#096 - Tyler Tarver | YouTube Learning, AI Exaggeration, and Incorporating Student Feedback

Dr. Tyler Tarver is the Founder of Tarver Academy and is currently a Director of Learning and Development based out of Little Rock, Arkansas. In this episode, Dr. Tyler Tarver and I explore how feedback from students can refine your methods, why teachers need identities outside of school, what students really need to understand about what teachers want for them,  his research on if Youtube is an effective tool for education and what keeps students engaged, hilarious mistakes he made in his first year, the evolution of Tarver Academy, why we are overreacting to AI, Harry Potter, how to give students more freedom, and, much more! 

Thoughts shared on the podcast are purely our own and do not represent the views of the Anglophone South School District or the relevant jurisdictions associated with my guests.

Transcript

Lucas Clarke (00:00.739)
All right, I always love the countdown where we're just kind of awkwardly staring at each other trying to get it done. But Dr. Tyler Tarver, thank you so much for coming on today,

Dr. Tyler Tarver (00:08.76)
Thank you so much for having me. Honor to be here. Honor to be here. Look at us. We're doing it. We're doing it.

Lucas Clarke (00:12.407)
Honored to have you look at us. We're doing it all the way from Arkansas to New Brunswick. So I guess first thing to start us off is usually I kind of go right into like, like what's your background? What kind of keeps you interested in education? And I find today I want to start off because I've come to the realization now that I'm teaching out of middle school that a lot of my students are starting to listen.

to the podcast every now and which is not something I expected them to. I thought they would be the most bored by it, but you know what? I guess you kind of sometimes attract the audience you don't quite expect. But so to start us off, I'm only wondering in a time where there's like loss of confidence in teachers and a souring relationship between teachers and parents and

students kind of like getting lost in the mix of this kind of weird cultural battle. What is a potentially like cheesy statement that you would say to even your own students about what it is that we actually want to do and help them with every single day?

Dr. Tyler Tarver (01:24.886)
With educators, I think it's important that we remind students that we are here to help them. Like we're not here in the classroom because we didn't have any discernible skills that we could put in the workforce. Like teachers have these skills that almost every company wants now. Can you engage an audience? Can you storytell? Can you present it?

Every company wants that now. Can you utilize technology to do, you know, we got zoom calls, zoom meetings, like teachers have these skills to get jobs anywhere else. They are in classrooms because they want to help those young people go from here to where they need to go as a learner. And I mean, that's what I tell teachers. Like part of our job is helping those students build that bridge from where they are now to where they need to be. And maybe we don't get them all the way across the bridge in that year or the whatever, however long we have them the semester of the year we have them.

Lucas Clarke (02:10.829)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (02:16.354)
but maybe we're getting them a little closer and the next teacher gets them a little closer and the next teacher gets them there. And that's our goal is to help encourage students and help bridge those gaps in their learning. And I just, think it is one of, I think it is the most underrated profession in the world because it's like every other profession, like, well, it helps people here. Doctors help people here. You know what teachers do? Train every other profession, everything. We train everyone for everything. So I'm.

Lucas Clarke (02:36.225)
Yeah. I train every, we literally train everyone for everything.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (02:44.91)
That's that's my vote. I don't know who's who's I don't know who's take who's taking votes or what country it's for but I'm voting for every country Legally, of course

Lucas Clarke (02:47.043)
100%.

Lucas Clarke (02:51.635)
Yes, I totally agree, man. Like, I just think there's, we kind of went through PTIs and from what I heard, there wasn't like anything crazy for like any interviews at my school, especially, but it just always feels like there's this loss of confidence in each other. And I feel like kind of trying to bring that back and even just inform the students, remind students, remind the parents of like, we're not your enemy. We're trying to figure this out with you. And I think that kind of just sours it all, but.

To kind of go on the flip side, I wanna know a little bit more about when you were going through your own school experience as any good teacher or any teacher, any weird teacher would on this beautiful Good Friday, I was reading through Marcus Aurelius Meditations. know you can put my basic sticker on my forehead after if you want.

But I only bring it up because I thought it was hilarious that in one of the notes it said, he makes a comment about one of his old teachers. And as he goes through it, he says, we can breathe again now, rid of this school master. He was not hard on any one of us, but I could feel his silent criticism of us all. So did you have any...

bad experiences or poor experiences or less than memorable experiences with any teachers of your own while you were going through school and not to single them out, not to talk about them specifically, but like what were kind of the things that maybe were done and kind of the attributes of those teachers that you think teachers should avoid.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (04:32.078)
Yeah, so I always kind of come back now that I'm on this side of it on the educator side. I always use this quote and we used to use it when we'd interview teachers and we'd ask them what they thought about it. And I heard it from another great educator. I say another great, not like I'm saying I'm a great educator. I heard it from a great educator. From another legend like me. No, the legend that said it and then a teacher that I heard it from, it's by James Comer and it says, no significant learning occurs without a significant relationship. And when I think back on the teachers that

Lucas Clarke (04:44.963)
From another from this other legend over here like he's a great guy

Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (05:01.324)
like I have the fondest memories of, it's the ones that cared about who I was and that wanted to connect with me as a person and not just ask me questions, you know, cause you know, the quote, like, if you want to be interesting, be interested, be interested in other people. But also I loved it whenever teachers showed their personalities. Like that's one of my huge things that I encourage teachers to do. Like very often students forget that we're humans also, you know, like we, like we're not these, like, you know, these, these Jetsons robots that like,

Lucas Clarke (05:14.055)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (05:30.03)
8am every day, you know, and then we're like 330 we shut down. know, if you ever want to know if your students think you're a robot, run into him at like Walmart or another shop like they're like, my gosh, you eat food. You're like, Yes, that's how I stay alive. Thank you for asking. Like see at the movies like you like movies like yeah, movies, pizza. Everybody loves them. Everybody. And so I think it's important that we work on that rapport side of it. And you know, with this increase in technology,

Lucas Clarke (05:32.227)
Yeah

Lucas Clarke (05:38.403)
Yeah, yes

Lucas Clarke (05:46.795)
Yeah, occasionally.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (05:56.822)
and the ability to get information on our phone from the greatest teachers in the world. Like, I'm not the greatest teacher that my students have access to. There's hundreds, if not thousands of better teachers on YouTube or through Chad GBT, know, all these technology avenues that they can get learning from that's better than me. So what is the advantage I bring? My personality, knowing their personality and helping guide them on that. You know, we are, and I didn't...

Lucas Clarke (06:16.035)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (06:26.038)
make this up either. So I'm gonna just steal it and pretend like I made it up. It is not our role. Yeah, like a fellow legend would. It is our goal as educators not to be these walking encyclopedia Britannicus, not to be the hero in this classroom. We are called to be the guide and help our students become the heroes. The best teachers I had in school, they guided our class.

