Doan Winkel: Building Friction, Autonomy, and Design with AI
Download MP3Doan Winkel: Building Friction, Autonomy, and Design with AI
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Introduction & Guest Welcome
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[00:00:00] Matthew: Welcome back to Artificial Intelligence Real Talk, the Curiosity Connection. And today my curiosity has definitely been piqued by the guest that I have today. I found him on LinkedIn. As you're finding and noticing the trend here, a lot of my guests, I have found them on LinkedIn, I've connected with them, I've spoken with them through direct messages.
[00:00:21] Some people are silly enough to give me their phone numbers and let me text message them. But through all those connections, I learn so many valuable things. And this guest, every post that he has, I don't know, it's the way he writes it, way he puts them together, and the wonderful imagery that goes along with them, I'm just like, "Huh, I need to think a little bit deeper about that."
[00:00:44] And ironically, that is his big message for AI in education, is we need to think a little bit, more deeply about that. So I'd like to welcome to the show today Doan Winkel Doan, thank you so much for joining me today
[00:00:59] Doan Winkel: Absolutely. [00:01:00] It's a pleasure to be here. I've been looking forward to this
[00:01:02] Matthew: So I'm gonna jump, like, straight in.
What Is AI Friction Labs?
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[00:01:12] Matthew: You recently started something, very recently started something with one of my favorite people on LinkedIn,Mike Kentz, and you jumped and started AI Friction Labs.
[00:01:16] First of all, amazing name. So tell me, what does it do? What is the purpose? What was the whole thing there?
[00:01:24] Doan Winkel: Yeah. So it really was, It's work that Mike was doing as part of his graduate work, you know, and he really had gotten the ball rolling and was pretty far along. he and I just collided, and I loved what he was doing and, I bring a lot of entrepreneurship, business acumen, to the, to the table, and so we just kinda connected up on it and I, I thought, "I can help with this," and, you know, it's something that, that is exciting to me and I believe in and everything.
[00:01:49] So, you know, it's, it's... If you think about it at, at a, at a very simple level, it's trying to use AI to create [00:02:00] friction
[00:02:01] Matthew: Okay
[00:02:02] Doan Winkel: of it being helpful. so helpful AI is not really good for students and for learning, right? and so it's purposely trying to create friction, with students using AI, and, you know, we think of it like we're a custom build shop.
[00:02:19] We work with the teacher, high school, college, whatever, get to know their classes, and we create, it's like a simulated, experience, right? And so students go into a conversation, and they're having a conversation, but there's a lot of layers to it, so it's not just the typical text.
[00:02:34] There's little things we do where, students are getting a sense of how the, the AI character is actually moving or doing
[00:02:43] Matthew: Okay
[00:02:44] Doan Winkel: and so it's a little bit more engaging. and, you know, you can ratchet up the, the friction levels or not. I've had students
[00:02:50] Matthew: Yeah
[00:02:50] Doan Winkel: who responded that they actually wanted to commit acts of violence against the, the person because they were so frustrated. so I mean, it's fun. And, [00:03:00] and, you know, from a teacher's perspective, I can look at that and, you know, I can see a lot better of, like, how are these students', you know, in my world, how are they practicing a skill? How are they improving at a skill? And, you know, I can assign these things multiple times, for instance.
[00:03:16] So I could
[00:03:17] Matthew: Yeah
[00:03:18] Doan Winkel: beginning of semester, middle of the semester, end of the semester, you know, and I can start to almost chart, "Hey, you know, Alan has sucked at this at the beginning, and now, like, is doing a lot better at this," and all that kinda thing. So, and we're... You know, it's a startup, right, so we're always adding bells and whistles. We're
[00:03:33] Matthew: Yeah
[00:03:34] Doan Winkel: the fall, to give the, the teachers a lot more, out of it, right? And so
[00:03:40] Matthew: Okay
[00:03:41] Doan Winkel: where the teacher have tools at their disposal to identify within the conversations, "Here's the really good things that happened, and here's where there were really problems."
[00:03:51] So- We don't not want the teacher reading full transcripts, but I mean, sometimes these students, like I've had students who they have like 60 interactions,[00:04:00]
[00:04:00] Matthew: Yeah. Yeah
[00:04:01] Doan Winkel: I've got 50 kids who are doing 50 interactions each, like that's a lot to do, right? And so we
[00:04:06] Matthew: Yeah
[00:04:06] Doan Winkel: doing little things like that.
[00:04:07] So it's a lot of fun. you know, it's, it's hard work as any startup is. it's a lot of fun. We're working with a lot of high schools and colleges and just kind of beta testing stuff and having people kick tires on it.
[00:04:18] Matthew: No,
[00:04:18] Doan Winkel: yeah
[00:04:19] Matthew: that's ... Yeah, I mean, that's just as a, just as a premise, the, the, the idea of adding friction back in, right? I think that as soon as I saw it, I was ... I was a little biased because I already knew Mike's work. I had worked with him, with his, you know, AI literacy partners. and he and I and a little, ragtag group of his friends created, you know, sample lessons that was focused on that idea of how can a teacher implement AI in a lesson where the AI isn't just, helper, like you said, a, a helpful AI.
[00:04:57] Doan Winkel: Right
[00:04:58] Matthew: And he brought ... He [00:05:00] always ... I remember him distinctly for being the,
The Sparring Partner Concept & Mike Kentz
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[00:05:02] Matthew: sparring partner idea . That I feel like that was his big, catchphrase there, you know, AI is the sparring partner. and so when I saw that you two got together, I was like, "Oh, this is like a match made in heaven."
[00:05:15] That's why I was like, man, these two go together. This is like peanut butter and jelly. They go together . I was like, that's and so building something like that, seeing how the students are interacting with that. Like, in this world now where, like, the students, teachers, everybody's inundated with the free versions of tools or, or, or even, like, the education version of tools or whatever.
