Unleashing Future-Ready Learners: Integrating Technology and Financial Literacy in Classrooms
Summary:
Dr. Jim chats with Dr. Marc Baiocco, superintendent at Clarkstown Central School District, to explore innovative education strategies for the 21st century. They dig into building learning ecosystems emphasizing global perspectives, financial literacy, and technology integration. Dr. Baiocco shares insights on overcoming technology challenges, fostering global connections, and preparing students for future work environments. Learn about creating programs that adapt over time and aligning educators with forward-thinking goals, all while ensuring balanced technology use and student safety. Discover how Clarkstown schools are shaping future-ready learners.
Key Takeaways:
- Dr. Marc Baiocco stresses the necessity of a clear, articulated plan focusing on a future-ready educational model that includes global perspectives, technology, and financial literacy.
- The implementation of innovative pedagogy and cross-school district alignment is crucial for preparing students for 21st-century challenges.
- Challenges such as balancing technology use and implementing cybersecurity measures are crucial hurdles that need addressing to create a conducive learning environment.
- Financial literacy programs teaching personal finance, economics, and responsible investment are essential for student development and understanding in real-world scenarios.
- Constructing a living and breathing curriculum requires continuous assessment and adjustment, fostering a culture of improvement and adaptation to evolving educational needs.
Chapters:
0:00
Building 21st Century Learning Ecosystems for Future-Ready Students
2:01
Innovative Leadership and Educational Excellence in K-12 Schools
9:56
Innovative Education for 21st Century Global Citizenship
Balancing Technology and Education in a Rapidly Evolving World
Building Future-Ready Learners Through Financial Literacy and Global Competence
Creating Momentum Through Action in Transformational Leadership
Connect with Dr. Jim: linkedin.com/in/drjimk
Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung
Connect with Dr. Marc Baiocco: linkedin.com/in/dr-marc-p-baiocco-549a591a
Music Credit: Shake it Up - Fesliyanstudios.com - David Renda
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Transcript
Today, we'll work through the process for building a 21st Century learner program that integrates global perspectives, financial literacy, and technology to deliver a first class student experience. So who's going to be guiding us through that conversation? Today we have Dr. Mark Biakko, an experienced educator with over 25 years in public education joining us. Mark is a dedicated and visionary educational leader who serves as a superintendent of schools with a relentless commitment to providing competitive and rigorous education for students across all grade levels from pre K through 12th grade.
to foster an environment of [:Mark welcome to the show,
Dr. Marc Baiocco: Thank you so much for having me. Dr Jim.
Dr. Jim: Thanks for joining us, Mark. I'm looking forward to this conversation, and I think when we're talking about interesting topics for the the world of K through 12 educate education and educators.
er And how you show up as an [:Dr. Marc Baiocco: That's a great question. So I started my educational experience as a social studies teacher, and I was working in an urban school district in Yonkers, New York. And during my experience there, I started to really appreciate and value the impact we had on student lives. And for me, it was a matter of, how do we make students as competitive as possible?
e students with the means to [:Dr. Jim: I need to check out that book. It sounds pretty interesting but i'm curious where did that drive? To offer opportunities and open opportunities come from what's the root of that?
Dr. Marc Baiocco: So I think it's, this competitive nature we see in many schools throughout our country, particularly in New York and especially in the lower Hudson region. Where it's not only a matter of competition as to what school they're going to get into. It's a matter of competition as to what knowledge base they have and what makes them more marketable than another student.
So it was always trying to give students that toolbox, so to speak to make sure that when they went off into college, they had everything that they needed to be successful.
nk those of us who have come [:When you take that mentality into, let's say, more well resourced environments, it can be tough to connect the dots on why competition is important in a space where you have so many different resources. How did you bridge that gap of understanding potentially in those later districts where there were probably more resources than what you were accustomed to in the urban districts?
Dr. Marc Baiocco: First and foremost, I had the good fortune of being raised by an amazingly supportive family. I myself grew up in a fairly impoverished neighborhood in Yonkers. And during my experience there, I started to realize and appreciate diversity, not only diversity of cultures, but also diversity of opinions.
ything that I was looking to [:My mother was an educator and it was something that I was always enticed by and In doing so, I wound up becoming, I believe, more of a mentor for students a guide and through that process, I started to realize that students had this, yearning to do more. They always wanted to be competitive.
more and more in schools, I [:We needed to provide students with more opportunities to engage. One another on one of the experiences that I had. I went through a Khalil Gibran model, which was basically a conference model. And I started to realize how important that was that it wasn't just about imparting knowledge on students. It was also about giving them these problem solving skills where they could come together.