Lucas Clarke (06:28.587)
Absolutely, yeah, like a legend would.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (06:50.89)
I knew a little bit about their personality, their quirks, all these little things. They knew about me as a person, you know what I mean? And it's not like they like tried to shut that down. They vibed with it. I remember one time in ninth grade, I had a teacher, I love my ninth grade English teacher. I don't know why, but I literally, had, you know, those visors, you know, back in the day, they have no top. I pulled it down over my face, pulled my hood over and I acted like a duck and I had like paper claw hands. It was so dumb. I don't know. I was in ninth grade. I was too old for that. But I remember my teacher not just like,

Lucas Clarke (07:07.767)
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (07:20.3)
sending me the office or messing with me. Like we laughed, joked about it, and then she found a way to like bring it up for the next like three weeks just to, you know, make reference to it. Like it's some dumb ninth grade kid trying to goof around in class and make his classmates laugh. Like it's a fun moment when your teacher is not like so rigid that it's like curriculum. Here we go. Here we go. Like if that's the case, like let's just use online programs. I think it's all about that interaction. And like I said, with the James Comer quote, like the significant learning occurs when there's a relationship and a rapport.

Lucas Clarke (07:27.66)
Of

Lucas Clarke (07:37.857)
Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (07:50.124)
between students and teachers. And I think that is something that we need to start investing our time into getting even better at with regards to trainings and PD. It's yes, we need to know about our curriculum, but at some point after a few years, you know your curriculum, you know, how can we better connect with students and how can we better show our personality and weave that in to the lessons? So that'd be my vote.

Lucas Clarke (08:10.579)
No, because I'm even thinking you're preaching to the choir here. Like this is my first year in a new province and I just moved and I've talked about it extensively here on the podcast, but I think it's funny like going into like a new state, a new curriculum, new culture, like everything is so different than what I'm used to and I'm teaching a new subject. And like the kind of joke that I keep saying to like the coaches and other teachers that I'm working with is like, you know what?

I'm really just trying to emphasize the vibe I bring to the function. Like I'm really just trying to keep like a positive open energy, like with anything that we're trying to move forward on. Cause there's a lot of like new teachers in my like immediate context as well. But yeah, I totally agree that I find when like, I guess how different were you when you were in the classroom? Cause I just kind of going through your

background a bit earlier, you've kind of were in the classroom about 10, 12 years ago and you've kind of been in higher level positions for like 10 years or so, roughly accurate.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (09:12.238)
I think so. Yeah, that's pretty pretty accurate. Well done. You've done your research. So yeah. So yeah, I've been an administrator for a while now. And so I honestly I've kind of tried to it's funny because, you know, in a classroom, you think a lot with kids, know, teenagers or, you know, middle school kids, you think, oh, OK, I'm going to be different whenever I'm working with adults. But I think honestly, like it's the same like you're it's just like I talked about earlier, like even when guiding teachers as an administrator, I'm not trying to like

Lucas Clarke (09:14.827)
Yeah, yeah. I've my research. yeah.

Lucas Clarke (09:20.643)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (09:40.152)
carbon copy myself and make that the person in the classroom. I want them to take the curriculum and weave themselves into that curriculum and put their personality and their spin on it. That way it feels authentic to the authenticity is a huge push. We see that on social media. Like the reason kids love TikTok, there's a lot more authenticity there than like Facebook or Instagram. Like it's a place where people can go and be themselves. And I think people are attracted to that with regards to like, they want to pay attention. They want to lean in when it sees something that's real.

Lucas Clarke (10:06.957)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (10:08.32)
And so whenever I try to like help teachers, I want to guide them. I want them to be for me as an administrator, I want to be the guide and I want them to be the hero in their classroom and in their classroom. I want them to be the guide and make the students here. It's like this trickle down effect of helping people be the best version of themselves so that they can carry that over into what they're helping the next people. It's that that whole tiered leadership thing that John Maxwell talks about. You know, the best leaders are the ones that train up other leaders. And that's one of the reasons I've loved.

working in administration is empowering the people that I oversee. Like that's one of my favorite things to do.

Lucas Clarke (10:43.979)
Yeah, and I'm even I'm interested in parsing that out a little bit because like, what do you think you see as like the different types of personalities of the teachers you've worked with? Like, I guess what do you kind of mean by like, trying to have them hone into their own personalities? I guess I would see that as I kind of see that from a like a spectrum of disciplinarian to not like what I guess what are your what do you think about that?

Dr. Tyler Tarver (11:08.118)
Yeah, and that's a level that is a level of their personality with regards to how like, do they like a loud classroom to like a quiet classroom? Do they? And a lot of that's built on how we learned growing up. You know, like I remember when I first my first two weeks of teaching, I went to the library and I was like, hey, can I use that overhead projector? And she like almost laughed at me. She was like 40 years older than me. She looked at me like, are you insane? Twenty two year old Tyler. And she was like, she literally said, you can just have it like she got. I if it's legal or not. She gave me the school's projector because no one had used it in so long.

Lucas Clarke (11:28.163)
You

Lucas Clarke (11:33.151)
Yeah, take this home.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (11:37.816)
But I wanted to do that because that's how I learned. And then I realized those expo markers, it gets on your hand, it was dumb. I just started using the dry erase board. But it's like very often we carry over what worked for us into the classroom. And so I think that as we teach, yes, there will be elements of how we learned. But I think one of the fun things to do is start like with regards to discipline, talking. I think it's incredible whenever you can start weaving in, hey, this is the way I learned. And you tell them that.

Lucas Clarke (11:40.355)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (12:04.748)
You don't just do it. You say, here's why I like learning this way. And then you get their opinion. What do you guys think? have a, do one of my big things. I send a ton of free resources out for teachers. And one of my resources that no one likes to use is an end of, it's an end of semester evaluation form that you can send out. A of colleges use this, like evaluate our teachers. And so I encourage teachers to give that out at the end of each chapter test.

Lucas Clarke (12:05.208)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (12:18.211)
You

Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (12:24.93)
Yep.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (12:29.864)
And it asks, what did you like? What did you not like? Rate this, like that way it's, yes, you're teaching the way you like very often we default to the way we learned. But if you're getting the opinion of students you can start weaving in the ways they learn. And I think that can help us and grow and expand as educators but also help our students learn and getting their opinion and empowering them to have an active part in that learning process. And I think that is, that's one of my favorite things that nobody uses, that I just love. Like get the opinion.

Lucas Clarke (12:44.013)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (12:50.659)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (12:59.52)
I when I'm leading, I like to get the opinion of the teachers I lead. Teachers, I encourage them to get the opinion of the students they lead, like get the opinions and work together towards this like group dynamic, not this, I'm in charge, I choose the way this rolls. And so that's how I think of it with regards to like using teachers. And yes, I, if you're like, I'm super into Harry Potter, if you're in Harry Potter, weave that into every story you can, you know what I mean? Like weave that in so your students like,

Lucas Clarke (13:02.883)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (13:24.738)
How many of us had teachers growing up? We don't remember two things that they taught us. I remember the Lagrang theorem or the photosynthesis. hey, let's go triangles, my boy. Get it right, get it right, triangle. And so I love whenever teachers like we think like those teachers, whenever we think back to them, we might not always remember what we learned in those classes, but we remember how we felt. But then also we remember like the little like inside jokes and like,

Lucas Clarke (13:30.883)
We're starting that next week actually.

