Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further EducationHosts:
Episode Number: 16
Episode Title: "AI and the Future of Further Education: Insights from Lisa Capper"Episode Overview: In "AI and the Future of Further Education: Insights from Lisa Capper," we delve into the transformative impact of AI technologies on the educational landscape. This episode brings Lisa Capper's unique perspective to the forefront, exploring how Stoke on Trent College integrates AI to enhance student learning and operational efficiency. The discussion extends to the broader implications of AI in further education, emphasizing the need for strategic implementation and ethical considerations.
Key Topics of Discussion:
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- Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
- Kurt Hintz, Managing Director, Fortis Education Consulting
- Lisa Capper MBE, CEO & Principal, Stoke on Trent Further Education College
Episode Number: 16
Episode Title: "AI and the Future of Further Education: Insights from Lisa Capper"Episode Overview: In "AI and the Future of Further Education: Insights from Lisa Capper," we delve into the transformative impact of AI technologies on the educational landscape. This episode brings Lisa Capper's unique perspective to the forefront, exploring how Stoke on Trent College integrates AI to enhance student learning and operational efficiency. The discussion extends to the broader implications of AI in further education, emphasizing the need for strategic implementation and ethical considerations.
Key Topics of Discussion:
- AI's Role in Enhancing Learning Outcomes: Exploration of how AI tools like 'Interview Coach' are revolutionizing student engagement and skill development.
- Digital Strategy and Infrastructure: Discussion on Stoke on Trent College’s 'Skills Ready Future Ready' strategic initiative and its focus on aligning educational offerings with employer needs.
- Challenges and Opportunities in AI Adoption: Insights into the practical challenges of integrating AI into educational settings and how to overcome them.
- Ethical Considerations and Digital Literacy: Examination of the importance of ethical AI use in education and the imperative to boost digital literacy among students and staff.
- Partnerships and Community Impact: How collaborations with local industries and educational institutions enhance the learning ecosystem and community revitalization.
- AI as a Catalyst for Educational Transformation: Lisa highlights AI's potential to dramatically improve teaching methodologies and student interactions.
- Building a Future-Ready Workforce: Emphasis on the necessity of equipping students with both technical skills and critical soft skills to meet the demands of the modern workplace.
- The Importance of Inclusive Access: Discussion on the need to ensure all students have equal access to AI tools and digital resources to prevent a widening digital divide.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-boundless-podcast--4077400/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
For the education, artificial intelligence andleadership, the three topics of our current
mini series. Kurt, Welcome back, Hi Richard, and welcome Lisa.
Hi Lisa, it's great to seeyou on the show. Can you tell
us who you are? I'm LisaKappa. I'm chief executive principle of Stoke
on Trent College and I've been herejust over two years and Lisa from zero
(00:25):
to ten? What's your current levelof enthusiasm for artificial intelligence in further education?
As I'm doing this podcast this morning, I'm feeling very enthusiastic. I
think I'm probably definitely in the ECMSof that scale, and as a college,
I would say that we are emerging. We're probably at about a five,
but we think we're about an eightbecause of our enthusiasm. So we've
(00:50):
definitely got the will and quite abit of the skill, but there's a
lot more for us to do yetto really embrace AI. It's always great
to hear a little bit about somebody'sbackstory with AI, especially since Chatchput landed
on the scene in October twenty twentytwo. Can you talk a little bit
about your reactions and reflections over thelast couple of years and how it's changed
(01:11):
your perceptions. What I like iswhat it can give me, the access
it gives me, the opportunity itgives me. So I'm not really interested
in how it works. I justwant to know what I can do with
it and how I can feel ituse it. You know, It's like
turning a tap on, isn't it. You want it to just work and
see those opportunities flow. So mysort of first engagement really with AI is
(01:36):
actually one of the examples I've boughtwith me to Stow Contract College. It's
one of the things that we've embeddedhere, and it was working with a
company to develop an interview tool calledinterview Coach, which I've developed with aid
Act, so that the company thathave developed it approached me to see whether
they could interview some of the studentsthat I was working with at the time
(01:57):
and how it would work with studentsdifferent backgrounds and to get that diversity into
the tool. And I was absolutelyfascinated with how helpful this tool could be
for young people who haven't got theconfidence around InterMune skills, who don't have
self awareness or self confidence to beable to manage their emotions, nerves,
(02:21):
interactions, and how by putting themin front of what is essentially a bot
on a screen, they actually gotcontrol of how they could turn up their
positive energy, how they could managetheir facial expressions, and they could do
all this quite privately without sitting ina room embarrassing me with an adult,
(02:43):
but actually playing with it themselves andgrowing their own confidence and skills. And
so seeing this and the impact thatthis could have on young people, I
was completely sold, switched off toall the negative narrative around AI, And
to this day, I'm still thegreat supporter because I think that we have
to embrace it, we have tomove forward. And it's that kind of
(03:05):
higher level learning, that speaking andlistening, that cognitive approach that I'm really
interested in the way that AI cansupport humors, but particularly young people in
developing their own skills and abilities,and AI is a great tool to do
that. That's a great approach.Hey, I'm really keen to dig a
little bit into the college's strategy youmentioned before, the core skills Really Future
(03:30):
really tell us a little bit aboutthere in your approach. So, Skills
Ready, Future Ready is our neworganizational strategy, and we launched it in
the autumn last year, and thisis real step change for the college in
terms of focusing very much on theskills that employees need and want in this
area. So you may know thatthis area Stay Contrent is one of the
(03:53):
most deprived areas in the country.There's been a lot of deprivation and the
triple whammy of to coal, theceramics industry and also steel, and so
that kind of industrial decline has leftthe city in quite a poor place.
And it's so important that this cityreally finds its feet again and reinvents itself
(04:16):
around the new skills that are comingthrough and in our local Skills Improvement Plan.
There are various sectors in this area, in this region where you know
people and adults who live here canget those skills and move into those industries.
So we want people to invest inStoke contract We want inward investment.
