PIXEL is the pen name of composer and educator Evan Combs. This playfully academic newsletter offers a behind-the-scenes look at designing and shaping learning experiences and culture. Supported by practical insights and actionable strategies, it’s perfect for teachers, leaders, and anyone curious about the art and science of learning through the lens of music.
AI Whiplash 🤖
|
Hey everyone, Picture a high school senior’s day at school… Period 2: “If I catch you using AI, it’s a zero.” Period 4: “AI will rot your brain, you need to think for yourself.” Period 6: “AI is destroying civilization as we know it.” Four years later, they sit in a job interview and hear: “So, walk us through how you use AI in your workflow.” Recent Grad: “I was told there would be no AI” That’s the whiplash we’re creating, and I get a front-row seat to both ends of it. By day, I design learning experiences for adults, AI-focused all day, every day. By night (and weekends... send help), I teach middle school, high school, and college kids. One group is being told to stay away from AI. The other is told, “Get good at it yesterday, or you’re fired.” This issue is about that gap, and how we, as educators, can design experiences that better prepare the workforce of tomorrow, today. The Real Data The Classroom 🏫 Schools are building fences for AI, fast. The share of K-12 students who say their school has AI rules jumped from 51% in 2025 to 74% in 2026. And learners are absorbing the message! A 2026 Gallup survey found that 14- to 29-year-olds are becoming more skeptical of AI, and more openly angry at it. Roughly half of them still use AI at least weekly, while their frustration and anxiety about it keep climbing. Read that again. They’re using it AND resenting it. That’s not a healthy relationship, that’s a situationship. 💔 The Workplace 💼 Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report lists AI and big data as one of the fastest-growing skill categories through 2030. Oh, and it projects that 39% of current job skills will become outdated by 2030. [Immediately checking on when I can retire] DANGIT, it’s after 2030… In my workforce development world, nobody asks “Should we use AI?” anymore. They ask:
This is real, no joke. I’m talking with coworkers who reply to me with AI-generated answers. IT’S CRAZY!!! “So, Should We Just Let Them Use It?” NOPE. I know my primary audience is music educators. I’ll share thoughts on your classes specifically after this section, pinky promise. The concerns are legit. If a learner hands AI the thinking, they skip the learning. Remember my issue on cognitive load? If AI does all the heavy mental lifting, nothing builds into long-term memory. No schema. No transfer… Just vibes. But “ban it” and “allow it” are both lazy answers. The real question is: WHICH parts of the thinking should the human own? Here’s how I frame it with Bloom’s: Remember / Understand | AI can support (explain, quiz, rephrase) Apply / Analyze | Collaborate (human leads, AI assists) Evaluate / Create | HUMAN. Every time. AI can be the sparring partner, never the judge. That’s literally how professionals use it. AI drafts, sorts, and summarizes. Humans decide, defend, and take responsibility. Seems simple and straightforward… right? Strategy Section for Music Classes (You say: “FINALLY.”) Every strategy has something to try and something to measure. Because if you can’t measure it, you’re just throwing learning into the wind. #1: Ears First, AI Second Before AI touches anything, learners have to use the most important tool in the room: their ears. 🧪 Try this
AI can’t hear your ensemble (thank goodness, some days). But it’s great at building practice routines once a human tells it what’s wrong. That’s the job split we’re after: humans diagnose, AI drafts, humans decide. 📏 Measure 2 Things:
#2: Red Pen the Robot AI is confidently wrong a lot. For learning designers, that’s gold, because error identification is a SOLID deeper learning strategy. 🧪 Try this
(Remember Mr. Combs 3000 from Issue 14? I too like to reduce, reuse, and recycle… strategies) 📏 Measure: Errors caught vs. errors present. Repeat this with new music. If the catch rate climbs, they’re reading the score instead of trusting the robot. 🔄 Don’t Forget: This Is Change Management If you read the last issue on ADKAR, you already know that announcing “We’re using AI now!” to a room of skeptical teenagers is going to go about as well as announcing it to a room of skeptical adults.
Your Thoughts Where do your learners land on the AI spectrum right now? Avoiders, over-users, or somewhere in between? What’s one way you’ve helped them use AI without skipping the thinking? Updates from the Music Room 🎶 NEW FREE Music: Tiny Worlds 🎶 A collection of four beginner mallet duets. Link to Preview | Link to Request Score/Parts I’ve already gotten requests for these from South America and Asia. 🌏 Educators around the world believe in the power of getting young percussionists on mallets EARLY. I hope you do too! 🗣️ Upcoming Conferences 🗣️ MMEA State Conference | Feb. 5–6 TMEA Convention | Feb. 10–13 Reach out if you’ll be in attendance at either so we can grab coffee and nerd out about learning design (I hate coffee. A donut, maybe? 🍩). Previous Issue: WHY NO ONE DOIN’ THE NEW THING?! |
PIXEL
PIXEL is the pen name of composer and educator Evan Combs. This playfully academic newsletter offers a behind-the-scenes look at designing and shaping learning experiences and culture. Supported by practical insights and actionable strategies, it’s perfect for teachers, leaders, and anyone curious about the art and science of learning through the lens of music.
Hey everyone, Imagine I’m your boss. I walk up to you and say: “Next time you’re in front of learners, you’re not allowed to speak. And you need to teach the next three sessions like this.” I slap a new unit of content on your desk and walk away. You’d all be like… Except what I REALLY meant was: “You’re going to pilot a new project-based unit where learners drive the discussion and their own work. I trust your instincts as a seasoned educator, and I want your feedback to help make this...
A year ago, I wrote an issue about building classroom culture from Day 1 (Start as You Mean to Go On - as a refresher). A year later... I'd change one thing. Culture doesn't start on Day 1, it starts before Day 1. It starts with: The agreements you’ve chosen to surface. The routines you’ve chosen to establish. The invisible curriculum you’ve chosen to value. Over the last year, I’ve written about: Cognitive rigor Project-based learning Learning through failure Cross-curricular thinking...
Hey everyone, Imagine every learner left your classroom with perfect scores and flawless performances. They demonstrated every objective you slapped down. BUT, they still… Struggle to collaborate. Panic when plans change. Can't communicate ideas clearly. Don't know how to learn something new without you. Did you succeed? According to "the book," yes! However, it begs a much bigger question: What the heck is education for?! (pause for your passionate response) If you answered, “To learn about...