Learning Experience Design

The Case for Prioritizing Play in Kindergarten [Swartz]

On 09/14/2026, in education, education reform, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, play, relationships, student-related, teachers, Uncategorized, United States, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

The Case for Prioritizing Play in Kindergarten — from the74million.org by Mark Swartz
Laura Bornfreund on how schools, families and policymakers can transform kindergarten to better support young children.

In order for these years to lay a sturdy foundation for everything that follows, the kindergarten experience should prioritize play and relationship-building, including connections with peers and teachers. Over the years, however, kindergarten has become increasingly “schoolified,” according to Bornfreund…

The book laments the state of kindergarten today, where classroom experiences are overly scripted and funding is insufficient in many communities. At the same time, Bornfreund finds teachers who are providing meaningful experiences for young learners against the odds. In the conversation below, she shares her perspective on what a strong kindergarten experience looks like and offers insights on how schools, families and policymakers can reshape kindergarten to help children thrive.

Several items re: the changes needed within higher education

On 09/14/2026, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, culture, dangers of the status quo, entrepreneurship, expectations, experimentation, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, lifelong learning, new business models, reinvent, skills, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, teaching & learning, traditional / tradition, United States, universities, youth, by Daniel Christian

Below are several items that were either mentioned by Matt Tower or I came across them via offshoots of items that he linked to:

Future Universities Alliance Names Inaugural Innovation Sandbox Cohort — from provost.duke.edu
Program incubated by Duke brings together higher education innovators from 23 countries for year-long peer exchange

The Future Universities Alliance has selected 49 institutions from 23 countries for the inaugural cohort of its Innovation Sandbox, a 12-month peer learning program for higher education leaders advancing ambitious, institution-level innovation.The cohort brings together founders of new universities, administrators and faculty leading high-stakes changes within established institutions, and leaders of proven models exploring how their innovations can travel to new contexts. Participants were chosen through a competitive process that drew applicants from around the world in its inaugural year.

A makeover for college: No gym, no meal plan and two years of work — from npr.org by Jon Marcus

An entirely new college is being planned here to change not only how higher education is delivered, but at what price. It also proposes to highlight ways the current business model no longer works, as evidenced by the 152 colleges and universities that have closed or merged since 2016, and the 442 others that a new projection says are at risk.

So deeply entrenched are the problems confronting higher education that a growing chorus of innovators says the easiest way to fix them is to begin again from scratch.

All undergraduates should get work-based learning, v-cs say — from timeshighereducation.com by Jack Grove. NOTE: this item is behind a paywall.
Bold plan to support graduate employment would require placements for 1.4 million students annually

The Checklist That Didn’t Exist: A Field Guide to Cutting Extraneous Load [Mervine Kiser]

On 09/14/2026, in adult learning, communities of practice, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, ideas, instructional design, learning, Learning Experience Design, learning theories, memory, productivity / tips and tricks, training / L&D, by Daniel Christian

The Checklist That Didn’t Exist: A Field Guide to Cutting Extraneous Load — from learningguild.com by Cally Mervine Kiser

If the content is fine, what else could be getting in the way?

The answer, it turns out, has been sitting in educational psychology research for decades. Working memory is finite. When learners engage with training, they are managing three competing cognitive demands simultaneously:

The complexity of the subject matter
The effortful processing that builds understanding
The mental effort generated by how the content is presented, independent of the content itself

That third one is called extraneous cognitive load, and it is the one we almost never explicitly design against. We design for accuracy. We design for alignment. We design for engagement, or at least what we hope will feel like engagement. We almost never sit down and ask, “How much unnecessary mental effort is this design generating, and how do we reduce it?”

When Learning Feels Like a Vulnerability [Hall]

On 09/14/2026, in adult learning, business, career development, change, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Emotion, ideas, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, training / L&D, vendors, by Daniel Christian

When Learning Feels Like a Vulnerability — from learningguild.com by George Hall

Why do some adult learners interpret training as a judgment about their competence, status, or identity?

Learning and development professionals often focus on content, platforms, courses, tools, and performance support. Those matter. But they are not enough. Learning is never just cognitive. It is also emotional and social.

A new skill can feel like evidence that old competence is no longer enough. Feedback can feel like judgment. A new model can feel like criticism of past practice. A request to change can feel like a loss of face.