Yeah

Dr. Tyler Tarver (13:52.108)
That teacher would always make jokes about Odysseus, know, blah, blah, blah, even though we weren't covering the Odyssey. You know what I mean? Like, I think you can incorporate that stuff in there and it makes it fun.

Lucas Clarke (13:55.723)
Yeah.

What?

I remember I had one teacher, I won't say their name because I remember I thought it was so cool that the teacher had a laptop given to them as like part of their, not like given to them, but that was like instead of a desktop computer, they had a laptop. And we were, I was new to this school and I was just chatting with him. was like, man, like that's so cool. You wouldn't, you wouldn't even have to get your own laptop. And he's like, well, like you can't watch porn on the teacher computer.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (14:30.371)
my gosh.

Lucas Clarke (14:32.162)
When he said it, he's like, and right away he's like, I'm so sorry, that was so unprofessional. like, he's like, I just saw the opening for a joke and I remember just laughing so hard, but like, this is a grade 12 teacher. Like I was like, I was an adult, like it's a different situation. But like, that was hilarious. I wouldn't say that to a student now, but like, I... Yes, yes, yes.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (14:51.628)
You would and that's where you'd have to have rapport, you know, if you're gonna try to pull off a joke that can get you fired or You know administrative leave without pay you gotta know this kid. It's you know, it's funny to them, you know you got to be careful. Dang They they were shooting from half court there. That's crazy

Lucas Clarke (15:00.842)
Yes.

Lucas Clarke (15:04.514)
Yeah, know administratively without pay is a good one. no. And I remember like there was another time, same teacher, like I was working with them. A student came in and it was like a super skinny kid with a muscle shirt on and he was like, he's like, your sleeves calling sick today. And he just, it was like the best joke I ever heard. And was just his delivery. So like, I knew that all the jokes were funny, but like,

Again, remember nothing about, again, like the Pythagorean theorem, like nothing about that, but I just remember like these hardcore quips from the teachers kind of growing up, but.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (15:41.742)
You remember the stuff that can get them fired. That's what you remember. You're like, this is going down in my journal. If I have a B, you boys, I'm squealing like a piggy. That's what I'm doing. Yeah, there you go. Hey, oh, let's go. No, I don't.

Lucas Clarke (15:49.763)
Yeah, yeah, this teacher is now now a principal. So yeah, they're they're good. They're good. You move up again. It's all good, but it's all it's all in good fun

Dr. Tyler Tarver (15:59.32)
I don't even wanna know, like it's crazy, cause I have the worst memory ever. And so it's wild to me, like I don't even wanna know what random dumb stuff I said to students. They'll say it back to me, I'll be like, I never said that. like, yes you did. Cause it's like, when you say it, like it always means so much more to the students. And I say that too with like, like even compliments or if you say something discouraging, what you say, for you it's just a piece of your day among a hundred, 150 students. For them, they've only been around for anywhere from five years to 18, 19 years.

Lucas Clarke (16:11.563)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (16:15.969)
Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (16:29.23)
This is a huge impact on their life. You're an authority figure, you're a place of influence. Like what you say matters to students. And so I always tell teachers like, be aware of that. Yes, we are human. Yes, we get frustrated. Yes, we get irritated. But keep in mind, your words carry so much more weight with them than theirs do with you.

Lucas Clarke (16:48.947)
And most of them, especially now in a middle school, I'm in a resource support position now. And so you don't kind of get the same, I guess, level of interaction with the big groups of students as you typically would as a classroom teacher. But even now, I think I actually have a weird gift as a hopeful future legend, where when I get mad, I just get silent. I think, I don't know, maybe that's a helpful skill when you're teaching, where I just start to...

kind of closer than not that I would wouldn't. But I think it saves me from saying I think the things that we never wanted to hear from those teachers that I guess the silent criticism as Marcus Aurelius is was still kind of thinking and dwelling on like 30 years after being in school himself, which is pretty good. But yeah, it's always

Intriguing to kind of look back on like what actually scarred me and and what what what dirt do I still have on my old teachers that they might not know about but So now I for you when I was kind of looking through your like Background you have so many different profiles like you're trading cards like you're you got Tarver Academy like you're doing all these things and so I guess

How did you kind of move into the things beyond the classroom? Was there any resistance to like, you're pulling time away from your teaching practice and not doing enough for the kids, cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like, what did you kind of do to help grow, I guess, your identity beyond the classroom?

Dr. Tyler Tarver (18:24.654)
Yeah, that's the thing. Again, I encourage teachers to have a personality, have life outside of school. And again, if that's what you're like, I'm all in on this, this is all I care about, like that's amazing. And I think that's different for every person. Like one of the most important things about being a human is figuring out what you're passionate about and then figuring out how to get into those things and have that energy. So, you know, I've been on YouTube for, oh my gosh, 17, 18 years.

And I started out like trying to be funny because like I love the lonely Island and I was like, it'll be funny, but nobody thought it was funny. They just wanted me to teach them slope intercept formula. And so I was like, you know, and then you go through these phases. And so like my YouTube is like this graveyard of different things. I tried, tried to be funny. I tried to do vlogs. I tried to do that. And now I was like, you know what? I, about four or five years ago, I got back into sports cards. And so I just turned that channel into it. So I got Tarver Academy channel, which is my education stuff. And then I have my other channel.

Lucas Clarke (18:50.766)
wow.

Lucas Clarke (18:58.423)
Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (19:18.38)
that is, you now it's mostly sports cards content. And I just, I enjoy it. I talk about it and I honestly started, you know, that's the thing like I love about the internet is you can build a community around anything that you care about. Like there's other people that like almost everything. And so I was like, if I'm going to get into collecting sports cards, I want to build a community around it people that we can have conversations about it, talk about things we like and get their opinion on things. Cause

Lucas Clarke (19:30.403)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (19:43.086)
people that live in my home are so sick of talking about sports cards. Like it's a running joke now. I'm like, hey, they're like, what do you want to do? I'm like, we can go home and look at some quadrilaterals. They're like, no, we're good. I'm like, okay, okay. So that, I don't know, find the things that give you energy and lean into them because that helps propel you forward. I'm my main, obviously my main thing is education and you know, working with teachers and speaking to schools, like that's my main thing. And so that's the main thing is the main thing. And I do love it. And I'm passionate. I'm so thankful that I get the chance.

Lucas Clarke (19:46.605)
You

Lucas Clarke (19:50.869)
Yeah, no, Yeah, we're not going to do that.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (20:10.638)
to make a living doing something that I love and I think matters and is important. But also I like having these side things where it's like, that's not all just me. You know what mean? I have other things that, no, it's like, I would say like all that helps form my identity, but also like I try not to care. Like the things you like, you know what I mean? And it doesn't hurt anybody. It doesn't impact anybody negatively. It's not like I do it during times when I should be educating or helping other people. I just do it for fun and I love it.

Lucas Clarke (20:19.403)
Yeah. It doesn't need to be.