They can collaborate, they could confer and then debate this at a table. And that became something that was really intriguing to me. And I started to shape My lessons as a teacher that way to try to give students that edge, so to speak.
Dr. Jim: That's really good context and I appreciate you sharing that. Switching gears a little bit yeah when you think about, your time in your current district. Tell us a little bit about the dynamics of the district and some of the things that you've seen from the time that you've gotten into the district.
rc Baiocco: So in my current [:It's something that we're continuing to try to build on to make sure that students not only experience that excellence in education, but they leave here and are able to be successful. As a matter of fact, just before joining This podcast, I came from one of our high schools. We have two high schools and one of the high schools where we were doing a science research showcase.
PhD who is from the class of:In helping them to become more what I call future ready.
t you brought in graduated in:So when you look at that sort of dynamic, oftentimes that can get distilled down to just a focus on [00:09:00] the obsession about test scores. So when you're looking across your district, And you're thinking about competitive and high value and high outcomes delivery as a district. How do you take The performance beyond just what the test scores show.
Dr. Marc Baiocco: That's a great question. I think that New York state has become somewhat of a very authentic and creative environment for that most recently the commissioner of education just published the new york state blue ribbon commission And in that we saw that there were seven attributes for a new york state graduate.
solving literacy across the [:So essentially, we're trying to create these well rounded students and we want to make sure that we're providing as many opportunities in the school districts as possible. So that they have these 21st century citizenship skills. The thing that I am critical about is that we see that many school districts, even within their own mission statements, I'll have things like we're looking to create 21st century learners, but what does that really mean?
And it's incumbent upon a school district to truly invite a diverse group of stakeholders to a thought session and start thinking about what is that 21st century skillset look like for the learners in, in that school district.
tegic plans and all of these [:So what I'm curious about is when you look at the goal of building a learning ecosystem that is designed around the 21st century learner, how did you take it from concept to execution?
What was your process for bringing that to life?
Dr. Marc Baiocco: it was really looking at exactly what we wanted students to know when they left our school district. It was really again inviting this diverse group of stakeholders to the conversation to start thinking about What are some of the existential threats that we have to society? Climate change came up as one of those discussions, and in that we started to look at some of the new developments such as artificial intelligence and what I could do.
In addition to which to make [:And really it's to address the real needs of today's world. So we use that as a framework to start thinking about what it is that we wanted to do in the Clarkstown schools. To make our students more future learn ready. And one of the things that we really came to the acknowledgement of is that if we refuse to look outside the walls of our school district and start to seek ambitious and authentic collaboration, then we weren't going to get anywhere.
ll to imparting or exploring [:Dr. Jim: So it's interesting that you described starting early with this process. I'd like you to share with us a little bit more about the reasoning why it was important for you to start this effort at the elementary levels for within your district.
Dr. Marc Baiocco: So I think that we first had to again define what it means for school to be future ready. Some of that was a backward design. So we had to look at, when students were graduating our schools, just using the current structure and format. What is it that they needed to do to be successful?
Hearing from our alumni was really important once they went into college, what were some of their experiences like and then backward designing that so that we had a clear definition of what it meant for our schools to be future ready. And then we started to Develop some of the innovative pedagogy not to get into the edge.
You [:So for us, it was, what is that innovative pedagogy look like? Do we have an assessment framework that was in place to make sure that we're Constantly monitoring our success on areas for improvement, which is really important. And then looking at the technology integration. And then how do we use that technology into integration to now leverage those global perspectives?
f, let's say, cell phones in [:Dr. Jim: Oh, that's really interesting that you're describing the technology element of it as being the hardest part or the difficult component. I would have thought when you're bringing new ways of thinking into an environment, the hardest part of the exercise would be shifting the mindset of the leaders and educators in the building that are supposed to drive this change.
So I want to take this in two different directions. I'd like you to share how you aligned building leaders and educators to shift their way of thinking to drive innovation. And then we'll come back to the technology challenges.
Dr. Marc Baiocco: So one of the areas that I would say was the most successful is we started to integrate a lot of the global competencies in one of our elementary schools, and we had an international baccalaureate program there. So it really lent itself to This whole notion of of global connection. We then started to look at within that global connection.