So our strategy is hooked around thosesector skills areas, and one of those
(04:42):
is digital and creative. And youmay not know that Staff University here is
one of the most well known forgaming industry, and we have a digital
skills hub that we've got funded forthrough the let and we've got some of
the most fantastic viciblities been kicked hereat St. Comnficent College to support this
digital industry. So we're embedding digitalright across our curriculum, so our corporate
(05:08):
strategy is very forward looking. Inthe next month, we are launching our
digital strategy which is part of that, and we'll be very much focusing on
our curriculum, our staff training withinthat, as well as our governance and
of course the safeguarding and you knowthe issues that we hear people talking about
(05:29):
around the safety of AI, butvery much being bold about this about making
sure that our policies that were thebust of procedures were a bust. But
most of all that we've got ourcolleagues on board and giving them those opportunities
to understand more about how this isgoing to be part of the picture of
teaching and learning and assessment going forwards. It's great to hear your digital strategy
(05:50):
and just off the back of theAOC putting out some policy documents over the
weekend and we saw those coming outtoo in regards to the digital and very
much in line with the sort ofthings you're talking about. Lifting the baseline
skills of our staff and digital andorder for them to be able to harness
that technology going forward. That's reallygoing to be important, isn't it in
meeting the needs of employers. Iknow you mentioned that earlier on which was
(06:11):
this key piece of the skills reallyfuture really part. Just digging into that
a little bit, how does thefunding system at the moment for adult skills,
what is going to be the AdultSkills Fund next year? How does
that fit into that? There's somenew flexibilities coming along. Have you thought
about that very much? Have youthought, oh, my gosh, what
a great opportunity. Absolutely so.We are one of the largest providers of
education in the area. It's asignificant part of the college's work, and
(06:36):
we're doing very well in terms ofusing a power allocation and more to open
up opportunities for adults in this area. So we have the mix of provision
which is basic skills, English,Speaks of the languages, Essential Digital,
but also some full time courses atlevel three and obviously that free Level three
(06:56):
offer as well, which we're doingvery well with. We've been working with
Stuff's UNI on conversations around micro credentialsand we're getting there. It's a slow
progress that we are getting there interms of trying to get the strategy whereby
we can use the adult education budgetin fe the micro credentials approach from the
universities because we also work with Keyand University too, and then to go
(07:21):
to an employer and offer this seamlessset of different opportunities for learning for their
business and industry. We want tobe able to combine some of these budgets
and to get this seamless version oflearning out to employers. One of the
things that we've talked about here recentlyis that it's great here of the tools
(07:43):
now that can really again turbo chargethe development of new innovative programs to meet
the needs. What used to takeperhips weeks if not months to develop a
program, we have tools now liketeacher metic and others that can develop schemes
or listening. What we're doing isreally experimenting with lots of different packages and
tools at the moment, and anythingfrom marketing, feedback, preparing lessons,
(08:07):
resources for learning, even things likestricting cleaneries and given instruction to students.
And I thinks a couple of thingswe're binding. So one is quite costly
because of all the licenses and althoughthere's quite a lot free stuff out there.
You get five goes and you're out. It's really as trying to get
those strategies right for what we wantto use and what's going to help us
(08:28):
the most with our particular skills needsamongst our colleagues. And I think the
other thing we're binding is the sortof skills for our colleagues in how best
to use some of these technologies.Being able to write a good prompt is
a real skill. Understanding bias andwhat is being generated and how you then
need to interpret and use that isanother skill. Selecting and de selecting material.
(08:52):
All of these things our skills thatindividuals in our institution are learning about.
And I think this is going tohave helpers make the right choices around
the resources that we really invest inand the packages that we really invest in
to help us move forward. Sothat's where we are at the moment.
And then on our student side,we've been really considering what does it mean
(09:15):
to give students access to AI Andof course they've got access to WAYI anyway
outside of learning, but what doesit actually mean in the learning environment for
them? And how do we passour learning on students and obviously digital literacy
is a key part of that,and we make assumptions that young people are
(09:37):
instinctively digitally enabled to get quite quitelots of individuals are. But we also
have still have the digital divide andthe costs for some more complex programs,
and therefore we have a mixed economyreally of skills across our student body.
I mean we have a large numberof adult learners as well as apprentices and
(09:58):
over two thousand young people, soit's not another playing field in terms of
the skills set and the understanding ofAI. So in this college, what
it means is going back to basics. It's ensuring that we've got access to
good and equipment, the students aredigitally enabled, that we build up those
literature skills, and then we alsotalk about safety, governance, bias,
(10:22):
diversity, so that there's that deepunderstanding of the technologies that are being used.
I know you mentioned a lot aboutequity, the especially in both having
the equipment, having the excess perhapsto the internet, the fast internet that
you're going to need, and thenthe tools that increasingly are costing more and
more for even the most basic setup, and a real issue I think
(10:45):
and I know that AOC report againhighlighted that as a factor in that Actually
there's a bit of a vcuum fundingat the moment to support that. Absolutely,
we've just worked miracles with the fundingthat we've had to get where we
are, but we know still notenough off because if you don't have the
full infrastructure, there's nobody having bitsand pieces. I'll tell you about the
Boston Dynamics Spot the Dog, andI don't really seen the Spot the dog
(11:09):
around the place. But for example, when you're downloading the data that Spot
the Dog has collected from the surveyingactivity they've been sent off on, you've
got to then screen that and youwant a three D imagery of that data.
That's what you do in industry,that's how you'd use that. But
if you haven't got that infrastructure inthe college, you've only got half the
(11:30):
story. So you're not really healthin the students again, you've got that
interruption to the learning that you wantto do. So we've got things like
the matrix, a needtail wall.Now, the impact of that on students
has just been absolutely fantastic in termsof the pace for learning getting it,
in terms of what would happen inindustry and the decisions that you get too
(11:50):
faster as a result of having thatenablement. And we couldn't afford Spot the
Dog, but we did borrow Spotthe Dog for the law of our Advanced
Construction center. And I've thought thedog is a mobot, not a robot
and a cobot, but a mobothas got a bit of a mind for
his own or her own, andis able to carry out quite sophisticated instructions
(12:15):
and transmit informations in BAI sensors,comparing it to the real environment against the
CGI imagery that's generated. And thenof course we can put all that from
the LED screen and have the conversationabout what's been looked at. What I
love about the story is about seeingthe standards for industry in the place that
(12:35):
colleges hold, which is not wellunderstood i think by many of the sharp
edge of industry. Seeing the standardsfor industry, so making sure that we
bring to what are vastly small tomedium employers actually in our areas, bringing
those technologies to them by bringing ourstudents up to high standards of skill and
expertise, and then embedding that backinto the organizations that then perhaps go and
(12:56):
do work experiencing or even hopefully workin and get those jobs, but just
talk a little bit about the culturalshift that you're enabling within your teams and
work with employers. Excepting Yeah,I think it's really a digital first approach
because obviously it's not just about AI, is it. Of course, there's
automation and machine learning, and aswe've said, at some levels, it's
(13:20):
about basic digital confidence and digital literacy. So having this digital first approach.