Lucas Clarke (20:28.323)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (20:40.803)
Yeah, and then even in my first couple years, like education, and honestly, in a weird way, I think the first year teacher rite of passage where you're kind of doing everything all the time is almost necessary. And since like, I think it's more so helpful to figure out what you don't like, you know what I mean? Like, you know what, I'll let someone else figure out how to do this part. I kind of like the cross country part, I'll stick with that, but I don't wanna do these three other sports kind of thing, or the other groups, or the extracurriculars, and what have you, but.

think you can kind of tell when some teachers don't have like the other things going on. Like I love talking to teachers and right away they're talking about, like things are doing on the weekend in the evening, stuff they're doing with their family, weird like niche hobbies. Like, even when I first came across you, I had no idea you had this other successful like sports cards channel. I got so random, but I think that's the part that's fun. Yeah, that's kind of the the gist, I guess, for things that you're trying to

promote other teachers to do and find a way to move outside. And so as you were discussing with me earlier about kind of researching for your doctorate. So I guess first off, what did you, what kind of question did you have going into that about these kind of like YouTube click and like, how have you taken the lessons from that and applied it to trying to, I guess maybe put the boundaries on what audiences you're trying to target in your channels.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (22:07.254)
Yeah, so that's thing that it was affirming because I wanted to know like, can people learn through YouTube? Like is it better or worse, no different. And you know, in doing your dissertation, you have to like study and dissect, you know, 70, 80, 90 of these like peer reviewed research studies. Not like I Googled it and I read what Google told me. Like you have to go into these peer reviewed articles and what we found or what I found across the board is,

Lucas Clarke (22:13.485)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (22:28.107)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (22:35.32)
people can learn through YouTube videos. Like if you think about it, sitting in class, watching a teacher teach, that's a video without parameters and no buffering, know, unless the teacher has a brain fart. Yeah. Like that's you're sitting there, you're watching it. So I was like, well, what does research say? And research says like, there's no significant difference in learning. And one of the cool things I found in one of the studies was there's no significant difference.

Lucas Clarke (22:43.681)
Yep. Yep. Yep. No parentheses around it.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (23:03.944)
in learning through a pre-recorded video versus learning live, the significant difference in learning occurs when there is follow-up. Whenever that teacher addresses that student individually or in small groups and they say, where did you guys have issues? What are you seeing? It's like we were talking about earlier. It's about connecting with that student, seeing where their bridge has a hole in it and trying to fill that gap so they can keep going across that bridge. How can we as educators, not just get better delivering content, that's good, but also

Lucas Clarke (23:32.995)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (23:33.162)
overrated. The most important thing you can do as a teacher is follow up, answer questions, Q &A. Like this is not new. Flip classroom. Let the student watch the curriculum for the first time via video, whether it's your video or somebody on YouTube, let them watch the content, take notes. And when they come into class, you answer quite, you do the homework in class, you answer the questions, you figure out where they have the gaps and then build that. And like, that's one of the things that fell in my dissertation. I was like, this is incredible. Why are more teachers, why is flip learning such a novelty?

Lucas Clarke (23:53.022)
Yep.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (24:02.752)
and not more common than it is. If research shows we're wasting a lot of time in class thinking that, I don't know, we need that. I say that not only teachers need the approval, but it's almost like we've gotten in the habit of this is how teaching works. You stand in front of the class, you talk for a little while, they take notes and then they go home and they hope it connected. That's how I taught for years, you know? And it's like, once I started teaching some college classes, I was like, hey guys, watch this. What I did, this is how I did almost every college class I taught.

Lucas Clarke (24:21.921)
Yeah,

Dr. Tyler Tarver (24:32.673)
I did flip classroom. would say, hey, watch this video. You take notes on each of the parts of the video. And then I would create a Google slide that had nothing. It was just a blank Google slide. They all had access to edit. And then I would say, everybody fill in, we're all gonna present on this when you come into class. And as soon as we start a class, any questions, answer a couple of questions. All right, here we go. And we take turns going down and the students would be the ones presenting on what I sent them. Like I literally,

It looks, think too many teachers view that as like lazy if you like take the back seat. But one of my favorite quotes in education is, whoever's doing the work is doing the learning. So I put the work on the students. You watch the video, you take notes, you present to the class. You know what a good motivator is for students? Not looking dumb in front of their peers. If you have to present in front of your peers, you don't want to look like, I don't know, didn't watch it. It's not cute. It's not funny. All right. So it's a great motivator.

Lucas Clarke (25:10.392)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (25:19.725)
Yeah

Dr. Tyler Tarver (25:29.43)
And does it work every time? No, there's some kids that don't, whatever. You handle those situations as part of being a teacher as well. know, nothing's perfect or else that person who wrote that book is a multimillionaire. And so it's like, it's all these different levels of it. I love throwing it on the students. Watch the video, take notes, get in the group presentation and then y'all present. And then after each slide, I would ask them questions. If they couldn't answer, guess what? The rest of the class watched the same video. I'd ask them questions. You are there to fill in the gaps because them students ain't gonna teach as good as you. You're amazing.

You know what I mean? So what you do is you fill in the gaps as the expert in the content. I'm sorry I'm yelling. I'm just very passionate about putting the work on the students. Let's go!

Lucas Clarke (26:03.563)
No, I love it. Please yell, please yell. Yeah. And well, I think it's funny because it's pretty common knowledge that the classic for trying to calm a classroom down is, well, I already know this stuff and you guys don't. It's like, okay, let them make the mistake and figure it out and then be there to help them up kind of when they fall, to kind of add a cheesy spin onto the screaming, the passionate screaming from Dr. Tyler Tarver. yeah, like I don't, because even this literally two days ago, I got evaluated and I...

planned the lesson, did the thing, taught my ELA class on like writer identity and all this and I sat with the principal after and like the way we evaluate is dependent on your ability to kind of do that classic, can you control and present from the front of the room and so I do think we're starting to reach a point where we're realizing that doesn't work quite as much and especially as someone like yourself that's kind of in one of these

positions of like administrating and administering and higher learning. How would you, I guess, how would you evaluate yourself? Like teaching that college class, what would you look for differently in a way a teacher should be engaging with their students to try to like add some of this difference to our pedagogical methods?

Dr. Tyler Tarver (27:26.446)
The thing that I, if I was evaluating myself teaching that college class, was like marketing for entrepreneurs. I like doing the flip classroom and I think that was great. Personally, I would have added in more ways for the students to show their learning. So, and I know it makes it harder on the teacher cause you're like, you're watching a video here and you're reading an essay here and you're doing this here. I think so many students process and then show that learning in different ways. And so I would have probably added in more

Lucas Clarke (27:33.539)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (27:42.659)
Mm. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (27:54.988)
And I did at the end, had like one project where they would have to build it out. And I did give some parameters with that rubric, but I just love freedom and allowing students to show how they like, cool. We just got done with this lesson on, you know, Ben Franklin. All right, cool. Make three TikToks explaining the life of Ben Franklin. I think that would be dope. And I would enjoy watching that. And then I would put that into a repertoire of things that I could give to the students for years. And so instead of me being like, here's a YouTube video from, you know,

Lucas Clarke (28:00.248)
Yep.

