalyst to rethink “plagiarism” and “cheating."
 
Dr. Gestson and Dr. Lindsey are both a part of the Arizona Institute for Education and the Economy, a part of Northern Arizona University, while Dr. Mishra is associate dean of scholarship and innovation and professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. 
 
Dr. Mishra broadens the conversation to talk about what cheating is in general and how we approach assessment. The discussion about AI and cheating is an opportunity to talk deeply about how we evaluate learning, he shares. That connects to a larger conversation about the purpose of the preK-12 education system, he explains.
 
The three also talk about the role of agency and autonomy in learning. They also discuss the need for a class like the Theory of Knowledge class that is a part of the International Bacalaureate program for students to better understand the creation and sharing of ideas.
 
Learn more about he Arizona K12 Center at azk12.org. 

As artificial intelligence tools have become far more accessible in the past year, “AI” has become a major conversation for not just schools and education but in all aspects of life. That’s why we’re diving into discussions about AI in education in this four-part series with guest host Dr. Chad Gestson, executive director of the Arizona Institute for Education and the Economy, and Dr. LeeAnn Lindsey, strategic planning director of the Arizona Institute for Education and the Economy.
 
In this episode, Dr. Gestson and Dr. Lindsey set the stage about how they became personally interested in this work, the discussions they’ve heard across Arizona, and why the new Arizona Institute for Education and the Economy is focusing on AI.
 
Dr. Gestson also gives an overview of how AI came to be where it is today, where it’s going, and what that can mean for Arizona schools and workplace development. Alan Turing published the first significant paper on AI in 1950, launching a focus on this new field before it entered an “AI winter.” Then, an influx of new AI tools and robots launched in the 2000s and has continued momentum. He also references the seven stages of artificial intelligence and talks about four branches of AI that listeners should be aware of: 
generative AI tools like ChatGPT
Natural language processing like Alexa, Siri, or other smart speakers
AI-powered robotics like Roombas
Robotics process automation like Timely for creating school master schedules
 
Vince Yanez, the Helios Education Foundation’s senior vice president of community engagement and strategic partnerships, then joins the podcast to discuss the role of AI in workforce development. He and Dr. Gestson discuss how AI will eliminate or alter some jobs while also introducing new jobs. They also discuss what it looks like to prepare students in the midst of this emerging future.
 
Subscribe to 3Ps in a Pod: An Education Podcast on your favorite podcast app to be ready for the next episodes in this series.

Learn more about the Arizona K12 Center at azk12.org.