It means learning can feel personally exposing. Adult learners do not only receive training. They interpret what needing training seems to say about their competence, status, identity, and future value. That interpretation can either open learning or shut it down.

MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training — from aiandeducation.mit.edu

However, what we learned as a group quickly convinced us that the Institute community, particularly the faculty, must tackle a set of deeper questions about the structure, meaning, and value of an MIT education in an era in which AI is one of several factors complicating the Institute’s mission.
…

In this report, we:

Highlight key aspects of the current educational landscape at MIT.
Share eight principles we relied on and that we hope will guide the Institute in the work ahead.
Recommend immediate and long-term actions for both instructors and the administration.

On somewhat related notes:

Your AI Teaching Toolkit — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan
11 prompts to save time and spark ideas
AI Should Accelerate How We Learn About Learning (Rajen Sheth, Kyron Learning) — from humanistxyz.substack.com by Allison Dulin Salisbury
“We shouldn’t have to wait years to find out if an approach works. We can test and learn in weeks.”

How a studio-based format transforms online teaching [via multiple authors from Cranfield University]

On 09/10/2026, in adjunct faculty, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, distance education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, instructional design, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, multimedia, online learning, online media, pedagogy, teaching & learning, tools, UK, universities, using teams, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

How a studio-based format transforms online teaching — from timeshighereducation.com by multiple authors from Cranfield University in England
Online teaching works best when teaching, facilitation and technical delivery are treated as complementary professional roles. Read guidance on studio-based delivery

Our experience of studio-based delivery suggests the need for a different approach. In this model, teaching is delivered as a live, facilitated learning experience in which academics focus on teaching and interaction, while facilitators and production staff manage interaction, session flow and technology.

Responsibilities are intentionally divided to enable more effective online pedagogy: academics concentrate on explaining concepts, facilitating discussion and responding to students while production staff manage the technical environment, transition between activities, recordings, multimedia integration, chat moderation, breakout rooms and troubleshooting, enabling a more engaging and authentic learning experience.

The most transferable lesson is that online teaching works best when teaching, facilitation and technical delivery are treated as complementary professional roles and when it is underpinned by pedagogical design.

‘You can’t just lecture students any more’ — from timeshighereducation.com by Debra Page
GenAI does not make lecturers redundant, but it does weaken one-way content delivery as a reason to bring students together, writes Debra Page. She shares four practical shifts to teaching in the age of AI

This does not make lecturers redundant; it makes one-way content delivery a weaker reason to bring students together. Expert explanation, intellectual storytelling and the modelling of disciplinary thinking still matter, but in-person teaching must also help students apply knowledge, question claims, build arguments and encounter perspectives beyond their own.

The problem is not lecturing; it is speaking for an hour and treating content coverage as evidence that learning has occurred.

These four practical shifts can make lectures more valuable in the age of AI.

“The Disappearing Bottom Rung in L&D” + “The AI Workflow Redesign Method: How the Top 6% of Users Get Real Returns from AI” [Hardman]

On 09/10/2026, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, ideas, instructional design, intelligent systems, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, youth, by Daniel Christian

The Disappearing Bottom Rung in L&D — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr Philippa Hardman
Junior roles are rapidly disappearing from L&D. Here’s the data + my hypothesis about why it’s happening

TL;DR: the bottom rung of L&D isn’t just narrowing — it’s being automated. The humans who remain move up the ladder, and the profession re-forms around a new set of AI and domain specialisms.
…
Is AI responsible for reshaping knowledge work, including L&D? My hypothesis is a resounding YES, primarily because of what I see in L&D job ads in 2026…

…..

The AI Workflow Redesign Method: How the Top 6% of Users Get Real Returns from AI— from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr Philippa Hardman
A practical three-step method to redesign your workflow & get ~2X value from AI

One pattern I see emerging from that research is this: the people getting the most value from AI aren’t the ones using it most, or the ones with the most advanced technical skills: they’re the ones who redesigned their day to day workflows around AI’s capabilities.
…

How to Redesign a Workflow in Three Steps
In my bootcamp we use a task-mapping process that distils workflow redesign down to three steps: map the work, tag each task by the impact you want AI to have, then validate whether what you want is possible.

