S03E22 - Tom Vander Ark Talks AI, Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset, and Building Credibility | Tom Vander Ark | REPLAY

In this episode of Build Momentum, Sarah and Katie are joined by Tom Vander Ark, an advocate for innovations in learning. He is the CEO of Getting Smart, a design learning firm that helps education organizations increase their impact with innovations for a better learning experience. Tom is also a prolific writer and speaker who has authored or co-authored eight books, including “The Power of Place: Authentic Learning Through Place-Based Education” and “Smart Parents: Parenting for Powerful Learning,” and he’s working on a new one. He has also been a content contributor for Forbes, LinkedIn, and Getting Smart. In his free time, Tom enjoys cycling and making vegan creations.
 
Some Questions We Ask:

•  What career experiences led you to launch Getting Smart? (00:44)
• What trends and challenges are districts facing now? (01:50)
• What’s your take on the evolution of AI? (03:31)
• Can you tell us more about your new book? (11:39)
• What are your thoughts on developing an entrepreneurial mindset among students? (15:17)
• Looking ahead, what are your hopes in education? (18:14)
• What advice and insights do you have for other organizations hoping to follow the path you’ve taken? (20:03)

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

• All about Tom Vander Ark and Getting Smart (00:53)
• The top challenges school districts face today (02:06)
• Tom’s perspective about AI (03:48)
• About Tom’s new book (11:58)
• His thoughts regarding entrepreneurial mindset (15:42)
• How to create more opportunities and environments where young people can succeed (18:24)
• His advice for other organizations to follow his path to success (20:34)

Quotes:

“The key to education today is helping students develop a sense of identity and agency, understand their strengths and interests, and then understand how and where they can act on the world, spot opportunities to make a difference, design solutions, and deliver impact to a community.”

“That the rise of the platform economy has created many new ramps for people to step into employment or create a new business or campaign. It has enabled a new wave of entrepreneurship.”

“We can create environments where students are experiencing success in what's next. They're actually doing work that matters. That's project-based learning. That's work-based learning. That's enterprise.”

Connect with Tom:
Getting Smart Website
Tom's Twitter
Tom’s LinkedIn
Tom's Instagram
Tom's Epic Veggie Creation Instagram

Resources Mentioned:
Human Work In the Age of Smart Machine by Jamie Merisotis
Tom Vander Ark Books

Stay in touch with Sarah Williamson:
Free Case Study Guide
SWPR GROUP Website
LinkedIn

Stay in touch with Chad Bolser:
LinkedIn

About "The Secret to Transformational Leadership," which Sarah co-authored with Dr. Quintin Shepherd:
Transformational Leadership Secret website
Purchase the print or ebook

Transcript

BM S03E22 TOM VANDER ARK TRANSCRIPT

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
students, education, learning, high school, create, cte, tom, leaders, launched, district, opportunity, entrepreneurship, sw, organization, experiences, smart, excited, sector, podcast, entrepreneurial

SPEAKERS
Tom Vander Ark, Katie Lash, Sarah Williamson

Sarah Williamson  00:04
Hello and welcome to Build Momentum, a show where we explore thought leadership and education. I'm Sarah Williamson, the founder of SWPR group. 

Katie Lash  00:14
And I'm Katie lash, the director of the East Central Educational Service Center. 

Sarah Williamson  00:18
Together we explore how to leverage key partners, your constituencies, and immediate to authentically impact your organizations and the leaders who champion them. We can't wait to get started. So let's dive into today's show.

Sarah Williamson  00:32
We're so lucky to have Tom Vander Ark on today's episode of Build Momentum. Welcome, Tom, thank you so much for joining us the CEO of getting smart. Welcome. 

Tom Vander Ark  00:42
Great to be here. 

Katie Lash  00:44
Yes. And Tom, I think nearly everyone knows who you are. But just in case, can you tell us about you and your journey to launching getting smart?

