AI in Action: Emily Freitag of Instruction Partners on What’s Actually Working in Schools

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Insiders. Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter, and also our event calendar. And to go deeper, check out EdTech Insiders Plus, where you can get premium content, access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events, and back channel insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoyed today's pod. Hello, EdTech Insider listeners. I have a special breaking news podcast today. Today, we are with Emily Freetag, co-founder and CEO of Instruction Partners, a nonprofit strengthening instructional leadership and support for educators. And today, we are celebrating the launch of the AI in Action Learning Tour. That's a mouthful. We're gonna break it down, all of those things. But just so you know a little bit about Emily and her journey, previously she served as Assistant Commissioner of Curriculum and Instruction for Tennessee's Department of Education. And she began her teaching career as a middle schooler like me. She taught middle school teachers, what, what? She taught seventh grade math in Louisiana. Welcome to EdTech Insiders, Emily Freitag.

Thank you, Ben. I'm so glad to be here. And thanks for all you're doing to lift the stories of so many educators working to understand how tech can play a role.

So I love this concept of AI in action learning tour. This is not your high level review. This is really like, what does it look like in the classroom on the ground with educators in practice? So can you talk a little bit about the genesis of this idea? What was kind of compelling you to create it and kind of the origin story of this project altogether?

Sure. So more than 20 years ago, I taught middle school math. And ever since then, I have been on the professional learning team. I have spent my whole career working to develop the capacity of teachers and leaders. And as we all know, teaching is a very hard job. And as I have worked with thousands of leaders and teachers to try to help make sure teachers have the support to do that hard job well i have gotten increasingly concerned about just the scope and complexity and a couple of years ago i saw a product that kind of blew my mind And I've spent a decade now trying to help teachers and leaders get the close read part of the middle school literacy lesson right. It's so hard. You've got to know the text deeply. You have to know exactly where you're trying to drive kids. You have, you know, tons of different learning needs all in the same room. And this product was more than anything I had seen before