MSM 676: Forty Kids In The Club

By Troy PattersonMSM, Podcast

Summary:

Shawn and Troy talk about Government, AI, and more. Dave has AI Assessment in Science.

Jokes:  

Becoming a parent is realizing you’ve gone from main character to backstory

Accidentally paid attention for a few seconds. 

  • It was terrible.

I accidentally spilled a teapot on a friend’s face while he was carrying a plate of burgers.

I guess brewed tea is in the eye of the beef holder.

I asked my wife how her day was. She said she wouldn’t tell me unless I make bread with her.

  • Guess we’re on a knead to know basis.

Middle School Science Minute  

by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)

K12Science Podcast:  Assessment in the Age of AI

I was recently reading the NSTA Blog, dated July 15, 2025, a publication of the National Science Teaching Association.

In this issue, I read the blog entry “Rethinking Science Assessment in the Age of AI,” written by Christine Anne Royce and Valerie Bennett.

Recent questions about how students are using AI in their classes have included questions focusing on how much of students’ work is their own and how much is generated by AI.  How do we ensure that assessment still reflects what students know, understand, and can do?

https://k12science.net/assessment-in-the-age-of-ai/

Reports from the Front Lines

The Social Web

AMLE  @AMLE

DYK: AMLE has created a new series of community one-pagers that explain core middle school structures, and their benefits to staff, students, and families? Each is available free to members and can be found under the “About Middle School” menu on http://amle.org.

Susie Dent  @susie_dent

Word of the Day is ‘snerdle’ (19th century): to lie warm and still beneath the covers for as long as humanly possible.

cyborgneticz@Cyborgneticz

Be super nice to your kids k12 teachers
I have been seizing way more lately 

Strategies:  

Students Can Get Fired From Group Projects

Trevor Muir talks about improving the quality of group work.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/15ynEUH8R7

Resources:  

Using a Screen Reader

Hadi Rangin is an expert user of screen reader software. In this video, he demonstrates the elements of a well designed web page and how they sound to someone who is blind. Issues discussed include ARIA landmarks, headings, and text content.

AMLE and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute

New civics curriculum designed for Advisory periods.  8 lessons for free.  You can find them at:  https://reaganeducation.matrixlms.com/visitor_catalog_class/show/1733024  

Web Spotlight: 

Education report calling for ethical AI use contains over 15 fake sources

CBC News reported that a major education reform document prepared for the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador contains at least 15 fabricated citations that academics suspect were generated by an AI language model—despite the same report calling for “ethical” AI use in schools.

One of the fake citations references a 2008 National Film Board movie called “Schoolyard Games” that does not exist, according to a board spokesperson. The exact citation reportedly appears in a University of Victoria style guide, a document that teaches students how to format references using fictional examples. The style guide warns on its first page that “Many citations in this guide are fictitious,” meaning they are made-up examples used only to demonstrate proper formatting. Yet someone (or some AI chatbot) copied the fake example directly into the Education Accord report as if it were a real source.

AI language models like the kind that power ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude excel at producing exactly this kind of believable fiction because they first and foremost produce plausible outputs, not accurate ones.

The presence of potentially AI-generated fake citations becomes especially awkward given that one of the report’s 110 recommendations specifically states the provincial government should “provide learners and educators with essential AI knowledge, including ethics, data privacy, and responsible technology use.”

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/09/education-report-calling-for-ethical-ai-use-contains-over-15-fake-sources

Random Thoughts . . .  

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By Troy Patterson