Tom Vander Ark  00:53
There's a couple book length answers there. But I guess I'm a recovering engineer, an entrepreneur had a midlife career change to education, how was a school administrator in the state of Washington, and then I had the chance to step into philanthropy. I helped Bill and Melinda start the Gates Foundation spent a decade there, I ran XPrize Foundation for a few years a prize philanthropy and then launched the first edtech venture fund in the country. So I've been an investor for different times in my career. So I'm a student of education, the future of learning and investment strategies to get us there faster and more equitably. My wife and daughter started Getting Smart 12 years ago, and I joined them full time, about eight years ago. And they've continued to let me hang out here.

Sarah Williamson  01:50
I love that. Well, you're writing and talking about some pretty impressive things that Getting Smart. So I'm curious, what are the trends you're seeing and hearing right now with districts? What are the top challenges they're facing? And what are the murmurings that we want to talk about today? 

Tom Vander Ark  02:06
Yeah, so it's a complicated time, on many fronts. I think most districts are in the middle of the great snap back to trying to get back to something called normal. 

Sarah Williamson  02:18
Yep, 

Tom Vander Ark  02:19
they're even facing a lot of challenges doing that, despite having some leftover recovery funds in their bank accounts. I think that they're finding many, in many cases, their enrollments are down, their kids are coming to school less often, they're less engaged. And when they're there, they're dealing with more trauma, and this general lack of engagement. So I think even folks just trying to get back to normal, it's challenging. And then I think around the edges, we're continuing to see leaders in school districts and networks create the future of learning, learning that is more engaging, and more intentional, more connected to community. And we've tried to describe that work in our new pathways campaign where we're trying to describe this tension between intentional sequences of learning experiences linked to opportunity, with the ability for students to become co authors, co pilots of their learning experiences and learning journeys. So our work is sort of in between those spaces of the inventors and those trying to get back to normal. 

Sarah Williamson  03:29
Yeah. Isn't that true? 

Katie Lash  03:30
That's fantastic. Something that Sarah and I have talked about other times, and I'm really curious to hear your opinion, Tom is how do you think we're gonna see AI evolve? And the evolution of things like chat GPT, which is evolving, like, every evening, when I log in, there are new features. 

Tom Vander Ark  03:48
So I guess I spotted AI as an important global trend in 2015. And then in 2016, we launched a campaign called Ask about AI, when it became clear in 2016, and 2017, that AI was not just coming that it had infected often in a good way, every sector of human life and along with it, big data and the Internet of Things. It made every sector computational. So I think we went through that threshold in 2017, of moving into a new era of computational work and life was smart machines. I don't think that was really apparent to the public until November, maybe a few months before when Dali came out and you could create a image my peloton images now is very cool. Ai created image of a very studly bike rider. And then remember when everybody created their own AI images for their social media?

Tom Vander Ark  04:46
that was the first hint, but we've never really seen anything like Chat GPT and the way it exploded worldwide. It was really the fastest adoption of any app we've ever seen the fastest that any meme I think is really gone to scale in human history. And it has in a, you know, a matter of 90 days, I think really changed the global dialogue. And almost everybody really struggling to understand what this Kickstart to the fifth industrial revolution is really about this new revolution of let's call it from last October is now this new era of human machine interface. And the new paradigm of Life and Work is diverse teams working on new problems with smart tools. And so I think that's the new nature of work. And what I think we're in the early days of is trying to understand what an education for that sort of life and work look like? And when and how is the appropriate use of smart tools in human expression, right in writing, in art, in coding, I'm generally favorable about using smart tools as they're available. I think the calculator analogy is a relatively good one. And I'm in favor of teaching math as if computers existed. And so I'm in favor of teaching, writing English Composition, as if chat GPT existed, but like a million English teachers out there, I'm still trying to understand exactly what that means and how we do that and how we authentically provoke and assess growth in learners. 

Sarah Williamson  04:46
 Oh, yeah, 

Sarah Williamson  04:48
Right,

Katie Lash  04:48
So Tom, so I had to ask you, because you references. I am a huge fan of the book, human work in the Age of Smart Machines written by Jamie Merisotis. And have your paths crossed before? 

Tom Vander Ark  06:35
Sure 

Katie Lash  06:36
You've been at events with Jamie Merisotis' 

Tom Vander Ark  06:38
Yeah, I'm like Presi dent of his fan club. I've known Jamie for 20 years and interviewed him right after that book came out. And that was like, for me an early signal of this new paradigm of you know, the next 100 years are really going to be about figuring out how we partner with smart tools to do things never imagined. 