Who are we [:And use those as common themes or common threads for the lesson sharing. And then we harness some of the powers in Zoom and Google Meet and things of that sort for our students to now collaborate with students in other countries at the same grade level, looking at the same themes, et cetera. And also talking about how their cultures, their experiences are different, how they're the same on juxtaposing all of those.
he point we're now expanding [:So we also saw it at the middle school level where we replicated that in an age appropriate and developmentally appropriate way. And now at the high school levels, we're starting to bring in what we call this architect of abundance. And this was really born from a partnership that we have with a group called One World United and Virtuous where they really started to look at the 2016 work by Klaus Schwab, where he talks about the fourth industrial revolution and looking at technology.
g about, because people were [:Dr. Jim: Let's dig in a little bit more on the technology side. Earlier you described it as one of those Challenging hurdles that you needed to get across. And when we're talking about AI, I can easily see where the mindset might be. This is gonna, the expansion of AI means that I'm eventually going to be out of a job.
So that could be one obstacle that you need to overcome. But share with us a little bit more about those technology roadblocks that you had to overcome and how you got through that process so that it's much more integrated into how you're delivering the education.
lace for our students making [:We know that cybersecurity right now is at a forefront for school districts not only from the the threats to some of our internal data, but also. The threats to students interacting in, social media and things of that sort. So those are things that were initial challenges for us.
I would say the other challenges that came about in the area of technology is that there's a lot of research being done right now on the impacts of students having too much screen time. And whether or not that is actually advantageous to their growth. And I think what we need to do is find a healthy balance to use these things responsibly.
In New [:So those are things that we're really trying to balance because those challenges are coming at us fast and furious. And as quickly as technology is evolving, We're also getting responses to technology in school settings that are evolving. And it's really trying to dance with all of those together.
e bit more about how are you [:What are the voices that you're listening to? What's the feedback that you're getting at? What is the process that you're going through to determine, Hey, this is the appropriate lane that we should be in when it comes to our technology usage and utilization and application.
Dr. Marc Baiocco: So I think that we need to understand who the future thinkers are. I think we need to truly understand who those people are, who are leaders in the This technological revolution or technology revolution, if you will one of which, often and most recently has become a controversial figure.
r the there to be a pause on [:Because I think he realizes the risk that exists there. I had mentioned earlier Klaus Schwab, who also helps us to gain insights in terms of what we can expect what is some of the future of innovation is looking like. And at some point, we know that A. I. Is going to do everything for us.
And we need to ensure that again that we're using it responsibly on that. This is something that we could embrace and make sure that students are prepared for because That is going to become the world of abundance. So we created this sort of architects of abundance is what we're calling it. And we're looking at not just this universal basic understanding of, let's say, income.
whole technology singularity [:In this world of abundance,
Dr. Jim: You've referenced this a couple of times in the conversation and that's the concept of abundance and how that is a key element of of the vision that you're pushing forward. Tell us a little bit more about what. What's involved in the nuts and bolts of the abundance, conversation and vision that you're sharing.
the sort of the concepts of [:They're going to be able to solve these very complicated mathematical formulas. All being done by computational skills. We look at some of the studies that Google was doing saying that they believe that a computer created. I think it was called the sycamore computer that was created, was able to solve a problem within 200 seconds.
That's something that Supercomputers we're taking, 10, 000 years to finish. So these are things that have to start to understand them better. We have to start to think about what the scarcity of resources is, what the abundance of resources and start to blend the two.
And have students problem solving through this world of possibility.
Dr. Jim: When you look [:What does that mean? Or what does that look like from a programmatic perspective in terms of how you've actually brought it to life within your district?
Dr. Marc Baiocco: It goes to these three basic tenants that we have. We have this financial literacy component where we're helping students to understand personal finances things that they were, they wouldn't even learn in college. We want them to learn at a very early age. And then it's also looking at the.
The economics of it all. And we know that through the study of economics, we could see that it's also a study of scarcity. It's looking at how people use resources and respond to different, Experiences that they have or what is available to them and how they make decisions based on that.
r the inequitable balance of [:Where we can help students to understand cultures and develop this sort of cultural competence. And then finally looking at our technology advancements and that technology awareness is really important. And that's something that we can't necessarily do in a static way. The way we were teaching subject matters before is going to be entirely different 10 years from now because of the fast pace that technology is evolving at.
obalized society? And that's [:Dr. Jim: So I want to dig in a little bit more on the financial literacy component. We've talked about the global competency. We've talked about embedding and integrating the technology capabilities and competency into the district. From a financial literacy perspective, how is that embedded in the different ways that you're delivering instruction?