Three steps get you to a plan: two or three tasks worth building, each with a written standard. Turning that plan into a redesign takes two more moves, which I’ll cover after the steps. I’m flagging that now because the moves are the bit most people skip, and they’re where the redesign actually happens.

Here’s a how to for each step:

College Is an Expensive Career Exploration Tool. Here’s an Alternative. [O’Donnell & Dulin Salisbury]

On 09/01/2026, in career development, colleges, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, education, education reform, higher education, ideas, K-12 related, Learning Experience Design, morals/values, more voice more choice more control, passions, student-related, United States, universities, youth, by Daniel Christian

College Is an Expensive Career Exploration Tool. Here’s an Alternative. — from humanistxyz.substack.com by Patrick O’Donnell and Allison Dulin Salisbury
“Young people know that sitting in a classroom for twelve years isn’t going to show them how to find a job, let alone a career they love.”

This interview is part of a series on AI, high school, and the Experience Gap. Our report, Closing the Experience Gap, makes the case for a high-school model in which at least 50 percent of formal learning is experience-based.

College is an expensive career exploration tool. It is also poorly designed for the job.

Patrick O’Donnell tells the story of a student who entered a four-year nursing program certain she wanted to become a nurse. Once enrolled, she discovered that the work was a poor fit. Earlier immersion in healthcare, she told him, would have moved that discovery forward by several years. Now she needed to transfer to a community college and remap her plans.

Her predicament is familiar. We ask teenagers to choose a college and course of study with little direct knowledge of the work on the other side. Many spend their first years of college trying to answer a question high school gave them few opportunities to explore: What kind of work fits me?

From DSC:
College is an expensive career exploration tool. It is also poorly designed for the job.

This assertion resonated with me instantly — and I agree with it 100%. As a bit of background as to why I say this…I thought that I was going to be a doctor all through K-12 and even in my first year at college. But then I got to about halfway through my fall semester in my sophomore year, and I dropped out of pre-med. It was the best decision of my life.

But then what?

I had very little idea of what I wanted to do in the future or what my skills, interests, passions, and abilities were. K-12 and college offered next to nothing in terms of career preparation back in that period of time. It wasn’t until my late 20’s that I even began to get a clue on what’s all out there. What were my choices and what was a good fit for me? What did I enjoy doing and what did I not enjoy doing?

So I agree completely…college is an expensive career exploration tool/setting. But I’m glad to see more and better options these days within K-12. Colleges could do much better.

Links:

Course design for a new age — from timeshighereducation.com by Campus contributors , Laura Duckett
Learn how to design courses that respond to the evolving needs of both students and employers

At a time when the value of a degree is being called into question, many argue that teaching subject knowledge is no longer enough. University courses must be flexible and embed work training and skills development to serve today’s students. This collection of resources is a guide to designing courses that respond to the evolving needs of both students and employers.

Teaching is a verb: what sets good teachers apart — from timeshighereducation.com by William J. Owen
Reflection is what moves teaching beyond performance and towards continuous improvement, writes William Owen

What sets good teachers apart is their willingness to continually reflect, learn and grow alongside their students. Great teaching is not a destination, it is an ongoing practice of curiosity, humility and intentionality. And perhaps that is what makes it so challenging and so rewarding.

How to set your students up to write compelling op-eds — from timeshighereducation.com by Arafat Reza and Shahariar Sadat
Help students develop their writing and refine their arguments by publishing opinion pieces. Find advice for supporting student writers here

Academics are ideally placed to bridge this gap. Beyond teaching disciplinary knowledge, they can help students develop the confidence and practical skills needed to engage in public discourse. Here, we discuss practical ways in which academics can encourage students to write op-eds that inform people, influence law and policymaking, and inspire positive change in society. Plus, find five tips for teaching students to write compelling arguments.

Rethinking course design to enliven student engagement — from timeshighereducation.com by
To foster students’ meaningful learning, educators should be using class time to maximise the benefits of the in-person experience, as Nasreen Sultana explains

We landed on four practical strategies to make learning more interactive, relevant and student-centred. Although developed in a management classroom, these tips can be adapted across disciplines.