Lucas Clarke (28:17.57)
Yeah

Dr. Tyler Tarver (28:23.01)
blah, blah, blah, that they don't know and have never met. That would be cool to have a YouTube playlist of three or four videos teaching them something that they have to watch that were done by students that are two or three years older than them or by somebody who's in class as older brother. Like how cool would that be to have the students teaching the students, right? I just, I love that aspect of creating and allowing students to create, cause you're not gonna like hand out 12 essays. Here's a 12 good essays. Read these papers from previous years. No, like.

Lucas Clarke (28:26.243)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (28:34.583)
Hmm.

Yeah, that was cool. Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (28:51.316)
Watching a video though, that is a huge way that students can learn and grow. And so I just love having students create those videos and then learning for years based on those videos.

Lucas Clarke (28:54.861)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (29:00.065)
Yeah, even for like when I all my old high school students would tell me I definitely never shied away from the classic crash course video for John Green. We had 90 minute periods. So I mean, you had to find something to try and I guess like break up the blocks. And I would always play one probably probably two or three a week, probably in a five day cycle. But and. But having them actually.

maybe make like a one minute TikTok on like, like a summary of this crash course video, kind of getting them to kind of do their own thing where it's the product because a 20 minute video feels so daunting. Like I know like, I mean, we're already half an hour in here. That goes by a lot faster when you're kind of not necessarily planned. But I think when you say like, Oh, make a one minute TikTok, I think that can actually

Like I forced them in another way to not look like an idiot in front of peers. Like they have to kind of put it out there and you know you're gonna show it. Like I had the students create like a 15 minute presentation on, I can't remember what it was. It was like a year end replacement for like a unit test for like nationalism. I can't even remember what it was. Internationalism. And I remember just watching them. was like, it's like three hours.

of me that now I have to watch all these presentations and I like I walk I looked through them but like realistically how much of them that I actually watch was like, this is pretty good. I'll give I'll give you a good mark here. But like, being able to actually have them build the skill of making it more concise and putting it into those one minute blocks could actually be a pretty solid method to to spice it up.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (30:35.726)
Well, you could also use AI now. Just have it like on YouTube, upload it to YouTube, and then you take the transcript, you drop it in and just say, hey, here's my rubric, grade this. And then you could even say like, what are the timestamps of things I need to go back and rewatch? So like help it, have it like filter a 20 minute video and tell you the three or four minutes you need to go back and watch based on like the main points of what they're talking about.

Lucas Clarke (30:58.563)
Okay, so that's a wonderful segue into the next part here, because I know you've done a lot of work with teaching teachers about AI, and by no means do I want you to kind give away the crown jewels here of kind of the secret spice of your courses, but like, even for myself, like I use Magic School AI, do some planning, kind of generate ideas for the most part, I need a quick worksheet for something that's mostly what I'll do, I guess what are teachers missing if they're...

not using it and how are they misusing it in your experience?

Dr. Tyler Tarver (31:32.088)
So, great, great. The biggest issue that I have with teachers and AI is that they just view it as a way for kids to cheat. I think that, yes, it is a way for kids to cheat. You know what else is a way for kids to cheat? Having a neck, because they can look around and see on another student's paper. Okay, cheating's been around, not, it ain't get invented with AI. Like, it's just a new tool they can use, they can help them cheat. And so I think, one, we need to start incorporating it into the classroom.

Lucas Clarke (31:41.229)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (31:59.918)
start doing assignments as if students are using chat GPT. Cause really all you're doing is filtering out the honest ones. You know what I mean? Like, because there's not a great way to catch people cheating. And I saw this interview someone was giving and they said, we need to incorporate it like we incorporated the calculator. And so I think, you know, I taught high school math matrices. And you remember your matrices, you know I'm talking about? Oh, good, good. Forget them forever. People always think of the matrix of the movie, but in matrices, you're essentially trying to like,

Lucas Clarke (32:06.242)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (32:20.163)
Nope.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (32:26.72)
eliminate through like substitution or distribution like you're trying to do things to where you like figure out you know the commonalities between these two chunks of numbers and I remember I would teach for like a day and a half and it would be like showing them how to do it and like one problem would take up a page and a half it was like working this huge like clue jigsaw puzzle you know what I mean and like wasn't mr. white in the in the living room with the candlestick like you're trying to like work your way down and eliminate it and I remember I would teach it to these students these 10th graders

for a day and a half and it would take up a page and a half. And then I'd be like, all right guys, does everybody feel good? I feel like I move on. Yeah. Now I want to show you another way to solve matrices. And they get out their calculator, TI-83 calculator. They type it in and it would give them the answer in like two seconds. And they would always be like, why did we have to learn? I was like, because we needed that. You needed to have that even though you'll never do that. One, you'll never do matrices again in the rest of your life unless it's for the ACT. And so it's like, now I'm showing them

Lucas Clarke (33:11.487)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (33:23.171)
Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (33:25.07)
Like we got to figure out as educators, it's not we just need to teach them the long way and that's all we need to teach them. We need to teach them both and we have to figure out that's part of the challenge we're going to have as educators is what is necessary for students to learn and what is not. We never broke out an abacus and that was called an abacus. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, we like the little sliding things that looks like you're keeping score and foosball like you would do that. I didn't learn that. My students never learned that because we moved on from there.

Lucas Clarke (33:42.933)
No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (33:54.05)
We learned with calculator, we learned by hand on paper and we learned with calculators. We have to figure out how to use AI and adapt it for students and figure out what do they need to learn the long way? What do they need to learn the short way? And what do they need to learn both? And that's gonna be a big part of what we're doing in education going forward. And so one of my big things I talk to teachers about is if you think it's just for cheating, you're missing out on helping your students learn better.

There are so many ways you can tie it in, make it personalized to them as an educator. One of my favorite prompts is we're trying to learn about the American Revolution. Sorry for bringing it up. We're trying to learn about the American Revolution. Here's the information I want to learn. My student knows a lot about blank and you let the students pick anything they know about. They know about the TV show, The Office. They know about, you know, whatever Seinfeld or NBA basketball.

Lucas Clarke (34:31.888)
yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (34:48.748)
and they can put that in there and then it'll tie in those two things. It will relate something you're trying to teach them to something they already know and it helps them learn better. It ties it in with something that we all know learning is best when you can tie it into previous learning. Whether ideally it's previously learned, previous learning on that subject, but at worst, why not tie it into something they know about that's not related as long as they are learning. And that's an easy, easy prompt they can do with students. The other thing is AI could save teachers

Lucas Clarke (34:54.275)
Hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (35:18.456)
two to ten hours of their own time every week and honestly, it'll probably be better. You're saying AI is going to do it better than I would by myself? No, I'm saying you plus AI is going to be better than either of you by yourself. You plus AI is better than just you. You play it plus AI is better than just AI. You are collaborating with a tool that has almost infinite knowledge.

Lucas Clarke (35:22.658)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (35:45.856)
and can adapt and weave based on your preferences and the outcomes you want. My main thing to teachers is start using AI to save yourself time and help you teach even better. Not teach better, teach even better than you already teach. It is a companion. The phrase is, it is a assistant, not a replacement. And so that's what I always try to preach to teachers is let's see how we can use this.

to do things better and easier, save your time so you can focus on students even more.