[00:05:39] how does a student, like ... I, I'm probably not gonna word this right, but how,
Student Autonomy vs. Easy Button AI
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[00:05:45] Matthew: how does a student decide to use AI that way to, to intro- reintroduce friction? Like, do you, do you think that, like, most students would use it to introduce friction, or is that something that probably is gonna have to go through school or class, right?
[00:06:04] Doan Winkel: They
[00:06:04] Matthew: Yeah.
[00:06:05] Doan Winkel: But I think that's, you know, to the point of, of teachers and our roles and things, um, and everybody's got different opinions here, whatever. But, you know, if I look at the role of a teacher and I say part of my role is to develop a pathway so that students can learn, In my discipline and the way I look at things, it's very skill-based, it's very mastery learning.
[00:06:29] Matthew: Yeah.
[00:06:30] Doan Winkel: and that's my
[00:06:31] Matthew: Yeah
[00:06:32] Doan Winkel: and so if I look at it and I say, "How do I get students to practice skills," right? You
[00:06:37] Matthew: Yes.
[00:06:37] Doan Winkel: learn how to play soccer or play the saxophone or fly an airplane without struggling at it.
[00:06:45] Matthew: Right. No, I,
[00:06:47] Doan Winkel: You
[00:06:47] Matthew: yeah
[00:06:48] Doan Winkel: you have to have that in there, and we all know that. I mean, it's, it's common sense. But It doesn't seem to be common sense with this for a lot of
[00:06:58] Matthew: No. No, [00:07:00] and that's ... So this is, I'm now going, like, episodes down the road here because my, my previous guest that I had on, he, he was a very hard, hard no
[00:07:14] Doan Winkel: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:14] Matthew: a- altogether about AI. so he teaches rhetoric, AP language, so it's higher level in the high school that he teaches at. And, what he see...
[00:07:24] exactly what you described, the skills, teaching skills, mastery-based. He went through the process over the last, I think he said it was the last, like, five or six years of his class, like, before COVID happened. He went through the whole ungrading,
[00:07:40] Doan Winkel: Yeah.
[00:07:41] Matthew: The,
The Ungrading Experiment & AI Cheating Reality
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[00:07:41] Matthew: the whole idea of ungrading in his classroom.
[00:07:43] So there's no points. It's, it's here's the standards that you have to meet or the skills that you have to showcase. And the students would submit, evidence to showcase something they've done throughout the coursework, [00:08:00] in the readings or in the work that they've been doing, pulling artifacts from things that they've been doing along the way to say, "Hey, here's my piece of evidence that I met this standard or that I have reached the standard, and here's my justification," so on and so forth.
[00:08:16] What he's seeing, especially in the last two years, is that he said about 50% of his students using AI for all the parts of that, creating the artifacts, pulling, from the work that they're doing, whether they're doing the work themselves or not, pulling it and using that as the artifact, and even using AI to do the reflective piece of it.
[00:08:39] Doan Winkel: I would say
[00:08:39] Matthew: And-
[00:08:41] Doan Winkel: that number.
[00:08:42] Matthew: Uh, I, I, and again, I would imagine, you know? But he... And I love it how he came to this, but he, he recognized that there was a, you know, a student who did this in multiple classes, and he approached it in, in the way that I try to teach people not to approach it . [00:09:00] And so, and he openly admitted, he was like, "I was wrong in how I did this."
[00:09:04] But, you know, they essentially came to the student and was like, "Do you think we're dumb?" Like, "Do, do, do you think that we don't recognize that you're doing this?" And he said, "I knew it. It was wrong." And he said, "Her answer stuck with me forever. She said, 'You never even crossed my mind.'"
[00:09:23] Doan Winkel: Yeah
[00:09:24] Matthew: The, the teacher never even crossed my mind.
[00:09:28] And he told me that was kinda shocking for him to hear. It was like, "This has nothing to do with me, with like it's just, I can..." And, and I think he went on to tell the story of like, you know, she said like, "I, I needed to get this thing done," or, "I needed to do this assignment.
[00:09:46] It was a task, and I needed to do it. This could do it quickly."
[00:09:50] Doan Winkel: Right
[00:09:51] Matthew: And it's done. And so with him, he's like, "For me, in what I teach and how I teach, this is like [00:10:00] the most unuseful thing in the universe." I've been trying so hard to like chip away at the, at the statue by saying things. And essentially, what you created at AI Friction Labs was something that I kind of floated to him.
[00:10:17] A, a, a different version, you know? Like, just n- not as int- definitely not as intense. but just that idea of saying like, your students having a conversation with this chatbot that is, that is set up this specific way, could be the same evidence that you are looking for, and the AI won't give them the answer, but it will talk them through, and that whole chat is your evidence right there.
[00:10:49] But just that idea of, of, you know, 'cause I think the part that, that he's struggling with, and I think a lot of teachers in K12 and higher ed are struggling with, is like you could [00:11:00] set up everything the right way.
[00:11:02] You could have AI literacy lessons from, you know, kindergarten, developmentally appropriate, unplugged activities all the way through sixth grade. You start to introduce maybe something like a school-friendly, student-facing chatbot, just to get them practice of what that looks like in a, in a, you know, what do they call it?
[00:11:21] A walled garden environment. You could do all of that and build all the skills, and with people as brilliant, you know, as you and Mike and everyone leading the way, and you still will have students who are like, "But it's an easy button." It's like the Staples Easy Button, right? Like, it make it easy. And so how do you, how do you reconcile with that?