So our strategy talks about having acompletely digitized learning journey, completely digitized employer
journey, and a completely digitized staffjourney, so that everything we do,
our first call is can we dothis digitally? How can we be more
(13:41):
efficient, more effective drive the modernizationprofessionalization of our college. So that's our
sort of stuns, if you like, in terms of the way that we're
trying to embed digital. I thinkit is really about getting into the organization
into a place where we have somestability around our digital infrastructure, where we're
(14:05):
asking people to experiment. So Ithink it's that cultural really, and it's
how can AI help us with routinetasks and how can AI make us more
efficient and then how do we usethat time that we've saved within our teaching
workforce in particular to further innovate whatwe're doing. But at the moment is
(14:26):
in the ether. What does thatlook like when you're writing your the use
of your teacher's hours guidance? Whatdoes that look like? How do we
measure those efficiencies? And I thinkthis is the bit that would really help
to embed that culture when we canactually articulate some of those things more fully.
(14:46):
What you're saying innovations, everybody's job, that sounds really a culture of
that. And if going through allof that, what do you see as
the greatest turtle At the moment thereare many barriers, but what's the greatest
one for like you say, gettingit too from the point of vision to
articulation, it's about being really clearon what is the plan of investment that
we need to get where we wantto be in our the way that we're
(15:09):
operating as a business, but alsohow we're tapping our curriculum. So how
much investment would we actually need toget us into a really stable, solid
digital infrastructure. And then if welook at every curriculum area or industry area,
what kind of investment would we needto stay on top and to move
(15:31):
forward with industry. And I thinkif we don't start writing that down and
articulating it, measuring it, thenyou never get there, do you.
And it's bits and pieces, it'sexpediency. We've got this bit of money,
what should we get? So Ithink having the plan is really quite
important, and that requires a bitof time, It requires some research,
it requires some innovators to take thatforward. So we'll definitely getting there with
(15:54):
our digital strategy. But the worryis, of course, that you can't
afford it. How fast can weimplement it? The money side, I
know, and I've always been ona model that was if you put six
percent of income back into the Capbleninvestment for an area, it was generally
enough. But I think we're atthe point where perhaps that's actually not quite
accurate anymore, and it's going toneed a little bit more than that for
(16:15):
the injections, especially as you say, keeping at the sharp edge of the
technology for every particular curriculum area,knowing that we have to train our students,
don't we in the tools that they'regoing to be using actually in the
workplace. No longer is it justa little bit of software. They really
do need to know exactly what thetools are are being used in order to
be efficient when they get there.There's there's bits and pieces of investment that
(16:37):
are helping us to move forward withthose industry areas. And of course we've
got the chief fabulous universities that we'reworking with and the IAT, so there
are opportunities for us to take groupsof students up to university and to see
other digital technology in use and toget exposure that way. So some of
this you can achieve you but Ithink there's a real job for fee if
(17:03):
we want to deliver the skills needsto be really realistic about what's needed to
push the boundaries forward on digital andAI. Yeah, and when I see
these presentations from some of these academicsand so when I talk about the jobs
of the future, they're so technical, really technical jobs, and it feels
a little bit like crossing the chasm, if you heard that expression. And
(17:25):
yes, some of us, ofcourse will cross the chasm and have these
incredible jobs in the age of AI. Not to underplay the great work that
you're doing, Lisa, but tobe a college that really can prepare people
for those levels of technical jobs thesort of infrastructure that you need, and
that's a significant challenge, right itis. And I think staff training and
development is really key here and immersioninto industry, and of course this has
(17:49):
forever been an issue in FE ishow do we get people from industry to
come and work with us on theground shaping curriculum and teaching, and how
do we get our teachers out ofthe classroom or out of their area into
industry. And both of those thingshave got challenges, normally around money somewhere
in there now, but definitely challengesto do that on a large scale.
(18:14):
And so I think this partnership approachof trying to work with employers handing glove
to recognize the differences that some ofthe things that we want to run realistic.
Actually, we're never going to getpeople who are running a lot of
money in industry just giving up theirjobs and coming to work in the bit.
You know, it's not very realistic. But there are other ways of
achieving that through partnership and the sharedains and goals. And I think where
(18:37):
we're looking at local skills improvement plansand regional skills and plans. It starts
to add up. It's start tomake set because you can actually start to
see the impact on the ground wherejobs get filled and skills are recreited for,
and the curriculum is relevant and upto date in industry standard. Is
(18:59):
there any danger in response to what'shappening in the market that you over promote
left brain thinking in the college youdescribe yourself at the beginning is very creative
and I think we've seen that evenwith our government thinking, look, this
is the time we just ought tofocus on the left of the mass the
English. That's what we need rightnow. Let's stop doing these silly degrees
in drama and stuff, go andget a real job. Is there any
(19:19):
risks around that? I think it'sagain, particularly in the digital and create
this space, it's very much lookingat the range of skills that employees actually
want. We've talked with a coupleof companies that want to come and set
up in Stoke, Contrent, andwhat they want to know from us is
can we provide a pipeline skills fortheir companies. I think they want a
(19:41):
range of skills that they used tobe called the softer skills, advanced communications
skills. So we might have absolutelybrilliant students who can create the most amazing
gaming solutions and three D animation,but actually when they're in that this,
they're going to need to interact withother people. They're going to have to
(20:02):
make decisions, They're going to haveto make the tea at some point,
probably there after the customer, andso some of the digital and creative industries
which have got very small businesses,actually you need a whole range of skills.
