Val Verde Onsite Insights

Onsite Insights from Val Verde USD School Visits

August 29-30, 2023

Observation Team

Bruce McCandliss Stanford- Merlyn Mind Advisor

Latha Ramanan Merlyn- Senior VP, Product Growth and Strategic AI Initiatives

Leigh Hall Merlyn- Director of Research

Wendy Pearson Merlyn- Head of Teacher Training and Learning Programs

GOALS for Val Verde School Visits:

Superintendent Meeting for RP Partnership

Conduct Classroom Observations

Validate Portrait of a Merlyn Super User

Classroom Observations

Lakeside Middle School Avalon Elementary School

August 29, 2023

Lakeside Middle School

Lakeside MS Demographics

Lakeside Middle School Observations

Lakeside Middle School Observations

Chad Freeman uses YouTube to introduce new concepts and spark excitement for lesson objectives

• Teachers need voice amplification, principal is interested

• Some classrooms used JBL speakers instead of SC speaker.

• Two teachers engaged in [ineffective teaching practice] popcorn/round robin reading.
• The concept of teacher moves could help increase their knowledge and improve how they teach reading.

Lakeside Middle School Observations

• One teacher explained that it would be helpful if Merlyn could take commands in Spanish.

• The math teacher C. is a TIE and was helping his colleague troubleshoot their Merlyn device.

• He exchanged his device with the other teacher whose device had stopped working (remote wasn’t pairing anymore) - Device ID will be provided later

C. Gallardo explains why he gave his SC to S. Fletcher

Lakeside Middle School Observations continued

C. Gallardo teaches a math class at Lakeside Middle School

• C. used the timer on the ViewSonic Panel instead of SC (we later learned his SC was in another classroom and the SC he had in his classroom wasn’t plugged in as he was troubleshooting).

• AirMouse, video navigation was used

• Teachers are asking students to present Google slides, set a timer, etc.

Avalon Elementary School

Avalon Elementary Demographics

Avalon Elementary Observations

Avalon Elementary Observations

D. escorted us from classroom to classroom, answering questions and giving context.

D. McJunkin (TIE)- 4th grade -

• Number 2 Merlyn Super User in Val Verde

• D.'s students use Merlyn daily

• Activity Observed: This Day in History:

• Students discuss in a group what potential questions to ask Merlyn

• One instance in which Merlyn showed answer for “CBD” instead of “DVD” when student spoke into remote.
• The teacher was extremely fast in redirecting Merlyn with “DVD” question. So students didn’t notice the CBD response.

Avalon Elementary School Observations continued...

A 5th grade student at Avalon asks Merlyn a question

D. uses Merlyn to play "This day in History"

Avalon Elementary Observations continued

• P. A. Pham
• Top Super User in Val Verde.

• She has created a floating teaching station in the center of her classroom surrounded by pods of students in strategic groupings.

• She encourages her students to use Merlyn, but introduces it slowly at the beginning of the school year.

• She has incorporated AI into her lesson planning, delivery, behavior management, and classroom culture.

Avalon Elementary Observations continued

• S. Asendorf-TK

• Transitional Kindergarten - used Merlyn AirMouse to play a video on GoNoodle.

• S. uses Merlyn in her morning routine to tell the class the weather for recess that day.

• Some teachers used AirMouse to switch tabs instead of using voice commands.

Classroom Observations

Mead Valley Elementary School Rancho Verde High School

August 30, 2023

Mead Valley Elementary School

Mead Valley Elementary Demographics

Mead Valley Elementary Observations

Mead Valley Elementary Observations

• Mead Valley was given an initial training on August 7th, and we checked on their progress three weeks later.

• Mead Valley first 1:1 school in California

• Mead Valley Teachers have largely embraced the new technology, we hypothesize it is because they are “all in it together” and have a

• supportive administrator
• a supportive IT staff
• TIES onsite and
• co-hort to reach out to when remediation is necessary

Mead Valley Elementary Observations

• Teacher tried to open Blooket but Merlyn couldn't understand the command.

• She created a bookmark and said, " Open bookmark candy.”
• Naming bookmarks was something that the teacher taught herself to do; she was not trained on this explicitly.

Play

Mead Valley Elementary Observations

• A group of three 4th-graders gave us a presentation on what they hoped to learn in math this year.

• They used Merlyn to move through the presentation.

• One student, who was part of the presentation team, would occasionally gesture in a way that showed how excited he was about what they were doing.

• Students learned to use Merlyn in only three weeks.

L. Cullinan had her students collaboratively create a Google Slides presentation about what they hope to learn this school year, which they presented to their peers using the Merlyn remote and the voice command, “Next slide.”

Play

Mead Valley Elementary Observations

Principal Corby Warren of Mead Valley Elementary School in Val Verde

The Mead Valley principal, Corby Warren mentioned that his teachers have some fears about incorporating AI into their instruction. When asked what their fears were, he said: 1. Some teachers are used to doing things a certain way, and they believe their approach has achieved a certain degree of success.2. If teachers try a new technological tool, and that tool creates a problem for them, then they have wasted class time and must now work to get caught back up. 3. If teachers in this group experience a problem, they may be more likely to push the tool aside and return to their original approach that they initially believed was achieving results.

Mead Valley Elementary Classroom Configurations

Val Verde USD classrooms are in the process of receiving a front-of-the-room refresh in the majority of classrooms. Projectors are being replaced by TV monitors or Viewsonic boards buttressed on each side by physical whiteboards. Symphony Classroom devices are beautifully mounted above the main display and connected to the Extron. Val Verde is also employing ViiV wireless display solutions in their refresh.

