Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: It's very easy to throw in this app, this game, and other things which will eventually create information overload, sensory overload, emotional overload with students before teaching.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: They need to bond and connect with the students. They need to create that psychological safety.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Communication is about the relationship. It's about emotion, emotional regulation.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Tech for them is not just a tool. It's their environment.
We cannot take it away from them. It's part of their world.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: I think we're all worried that AI will replace us. No, it won't replace us. It is impossible for us to develop without human connection. Every learner has this innate drive, innate force to learn, to develop, to grow. And our job is just to remove the obstacles to that.
[00:01:10] Speaker C: Okay, welcome back.
Nice to see you again. Olga and Erica.
I think in this episode, what we're going to do is we're going to explore Generation Alpha's relationship with technology.
We know this is. They're being born into it. We talked about that at the beginning. How it did has shaped. Shaped them to a large extent. And we're also going to look at AI because that, of course, is changing many aspects of education, behavior, classrooms.
So first of all, can we talk a little bit about what is the relationship? How would you describe the relationship between Gen Alpha students and technology?
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Well, it's a given for Gen Alpha, and that has an impact on their expectation on the teaching context, how the content is going to be delivered. And they have a special expectation about the media for which the content is going to be delivered as well. And also, I think it has an implication on us as teachers what technology we use to deliver the content, to deliver the language points to our students as well. And there's also, of course, we talk about technology as in the big word, technology as an equipment that schools can provide, that the language schools provide, or if you're teaching online, what kind of technology you use to deliver and communicate.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Through, in fact, to build on what Olga was saying when Olga said it was a given.
Tech for them is not just a tool. For us, it's a tool. But for them, it's their habitat.
So it's their environment.
And we cannot take it away from them or tell them, don't use AI. It's part of their world.
[00:02:58] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: And in the previous episode, we mentioned multimodality as a, as a teaching strategy. And tech comes into this multi. One of the multi modal ways of teaching, because if technology gets students to be more engaged, since it's part of their world, so they tend to, if we get technology into Teaching as one of the tools. Not as the tool, but as one of the tools, then they tend to retain information better because that is the way their brains are wired to learn.
[00:03:36] Speaker C: Right.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: You know, through technology.
[00:03:38] Speaker C: And we often use the term digital native.
But is how strong is their understanding of the technology that they're using?
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Would you say they don't. They are very good at using technology, but they don't understand what they're dealing with. For example, the algorithms that we mentioned previously.
[00:04:06] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Even the ethics of AI and modern technologies, we need to teach these explicitly to students.
They swipe, but they're not really understanding the depths of what is being presented to them.
[00:04:23] Speaker C: Right. Or the accuracy.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Or the accuracy. As we mentioned before, you know, what is, what is fake and what is real.
[00:04:30] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Sort of. The boundaries are blurring.
[00:04:35] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:04:36] Speaker C: I saw some research recently that was showing that I think about 42% of content that's coming through Generate Gen AI text is, is kind of a copy of something that has been stored or memorized within the LLM. But where it has been originally, it's been generated originally. About half of it contains factual or some kind of error or inaccuracy in it.
So it doesn't mean everything is inaccurate. But there's a high percentage of inaccuracies and a lot of the younger generation, it seems to me, are not aware of how much inaccuracy there is.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: In fact, my daughter came home with a project from school that she had to look up about marine life and.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: She.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Naturally went on to AI to look up information and passed on the information to me.
And I realized there were some because of my general knowledge, which is very important for students to have. They need to have some knowledge base and that's where the skills come in which we'll be talking about.
I noticed there was some inaccuracy in information, so I sat down with her and showed her, listen, this is inaccurate information. Let's research on Google, because even Google might be slightly inaccurate. But yes, let's go on to Google and check out, you know, the facts. And that's the skill that we need to teach our, our students.
[00:06:18] Speaker C: Right. That evaluation critical.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: The analytical skills as well.
[00:06:22] Speaker C: Right, right, right.
So we're talking there about their relationship with, with technology.
But what, what does this mean in the classroom for teachers who are teaching Gen Alpha?
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Well, I think when we, again, we are in the classroom, what I think we can talk about is us as teachers using technology to deliver content to our learners. And also we can talk about again what the students are used to and how to bridge the gap between our content and their expectations.