Katie Lash  06:58
Yes, I love that I can be your vice president.

Sarah Williamson  07:01
I don't think you can be president. Tom. I thought Katie was president. Okay, I love it. So that is perfect segue, Tom because I want to talk about how employers are navigating these waters, in terms of students are an obviously not preparing our students effectively no fault of teachers, but it just everything is shifting so quickly. Employers in certain communities are stepping in and saying hey, no, we want to support you get get these kids prepared for the real world and the jobs that we need that we're not able to fill right now. In fact, he just wrote a recent blog about this St. Vrain Valley School District where I graduated, it was so fun to see my former hometown in

Tom Vander Ark  07:42
 Longmont, Colorado. 

Sarah Williamson  07:43
Heck, yeah, baby. I went to (inaudible) state, then Sunset Middle School, nyuad High School. 

Tom Vander Ark  07:49
Did you go through the IB program in NYUAD? 

Sarah Williamson  07:51
do you want to rub that in really? Seriously? You're gonna bring that up on my own podcast? No, I don't think you need an IB program to succeed in life. But thanks for bringing that up, Tom. 

Tom Vander Ark  07:59
I couldn't agree more. Were some benefits to it. But it was kind of an IVY school. Yeah, that's not why I went there. I just went in that. St. Vrain is a great example, maybe the best in the country of responsive school district on that is highly responsive to its community and to the changing nature of work in life. And I think Dr. Haddad superintendent, Don Haddad has an interesting take on this, where he talks about foundation and innovation foundation is making sure that they have a system that builds valuable skills in every learner, and then prepares them for innovative learning experiences. And that combination of foundation and innovation is has really served them well. They have a beautiful collection of career pathways in the district. And they've launched now for P TECH schools, which are it's a 914 model where you can earn an associate's degree in a technical field and get work experience along with it. So I think it's probably the best robotics district in America. There's 200 robotics teams in 60s schools, and they are the perennial state and national champions. Their Innovation Center has some of the most cutting edge programming of any institution in the United States. So it's a very thoughtful, very well lead district. The senior management team has been together for 10 years. And I guess last thing on them is that they are relentlessly optimistic, relentlessly positive about the role of public education in Longmont and in Colorado, and you don't have to look very far on any social site to find them talking about the things that are going right in in St. Vrain and so I appreciate all those things about St. Vrian

Sarah Williamson  10:00
Yeah, I will add that I did take a CTE course, a couple of CTE courses in high school, including auto mechanics when I was a sophomore, very fascinating. All right, yeah. Thank you. 

Tom Vander Ark  10:11
valuable skills. It's all right. We think every student should be a CTE student. Even college graduates should be employable. 

Sarah Williamson  10:19
Absolutely, absolutely.

Katie Lash  10:21
 Yeah. Sarah, that was back in the day that like CTE would have maybe been more standalone, right? Like you had to like take a CTE. Like I know, I think you'd be so impressed with some of the integration that folks are pulling off. Pretty cool, 

Sarah Williamson  10:33
Uhuh.

Sarah Williamson  10:35
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Katie Lash  11:39
So okay, Tom, we heard through the grapevine, and you referenced it earlier as well, that you have a new book coming out all about pathways, and the variety of ways that students succeed. So and again, like Jamie Merisotis references to all of the ways to be successful beyond traditional college education. So could you share more about that project? 

Tom Vander Ark  11:58
Well, before I do that, I want to talk about my last book, which is called difference making at the art of learning. So this came out during a pandemic. But it's an interesting proposition. I guess my discovery of 2018 and 19 is that key to we think the key to education today is helping students develop a sense of identity and agency understanding their strengths and interests, and then understanding how and where they act on the world. And we find particular benefit and encouraging young people to spot opportunities to make a difference to design solutions and to deliver impact to a community. The keen network engineering unleash is America's leading engineering schools that all believe on opportunities spotting and solution designing and impact delivering they call it entrepreneurial mindset. We call it difference making. And the key we think, is creating space for students to identify and frame and take on projects.