[00:11:44] Doan Winkel: Um Yeah, I mean Part of it is, is everything I approach, everything I build, uh, you know, courses, lesson plans, assignments, whatever, I think about it in terms of like how do [00:12:00] I incorporate AI it's a part of the process, right? It just becomes a natural thing, and in such a way where the students thinking of it as a natural way to get the answer, but are thinking of it as a natural way to practice, right?
[00:12:18] And
[00:12:19] Matthew: Yeah.
[00:12:19] Doan Winkel: difference.
[00:12:20] Matthew: agree. I agree
[00:12:21] Doan Winkel: because whatever level of school you wanna think about, at, you know, when you're a student, you're sitting in five, six, seven, eight whatever classes, there is no chance I wanna be a student nowadays because I've got, you know, college. I've got six teachers telling me six wildly different things.
[00:12:38] Most of them are operating in gray area, so I have absolutely no clue
[00:12:43] Matthew: Right.
[00:12:43] Doan Winkel: not and what are the limits And I gotta
[00:12:45] Matthew: Yeah
[00:12:46] Doan Winkel: different teachers each semester. Like, I mean, the anxiety's gotta be through the roof for these kids. And so for me, that's why I go, "It's all, like, yeah, it's fair game.
[00:12:56] Let's go." And, I'm not gonna not only say you [00:13:00] can use it, I'm gonna try to show you ways that you can use it that are responsible, that are productive, that are transferable to jobs after college, 'cause I'm,
[00:13:11] Matthew: Yes.
[00:13:12] Doan Winkel: space.
[00:13:13] Matthew: Yeah
[00:13:14] Doan Winkel: a-and I just think that they, like, they can breathe a sigh of relief for the fifty or seventy-five minutes
[00:13:20] Matthew: Yeah.
[00:13:21] Doan Winkel: You
[00:13:21] Matthew: Yeah.
[00:13:22] Doan Winkel: a week.
[00:13:23] Matthew: Yeah
[00:13:24] Doan Winkel: but, but I think that's part of it, is, is approaching it and saying, "What is it you're trying to do?" You know, even in a, like I-- my, my strongest battles come from English teachers.
[00:13:33] Matthew: Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure
[00:13:35] Doan Winkel: and I enjoy it because I like to see, like, okay, how are you thinking? And it helps me to understand, like, how are other people thinking this. And I just kinda look at it and I go, "All right, cool." Like, what, what skills are you trying to train these kids in, right? And I get away from the whole learning objective thing because that's just,
[00:13:53] Matthew: Mm-hmm. Jargon.
[00:13:54] Doan Winkel: Jargon and it's
[00:13:55] Matthew: Buzzwords.
[00:13:56] Doan Winkel: That nobody can actually measure. You know, it's like
[00:13:59] Matthew: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:59] Doan Winkel: and, and, you [00:14:00] know, great, you teach rhetoric.
[00:14:01] Like, what are the three, four skills you, you want these kids learning?
[00:14:04] Matthew: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:05] Doan Winkel: Like, how are you having them practice that and how are you having them learn that now? And then go, "Hey," just like you said, like, "Here, here's a way that you, you might be able to layer this thing in." And I go, "Why, why don't, on Tuesday, like, why don't you try this?" Like, just be open with your students. Be like, "I hate this stuff. I don't want this stuff here. We're gonna try something today, and let's just see how it goes," right? I think the students will appreciate the honesty and the
[00:14:29] Matthew: Yes.
[00:14:29] Doan Winkel: B, you just kinda get an idea of like, how, how did that feel?
[00:14:32] Did, how did it feel for the students? How did it feel for you? Like, what did, what did the work look like? Maybe you still hate it and you don't wanna do it, cool. But you've
[00:14:41] Matthew: Yeah
[00:14:42] Doan Winkel: and you're not just these assumptions based on ignorance because you
[00:14:48] Matthew: Yeah.
[00:14:48] Doan Winkel: Tried things, you know?
[00:14:49] Matthew: Yeah. No, and I, I'm glad that you, I'm glad that you put it that ... I mean, 'cause there is,
Teacher Risk-Taking & Finding the Opening
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[00:14:55] Matthew: there is a certain amount of risk-taking, right?
[00:14:58] Doan Winkel: Oh,
[00:14:59] Matthew: From the teacher [00:15:00] perspective as well, and I think, like, he's worried about, and, and rightfully so, he's worried about credibility.
[00:15:06] Doan Winkel: Sure
[00:15:07] Matthew: you know, at the end of the day, what I try to do, and just like you said, I try to, like, find that opening, find that small opening.
[00:15:17] And I'm glad you said that, 'cause every, every session that I do, that I've done in my new job here, where, you know, I'm going out and working with multiple districts. So I, I work for an intermediate unit. I don't know what they're called, in your state. Usually educational service agencies, but they're
[00:15:34] You know, they, they do a specific region of the state. And so pretty much anything the State Department of Education has, it filters down through these, you know, intermediate units or service agencies. So my job, like, literally, I'm the first person here who's, like, AI-focused. and the, the communities, most of our communities are very rural.
[00:15:56] So it's a, it's a, it's
AI in Rural Schools & Watching Others Learn from Mistakes
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[00:15:58] Matthew: a hard sell.
[00:15:59] Doan Winkel: Sure
[00:15:59] Matthew: but [00:16:00] what's, what I've seen happen over the last, especially the last year, is that frustration. Kids are using this all the time. They're getting it to do all their work for them. You know, I never say these things out loud, but I think them in my head. I'm like, "Well, what are you changing?"
[00:16:16] Like "What are you doing different?"
[00:16:19] Doan Winkel: I go, "Well, then that's on you, right?" I
[00:16:22] Matthew: Yeah.