It's not enough just to have reallyfantastic technical skills. I think there
is a debate to be had there. What I love about our Digital Club
(20:25):
is it is a digital and creativehub, So we've got range of skills
all embedded in one building where we'vegot our fine artists, our ceramicists,
our graphic designers, as well asour three D animators, gamers and other
digital curriculum that we're running. Soit's actually magic in there because you can
(20:45):
see when those things come together.You can just see the potential of the
individuals, the potential for AI toimprove and increase the creativity of people.
And we talked about this before.Some of the cognitive offload that you can
do to the AI TS halls toallow people that perhaps aren't mathematically implying,
for instance, to be exceptionally goodengineers if they're very creative because of the
(21:07):
ability to offload that cognitive activity toperhaps at all that can do that proficiently.
But I'm sure moving forward as itsprojections going forward, and there are
any pretty early on, but they'resaying that, look, all professional jobs,
so about sixty five percent need thathigher technical qualification if you like to
be able to do them. Butgoing forward is quite a clear divide between
H and FI, and I'm wonderingabout the blurring of the lines actually and
(21:32):
the genuine lifelong learning that we mighthave, especially with the sort of move
and funding to tailored learning, perhapsmicro credential small pieces of learning that continue
through your life, which you're thinkingthere and watch your vision. The whole
mainstay of our Skills Ready, FutureReady strategy is a progression So we are
definitely a progression college because of theintake we get because of the demand for
(21:56):
skills at the higher levels. Sowe have about sixty seven percent and internal
progression which is good, and thenout into industry and into other forms of
learning. It's ninety six percent externalprogression. So we're doing it right.
Maybe not all in higher value jobsat the moment, but we're definitely moving
(22:18):
people to positive destinations. But Ithink in terms of where we want to
go with this college, it's verymuch about boosting level three level four in
particular, so that we can takeyoung people and adults to that more marketable
level for some of the high levelskilled roles. And then we have we're
surrounded by universities are offering degree apprenticeshipsas well as the traditional routes. But
(22:45):
I think it's it's very much thatprogression, that ambition, that aspiration that
we're trying to save the seeds ofby showcasing, demonstrating, introducing employees to
young people, getting young people outinto industries so that they can see their
own potential. So I think alot of this is around that partnership approach
(23:07):
and understanding what's on offer through thedifferent funding streams and institutions, and how
we can work together to give employeesand individuals those pathways and route ways.
We talk about route ways. Wehave a lovely sort of settled chart that
show all the different jumping off pointsand what you can earn at those different
points, but that could be evenbetter and bigger if we're moving into the
(23:33):
higher level skills and working with universitiesin a different way. You talk about
the soft skills, and obviously,going through university degree program that often highly
technical perhips, they're not developing thosesoft skills, and it makes you wonder
about the integration that actually developing thesoft skills for people who are doing higher
level qualifications perhips and making them muchmore employable, much more suitable and really
for their job. Yeah. No, it is. It's reinventing softer skills
(23:57):
and actually giving them more status andputting the employer demand behind it to show
that these are actually skills that employerswant to buy. This is not just
dressing something up or and I havethought it needs to be central, like
you're saying, it's right side ofthe brain activity. Isn't it not just
(24:18):
the less wide Yeah, Lisa,I'm so happy to hear about your enthusiasm
and positivity and the wather you're leveragingpartnerships. I'm still chuckling about something you
said much earlier on the podcast aswell, in that when you had the
students using AI to be able topractice their communication skills, manage their emotions.
They made me realize that I've definitelyasked chet GPT things that I would
(24:41):
be a little embarrassed to ask anotherhuman, things that at forty one,
I probably ought to know. What'sinteresting about the interview coach tools, so
I worked with it with Adaptive MediaLimited. Matthew and Jeff. They're absolutely
brilliant and also very charitable with whatthey do, but they developed the Interview
(25:02):
Coach even further now and they're justin the phrase of creating an avatar that
is given the employment knowledge and skillsfor a sector, so it could be
say nursing. So after you've playedwith the vision tool and turned up your
energy and turned up your positivity andgot your facial expressions right, you can
then actually ask the avatar what sortof questions and I'm going to be asked
(25:23):
at the interview, and then youget to practice those questions as well.
So then you've got the vision tooland the knowledge and so it's then really
getting a much deeper experience in termsof preparation for going for an interview.
But what it's enabled us to dois to give hundreds of students interview practice
that in the old days we usedto invite employers in and do a speed
(25:47):
dating and things like that, whichis all good, of course it is,
and you can't beat real life peoplefrom business who are really achieved and
what's needed. But this is areally good starting point for at those skills,
and we just get into far moreyoung people than we would have done.
And we've also used it with someof our adults as well, and
are speakers of other languages in termsof communications. I think that's critical.
(26:12):
Even though I've had multiple jobs acrossthe years of my career, I felt
that every single time I went outto get a new job, I was
out of practice on the interviews,and I would never get the first job,
even if it was a perfect fit. And I could always get the
fifth job, even if I wasnowhere near it because I've just got really
good at interviews about the fifth orsixth attempt at it. It's always the
(26:33):
same every time I did it,And it's so much harder when you're starting
out on your teens in your twenties, but it is. But also,
Richard, we've got young people whohave got low levels of confidence, haven't
got supportive adults around them necessarily whoare talking in through young people without self
esteem, and young people who wework within a company asilum seekers who are
(26:56):
on their own and they are ina very strange and don't know what the
expectations are. So I think thisis where tools like this can really come
into being in terms of giving thatregular opportunity allow somebody to build the confidence
without being sat in a room wherethe teacher or a peer where it's all
(27:18):
feeling rather uncomfortable. I think thisis a really great example. I think
is the first one we've come acrossnow of the leveling up of this use
of technology. And we asked aboutthat very eighteen months ago. We said,
will this be a great liveler?And I think your example there of
those in high deprivation, those whoperhaps haven't had the opportunities being given the
opportunities through this. What is anadept of learning tutoring tool effectively and maybe
(27:42):
the first one to emerge. Yes. So it's called adapt Adaptive Media limited.
You can google adapt interview coach andit will come up to say,
I'm not getting anyone. It it'sall sales. It's just something where I
believe there's passion for creating tools foreducators and to help the industry move forwards.