Tom Vander Ark  12:50
You know, in the past, we've always just given students small bite sized assignments with right answers. And we think the agility that's required today, and the agency that's required today means that every once in a while, we have to invite students to frame up an issue and to manage a problem to a successful delivery of value. And so that was an observation in difference making, we celebrated those schools as schools alive with a sense of possibility. And her new book, new pathways is really an effort to try to describe how high schools in particular, we go from middle school through post secondary, but how high schools in particular can construct these pathways that include reward learning opportunities, and difference making opportunities. So it's an exciting space, that's full of a lot of paradox, because we want pathways that link directly to opportunity. But we want them to be supple enough, agile enough that students have the ability to co construct to co curate both experiences in their journey. So it's really a way of thinking about trying to create coherent pathways with students linked to opportunity, which is linked to their strengths and interests.

Sarah Williamson  14:20
 I imagine you might be talking about that tomorrow. At the World of Work conference, 

Tom Vander Ark  14:24
We probably will. We're really excited about what Cajon Valley is doing. It's a K eight district that is developing high school to extend what we think is the best career exploration program in the country. World worked out in that and we're co hosting with them the World of Work Summit, which starts tomorrow, where teams are coming from all over the United States to talk about the role of work based learning, internships, client connected projects and other forms of real world learning. 

Sarah Williamson  14:58
Can't wait to hear about it. Katie's gonna be there too. You have to give us a full report. 

Katie Lash  15:03
We have a whole squad from rural Indiana headed that way. 

Tom Vander Ark  15:06
Yes, yes we're excited about the Indiana contingent. There'll be folks from Kentucky, Arkansas, Colorado, half a dozen other states.

Sarah Williamson  15:17
Fantastic. Okay, well, kind of in tandem with that conversation. You mentioned the entrepreneurial mindset. And we've done an entire podcast series about that on Build Momentum. But I absolutely love the idea of, of inspiring our kids at a young age to be more entrepreneurial, because it definitely is lacking in public education today, and what are your thoughts on that? How are you supporting this thinking? 

Tom Vander Ark  15:30
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, you know, when the pandemic was a human tragedy, but it is interesting to note that in 2021, and 22, there were 5 million business starts almost double the historical level. And so we have seen a, for some understandable reasons, a big uptick in entrepreneurship. We think that's exciting. That the rise of the platform economy has made it much easier and created many new on ramps for people to step into employment to create a new business to create a campaign to the platform economy has just has enabled a new wave of entrepreneurship, a recent AASA American student assistance as a.org poll of Gen Z students is that about half of them had strong entrepreneurial aspirations. I'll have to admit many of those included being a content influencer on social media of it. There are really historically strong entrepreneurial aspirations. And so we think it has to be a high school priority now to incorporate entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial pathways into high school education. You know, we've had 100 years of college and career readiness focused on getting a job. And there is still in our field, almost no attention paid to making a job and to becoming an employer. And we think it's super important. One of the exciting things about the real world learning initiative in Kansas City is that 35 systems Eighty five high schools share this goal of real world learning, including giving every student a shot at entrepreneurial experience. And that's really the largest region that has made that a priority. And we're really excited about many of the 75,000 students in that region are taking up entrepreneurial activities, sometimes during the school day, but sometimes in after school experiences. Many of the DECA clubs and the FFA clubs are supporting entrepreneurial experiences. So it's great to see a region on fire about entrepreneurship. 

Sarah Williamson  17:56
That's fantastic. More of that, please. 

Katie Lash  17:59
I love that. Are they going to be at this conference? Because we need to have a sidebar and get them in this conversation with us when we're out there. 

Tom Vander Ark  18:06
Yes, Bill nicely from Kauffman Foundation will be there talking about real world learning and entrepreneurial mindset. 

Sarah Williamson  18:14
Awesome. That's fantastic. Okay, after all that, I'm curious, where are you most hopeful about education, and how we're moving forward. 