[00:16:22] Doan Winkel: it, in the college space and, and acknowledging college is very different from
[00:16:28] Matthew: Yes
[00:16:29] Doan Winkel: space, that's my domain. I'm in charge. And if I'm recognizing that students are figuring out workarounds, I can either choose to accept it or I can choose to adjust to incorporate those workarounds or to battle those workarounds. I choose
[00:16:47] Matthew: Yeah
[00:16:48] Doan Winkel: It's a losing battle, so I choose not to do that, you know? but that's your choice. That's what I always tell people, and I go, "It, it's a, it's a choice you gotta make, and whatever you make, you make," you know? But I go, [00:17:00] "Why would you not... I just don't understand, why would you not make a choice that's in the best interest of the student?"
[00:17:06] Matthew: Right. No, I, I, I agree with that, and that's what I think, I think where a lot of the schools in, in my region are be a little more open-minded, we'll put it that way. And it's why my, my job even exists. And so we are a bit behind. I mean, there's schools that are already, you know, running AI literacy programs.
[00:17:31] It's already integrated into their lessons and things like that. But I, made an argument, made a point a while ago on our, on my work podcast, that I think it's okay that some schools took it slow
[00:17:44] Doan Winkel: Oh, for
[00:17:44] Matthew: because, because you can, It's like I imagine, like, you know, the scene from, Leo DiCaprio's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he's sitting on the couch, you know, eating popcorn, and then his commercial, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, hey."
[00:17:55] So, you know, you're sitting back and watching, and, and you get to see [00:18:00] mistakes that people have made. You get to watch Los Angeles School District fail miserably with a chatbot, right?
[00:18:08] Doan Winkel: Yeah,
[00:18:09] Matthew: like, maybe that wasn't the direction to go in. Maybe that wasn't the best choice to do. And so that's the argument I make is like, you know, yeah, sure, people will say we're behind, but now you have learned from their mistakes, and now we can kind of build something on our own.
[00:18:26] And I love how you said, like the AI Friction Labs, you know, we, we customize, you know, with the teachers you're talking to. That's our tagline here at the IU8. Customized learning solutions
[00:18:37] Doan Winkel: a part of... I mean, that's such a huge part of the possibility here, right? Is that, that has all of a sudden very quickly become more possible
[00:18:48] Matthew: Yes.
[00:18:49] Doan Winkel: district level, at a school level, at a student level, right? And that to me, again, that's part of why I go, "Just, just play around with it.
[00:18:56] Try it out." Like, it, you know.
[00:18:59] Matthew: Yeah
[00:18:59] Doan Winkel: Again, if [00:19:00] you choose, if you're still scared of it or you don't believe it, or you just wanna dismiss it, But at least give it a
[00:19:06] Matthew: Yeah.
[00:19:06] Doan Winkel: before you do that
[00:19:07] Matthew: Yeah. Absolutely. No, and that's what I think, you know, my wife followed a similar path. You know, I started, I went down the rabbit hole in the, the summer of 2023, and every day I was learning something new. Like, "Oh my did you know it could do this? Did you know it could do this?" Like a month in she was like, "Could, could you, could you talk about anything else?
[00:19:27] Like lit- literally anything else. Like I would love to hear about the paint drying in the, in the front room that you're painting. I'd love to hear about that more than hearing about AI, you know?" And she, she was like, "Go make TikToks so that you can tell them, and don't tell me again." So, I was reborn on LinkedIn there at that moment.
[00:19:47] But, I she now is on, like, technology committees for the Pennsylvania Bar Association. She's helping with, like, AI policies and AI [00:20:00] discussions in her company, that she works for. And so she's like a, a voice that's kind of a little bit leading the way for lawyers in PA.
[00:20:08] But, but it's even that whole, that whole idea of, "I'm resistant, I don't wanna hear about this." And all it took for her was, I wonder... was curiosity. Again,
[00:20:21] Curiosity, right? I wonder what this could do in my job. And I don't know about you, but I always tell people, what is, like, the most boring or, like, mundane, painful task that you do in your job? And I'm like, see if AI can do that so that you can do the more valuable tasks
[00:20:43] Doan Winkel: Right.
[00:20:44] Matthew: your job.
[00:20:44] Doan Winkel: Yeah.
[00:20:45] Matthew: know what I mean?
[00:20:46] And-
[00:20:46] Doan Winkel: other thing I tell people sometimes, especially the ones who really kind of push back, in addition to that is I go, "Also, what are you best at?
[00:20:57] Matthew: Oh.
[00:20:57] Doan Winkel: Like, where, where does your expertise
[00:20:58] Matthew: Oh
[00:20:59] Doan Winkel: really, [00:21:00] really, really shine through?" Because if you do something where, you know, have the greatest expertise and you play around with it, you're gonna be able to very, very quickly evaluate what happened.
[00:21:14] Matthew: Yes.
[00:21:15] Doan Winkel: And so I, go
[00:21:16] Matthew: Yes
[00:21:16] Doan Winkel: try both and, and you'll just start to see." And, you know, because it, and I mean, it's not perfect, there's problems, whatever, and if I'm playing around with something I don't really know about, harder for me to spot some of those issues. But if I play around with something I know better than anybody, I'm
[00:21:33] Matthew: Mm-hmm
[00:21:33] Doan Winkel: out of the gate, right?
[00:21:34] And so, you know, so that's like with a lot of these English folks or history folks, I get a lot of Those kind of people, I go, "Where's your point of like super, super expertise? And play around with something right there and just see, see what it does," right? And, and, you know, it gives you at least little bit of a level of confidence of it sucked, it's decent,
[00:21:58] Matthew: Right. [00:22:00] Right. You have a bar, right? You, you have, like, a measuring bar here of, of where it stands based on what you do. That's, again, like I, I'm so glad you said that, 'cause that connects very well to something she's doing now. The biggest program they use in her law office, It's a legal server database that has all the case law and all.