Lucas Clarke (36:17.539)
Yeah. And so what have you heard about like AI tutors? Like have you even explored that kind of rabbit hole at all? Because I have heard about it. And again, I still think even for myself, I think I would use it for like generalized writing feedback for the most part. I think that would be my main one. And I think for myself, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong here on like what I'm trying to or intending on using it for. Because I love what you're saying about

It's an assistant. You should not see it as replacing you. I guess even for yourself, if you had to go back to your math classroom right now, how would you have readjusted or like used it to enhance what you were doing?

Dr. Tyler Tarver (37:02.542)
Yeah, so math is a little harder. I think it's getting better with math too, but honestly, I'll give you an example. So the other day, my oldest son, he's very smart and he came home and he wanted me to help him study for something. honestly, I think it was like something of science and I'm not gonna lie, science is boo boo to me. I just don't, I never got super into it. I see its value. I love that it exists. I'm glad I don't have to work with it every day. And so it was something that I wasn't, and like I would have had to do like 30 minutes of reading just to be able to quiz him and bounce back and forth.

Lucas Clarke (37:04.771)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (37:18.179)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (37:32.63)
And so was like, well, do you have something that you're trying to say? He's like, yeah, they gave us these like three pages of information. I said, okay, how about this? And so we got on Chagy P.T. and I said, pose yourself as an expert tutor. I'm trying to study for an exam I have coming up for my eighth grade science class. I'm going to give you the information. Can you quiz me on it until you feel like I'm knowledgeable about every area of these things?

and keep quizzing me until you feel like I'm good and help me move on. Like I posed it as the expert as the two, as what I wish I was in real life. And then I put a, you know, put a colon, colon's your best friend and Chad to BT colon. And then I copy pasted all the stuff that he was supposed to study. And it said, okay, sure. And it just started talking back and forth, asking him quite one question at a time. And if he got something, it would build on it. It's almost like an adaptive test that can help explain it to you. And I could even have gone in and said, Hey,

Lucas Clarke (38:25.251)
Okay.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (38:27.566)
I'm really into blank. Like he's into right now. He just got done watching the show 30 rock because I just got finished watching 30 rock. If there's any way to help relate it to the characters or situations in the show, let me know. And that would help me remember even better. And so it was like quizzing him and then adding in these personalized elements based on what he actually knew and liked. So that's, that's what I use whenever I would, if I was in the classroom, I would use that to have every student use it. And then I would be walking around as a human, helping them as well, answering questions.

Lucas Clarke (38:46.851)
Hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (38:55.96)
filling in them gaps in learning.

Lucas Clarke (38:58.435)
No, that's beautiful. Because I even think, like I kind of gave up pretty quick on trying to find like an effective, like what's the word I'm looking for? Like a way to catch if they used AI on an essay kind of thing. I was like, you know what? I'm never going to find something that actually works properly on here. But I didn't realize that you could actually have a talk back to you like that. I kind of thought it was just the individual prompts. So.

But in the context that I have seen, it's been talking about kind of like replacing teachers and the fear of that. And I know that's a pretty common fear. I don't see that happening whatsoever,

Dr. Tyler Tarver (39:33.832)
gosh, no. If the main job of a teacher was to just be like, here's some information. If that was the main job of teachers, yeah, it could replace us. But then also guess what? YouTube would have replaced us. The internet would have replaced us. AskJeeves.com would have replaced us. Or the radio would have replaced us. But you know what? If you gave a kid, hey, here's Chad GPT. It'll help you learn. Here's all the content. Go for it. Guess what's gonna happen? Two kids in the class, the little Hermione Grangers, they're gonna do it. They're gonna learn. They would learn if you gave them a PDF.

Lucas Clarke (39:44.503)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (39:59.427)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (40:02.754)
and they're gonna learn whatever it is you're trying to teach. But the rest of the class, they're gonna do absolutely nothing and they're gonna try to cheat and get the answers offline. And that way they could copy paste and then go on break. So the most important part of a teacher is guiding the social process of learning, not just giving them information.

Lucas Clarke (40:03.297)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (40:12.691)
No.

Lucas Clarke (40:19.267)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I totally agree, man. I, yeah. So for moving forward, and we kind of talked with a little bit before, and what do you think is still the case? Because I honestly, I find it impossible to kind of talk about teachers and teaching not in a general way. Like, I feel like we all feel like we're kind of fighting the same battle. But what do you think that

parents typically most commonly misunderstand. But what we're doing in our schools, like what comes to mind with that is like this belief that we are like teachers are kind of being lazy and using AI kind of what you're saying and like pushing like gender ideology that they've always kind of comes into play as like these narratives you hear online. So I guess like what do you think is the most common thing that they misunderstand, but what we're doing?

Dr. Tyler Tarver (41:12.59)
most common thing I found that parents misunderstand about teachers is that they're on their team. Whenever I had a parent that would call and you know you get a call from parent and someone have with a student class that act up or whatever and you try to handle it and they go home and the parent calls in let me tell you something Boa this is what I'd always do I'd say hey real quick before we get started are you here for your student are you here for your kid are you wanting the best out of them well yeah awesome guess what me too

Lucas Clarke (41:36.311)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (41:41.47)
I'm trying to get the best out of your student and help them be the best version of themselves they can be, along with every other kid in that class. We are on the same team. Let's figure this out together. You take it from me versus you to us versus the problem. What led to your child doing those things that got away from learning for themselves and for others? Like, how do we correct the problem? Not you fix me or I fix you or we fix you. We're working together.

Lucas Clarke (41:48.099)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (41:57.719)
Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (42:09.004)
And I think honestly, that just comes with clear communication. Too often these parents call because they're now, now it's just like triangle of parent versus student versus teacher. And we got to figure out who's most in the wrong. It's percentage. You know, it's like this scale, like, yes, could I have handled better as a teacher? Maybe, maybe so. Could the child have done something different? Yeah, absolutely. Like, how do we figure out how to solve that problem together? And then communicating that to the parents right off the bat and be like, Hey, just so you know, we're on the same team. Let's figure this out together.

Lucas Clarke (42:20.713)
Yep. Yep.

Lucas Clarke (42:26.147)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (42:37.411)
Yeah, I even remember to like teaching grade 12. I almost felt. Like weird contacting homes and like this person's like almost an adult. You know what I mean? So did you find ever like teaching higher grades like the higher the grade, the weirder you felt about contacting home? Was that ever like a barrier for you?

Dr. Tyler Tarver (42:58.862)
Yes, so I did teach high school and I also taught college. So college and high school is very different because the college you can't contact parents unless the student signs off on it. So a parent could walk up to you and be like, hey, how's my kid doing in class? I can tell them, you know, unless that student has signed off on something, releasing it to that parent. Even that parents like I pay the bills for this. I pay their tuition. I'm like, cool. Student needs to sign off that I can talk to you. You know what I mean? And so it's different in it. Yeah, it's a rule here in the States, if you will.

Lucas Clarke (43:21.143)
Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know that. Interesting.

Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (43:28.192)
and your younger brother who's down below. I don't know who was first, Canada, United States. Don't tell me, I'm just gonna assume. As a true American, I'm just gonna assume we were first. You know, I'm just kidding, I'm joking. I'm joking. sick! Thank you, thank you. So I think that with teaching older students, yes, it is a little weird because you do start viewing like 17, 18 years old, you start viewing them as adults. Like, hey, I feel like I can trust you and give you this information and you either do with it what you need.