Tom Vander Ark  18:24
You know, it's been a hard time to be a teenager the last two years. Yeah, and we can't underestimate the toll that it's taken our young people, you know, we're having young people graduate in a month or two, that's been half of their high school career. And it sort of in locked down in their bedrooms, right if they had bedrooms. And so I don't want to minimize the cost of the pandemic. But what I'm most excited about is that there's never been a time in human history where there's been more opportunity for young people more opportunity to step into work that matters to them, and to their community, whether that's in school, or out of school, or as we were just describing, we're starting a social impact campaign or starting a business enterprise. It's never been easier to do work that matters as a teenager. And so for me for 30 years, I thought about education as preparation. And now I think we can create environments where students are experiencing success in what's next. They're actually doing work that matters. That's project based learning. That's work based learning. That's enterprise. And I'm just excited to see the number of high school students around the world doing extraordinary work making new discoveries, as in science fairs, launching new businesses, calling us to account on climate change. High schoolers are now a difference makers and I'm super excited about that trend and what it can mean for them and for us. 

Sarah Williamson  20:03
Yeah, I love that. Okay, and selfishly, I'm just curious about your perspective as a thought leader and education, SWPR Group. We're a PR agency. So we're always advising organizations and companies and leaders on how to be influential within the space. How would you advise other organizations and leaders to follow the same path that you've taken? Obviously, you're very successful. What insights can you share? 

Tom Vander Ark  20:34
Well, that's a great question, I think it really comes down to making a commitment to adding value. So looking for unique ways that you can add value to the sector. So that's a spirit of giving back. But it's really, I think it's related to this opportunity, spotting the beginning of entrepreneurship, it's finding opportunities for you to contribute uniquely. So that can be as simple as starting a blog and building the discipline of regularly sharing information that might be useful to somebody else in the sector. You guys are doing that with a podcast where you're making a commitment to say, we're going to capture useful thought, and we're going to share that and have the discipline to build an audience around that contribution. I was listening to a couple of Kevin's Stoller podcasts, better learning this morning, while I was riding around Phoenix. And you know, he's a guy that sells furniture. And he's been doing a podcast for the last few years just to share insights from education leaders, and he created a nonprofit to support the growth of school superintendents. Does he get some business out of that? I bet he does. But it's as a result of huge commitment of his time to create learning spaces for system leaders and learning experiences for system leaders. So I think it's that spirit of contribution and the discipline to do it over time that really can add up to make a big difference. And you know, not only for the sector, but also for the cause that you're trying to advance. 

Sarah Williamson  22:11
Yeah, we couldn't agree more. So what you're saying is product pushing doesn't work right?

Tom Vander Ark  22:19
Now, you really have to, I mean, even when it comes to sales, it's really about trying to identify problems and help people solve those problems. So it's really walking with that sense of humility to listen first, to find ways to add value. That's really what selling is about. I think it's an extension of that service mindset. 

Sarah Williamson  22:42
Absolutely. Oh, Tom, this has been so incredible. Thank you so much for the opportunity to chat. We're so grateful. 

Tom Vander Ark  22:49
Well, thanks for asking and thanks for the discipline I've given back of just trying to produce something that's of value to the sector. It's what we think it's all about. 

Sarah Williamson  23:00
Absolutely. Well, thank you have a great trip. Thank you,

Katie Lash  23:03
 Tom. If listeners 

Sarah Williamson  23:05
Oh, yes. Where can listeners find you? We want them to find you. Obviously. If they don't know where you are already. 

Tom Vander Ark  23:10
Go to gettingsmart.com You'll find me at getting smart.com I'm still on Twitter at Tvanderark I've got all my school visits and early morning bike rides on Tomvanderark and Instagram. And if you're into cooking epic.veg is where you can share your latest vegan creations. So 

Sarah Williamson  23:29
Wow! Who knew? 

Tom Vander Ark  23:31
Check it out. 

Sarah Williamson  23:32
straight scoop here on Build Momentum. Thanks, Tom.

Sarah Williamson  23:37
If you're looking for more of this thought leadership goodness for your organization, you're in the right place. Visit us at swpr-group.com To learn more about how we work with education organizations and their leaders, superintendents and influencers to increase your impact. Again, that's swpr-group.com Thanks for tuning in today and we will see you next time on Build Momentum.