[00:22:20] So you could search, you know, by topic or by case however, and you could get the case law that you need. Okay? Well, these companies now, like a lot of companies, have added AI into that. Okay? So this one was WesLaw, and the idea here is that within the database, you could essentially put in, and of course they have all the enterprise protections and security and data and all that with legal issues and all that, that abound.
[00:22:50] you can put in your cases, your case notes, your thing, and all that, and it will help you find the right cases, maybe pull counterarguments on things that [00:23:00] you might not be thinking of or did think of or help you develop a little bit more. But it's more than just searching for the case law and citing it.
[00:23:09] It could help you based on the context of your case and the case law that you're trying to use. It could also, like, this is very much where the Friction Labs ties in. It acts as the opposing counsel, and it will, it will say, "Here's counterarguments or here's counterpoints, and here's what you need to do."
[00:23:30] And so one of the use cases, like her and I did a training for our, for our, like the county, bar, and that was one of the things one of the lawyers took away, showed them the whole basic thing, which I don't even know if it's good advice anymore, but the whole give the AI a role.
[00:23:46] You know? Make, make it an expert in something. I don't even know if that matters anymore, But he told me, like he was messing around with AI, just trying to like, could it do briefs? Could it do like this or whatever.
[00:23:58] As soon as he put in that, [00:24:00] you know, prompt at the beginning, he said, "It completely changed the output that I got, and it was a million times better with just that small change." And ever since that moment, that guy has gone wild.
[00:24:13] Doan Winkel: Right.
[00:24:13] Matthew: And he's like, "Any of these legal programs that have AI involved, I am buying them 100%, 'cause I see the value in it."
[00:24:21] Right? And I don't think, I would hope, I would hope that even as lawyers, as teachers, as, you know, college professors, the goal of these programs isn't to like outsource your thinking. The goal is to help you do more, I would argue
[00:24:41] Doan Winkel: Well, and that's-- I mean, that gets back to the design of it all, right? And as teachers, that's our job. I can say I come from a business discipline. I got a PhD in a business discipline. I've taught in a business discipline. I never got one ounce of training for my job, but,
[00:24:59] Matthew: Yeah.[00:25:00]
[00:25:00] Doan Winkel: They pay me a lot of money, and they gave me a job for life with zero training.
[00:25:04] Matthew: Yeah. Who said I'm allowed to do this? Who said it was okay?
[00:25:08] Doan Winkel: you know, but part of it is looking at it and saying:
Designing Learning Experiences with AI
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[00:25:26] Doan Winkel: How do I design This experience, right? And, and how do the things that I have at my disposal fit into that design so that my students can develop the thinking and develop the skills And, you know, we choose what we wanna use, right?
[00:25:29] If y- you know, you wanna, you wanna use business cases, you wanna use projects, you wanna use AI, There's all these things you can choose, and it's just being thoughtful of like how do you integrate these things into here so that you can create a richer, engaging, and more robust learning experience for these kids to develop like deeper, more robust thinking and skills.
[00:25:53] I mean, that's my approach to it, and that's why I see so much value with this stuff 'cause it
[00:25:58] Matthew: Yeah
[00:25:58] Doan Winkel: just helps to [00:26:00] skyrocket it all
[00:26:01] Matthew: Yeah. And I know the story I share quite often is I was a very old school teacher, and I feel like a lot of people, they... You go into teaching, and you kind of teach how you were taught,
[00:26:13] Doan Winkel: Sure
[00:26:13] Matthew: know? So very old school, explicit instruction, direct instruction. Here's the knowledge, let's practice it together, and, you know, let's, let's do a quiz or whatever, formative assessment, summative assessment, whatever.
[00:26:26] but the stories you remember are those amazing projects. I still remember every project I did from, like, fourth grade on. Like, I did, I did a circulatory system project when I was in fourth grade, and I still remember the heck out of doing that thing, you know? And so that idea, the whole idea of kind of redesigning how, how we do things, I think you've talked about this before, but I'm kinda curious about it, like, a ceiling.
[00:26:57] Is there a ceiling to the redesign [00:27:00] process? Like, is there a place where there's a limit to, to how we can redesign things? And I bring that up because based on our last, point we made a little while ago, like, if all the right pieces are in place and you've designed this wonderful thing, and they still choose to outsource completely, not using it in the way you, you have designed for it to be used, then where does that...
[00:27:30] Is I would assume that rests on the student because these are adults.
[00:27:35] Doan Winkel: It, it, again, obviously higher ed's different. You know, my perspective on higher ed is always, I mean, I have a j- I have a job to do. I'm paid to do a job, you know?
[00:27:43] Matthew: Yeah
[00:27:45] Doan Winkel: I have customers sitting in front of me. Those customers are paying a lot of money to be there. They have a choice, they have autonomy in what happens to their experience.
[00:27:55] I set up the experience, I invite them into the experience, will guide [00:28:00] them through the experience, but at the end of the day, they have a choice. And if they choose to screw around with it or not give a shit about it or whatever,
[00:28:08] Matthew: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:09] Doan Winkel: I, I mean, you, that... I tell them all the time, I go, "Look, I gotta be here. I'm gonna be here. You're paying a lot of money. You don't wanna be here, I, I, it doesn't hurt my feelings. You're gonna have to probably explain that to somebody, but that's on you, right?
[00:28:22] Matthew: Yeah. You, you have to explain to somebody, not necessarily me, but you're gonna have to explain it to somebody, so
[00:28:28] Doan Winkel: know, and choices have consequences. And so, but part of it is I can now do things that are much more, customized and personalized to the students so that they see even more value in being there,
[00:28:42] Matthew: Yeah
[00:28:43] Doan Winkel: And, they see, more engaged. They more want to show up. And these kind of tools have enabled me to do more of that.