How does that show up within the district?
Dr. Marc Baiocco: So we're looking at that in a number of ways in our district. We started this at the middle school level. We first began it in a global competence perspective, and then we started looking at sustainability. So Through those sustainability measures, they were using things like the climate leadership and Community Protection Act.
erience or climate, but also [:In a fast paced way and realizing that the age developmental material had to be scaled back a little bit, not because students were incapable, but because they didn't have the foundations necessary just yet. So that's where our assessment piece came in. We also started using the stock market game, which was a game that our students were engaged in.
So they looked at, what were responsible investments. They follow different stock portfolios to really examine what was having the highest yield. And through that, we were also as I said, including some of the personal finances checkbook balancing balancing your checking account looking at how to take out a mortgage.
ge. And how do people get in [:Because what we're trying to do is develop that curriculum over time and constantly modify it. So it becomes a living and breathing curriculum over time.
Dr. Jim: So I like I like your last point about how you're describing this as a as a living, breathing curriculum that evolves around over time. The flip side of that is that when you have something that evolves over time, it's gonna be tough to measure progress, or at least I would imagine it'd be tougher to measure progress compared to just Oh, can people read, can people write at the appropriate grade level and so on and so forth.
So how are you tackling the measuring challenge associated with this new program being put into place?
sessing students frequently, [:Too often, I think we get caught up on E. L. A. And mathematics. But what we failed to mention is that within the E. L. A. And mathematics curriculum, a more critical component is truly making students literate and numerate. That they have conceptual understandings of mathematics that it's not just about solving basic equations, but that they could actually solve problems in a very complex manner.
Dr. Jim: So those are things that we're looking to constantly build our curriculum on and make sure that our traditional curriculum is embedded in some of the new work that we're doing for our future ready learners.
conversation so far, Mark. I [:Dr. Marc Baiocco: I think that the whole concept of future ready has become a manual or blueprint for engaging conversation. It's part and parcel of our continuous improvement efforts. So as we continue to look at the learner experience in Clarkstown, one of the things that we developed was this Clarkstown commitment.
clear understanding of what [:To ensure that they understand the vulnerabilities that are present. And how we navigate all of those things. Those are the things that I think are going to be critical for our future learners and for future generations. And more importantly, that they look at this world of abundance and not scarcity.
I spoke a lot about that whole. Architect of abundance and examining what are the things that we could build on today? It's a I tomorrow might be something totally different. And understanding that the future that is ahead of us is something that is unknown right now. So that once the students can conceptualize all of that and start to build those problem solving skills, rebuild relationships that they have with technology with each other.
laboration skills. Those are [:Dr. Jim: I want you to take a step back from this conversation and kind of zoom out and Yeah, if there's going to be other superintendents that are listening to this conversation that probably have something along the lines of building a 21st century learner or building building the student that's ready for the future world of work or some version of that on their strategic plan.
If you're going to advise them on how to take it from strategic plan to strategic execution, what are the key things that you would say they need to focus on first to move these things into action?
need to look at the current [:And I don't mean that necessarily in the global connections. The global perspectives could be within the stakeholders. Within our own school district. That to me is critical. I think too often we come up with initiatives or we adopt initiatives and we go to implement them and we don't have that clear definition and stakeholders then begin to question it.
And there's suspicions that grow or the becomes controversial or whatever the case may be. The other thing I would say is that in order to be truly future ready, I think it needs to be authentic. There are no can programs out there. And if we're buying a program off of a shelf somewhere, I don't think it's going to have much sustainability.
indsets of our educators. So [:And then more importantly, how are we as a school district, whatever school district that may be how are we preparing students for that global economy?
Dr. Jim: Great stuff, Mark. If folks want to continue the conversation with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
Dr. Marc Baiocco: You could always reach me at superintendentofficeatccsd. edu.
Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff. Thanks for hanging out with us, Mark, and sharing with us your experience.
that's your point about you [:And I think that's an important thing for everybody to think about when they're listening to this conversation and trying to execute any sort of transformation. Transformations are big. They're big by design because it completely requires you to shift the way that you're used to thinking. And the first step in shifting the way that you're thinking is to take action.
And that's going to be one of the critical things that I take away from this conversation is that. You have to embed a bias for action, even in small degrees to create the momentum to achieve success. So I appreciate you sharing that perspective with us . For those of you who've been listening to this conversation, we appreciate you hanging out.
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