I think is important to talk about from a teacher's point of view because I still, you know, I teach groups as well and I can notice that I as a teacher worry about my use of technology, how I deliver content to my students. So I think in terms of regulating teachers anxiety, I think it's important to really understand what I'm doing for this technology.
What kind of. Because I think it's very easy to overuse it, to throw in this app, this game and other things which will eventually create this overload, information overload, sensory overload, emotional overload with students.
So what I think we need to be mindful of is actually reduce the use of technology, but use it specifically to achieve a very specific aim. I think for teachers is important to reflect on why they use this technology.
[00:08:03] Speaker C: So not to feel they're competing with Minecraft and other.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Our job is not to compete with Minecraft.
And again it brings another question up is how do I keep my students engaged? Again, obviously we might. I think there is an assumption that the more technology we bring in, the more entertained and engaged students will be that not necessarily be true.
I think in a nutshell, what is really important is the quality and the depth of our relationship with our students. How well we know them, how interested we are in them and how curious we are about their answers. For example, when they talk about their hobbies or interests in the lesson, do we listen for mistakes or do we actually really engage with what they're saying to us?
I don't know if that makes sense.
It is linked to technology.
I think replacing human relationship with technology is questionable because I think in a nutshell we are there to teach them how to communicate. A communication is about the relationship.
[00:09:14] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Is about emotion, emotional regulation, meaning and. And yes, we have to get in.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Technology in a meaningful way.
[00:09:24] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: And as Olga said, not to over stimulate them.
[00:09:28] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: That's why I mentioned use it as one of the tools, not as the tool.
[00:09:34] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: Going back to the classroom implications, I think for me as a teacher, what I find useful is the collaborative spaces where learners can upload things which I can present on the whiteboard. It's one of the things that have worked for me. There's lots of online boards, there's lots of documents they can contribute, mirror board.
[00:09:55] Speaker C: Or something like that.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: There's lots and lots of them where students can actually see. We talked about the instant feedback as well. The instant feedback could be oh, I've uploaded the Picture, somebody reacted to this picture, somebody made a comment.
Like boards like Padlet allow comments, ratings, stars and reactions on the content in the here and now.
[00:10:20] Speaker C: That content generation kind of aspect we were talking about in the previous episode.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: So for example, if we were brainstorming something, why don't we just use, use it as a space where the whole class could participate and everybody's input is reflected there. Everybody could put something in it. With older students, when they actually have their own laptops in the classroom, they can work together or they can work in their working stations and you know, produce things on the board. And that is actually enough.
[00:10:52] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: In many cases is enough to keep that sort of relationship going, to feel the connection. Because language is about connection. It's about, you know, responding to others, feeling the connection.
[00:11:05] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: And it's down to our basic emotional needs.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: And in the end you keep all the students engaged as well.
[00:11:11] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: You know, it's immediate engagement.
[00:11:14] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:11:15] Speaker C: And it's also in a way giving them a little bit of opportunity to engage as they want to. If you're using an online collaborative board, a space like that, you engage as you want to, which is I think in line with what we were saying earlier about that, the way of collaboration.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: Social interaction, personalization as well.
These are Gen Alpha, like the personalization, you know, due to their interests. They're very much interrelated, you know, interests and personalization as well. Yeah, they're very much interrelated because Gen Alpha would search for something on technology that interests them.
[00:12:01] Speaker D: Yes. Yeah.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: You know, so we have to base our teaching on their interests. Yes, we have the syllabus that we need to present and however, through their interests.
[00:12:16] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: It makes me think of the learner generated content. So it's pretty much can be learner driven, like what they find and what they want to talk about and that we can follow.
[00:12:26] Speaker C: And I thought it's interesting because we say technology as though it's one thing. You've just kind of highlighted a collaborative space for generating content, sharing content.
There are other types of technology that teachers might want to use. Do you want to look at those?
[00:12:44] Speaker A: I think for a practitioner, the first thing we talked about, which was, which is a big thing, is the shorter attention span. So again, we notice that learners can't focus for longer periods of time. In fact, they can't even focus on the reel anymore. So people get bored with reels, let's face it, even 9 second reel becomes difficult to process.