[00:28:51] And they show up. They show up with perspective, with a more open mind, with more excitement, you know, and, [00:29:00] and things just roll on each other. So, but again, yeah, at the end of the day, they choose to or, or don't, and that's not
[00:29:07] Matthew: Yeah. And I, I think that is the biggest struggle translating from higher ed to K-12,
[00:29:18] Doan Winkel: Yeah.
[00:29:19] Matthew: you know? 'Cause
[00:29:20] Doan Winkel: I know there's different rules and standards and all kinds of things going on, but even in K-12, like, teachers can still create that same sort of customized experience. And, you know, the one caveat I'll say here that I always try to make sure I say and I try to make sure I, I acknowledge, it takes a lot of training to figure out how to use these things.
[00:29:42] Matthew: Yes
[00:29:43] Doan Winkel: And, teachers, especially K-12, don't have a lot of bandwidth. I would argue college teachers have a lot more bandwidth than most are
[00:29:50] Matthew: Yeah.
[00:29:51] Doan Winkel: to admit.
[00:29:52] Matthew: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:53] Doan Winkel: so. So I, I get it, right? I get the, the problem of like, this is one more thing. I gotta learn one more thing. I don't have time. You [00:30:00] know, acknowledging all of that, It's possible to create those kind of experiences for the students.
[00:30:08] Matthew: Yeah
[00:30:09] Doan Winkel: don't think it was physically or mentally possible before especially in a, in a K-12 space. You know, higher ed, I teach a couple teach two classes, 75 minutes twice a week. I, of time on my hands where I can, I can do things, right? I
[00:30:26] Matthew: Yeah
[00:30:27] Doan Winkel: eight classes, classes every day, all day, you know.
[00:30:31] Matthew: Right.
[00:30:31] Doan Winkel: bless them. No, way could I do that.
[00:30:36] Matthew: Yeah, that was me in November. That was me I just left in November, right before Thanksgiving break. That was... Yeah. But it's, it's a d- it's a, it's a very stressful world too. And, and again, so here, like, I share that with teachers. I'm very open about that. My personality and how I worked, I, I learned a lot.
[00:30:56] And getting obsessed and going down the [00:31:00] rabbit hole of AI in the summer of 2023, which was the first summer that I didn't have a job.
[00:31:08] I made a conscious decision, I'm not gonna work this summer. I'm gonna take a break. I've been working like crazy my entire life. I'm gonna take a summer off. And so instead, I filled it with, "I'm gonna learn about this thing also," you know? But I went down that road, and I took that time. I used that time as, as class.
[00:31:27] And my eight-hour days were, like, signing up for all the programs and playing with them, trying to mess with them, trying to see what are they good at, what are they not good at. I don't expect people to do that.
[00:31:42] I never expect people to do that. So how do you... And this is what I'm struggling with in my new job, so I am always open to, like, new ideas here. So, like, how... With all that being said, the bandwidth and, and how much it takes to kind of learn this,
Bandwidth, Training & Building Champions
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[00:31:57] Matthew: what are some, like, unique ways?
[00:31:58] 'Cause I know you do, like, the [00:32:00] consulting piece as well on the side. So what are some ways that schools can kind of weave it in or do it? 'Cause I know, like, I know here, I just heard of a school, this blew my mind. I just heard of a school that next school year is losing four professional development days.
[00:32:19] Like, they're, they're losing them And those are being turned into instructional days. And I was like, "So where do you get that back?" Or I guess you just don't get it back, right? And so, so what are some cool... Like, what are some ways that could help kinda deal with that idea of not having enough time?
[00:32:39] Doan Winkel: Yeah Um,
[00:32:41] Matthew: It's a big que- I know. I ask big questions.
[00:32:43] Doan Winkel: but I think it, it-- you know, schools that I work with, and I, you know, I worked with some, some high schools, but mostly in higher ed. but you know, part of it is there needs to, you know, for things to really be successful, for something to really kinda take root [00:33:00] more than just, "Here's this crazy lady over here doing some weird stuff," you know. Um, administrative champion and a few champions across different disciplines, right? So, so some, it, whatever the dean, you know, what, like some administrative champion that's gonna be able to, like, the path and deal with some red tape, put some resources at work. So there's gotta be somebody. They, they, they don't need to be a master of this stuff, but they need to understand it. They can't just be a mouthpiece. They need to really kind of understand and be familiar with it. And a couple teachers from different disciplines. One has to be humanities, because that's where so much of the pushback comes from.
[00:33:42] So you need, like, uh, uh, I always say, like, get a couple humanities people together and make sure one of them is really anti.
[00:33:50] Matthew: Ooh, I like that. Yeah
[00:33:52] Doan Winkel: thing I tell the students. I go, "Y-you want the friction. You want the friction in the room," right? And you
[00:33:57] Matthew: Yeah
[00:33:58] Doan Winkel: who's gonna have [00:34:00] that and is gonna bring that into the room. Hopefully, they can be congenial and everybody
[00:34:05] Matthew: Yeah.
[00:34:05] Doan Winkel: but, like, you need that, and you need some more, like, analytical type people. You k- You know what I mean? And so you just put together a group like that, you give them a little bit of resources. You give them a little bit of time. don't know how that looks.
[00:34:18] Y-You know, you gotta-- But it, but it's a thing to say, like, at a school level or a district level or whatever, you look at it and you go, "Is this important enough?" If it is important enough, figure it out. Like, you can figure it out. If it's not important enough, awesome. Communicate that, right? But whatever it is, like, be clear in the messaging. Um, and, and don't it. Don't say it's important enough, but not Provide the runway and provide and time, you know?