(28:03):
Lisa, you've shared so many differentavenues today. I think you've opened
up so many elements of discussion thatKurt and I will continue to have in
this series. Hugely grateful that youwould spend some of your very important time
to come on this show. AndI'm just filled with hope when I see
your positivity about Stoke, but itcould be any region and to see someone
like you so engaged, energized toupskill and level up and use these technologies
(28:30):
and empower people. I will usethis podcast because it's a great way for
us to promote internally as well andto raise awareness. And we have some
little sessions in our college called huddleswhere people just rock up. It's quite
informal, the sort of forty fiveminutes and a member of our team will
be showcasing something and our director ofDigital and our director quality are doing huddles
(28:52):
on AI what is it? Whatdo I need to do? What do
I need to know? And sowe are really promoting our digital strategy at
the mode and trying to break downfear and barring its around day eye.
So This podcast is also hugely helpfulto always at the college, so thank
you for giving me the opportunity today. And it's been great to find out
more Richard than you and also tobe having a conversation with Kurt, who
(29:18):
are those are real experts on thesethings. Thank you very much. Le
to have been just enthralling. Ireally enjoyed it today, so thank you.
For the education, artificial intelligence andleadership, the three topics of our current
mini series. Kurt, Welcome back, Hi Richard, and welcome Lisa.
Hi Lisa, it's great to seeyou on the show. Can you tell
us who you are? I'm LisaKappa. I'm chief executive principle of Stoke
on Trent College and I've been herejust over two years and Lisa from zero
(00:25):
to ten? What's your current levelof enthusiasm for artificial intelligence in further education?
As I'm doing this podcast this morning, I'm feeling very enthusiastic. I
think I'm probably definitely in the ECMSof that scale, and as a college,
I would say that we are emerging. We're probably at about a five,
but we think we're about an eightbecause of our enthusiasm. So we've
(00:50):
definitely got the will and quite abit of the skill, but there's a
lot more for us to do yetto really embrace AI. It's always great
to hear a little bit about somebody'sbackstory with AI, especially since Chatchput landed
on the scene in October twenty twentytwo. Can you talk a little bit
about your reactions and reflections over thelast couple of years and how it's changed
(01:11):
your perceptions. What I like iswhat it can give me, the access
it gives me, the opportunity itgives me. So I'm not really interested
in how it works. I justwant to know what I can do with
it and how I can feel ituse it. You know, It's like
turning a tap on, isn't it. You want it to just work and
see those opportunities flow. So mysort of first engagement really with AI is
(01:36):
actually one of the examples I've boughtwith me to Stow Contract College. It's
one of the things that we've embeddedhere, and it was working with a
company to develop an interview tool calledinterview Coach, which I've developed with aid
Act, so that the company thathave developed it approached me to see whether
they could interview some of the studentsthat I was working with at the time
(01:57):
and how it would work with studentsdifferent backgrounds and to get that diversity into
the tool. And I was absolutelyfascinated with how helpful this tool could be
for young people who haven't got theconfidence around InterMune skills, who don't have
self awareness or self confidence to beable to manage their emotions, nerves,
(02:21):
interactions, and how by putting themin front of what is essentially a bot
on a screen, they actually gotcontrol of how they could turn up their
positive energy, how they could managetheir facial expressions, and they could do
all this quite privately without sitting ina room embarrassing me with an adult,
(02:43):
but actually playing with it themselves andgrowing their own confidence and skills. And
so seeing this and the impact thatthis could have on young people, I
was completely sold, switched off toall the negative narrative around AI, And
to this day, I'm still thegreat supporter because I think that we have
to embrace it, we have tomove forward. And it's that kind of
(03:05):
higher level learning, that speaking andlistening, that cognitive approach that I'm really
interested in the way that AI cansupport humors, but particularly young people in
developing their own skills and abilities,and AI is a great tool to do
that. That's a great approach.Hey, I'm really keen to dig a
little bit into the college's strategy youmentioned before, the core skills Really Future
(03:30):
really tell us a little bit aboutthere in your approach. So, Skills
Ready, Future Ready is our neworganizational strategy, and we launched it in
the autumn last year, and thisis real step change for the college in
terms of focusing very much on theskills that employees need and want in this
area. So you may know thatthis area Stay Contrent is one of the
(03:53):
most deprived areas in the country.There's been a lot of deprivation and the
triple whammy of to coal, theceramics industry and also steel, and so
that kind of industrial decline has leftthe city in quite a poor place.
And it's so important that this cityreally finds its feet again and reinvents itself
(04:16):
around the new skills that are comingthrough and in our local Skills Improvement Plan.
There are various sectors in this area, in this region where you know
people and adults who live here canget those skills and move into those industries.
So we want people to invest inStoke contract We want inward investment.