But what I mean is, I think our tasks as teachers is not to Keep them focused is to teach them how to refocus, which is a different.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: Thing and to delay focus, to stretch it.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: So we talk like in our book we talk about like simple tools that are specifically tailored at retaining attention and focus, minimizing distractions. What I use and I find useful is apps that reward you for staying focused.
[00:13:39] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: An app, for example, where you grow a tree if you don't really touch your screen for 15 minutes.
[00:13:46] Speaker D: Right.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Actually you get, not only you do, you get the job done and you focus, but you also get a virtual tree or a fruit, basically that is also talking about the dopamine. Reward is that you're rewarded for staying focused. And it's an experience, explicit skill.
[00:14:02] Speaker C: Do you have a name of the app?
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Well, one of them is Planty.
No endorsement, but it's something I find they're very similar and you can, you can find them online, you can find them free on the Internet. There's one of the things I particularly enjoy, but it's kind of works for teenager. There's a three hour YouTube video of called your mom helps you focus. So this guy with a towel on his head pops in every 25 minutes saying, excuse me, are you studying? Just get back to it. Yeah. So you actually can play it at the background. And again, I think it acts in a fun way, but it does an important job. It helps you refocus because we don't, we can't expect, even for adults, I think we don't expect people to stay focused. Let's face, let's be honest, everybody, we don't focus for extended periods of time because we are also part of the, part of this world. Yeah. So our job is as well to learn ourselves and to teach our students to refocus.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: In fact, the message here is I think we need to meet Gen Alpha halfway, but then they need to meet us halfway themselves too.
So we need to, yes, adapt our ways as educators in the classroom to reach them halfway. But then they need to do their bit, like for example, delayed gratification. Yes, they need to have some kind of delayed gratification, but we need to teach them that. Yes, through our teaching.
[00:15:30] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: You know, through our lessons.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Olga Seah. If you want to explore the topic of Generation Alpha in the classroom in more depth, you can now get your hands on the book Dr. Erica Gallia and I co authored. We dive into the unique challenges this generation faces and their exceptional strengths. It's all about helping teachers understand and connect with Gen Alpha learners more effectively. And we've packed it with neuroscientific insights and practical strategies you can use right away in your classroom. We hope you enjoy it and find it as inspiring to read as it was to write. See the link in the description for more information.
[00:16:14] Speaker C: We've talked about critical thinking. We've talked about kind of self regulated learning.
Are there other skills that you think in fact?
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Yes.
I always in my workshops I start off saying the system gives us the what, but the how is up to us professionals. We are in the classrooms in those four walls and the how is up to us to decide. We need to plan our how to deliver the what I think and we need to get that what and teach them skills.
Delivering content is with Gen Alpha is not going to work anymore because the content is at the fingertips through their modern technologies. We need to teach them skill which for example critical thinking, problem solving, let's get the content and teach them analytical skills for example. But I think the most two I think top skills we need to teach them is metacognition, which is self regulated learning. Empowering them as independent to become independent learners. They get a hold of their learning skills and evaluate what's working and what's not. Because modern technology is not going to teach them that. We need to teach them the skill of okay, evaluating what's working and what's not. Is the strategy that I'm using as a student working?
[00:17:44] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Am I learning through the strategy or do I need to move on to a different strategy?
[00:17:50] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: The second one, as we've been mentioning throughout the episodes, is emotional intelligence which AI is not going to teach our modern technologies.
And that's why the teacher in the classroom is so, so important because we can only learn emotions and emotion regulation which is the stability of our emotions, the control of our emotions through human interaction.
[00:18:17] Speaker C: And one thing I know that you know is around why is that emotional regulation so important for learning?
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Yes, because emotion and thinking are interrelated.
Without being emotionally stable, no one can be able to focus, be attentive or learn on what is being presented to us.
[00:18:43] Speaker C: And does the amygdala come into this?