[00:34:51] Matthew: I,
[00:34:51] Doan Winkel: because otherwise you're left with teachers who, like yourself, you're, doing it on your own. Y- y- you're more, more than likely getting burnt out [00:35:00] because they probably don't have a, a summer to just kind of do nothing else but go crazy on the...
[00:35:06] You know what I mean?
[00:35:07] Matthew: Right. All right
[00:35:07] Doan Winkel: no- nobody wins. So, uh, know, and, and there's people, right? That, I mean, not, you know, not trying to be a salesperson, but there's people,
[00:35:16] Matthew: N-
[00:35:16] Doan Winkel: there's a lot of other people
[00:35:18] Matthew: yeah.
[00:35:19] Doan Winkel: who do this,
[00:35:20] Matthew: There's mes. There's mes that exist, you know? Yeah
[00:35:24] Doan Winkel: there's people who help, and there's people who are willing, and there's people who have expertise in saying, "How do you build these kind of systems, and how do you do this in an efficient way, and how do you do this in a responsible way?" And so again, are the resources committed?
[00:35:42] Matthew: you hit the nail on the head there, and that is something I'm trying to build here, something I'm trying to put together.
[00:35:49] Um, I'm still new, so I'm still trying to feel out... My whole job is new.
[00:35:54] Doan Winkel: Yeah
[00:35:55] Matthew: Uh, so there's very much a we need to figure out what to do with you[00:36:00]
[00:36:00] Doan Winkel: Sure
[00:36:00] Matthew: sort of thing, which is kind of nice for me 'cause I came in with a whole, like, plate of ideas, and it's like, we wanna pull on?
[00:36:10] Which one of these do we wanna go down?
[00:36:12] Doan Winkel: Yeah
[00:36:14] Matthew: so that's kind of what we're doing now, is we're just kind of going down these different paths and seeing what's working. So
[00:36:19] Doan Winkel: And I think too, especially in, in educational institutions, an outsider in makes a lot of sense
[00:36:27] Matthew: Mm-hmm.
[00:36:27] Doan Winkel: any insider has baggage, and there's that come with it, right? So,
[00:36:34] Matthew: Mm-hmm.
[00:36:34] Doan Winkel: you know, my school, there's somebody at the provost office who's been kind of charged with this. There's people in each college.
[00:36:41] They're trying to have it trickle down. really difficult because internal stuff,
[00:36:46] Matthew: Sure
[00:36:47] Doan Winkel: I don't know, whatever it is, the 50-mile rule or 100-mile rule, whatever, right? But it's like if, if you bring somebody else in from the outside at some point and have that outside perspective, I think it can really make a difference [00:37:00] because you just escape all of that mess
[00:37:03] Matthew: I was doing side work while I was still teaching, so I was doing some trainings here through the IU. So I did a little bit of work here before I actually worked here.
[00:37:11] But but they had brought in, Matt Miller, does a lot of talks, you know, lots of schools all over the place. They had brought in Matt Miller. And I, since then, have built a relationship with Matt Miller. And I was, I was like, "You know, they have me right here." And another friend of mine, who you may or may not be connected to on LinkedIn, Merissa Sadler Holder,Teaching With Machines.
[00:37:35] she said that to me too when we had ha- a little meeting of our own. But she was like, "Sometimes you need that person from, from far away." And she brought up the same thing, the 50, 100 mile, whatever it was. You know, you need somebody from outside that bubble. and then once you have that person come in, then you realize the person that you have there is on the same wavelength as that person, and now you're like, "Oh, well, now we have this person."
[00:37:59] [00:38:00] So, and, and Matt Miller essentially said the same thing too, so it was just like, it was a cool thing to learn. And now it's funny, 'cause now I have this role, so now I am kind of like the outside guy. The ... I'm now kind of the outside guy. So it's, scary, terrifying, and exciting all at the same time.
[00:38:18] Doan Winkel: right. That's
[00:38:19] Matthew: now it's like, now it's like, wait a minute.
[00:38:21] People are actually gonna, like, listen to me. That's kind of scary, so I need to make sure I have my message honed in there. So yeah. So the focus of this whole kind of show, the idea, is built around this idea of curiosity. Love my Ted Lasso quote, "Be curious, not judgmental." So that's kind of how I am sort of loosely putting together these, these episodes.
[00:38:45] Go- D- Getting into my curiosities. And, and the thing I wanna do here at the end is get into, like, your curiosities. So, like, to close it up, like, what is the question or a question or multiple [00:39:00] questions, that you have about AI in education or education in general, that maybe there's not an answer to yet?
[00:39:09] Something you're curious about future-wise down the road.
[00:39:16] Or something that keeps you up at night or bugging your head like me.
[00:39:19] Doan Winkel: Not much keeps me up at night. I sleep well.
[00:39:21] Matthew: That's great. You're lucky.
[00:39:24] Doan Winkel: I think, you know, a part of, what I always struggle with or, or I'm always curious about and trying to fight for is like, how do we, how do we give students more autonomy of, of the process? you know, and move away from, I'm, I'm 50 plus, move away from the experiences we had. You know, like you mentioned, the direct instruction and the
[00:39:50] Matthew: Yeah
[00:39:51] Doan Winkel: fill-in-the-blank tests and blue books and all that nonsense. You know what I mean? And so it's, I'm always just like, how are we going to [00:40:00] as an industry, like how do we move away from that? How do we shift the whole tide? Because I've never experienced an industry that has as much inertia.
[00:40:11] Matthew: Hmm.
[00:40:11] Doan Winkel: think there is one. And, you know, I don't see that it's changed all
[00:40:20] Matthew: Right.