So our strategy is hooked around thosesector skills areas, and one of those
(04:42):
is digital and creative. And youmay not know that Staff University here is
one of the most well known forgaming industry, and we have a digital
skills hub that we've got funded forthrough the let and we've got some of
the most fantastic viciblities been kicked hereat St. Comnficent College to support this
digital industry. So we're embedding digitalright across our curriculum, so our corporate
(05:08):
strategy is very forward looking. Inthe next month, we are launching our
digital strategy which is part of that, and we'll be very much focusing on
our curriculum, our staff training withinthat, as well as our governance and
of course the safeguarding and you knowthe issues that we hear people talking about
(05:29):
around the safety of AI, butvery much being bold about this about making
sure that our policies that were thebust of procedures were a bust. But
most of all that we've got ourcolleagues on board and giving them those opportunities
to understand more about how this isgoing to be part of the picture of
teaching and learning and assessment going forwards. It's great to hear your digital strategy
(05:50):
and just off the back of theAOC putting out some policy documents over the
weekend and we saw those coming outtoo in regards to the digital and very
much in line with the sort ofthings you're talking about. Lifting the baseline
skills of our staff and digital andorder for them to be able to harness
that technology going forward. That's reallygoing to be important, isn't it in
meeting the needs of employers. Iknow you mentioned that earlier on which was
(06:11):
this key piece of the skills reallyfuture really part. Just digging into that
a little bit, how does thefunding system at the moment for adult skills,
what is going to be the AdultSkills Fund next year? How does
that fit into that? There's somenew flexibilities coming along. Have you thought
about that very much? Have youthought, oh, my gosh, what
a great opportunity. Absolutely so.We are one of the largest providers of
education in the area. It's asignificant part of the college's work, and
(06:36):
we're doing very well in terms ofusing a power allocation and more to open
up opportunities for adults in this area. So we have the mix of provision
which is basic skills, English,Speaks of the languages, Essential Digital,
but also some full time courses atlevel three and obviously that free Level three
(06:56):
offer as well, which we're doingvery well with. We've been working with
Stuff's UNI on conversations around micro credentialsand we're getting there. It's a slow
progress that we are getting there interms of trying to get the strategy whereby
we can use the adult education budgetin fe the micro credentials approach from the
universities because we also work with Keyand University too, and then to go
(07:21):
to an employer and offer this seamlessset of different opportunities for learning for their
business and industry. We want tobe able to combine some of these budgets
and to get this seamless version oflearning out to employers. One of the
things that we've talked about here recentlyis that it's great here of the tools
(07:43):
now that can really again turbo chargethe development of new innovative programs to meet
the needs. What used to takeperhips weeks if not months to develop a
program, we have tools now liketeacher metic and others that can develop schemes
or listening. What we're doing isreally experimenting with lots of different packages and
tools at the moment, and anythingfrom marketing, feedback, preparing lessons,
(08:07):
resources for learning, even things likestricting cleaneries and given instruction to students.
And I thinks a couple of thingswe're binding. So one is quite costly
because of all the licenses and althoughthere's quite a lot free stuff out there.
You get five goes and you're out. It's really as trying to get
those strategies right for what we wantto use and what's going to help us
(08:28):
the most with our particular skills needsamongst our colleagues. And I think the
other thing we're binding is the sortof skills for our colleagues in how best
to use some of these technologies.Being able to write a good prompt is
a real skill. Understanding bias andwhat is being generated and how you then
need to interpret and use that isanother skill. Selecting and de selecting material.
(08:52):
All of these things our skills thatindividuals in our institution are learning about.
And I think this is going tohave helpers make the right choices around
the resources that we really invest inand the packages that we really invest in
to help us move forward. Sothat's where we are at the moment.
And then on our student side,we've been really considering what does it mean
(09:15):
to give students access to AI Andof course they've got access to WAYI anyway
outside of learning, but what doesit actually mean in the learning environment for
them? And how do we passour learning on students and obviously digital literacy
is a key part of that,and we make assumptions that young people are
(09:37):
instinctively digitally enabled to get quite quitelots of individuals are. But we also
have still have the digital divide andthe costs for some more complex programs,
and therefore we have a mixed economyreally of skills across our student body.
I mean we have a large numberof adult learners as well as apprentices and
(09:58):
over two thousand young people, soit's not another playing field in terms of
the skills set and the understanding ofAI. So in this college, what
it means is going back to basics. It's ensuring that we've got access to
good and equipment, the students aredigitally enabled, that we build up those
literature skills, and then we alsotalk about safety, governance, bias,
(10:22):
diversity, so that there's that deepunderstanding of the technologies that are being used.
I know you mentioned a lot aboutequity, the especially in both having
the equipment, having the excess perhapsto the internet, the fast internet that
you're going to need, and thenthe tools that increasingly are costing more and
more for even the most basic setup, and a real issue I think
(10:45):
and I know that AOC report againhighlighted that as a factor in that Actually
there's a bit of a vcuum fundingat the moment to support that. Absolutely,
we've just worked miracles with the fundingthat we've had to get where we
are, but we know still notenough off because if you don't have the
full infrastructure, there's nobody having bitsand pieces. I'll tell you about the
Boston Dynamics Spot the Dog, andI don't really seen the Spot the dog
(11:09):
around the place. But for example, when you're downloading the data that Spot
the Dog has collected from the surveyingactivity they've been sent off on, you've
got to then screen that and youwant a three D imagery of that data.
That's what you do in industry,that's how you'd use that. But
if you haven't got that infrastructure inthe college, you've only got half the
(11:30):
story. So you're not really healthin the students again, you've got that
interruption to the learning that you wantto do. So we've got things like
the matrix, a needtail wall.Now, the impact of that on students
has just been absolutely fantastic in termsof the pace for learning getting it,
in terms of what would happen inindustry and the decisions that you get too
(11:50):
faster as a result of having thatenablement. And we couldn't afford Spot the
Dog, but we did borrow Spotthe Dog for the law of our Advanced
Construction center. And I've thought thedog is a mobot, not a robot
and a cobot, but a mobothas got a bit of a mind for
his own or her own, andis able to carry out quite sophisticated instructions
(12:15):
and transmit informations in BAI sensors,comparing it to the real environment against the
CGI imagery that's generated. And thenof course we can put all that from
the LED screen and have the conversationabout what's been looked at. What I
love about the story is about seeingthe standards for industry in the place that
(12:35):
colleges hold, which is not wellunderstood i think by many of the sharp
edge of industry. Seeing the standardsfor industry, so making sure that we
bring to what are vastly small tomedium employers actually in our areas, bringing
those technologies to them by bringing ourstudents up to high standards of skill and
expertise, and then embedding that backinto the organizations that then perhaps go and
(12:56):
do work experiencing or even hopefully workin and get those jobs, but just
talk a little bit about the culturalshift that you're enabling within your teams and
work with employers. Excepting Yeah,I think it's really a digital first approach
because obviously it's not just about AI, is it. Of course, there's
automation and machine learning, and aswe've said, at some levels, it's
(13:20):
about basic digital confidence and digital literacy. So having this digital first approach.
So our strategy talks about having acompletely digitized learning journey, completely digitized employer
journey, and a completely digitized staffjourney, so that everything we do,
our first call is can we dothis digitally? How can we be more
(13:41):
efficient, more effective drive the modernizationprofessionalization of our college. So that's our
sort of stuns, if you like, in terms of the way that we're
trying to embed digital. I thinkit is really about getting into the organization
into a place where we have somestability around our digital infrastructure, where we're
(14:05):
asking people to experiment. So Ithink it's that cultural really, and it's
how can AI help us with routinetasks and how can AI make us more
efficient and then how do we usethat time that we've saved within our teaching
workforce in particular to further innovate whatwe're doing. But at the moment is
(14:26):
in the ether. What does thatlook like when you're writing your the use
of your teacher's hours guidance? Whatdoes that look like? How do we
measure those efficiencies? And I thinkthis is the bit that would really help
to embed that culture when we canactually articulate some of those things more fully.