Mead Valley Elementary Classroom Configurations

The principal at Lakeside Middle School, Dr. S.D. Kenney, expressed a marked interest in voice amplification using the Symphony Classroom speaker.

Merlyn Teacher Panel

Merlyn Teacher Panel

Val Verde teacher panel: From foreground moving counter-clockwise: Latha Ramanan, Jennifer Thornton, Darrin Crist, Diana Escalante, Matt Penner (IT), Chad Freeman, Brian Fish, Wendy Pearson, Bruce McCandliss, Leigh Hall

• Special Education Teacher, Darin Crist, uses Merlyn to support students with exceptionalities.

• Darin has seen a dramatic reduction in behavioral issues in class. He speculates that is because he had Merlyn in his classroom.

• He had a student come and tell him that his special education class was his favorite class of the day.

• Students with speech needs learn to enunciate clearly so Merlyn can respond to their voice commands.

• Students respond to the timer as a visual reminder of the passage of time in group work, on assessment, etc.

• Darin's students ask Merlyn questions which sparks their natural curiosity.

Merlyn Teacher Panel

Val Verde teacher panel from back left: Darin Crist, Brian Fish, Latha Ramanan, Leigh Hall, Phil Harding, Jennifer Thornton, Bruce McCandliss, Matt Penner, Front From Left: Diana Escalante, Wendy Pearson

• Merlyn also works as a motivational factor in his self-contained classes. It made students feel important and also helped them to socialize with kids who did not receive special education services, because they regularly bring other kids into his classroom to see their robot named Merlyn.

• Transitions are death of Special Ed classrooms - Merlyn helps with transitions

• Merlyn helps with classroom management, behavior issues and also increases instructional time.

• Students use Merlyn to help with learning how to do research - What sources to trust and what sources not to trust.

• Melryn is great for in-the-moment or planned brain break activities

• An engaged class is a better behaved class

Merlyn Teacher Panel

ChatGPT:

• Two teachers shared examples of ChatGPT use cases (Middle/High shcool teacher). They shared how they tweak the prompts to get what they want.

• They also know not to trust the responses in first go. But they find it very useful -
• Pop-up quiz for groups
• Research paper

• Noteworthy: we spoke to a high school teacher and he shared how he used ChatGPT in his computer science and hacking class.

Merlyn Teacher Panel

Content & Corpus:

• Teachers were excited about potential automation feature for getting to their content quickly on their content system :

• “Open Unit 4 lesson 3” should open their Content curriculum platform and show their lesson.

• Teachers want integrated content

• Integration with ClassLink - so Merlyn can open or access all apps that is logged in via ClassLink.

Merlyn Teacher Panel

IT Admin Request:

• For the 957 SC unit implementation, Val Verde IT Administrators have asked for a management console to view SC device status and the OS version.

• They want the ability to push updates from the console and see device usage stats. It is difficult to go to each individual classroom to see which device has what OS.

Merlyn Teacher Panel

Top SC features self-reported by Val Verde teachers:

• AirMouse
• Timer
• Google Slides
• YouTube

Merlyn Teachers want:

• Merlyn to take attendance
• Connect with LMS
• Connect with ClassLink
• Integrate with Curiopod (like Nearpod)
• Content Automation features
• Reminders
• Multiple timers
• Magic pairing needs to work consistently

Superintendent Meeting

Superintendent Meeting

• Request for Val Verde to be a RPP was approved. The Superintendent is very excited about partnering with MM on being a RPP.

• Mike McCormick's asks:

• Merlyn helps liberates the teachers.

• Getting teachers to try something new out of their routine – is very very difficult
• Change requires a low cognitivie demand
• Mike intentionally used the word “loving” when he described how to best support his teachers through the change management processes involved in the incorporation of new technology into classrooms.
• Seeing significant increase in student engagement
• Seeing significant increases in teacher satisfaction in getting to the things that they need to get to
• Increased flow – Classroom flow = increased student engagement.

Superintendent Meeting

• Merlyn's asks: (We discussed the summary version of this)

• Be an early study participant and co-create a short-term experiment for Pedagogical AI (Goal is to be leader and first mover in Pedagogical LLM)
• Exciting opportunity to be part of MM’s efforts
• Get meaningful datasets for Pedagogical LLM
• Empowering Teacher – Get Teacher goals and provide Teacher Feedback - Provide offline Teacher insights for recommendation for next best Teacher moves
• Trusted partnership for School Data insights
• Curriculum Ingestion – Merlyn Gen AI Feature responds via Retrieval Augmented Model
• Provide access to AI Literacy Professional Learning & Development
• Be part of Merlyn Origin Pilot study

For additional information, please refer to the detailed Confluence page

Access Confluence

Our main request for Valverde to be a Research Practice Partner was approved. The Superintendent, Mike McCormick is very excited about partnering with Merlyn Mind.

• Aug 29th

• MM attendees - Latha, Leigh, Wendy and Bruce

• Lakeside Middle school - 5 classrooms (1 Super User)

• Avalon Elementary school - 4-5 classrooms (2 Super Users)

• Panel with 10-12 participants (Teachers, IT Admins, Instruction Coach)

• Aug 30th

• MM attendees - Latha, Wendy and Leigh for school visit. Bruce joined via zoom for Superintendent meeting

• Superintendent meeting -
• Mead Valley Elementary - 5 classroom visit - TK, 4th, 3rd, 5th, Dual Language Instruction class
• Rancho Verde High school - 3 classroom visit - 2 non-Merlyn + 1 Merlyn