[00:40:20] Doan Winkel: forever, right? And
[00:40:21] Matthew: Yeah
[00:40:22] Doan Winkel: I mean, it doesn't keep me up at night, but that's the thing I fight against all the time is, you know, I don't mind myself on grenades. I don't mind taking arrows. Like, I don't mind any of that stuff. You know, but like what can I do to move that along and to be somebody out front where if people see that and wanna tag along or wanna jump on the, on the ship, cool, right? and if people wanna fling some arrows, awesome. I'd love to know why, right? Like, I wanna learn
[00:40:51] Matthew: Yeah. Right
[00:40:53] Doan Winkel: I kinda better understand people think differently than me, and that's, that's good.
[00:40:58] You know, there's nothing, no [00:41:00] harm comes from that. So I mean, that's the big one, you know, is, is really like,
Curiosities: Breaking the Inertia of Education
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[00:41:04] Doan Winkel: how do we give students more autonomy over their experience, and how do we like, how do break the inertia as a whole and just shift the whole tide of it? 'Cause it sucks. It
[00:41:14] Matthew: Yeah.
[00:41:15] Doan Winkel: mean, it's
[00:41:16] Matthew: Yeah
[00:41:16] Doan Winkel: a monstrous investment from students, from parents, from teachers, all, everybody, all these people involved in this, this whole thing.
[00:41:26] It's a massive, massive investment, and I just think it's been such a waste for so long.
[00:41:32] Matthew: Yeah. Yeah, no, and that's, We had a speaker come to a school I was working at. His name was Jimmy Casas, and he's, you know, big, loud, boisterous. You know, he's good. He's a very good speaker. But I, I will never forget the one line, 'cause he used it a million times. He would talk about all these situations that teachers face, and he would keep saying, "They didn't teach you that in teacher school."
[00:41:56] "They didn't teach you that in teacher school," right? And so you get this idea [00:42:00] of like, what did I actually learn in teacher school? You know, actually learn? And a lot of it back to that. I have never thought of the word pedagogy,
[00:42:12] I have never thought about that word more than in the last three years since ChatGPT. Even in college, I remember, like, I learned about it, and I'm like, "That's a weird word." And, you know, it's like, oh, how you teach. Okay, cool. Um, I just do it. I never really thought about it, right?
[00:42:31] I just do it. With AI, now I'm forced to, like, actually think about that. Like, wait a minute, if I teach this way What good is that? Because AI could just do that. So it's like good is that? curious as well.
[00:42:48] I would love to see that question get answered, and would love to see a moment where a state, a school, somebody's like, "You know what? We're just not gonna do [00:43:00] the standardized testing,
[00:43:01] And I'm not... I can't remember the name of the school, but a school in, um, Hong Kong where the whole thing, it- it's, it's so student-centered, and these students are on, like, a different level the way they interact with people because they've had so much autonomy over their learning experience from elementary school.
[00:43:21] And it's, it's wild to see that different thought process, whereas here you have so many, I would argue, so many students, um, I, I reference this all the time, but so many students are like, you know, Marshawn Lynch showing up to an interview. You know, "I'm here so I do not get fined." You know? That's like "I'm here so I do not get fin- or I'm here because my mom or dad made me be here."
[00:43:45] And those kids, like you said, you built the... You designed the thing. They get to live in the design, experience the design, and they wanna be there because it's a different design than anything they've ever [00:44:00] done before. And that's not to say that, you know, someday they might be like... You know, you might have some that are like, "I hate this design."
[00:44:07] You know? But again, that's where it's like, okay, Here's the autonomy part. Well, what would you do differently, right? So if you don't like this design, what would you design? How would you do this? If you don't wanna use the chatbot to do this assignment, what are you gonna do instead?
[00:44:23] You have that autonomy, right? And I think, I don't think that's a hard sell for especially high school. You know? I don't think that's a hard sell. Okay. You don't
[00:44:34] Doan Winkel: if, it isn't, then why hasn't it worked?
[00:44:37] Matthew: Yeah. Well, oh, geez. Yep, there it is. That's even be- that's an even better place to end. Look at you. I like... You're good at this podcast thing. I'll get there someday.
[00:44:45] Doan Winkel: you're
[00:44:46] fine. Except for the lights, you're
Outro & Where to Find Doan
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[00:44:47] Doan Winkel: doing
[00:44:48] Matthew: Doan, thank you so much. appreciate all the time that you gave here and all the work that you're doing.
[00:44:53] where can people find you? How, what's the best way? I mean, who... I mean, obviously, I, I found you on LinkedIn, but,
[00:44:59] Doan Winkel: LinkedIn [00:45:00] is, is place. Um, then I also do a, a free newsletter. Um, it's how to teach AI. It's on Substack. and it's, you know, it's a free newsletter. Once a week I throw stuff out. It's very practical, very much like, "Here's how you do shit."
[00:45:15] Matthew: Yep. Useful.
[00:45:16] Doan Winkel: it, right?
[00:45:17] Matthew: Yep.
[00:45:17] Doan Winkel: use it tomorrow. so those are really the two main places and, and you know, I always tell people like I wanna share what I do and what I know and what I've learned, and I wanna learn what other people are trying, and so I just love connecting with people. you know, like this happen out of it, that's wonderful. You get to meet new people and make some friendships and collaborations. You know, if people are looking for, help, you know, as a consultant, I've got those services available, so it... But, you know, you find it all, um, there. And then my website is Doan Winkel, so it's D-O-A-N-W-I-N-K-E-L.com.
[00:45:49] Matthew: Perfect. Well, again, Doan, thanks for being curious, and thanks for being a connection of mine. we'll see you next time here on Artificial Intelligence Real Talk, the Curiosity [00:46:00] Connection. I don't know who we're gonna connect with next, but I bet you it's somebody from LinkedIn. So thanks, everybody.
[00:46:05] Thanks, Doan.