(14:46):
What you're saying innovations, everybody's job, that sounds really a culture of
that. And if going through allof that, what do you see as
the greatest turtle At the moment thereare many barriers, but what's the greatest
one for like you say, gettingit too from the point of vision to
articulation, it's about being really clearon what is the plan of investment that
we need to get where we wantto be in our the way that we're
(15:09):
operating as a business, but alsohow we're tapping our curriculum. So how
much investment would we actually need toget us into a really stable, solid
digital infrastructure. And then if welook at every curriculum area or industry area,
what kind of investment would we needto stay on top and to move
(15:31):
forward with industry. And I thinkif we don't start writing that down and
articulating it, measuring it, thenyou never get there, do you.
And it's bits and pieces, it'sexpediency. We've got this bit of money,
what should we get? So Ithink having the plan is really quite
important, and that requires a bitof time, It requires some research,
it requires some innovators to take thatforward. So we'll definitely getting there with
(15:54):
our digital strategy. But the worryis, of course, that you can't
afford it. How fast can weimplement it? The money side, I
know, and I've always been ona model that was if you put six
percent of income back into the Capbleninvestment for an area, it was generally
enough. But I think we're atthe point where perhaps that's actually not quite
accurate anymore, and it's going toneed a little bit more than that for
(16:15):
the injections, especially as you say, keeping at the sharp edge of the
technology for every particular curriculum area,knowing that we have to train our students,
don't we in the tools that they'regoing to be using actually in the
workplace. No longer is it justa little bit of software. They really
do need to know exactly what thetools are are being used in order to
be efficient when they get there.There's there's bits and pieces of investment that
(16:37):
are helping us to move forward withthose industry areas. And of course we've
got the chief fabulous universities that we'reworking with and the IAT, so there
are opportunities for us to take groupsof students up to university and to see
other digital technology in use and toget exposure that way. So some of
this you can achieve you but Ithink there's a real job for fee if
(17:03):
we want to deliver the skills needsto be really realistic about what's needed to
push the boundaries forward on digital andAI. Yeah, and when I see
these presentations from some of these academicsand so when I talk about the jobs
of the future, they're so technical, really technical jobs, and it feels
a little bit like crossing the chasm, if you heard that expression. And
(17:25):
yes, some of us, ofcourse will cross the chasm and have these
incredible jobs in the age of AI. Not to underplay the great work that
you're doing, Lisa, but tobe a college that really can prepare people
for those levels of technical jobs thesort of infrastructure that you need, and
that's a significant challenge, right itis. And I think staff training and
development is really key here and immersioninto industry, and of course this has
(17:49):
forever been an issue in FE ishow do we get people from industry to
come and work with us on theground shaping curriculum and teaching, and how
do we get our teachers out ofthe classroom or out of their area into
industry. And both of those thingshave got challenges, normally around money somewhere
in there now, but definitely challengesto do that on a large scale.
(18:14):
And so I think this partnership approachof trying to work with employers handing glove
to recognize the differences that some ofthe things that we want to run realistic.
Actually, we're never going to getpeople who are running a lot of
money in industry just giving up theirjobs and coming to work in the bit.
You know, it's not very realistic. But there are other ways of
achieving that through partnership and the sharedains and goals. And I think where
(18:37):
we're looking at local skills improvement plansand regional skills and plans. It starts
to add up. It's start tomake set because you can actually start to
see the impact on the ground wherejobs get filled and skills are recreited for,
and the curriculum is relevant and upto date in industry standard. Is
(18:59):
there any danger in response to what'shappening in the market that you over promote
left brain thinking in the college youdescribe yourself at the beginning is very creative
and I think we've seen that evenwith our government thinking, look, this
is the time we just ought tofocus on the left of the mass the
English. That's what we need rightnow. Let's stop doing these silly degrees
in drama and stuff, go andget a real job. Is there any
(19:19):
risks around that? I think it'sagain, particularly in the digital and create
this space, it's very much lookingat the range of skills that employees actually
want. We've talked with a coupleof companies that want to come and set
up in Stoke, Contrent, andwhat they want to know from us is
can we provide a pipeline skills fortheir companies. I think they want a
(19:41):
range of skills that they used tobe called the softer skills, advanced communications
skills. So we might have absolutelybrilliant students who can create the most amazing
gaming solutions and three D animation,but actually when they're in that this,
they're going to need to interact withother people. They're going to have to
(20:02):
make decisions, They're going to haveto make the tea at some point,
probably there after the customer, andso some of the digital and creative industries
which have got very small businesses,actually you need a whole range of skills.
It's not enough just to have reallyfantastic technical skills. I think there
is a debate to be had there. What I love about our Digital Club
(20:25):
is it is a digital and creativehub, So we've got range of skills
all embedded in one building where we'vegot our fine artists, our ceramicists,
our graphic designers, as well asour three D animators, gamers and other
digital curriculum that we're running. Soit's actually magic in there because you can
(20:45):
see when those things come together.You can just see the potential of the
individuals, the potential for AI toimprove and increase the creativity of people.
And we talked about this before.Some of the cognitive offload that you can
do to the AI TS halls toallow people that perhaps aren't mathematically implying,
for instance, to be exceptionally goodengineers if they're very creative because of the
(21:07):
ability to offload that cognitive activity toperhaps at all that can do that proficiently.
But I'm sure moving forward as itsprojections going forward, and there are
any pretty early on, but they'resaying that, look, all professional jobs,
so about sixty five percent need thathigher technical qualification if you like to
be able to do them. Butgoing forward is quite a clear divide between
H and FI, and I'm wonderingabout the blurring of the lines actually and
(21:32):
the genuine lifelong learning that we mighthave, especially with the sort of move
and funding to tailored learning, perhapsmicro credential small pieces of learning that continue
through your life, which you're thinkingthere and watch your vision. The whole
mainstay of our Skills Ready, FutureReady strategy is a progression So we are
definitely a progression college because of theintake we get because of the demand for
(21:56):
skills at the higher levels. Sowe have about sixty seven percent and internal
progression which is good, and thenout into industry and into other forms of
learning. It's ninety six percent externalprogression. So we're doing it right.