Lucas Clarke (43:34.999)
Yeah, that's okay. You were.

Lucas Clarke (43:52.333)
Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (43:57.036)
you know, versus me as a parent of middle school kids, when the teachers or the coaches just communicate with the child, I'm like, they're 12. Like, tell me, I drive, I am their Uber driver. They can't get there without me. You know what I mean? And so it's weird going from junior high, school to, you know, high school, because it's like, we do start viewing them as adults that can handle their business. You know what I mean? And so it's like, they can handle this. They can go here, they can drive here. And so it is a little weird. And so honestly, what I did as an educator was like,

Lucas Clarke (44:06.029)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (44:18.754)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (44:27.106)
The older the kid, the more the situation would have to escalate for me to have to call a parent. You know what I mean? I always think it's best to communicate with parents frequent and often, but also know how much of a time like just takes up a lot of time contacting parents, especially if they want to chat back and forth. And so it just depended on the situation. But, you know, and also depend on the student, you know, if I had report with the parents, I could call less, you know, because they trusted me. If I didn't have the report with the parents, I needed to call more, even if they're 11th 12th grader.

Lucas Clarke (44:33.089)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (44:39.928)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (44:46.882)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (44:55.542)
you have to judge that, you know, with the quote about no significant learning occurs with a significant relationship. I apply that to adults as well. Adult, a parent is not gonna wanna hear from me unless I have a good relationship with them. And so it's like, ooh, one of the tips that I used to do when I was a principal, I did our morning announcements through video and I put it on YouTube and all the parents could watch the announcements. Cause guess what? Spoiler alert, dim kids ain't taking no information home. Parents didn't know when anything was happening.

Lucas Clarke (45:04.076)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (45:16.258)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (45:21.502)
Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (45:23.542)
And what was cool was I had a young lady and she was a sixth grader and she, you know, I told the parents at open house. I was like, Hey guys, here's, know, here's the announcement video. Here's our YouTube channel. We'll be posting announcements. I'll record it. I'll bring students in. I'll interview them. And, know, just like five, 10 minutes joking around and you know, giving announcements. I had this young lady as a student in our building and she was great kid, but then she, you know, acted up and it was like, you know, four months into school. Okay. So I have not seen these parents since then, but they had to come in to pick her up and take her home because she got in trouble.

Lucas Clarke (45:36.515)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (45:53.954)
They walk into my office and you know, whenever a student gets in trouble and you're a principal and the parents walk in, they're very apprehensive. They're like, did my kid really do this or you being unfair? You know what I mean? Like they're always, you know, they got a good relationship with their kids hopefully. And so they're going to have their back. That's great. I get that. These parents walked in and they were just like, my gosh, what did she do now? My goodness gracious. Yeah. They, they already like assumed I was doing the right thing and giving her this punishment. And it's like, and they said, and I was like,

Lucas Clarke (46:03.191)
Yeah. Yep.

Lucas Clarke (46:17.699)
Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (46:23.19)
We've only met each other once. You know, how, why do you trust me like this? And they were like, we watch, we watch your videos all the time. We watch every morning. We watch those announcements. We know you wouldn't send her unless it was a big issue. Like you can, we would talk about with students being able to learn and connect with people through YouTube videos. Adults do the same thing. The reason that kid is so connected to that vlogger they watch every day is because that person shows their personality and they trust them through video. Adults can do the same thing. Giving adults access to those,

Lucas Clarke (46:25.013)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (46:35.01)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (46:48.376)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (46:52.558)
those announcements and letting them see you and your personality, they're gonna grow closer to you as a person so that it's gonna alleviate one, the time of having to call and build a relationship, because that's weird, you're like calling the parents and be like, hey, nothing's wrong, I just wanna chat, how are you? Tell me about yourself, you know what I mean? That's a little weird. And so it's like a chance for them to see your personality through video so that it narrows that gap in helping students whenever you have to build that rapport with parents.

Lucas Clarke (47:02.657)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Lucas Clarke (47:14.754)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (47:19.735)
And I feel like that's almost a potentially even surprising benefit of having like a, an online, profile like, like yourself. And I guess even myself as a, the last few years have gone of like, people can start to actually get a sense of who you are without actually kind of going through, which can also be kind of weird. Like if they're coming in kind of knowing you, but you have no idea who they are. Like, I don't know what we're doing here, but like they might make some like odd reference, but, so to kind of, we've talked a lot about like the modern classrooms.

classroom stuff. even for myself, I'm likely going to be returning back to a classroom teacher role next year. And I still feel this, like, this, the sense that I'm gonna go back and I'm still going to teach from the front of the room, and like, and do the discussion stuff. And I guess, I don't know, maybe maybe I'll figure out different ways to kind of add more video and stuff. And my wife and I are having our first kid soon. So it would be nice to kind of not, thank you, but it'd be nice to not have to.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (48:15.342)
Congratulations.

Lucas Clarke (48:18.625)
I guess, expand so much of the unnecessary performative energy that like teachers do every day, which I think is one of the underrated parts of what makes it so exhausting. to kind of get toward wrapping this up here, like if you were asked, like what springs to mind when you think of educational best practices? So this is something that came up with myself recently where like I ran an activity.

And like, had a lot of like movement with the students are kind of going from station to station and doing discussion and like, I had good feedback on it, that was trying to, I guess, add to my legend status here. Well, like I was told that this is like a, like that is best practice, like having the students move to be engaged. So like, I guess what comes to mind for you when you think of like an educational best practice.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (49:12.302)
One of the most underrated educational best practices that I've found through the years is open communication with the students. You said earlier that you got feedback from them. That means you asked their opinion. And so students are gonna tell you like, oh yeah, I like the vibe or I like the way that worked or I get it, I got a good grade, but I didn't learn that much. When I first started teaching, one of the, I figured out a way, there's a game called Trash Kitball. I don't know if you ever played it, but it's like,

Lucas Clarke (49:34.946)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (49:40.085)
No.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (49:40.428)
you have a competition and then if you get a question right, they all race to do the question and then you get to shoot a piece of trash into the trash can to get points for your team. And so I did that for math because math, can do problems. And so it worked really well for that. And I had figured out a way where every student was all answered. It was essentially a review, but there was a competition involved, you know, to make students try to compete and try to learn and try to get faster and get better. And so I loved it and it was great. And the kids loved it. It was their favorite thing.

Lucas Clarke (49:49.272)
okay.