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Yes. The amygdala is the emotive part of the brain and the prefrontal cortex is the thinking part of the brain, our management system, system of our brain where our higher order skills happen in our prefrontal cortex which is the thinking part of the brain. Learning goes on over there. Critical thinking, problem solving, empathy, emotion regulation goes on there. And if our amygdala is unstable, if negative emotions or overly Positive emotions like excitement over excitement are triggered in the amygdala. Then the prefrontal cortex won't function well. Our higher order skills, which we call executive function skills in neuroscience won't function. So the amygdala has to be fully stabilized. We need to be in control of our emotions to be able to learn and think, not suppress, because that's a different story. Suppression is not regulating our emotions, it is reframing our emotions to be able to get in control of our thinking and our learning.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Can I add on?
[00:19:58] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: So what Eric is saying, which is I totally agree with what I think it means in the classroom is that actually when we are in the classroom with our learners, we are in the position of power and they are in a say less protected position because they have to perform. There is, you know, there is potentially some situations of worrying, being anxious, embarrassed for mistakes and whatever it is. So there's initially this imbalance. Yeah. So we have to be mindful of, I think and I'm going to bring up a little bit of theory here. So the, for example, Carl Rogers was the father of person centered counseling and then that then expanded into teaching, business and other areas of life. Basically what Rogers was saying is that in order for us to learn, to develop, to become as Rogers called it, the six necessary conditions should be present and three of them are core.
What is necessary is first for us as teachers is to provide this unconditional positive regard which is basically regarding our learners as you know, we treat them unconditionally, we accept them unconditionally, we don't criticize the personality. And that as Erica says, that helps emotional regulation. So they don't, if the learners don't feel stressed or threatened, they will be learning better. The second one is empathy is this connection and understanding how people feel and co regulating.
And the third one will be congruence. Congruence suggests that we are, we don't play a role, we don't pretend to be.
We don't pretend to be who we are not. We don't pretend to be this expert, we don't pretend to be this sort of authority figure.
So in order for students to achieve their learning aims, they have to feel safe. And these are the three components of what creates this safety, what creates this potential for emotional regulation. I can't stress it enough because we model it for them because they can't co regulate naturally by themselves. They need to rely on us to model it for them so that they can learn it, internalize it and then model it with Each other.
[00:22:26] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:22:27] Speaker B: And that's co regulation.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: And this is how they need.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Teachers need to. Before teaching, they need to bond and connect with the students. They need to build, create that psychological safety. Once the student is feeling safe in the classroom, then there is open communication. They feel safe, they feel secure. And learning and thinking just happens naturally.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: Okay, so we're just, we're not really creating extra demands for teachers. We're just removing the extra obstacles to learning.
My fundamental belief is that if we remove the obstacles to learning, every learner has this innate drive, innate force to learn, to develop, to grow, to become the person they're meant to be. And our job is just to remove the obstacles to that.
[00:23:22] Speaker C: And so this is the changing role of teachers.
You're referring there to kind of counseling principles which I think are really relevant to this changing world.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: This is humanistic. This is humanistic counseling that expanded to. When we talk about, you know, learner centered teaching is exactly that.
[00:23:43] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: The learner becomes the center, the learner's needs, how the learner feels. And so we become those facilitators of change for learners. We follow.
[00:23:52] Speaker C: And so in this episode, we're thinking particularly about technology.
And I'm trying to think, how do these two things come together? That changing role of the teacher and the way that technology is developing, do they connect those two ideas?
[00:24:12] Speaker A: Well, that sounds like a paradox, isn't it? It's like there is this technology and there is this human connection. I think, I fundamentally think we need to provide the core conditions for learners.
No technology as teachers, because our human presence is becoming a luxury. By the way, there's so many courses that you can. You probably notice yourself when there is no human involved.
It's not of that value.
We pay more for a human coach or human teacher present. So I find it fascinating. So this is becoming a luxury. The face to face interaction is becoming a luxury. The human connection is becoming a luxury, which is the opposite of what teachers might be worried about. Because I think we're all worried that AI will replace us. No, it won't replace us.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: No emotion in AI because it is impossible.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: It is impossible for us to develop without a human connection.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: I think there needs to be a balance of both.
[00:25:14] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: I think like in everything else, I think there needs to be a balance of the human and the technology.
[00:25:22] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:25:23] Speaker C: I think you can see with adults who already have all their metacognitive skills and their ambitions and motivations how they can manage their own learning. But we know with children that the, the role of the Teacher is much more important.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Explicitly teach them, for example, metacognitive skills.