Maybe not all in higher value jobsat the moment, but we're definitely moving
(22:18):
people to positive destinations. But Ithink in terms of where we want to
go with this college, it's verymuch about boosting level three level four in
particular, so that we can takeyoung people and adults to that more marketable
level for some of the high levelskilled roles. And then we have we're
surrounded by universities are offering degree apprenticeshipsas well as the traditional routes. But
(22:45):
I think it's it's very much thatprogression, that ambition, that aspiration that
we're trying to save the seeds ofby showcasing, demonstrating, introducing employees to
young people, getting young people outinto industries so that they can see their
own potential. So I think alot of this is around that partnership approach
(23:07):
and understanding what's on offer through thedifferent funding streams and institutions, and how
we can work together to give employeesand individuals those pathways and route ways.
We talk about route ways. Wehave a lovely sort of settled chart that
show all the different jumping off pointsand what you can earn at those different
points, but that could be evenbetter and bigger if we're moving into the
(23:33):
higher level skills and working with universitiesin a different way. You talk about
the soft skills, and obviously,going through university degree program that often highly
technical perhips, they're not developing thosesoft skills, and it makes you wonder
about the integration that actually developing thesoft skills for people who are doing higher
level qualifications perhips and making them muchmore employable, much more suitable and really
for their job. Yeah. No, it is. It's reinventing softer skills
(23:57):
and actually giving them more status andputting the employer demand behind it to show
that these are actually skills that employerswant to buy. This is not just
dressing something up or and I havethought it needs to be central, like
you're saying, it's right side ofthe brain activity. Isn't it not just
(24:18):
the less wide Yeah, Lisa,I'm so happy to hear about your enthusiasm
and positivity and the wather you're leveragingpartnerships. I'm still chuckling about something you
said much earlier on the podcast aswell, in that when you had the
students using AI to be able topractice their communication skills, manage their emotions.
They made me realize that I've definitelyasked chet GPT things that I would
(24:41):
be a little embarrassed to ask anotherhuman, things that at forty one,
I probably ought to know. What'sinteresting about the interview coach tools, so
I worked with it with Adaptive MediaLimited. Matthew and Jeff. They're absolutely
brilliant and also very charitable with whatthey do, but they developed the Interview
(25:02):
Coach even further now and they're justin the phrase of creating an avatar that
is given the employment knowledge and skillsfor a sector, so it could be
say nursing. So after you've playedwith the vision tool and turned up your
energy and turned up your positivity andgot your facial expressions right, you can
then actually ask the avatar what sortof questions and I'm going to be asked
(25:23):
at the interview, and then youget to practice those questions as well.
So then you've got the vision tooland the knowledge and so it's then really
getting a much deeper experience in termsof preparation for going for an interview.
But what it's enabled us to dois to give hundreds of students interview practice
that in the old days we usedto invite employers in and do a speed
(25:47):
dating and things like that, whichis all good, of course it is,
and you can't beat real life peoplefrom business who are really achieved and
what's needed. But this is areally good starting point for at those skills,
and we just get into far moreyoung people than we would have done.
And we've also used it with someof our adults as well, and
are speakers of other languages in termsof communications. I think that's critical.
(26:12):
Even though I've had multiple jobs acrossthe years of my career, I felt
that every single time I went outto get a new job, I was
out of practice on the interviews,and I would never get the first job,
even if it was a perfect fit. And I could always get the
fifth job, even if I wasnowhere near it because I've just got really
good at interviews about the fifth orsixth attempt at it. It's always the
(26:33):
same every time I did it,And it's so much harder when you're starting
out on your teens in your twenties, but it is. But also,
Richard, we've got young people whohave got low levels of confidence, haven't
got supportive adults around them necessarily whoare talking in through young people without self
esteem, and young people who wework within a company asilum seekers who are
(26:56):
on their own and they are ina very strange and don't know what the
expectations are. So I think thisis where tools like this can really come
into being in terms of giving thatregular opportunity allow somebody to build the confidence
without being sat in a room wherethe teacher or a peer where it's all
(27:18):
feeling rather uncomfortable. I think thisis a really great example. I think
is the first one we've come acrossnow of the leveling up of this use
of technology. And we asked aboutthat very eighteen months ago. We said,
will this be a great liveler?And I think your example there of
those in high deprivation, those whoperhaps haven't had the opportunities being given the
opportunities through this. What is anadept of learning tutoring tool effectively and maybe
(27:42):
the first one to emerge. Yes. So it's called adapt Adaptive Media limited.
You can google adapt interview coach andit will come up to say,
I'm not getting anyone. It it'sall sales. It's just something where I
believe there's passion for creating tools foreducators and to help the industry move forwards.
(28:03):
Lisa, you've shared so many differentavenues today. I think you've opened
up so many elements of discussion thatKurt and I will continue to have in
this series. Hugely grateful that youwould spend some of your very important time
to come on this show. AndI'm just filled with hope when I see
your positivity about Stoke, but itcould be any region and to see someone
like you so engaged, energized toupskill and level up and use these technologies
(28:30):
and empower people. I will usethis podcast because it's a great way for
us to promote internally as well andto raise awareness. And we have some
little sessions in our college called huddleswhere people just rock up. It's quite
informal, the sort of forty fiveminutes and a member of our team will
be showcasing something and our director ofDigital and our director quality are doing huddles
(28:52):
on AI what is it? Whatdo I need to do? What do
I need to know? And sowe are really promoting our digital strategy at
the mode and trying to break downfear and barring its around day eye.
So This podcast is also hugely helpfulto always at the college, so thank
you for giving me the opportunity today. And it's been great to find out
more Richard than you and also tobe having a conversation with Kurt, who
(29:18):
are those are real experts on thesethings. Thank you very much. Le
to have been just enthralling. Ireally enjoyed it today, so thank you.
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