Lucas Clarke (49:53.635)
Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (50:08.878)
And then after like, I don't know, a couple months, I actually had a student go, Hey, can we not do trash kebal? I'm kind of burned out. Like I was like, Oh my gosh, but you guys loved it. They're like, yeah, but it's like, it's like, if you eat pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for six months, at some point you're going to get sick of pizza. And I was saying, and so I'm like this open communication with students where at the end of each lesson or at end of each class, if you just did like a two to three minute recap, like, guys,

Lucas Clarke (50:16.771)
I'm burnt out. Yeah. Yes.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (50:36.152)
You know, let's sit down and let's talk. What did you like about this lesson? What did you not like? Where did you learn? I feel like you learned. Where did you, where did it fall short? And then you take notes and you're always best practices are constantly improving and evolving. And even when that means like I've improved and evolved to where this class, I know how they learn. know what they like. I know how that this connects with them. Even with the perfect lesson for that class, they can get burned out on it. They can get tired of it and they need to mix it up. So

Lucas Clarke (50:38.709)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (50:48.535)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (51:05.066)
One of the best practices I've found is to constantly be willing to adapt, modify and adjust. That's a phrase we always say in education. How do we learn and grow and get opinions of the people in the room, our constituents, the kids we're trying to teach? And then how do we make it better? So often as educators and even as, I mean, just as adults, we're scared to get the opinions because it'll hurt our feelings. Guess what? As somebody who's made YouTube videos for 17 years, kids gonna be hurting your feelings in them comments. You know what I mean? Like it's gonna happen, but...

Lucas Clarke (51:11.457)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (51:31.309)
Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (51:34.52)
Through that, it's helping you see areas you can improve and also areas you're like, nah, man, that kid's wrong. I'm awesome in that. You know what I mean? It's like either strengthens your resolve or helps you learn to adapt and get better. And so I think that's one of most underrated practices educators can do is get feedback from those that they serve.

Lucas Clarke (51:53.911)
It's hilarious that you say that because like the two activities that I kind of planned for my evaluation The first time I did them with my high school classes, they loved it and I did it like two more times in that month They're like, okay Clark like we got it. We got to wrap this up I'm getting I'm getting tired of this walking around the room to adapt it and I'm just like, alright, that's fine I'll just go cry about it later. It's all good but

Dr. Tyler Tarver (52:13.718)
Yeah, now I was thinking I always think of that quote in Jamaica ever seen Jumanji Yeah, and there's like there's about to be a monsoon and the quote I always think is they say One of the kids goes well a little rain never hurt anybody and Rob Williams goes but too much will kill you You know what? mean, like that's it. We're like a little bit. It's okay, but too much is bad You know what? I mean? Yeah

Lucas Clarke (52:18.859)
Yes.

Lucas Clarke (52:30.231)
Yeah

Yeah, too much will kill you. Beautiful. Okay, so to finish up, I have two quotes that I always have to wrap up with my guests here to get your response. And the first one is do not let school get in the way of your education. So I guess what do you think that you've learned throughout your life, maybe from teachers, maybe from other people that has led you to become successful in your, I guess, chosen domain and in life?

Dr. Tyler Tarver (53:02.274)
Ooh, wow. What have I done that has led me to be successful in my arenas? Honestly, is that kind of what you're saying? Sorry.

Lucas Clarke (53:10.465)
Well, it's like, what are the things that you would have learned not in a classroom that have helped you?

Dr. Tyler Tarver (53:14.606)
Oh, stuff I'd learned outside of the classroom. Failure's okay. Failure is not fine. I literally made it a chapter of my book. It's like one thing in school that we think of students is like, if I get an F, that's the end of the world. You know, like if I fail this test, you're always like, you see it as this huge negative. if you're in a class, granted, you don't want to fail the whole class and repeat it. I get it. But I mean, if you fail a quiz, guess what you're going to do? One, if you want a good grade, you're going to work harder to help bring that grade up.

Lucas Clarke (53:26.787)
Yeah.

Lucas Clarke (53:33.259)
Yeah.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (53:43.79)
If I make a mistake in real life, I don't have to see it as like, my gosh, I'm a failure. I see it as like, oh my gosh, this is an area I need to improve. And I work harder to fix it. If I'd have gotten an A, I'm not working any harder. Cool, what I did last time worked. You know what I mean? I can coast. I'm gonna do, like we as humans are naturally going to like, we're gonna resort back to like the lowest level of resistance. And so it's like the failures, the mess ups, the...

Lucas Clarke (53:48.867)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (53:57.111)
Yep. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (54:10.072)
posting a YouTube video and it gets 20 views, you're like, my gosh, this was not the move. I need to get better either as a speaker or presenter, as a creator. Like I need to make something that resonates more because I want to make the biggest impact possible. One of the things that I learned outside of the classroom is failure is not final. Failure, small failures can lead to huge wins.

Lucas Clarke (54:33.123)
Beautiful. And so the last one kind of touches on how we opened up a little bit with the cheesy statement for the students, but it is education is what remains once one forgets everything that they learned in school. So I guess, what is it that you want students to take away from their time with you, or even adults now from their time with you?

that they won't get anywhere else. I'll already say I'm loving the positive energy from you. You're always going, you're, I'm loving your positive, passionate rants about education. That's something I'm taking from you that I'm trying to instill in myself already.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (55:13.294)
That's awesome. So when I think of the impact and how I people to feel, whether it's teaching teachers or if I'm working with students, I think back to my ninth grade algebra class that I had to teach. I was going to teach honors algebra two. In the last minute, my principal's like, you're going to have two algebra one classes. I'm like, okay, here we go. And so whenever I was in there, I remember I had these students and these are students that were traditionally not doing well at math. And I remember my students would always be like, well, I'm bad at math.

Lucas Clarke (55:27.917)
Yeah

Lucas Clarke (55:38.872)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (55:41.462)
Like when they mess up or when I'm trying to teach them something, like I can't get, I'm bad at this. We've all felt that way. We're all be like, I'm bad at this. I'm not good at this. I would remind the students, I was like, you're not bad at anything. You're always getting better. Yes, some of us are a little further along on the scale if we're doing tests or rankings or assessments, but nobody's bad at anything. You're always getting better. And I think that having that mentality when working with teachers, when working with students,

Lucas Clarke (55:41.975)
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Clarke (55:45.251)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (56:09.312)
I call it never stop learning. Like whenever you are looking at these people, whether they're five years old or 55 years old, they have something they're trying to be great at or better at, you're not bad. There's not a barrier to you. You can get better. You can become what you want, whether it's for a job or for a class or for an exam, you can learn this. Don't put those barriers on yourself. You just have to figure out how to learn it. What is the way that connects with me?

that I can grow in this area.

Lucas Clarke (56:40.931)
don't put the barriers on yourself. And I couldn't have said it any better myself. I'm just thinking back to last year, we went on an Italy trip with my school and I was eating like a crazy amount of gelato as anyone should do when they go to Italy. And someone said, they're like, Clark, are you, like how many scoops is that today? I think it was like eight and it was like 4 p.m.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (56:51.56)
cool.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (56:57.247)
As you should.

Lucas Clarke (57:06.744)
And I was like, the only limits in life are the ones you put on yourself. That was my gelato reference, I guess. But anyway, Dr. Tyler Tarver, absolute pleasure having you on today,

Dr. Tyler Tarver (57:13.719)
I love it.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (57:19.874)
You know what? It was a blast being here and I really appreciate your time and effort and energy. You did not have to talk to me today and you did. I appreciate that.

Lucas Clarke (57:26.864)
I want to and it won't be the last time I don't think anyway. Thank you my friend.

Dr. Tyler Tarver (57:30.518)
Let's go. Thank you so much.