[00:25:48] Speaker C: Teaching those skills.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: Yeah. We become models. We model because they.
I'm being very behavioristic here.
Yes. But I think there's a grain of truth in that is, is that we model how, we model it not just by behavior, but we model how we cope with our emotions. We model how we interact, we model how we communicate our feelings and other things. So body language as well. So you might notice that if students, if you have very good relationship with your students, you pick even facial expressions from each other, don't you?
[00:26:22] Speaker C: That's true. And I think also teachers are actually part of the motivation of, of why you are learning as a student. You are very much influenced by your teacher, by your peers and by your teacher about why you would do, why you want to do well. You want to be successful in a particular.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Absolutely. And you want to feel good about yourself. If you think about the teachers when you were a kid.
[00:26:47] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: What you remember your teachers. If just, just if we do that mentally experiment. If you think about your teachers in your primary school, you probably won't remember what you learned from this person, but you will remember how you felt.
[00:26:59] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: You remembered how they treated you and how you felt.
You remember the connection.
[00:27:05] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: For example, the way why I became a language teacher had a very good.
Which is actually quite well known phenomenon, isn't it? So we become teachers because we have good relationships with our teachers as well.
[00:27:17] Speaker C: Absolutely, yes.
So I, I'm trying to think, is there anything else you want to say about AI? Because that obviously is the, the subject which are.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Since we've been written our book, AI has advanced as well.
[00:27:33] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: So it's where we have to regulate now. Yes. We have to adapt and become resilient.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: So fast technology is moving at a very, very fast pace and I think us educators need to move at that pace. Before, we used to see the teacher as that information, as the person that knows it all. You know, the person who's giving us all the information for us to learn. But Gen Alpha see it differently now.
[00:28:03] Speaker D: Right.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: You know, so the teacher now has to become, as we mentioned before, the mediator, the facilitator rather than the person to give information. Because students nowadays would go to their gadgets, go online to look for that information. So they're not interested in the information. Give me the skills.
[00:28:26] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: You know that we were discussing before.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: No, just wanted to add is mediation, mediating concepts and mediating information.
What I mean.
[00:28:38] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: By that is that I think I think I disagree slightly with Eric in terms of how we need to be aware of what's. What developments in AI are happening and stuff. I take slightly different view on this. I think we don't.
Because our job is. Is not to be.
Is not to be teaching them AI is. Our job is to, again, facilitate their use of AI. We all know the fun of explaining the concepts to your granny. For example. Yeah. When your mum is like, oh, what do I press there? I press. Well, I think we naturally enjoy explaining things, mediating concepts to other people who might not be as advanced. Why don't we use this to our advantage in the classroom? Why don't we ask our students to do their research and learn how to do it and then present it and teach me?
Because we know the best learning happens. The best learning happens when we teach this.
[00:29:37] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: So that's how I learned English, by the way. I became a language teacher. I have to be honest with you.
I started teaching and I learned it myself.
So isn't that fascinating?
[00:29:47] Speaker C: I think it is.
So I'm trying to wrap this up and trying to think, you know what, there's so many different points being made. All good.
But we're certainly talking about a world with Gen Alpha students who are completely immersed in the use of technology, that it's not something we can take out of the classroom. But on the other hand, we have to think, where is it actually useful for us? So what are we trying to achieve with it? Which tools are useful for that? And particularly, what are the skills that we are helping to develop in our students to make the best use of technology.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: That's brilliant. I just wanted to add, you know, just my little message for the teachers. I think myself, like many other language teachers, I'm worried. Yeah. I'm not sure about how to use all those advanced technologies. I sometimes feel, I think there is the fear of missing out, lagging behind a little bit. So. So I just really want to validate this, that I think all teachers are more or less feeling that way right now and I think it's okay to feel that way. I think it's natural.
It's a natural.
It's the characteristics of our time, fundamentally, it is where we are. So I just suggest accepting this uncertainty.
[00:31:08] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: I think the message is to Ko Len.
[00:31:11] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: With our students. Yes, I think that's the message.
[00:31:17] Speaker C: Lovely. Thank you so much. That was really interesting. Thank you.