Tips for teachers from edutopia.org

On 08/25/2026, in education, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, pedagogy, productivity / tips and tricks, reading, research, science, skills, student-related, teachers, writing, youth, by Daniel Christian

Exceptional Videos of Authors Reading Their Books Aloud for Young Students — from edutopia.org by Kristin Rydholm
These 14 books can help teachers celebrate student writing by weaving literacy and social and emotional learning into the school day.

This classroom scenario is an example of how finishing a piece of writing is a dual celebration—an ending and a beginning. A published piece of writing means crossing a finish line as the culminating event within the writing process, but it is also a starting line, where a story begins a journey of its own—being read, seen, heard, and shared by others.

Who better to assist with modeling these transitional and celebratory moments than 14 professional authors of picture books?

Where to start
Featured below are links to exceptional authors and author/illustrators reading their picture books. Watching these videos, a child can see and hear the diverse faces and voices of authors who have prioritized stories about kids like them.

4 Ways to Encourage Great Questions in the Science Classroom — from edutopia.org by Katie Budrow
Here’s how a middle school teacher guides students to proactively ask and answer questions like ‘why does that happen?’

Narrow, prescribed tasks are known as convergent tasks. Define the parts of a cell has a specific answer. Sometimes, convergent tasks make the most sense. But whenever possible, I prefer to use broader divergent tasks, which allow for multiple ways to approach the learning. Describe the different ways that cell parts can work together to form a system is an example of a divergent task.

Divergent tasks inherently drive more student questions, since the answers aren’t just one-and-done. Divergence promotes “deep thinking, requiring students to analyze and evaluate concepts,” according to a study on the subject. Students are not just trying to find the “best” answer—they’re working toward a more complex concept.

A First-Week Routine That Gets Middle School Students Thinking Like Scientists — from edutopia.org by Bexaida Buzzie
Here’s a day-by-day plan for guiding your students to start the year by asking questions. Just resist the urge to answer them.

I realized I was spending so much of my time going over my classroom rules that I forgot that the students were there to learn how to learn.

Once I took the pressure off myself, everything changed. Instead of focusing on perfection, I started to focus on curiosity and fun. Instead of cramming information and reaping frustration, I slowed down.

Here’s what my first five days look like, and how they build a foundation for scientific thinking.

15 Effective Ways to Manage Dysregulated Students — from edutopia.org by Andrew Boryga
Teachers are seeing more big emotions and disruptive behavior in early elementary classrooms. These practical strategies can help youngsters reflect, reset, and repair.

While many experts cite the pandemic’s role in creating skill deficiencies, it’s only a part of the story. Educators also point to major changes in the culture around child rearing, pointing to issues like rising screen time, less play, and fewer opportunities for face-to-face interaction—“developmental needs that no digital program, however sophisticated, can fully replicate,” writes elementary school teacher Cara Zelas.

Serious behavioral issues and developmental concerns require broad support from administrators, specialists, and families. But for everyday moments that derail lessons—a child melting down, refusing directions, or struggling to rejoin the group—many teachers find that simple practices, consistently applied, can help turn big feelings into moments of growth instead of lost instructional time.

“What does an AI-competent lawyer actually look like, in measurable skills, and can you build it before they sit for the bar?” [Kubicki]

On 08/24/2026, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, instructional design, intelligent systems, law schools, Learning Experience Design, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

It's 7 AM. In a few hours I walk into a room with 25 law students and nobody is going to open a slide deck.

They're going to open laptops and start building.

This is the fall semester at IU Maurer School of Law, and I teach generative AI the way I think it should be practiced:… pic.twitter.com/m0YwCGAja3

— Josh Kubicki (@jkubicki) August 20, 2026

We Keep Designing the Future from the Past — from LinkedIn.com by Monty Alger

“Using AI to create the practice opportunities online students need” [Miller Perkins] + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 08/19/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, business, career development, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, education, education technology, emerging technologies, Emotion, engineering, experimentation, faculty/staff, game-changing environment, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning spaces, liberal arts, mathematics, online learning, personalized/customized learning, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, UK, United States, universities, vendors, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Using AI to create the practice opportunities online students need— from timeshighereducation.com by Kathy Miller Perkins
For disciplines that depend on interpersonal skills such as communication, leadership, negotiation and mediation, AI can provide elusive experiential learning, particularly in asynchronous environments

What if AI’s greatest educational value lies not in generating answers but in generating experiences?

The result surprised me. Students did not simply interact with the AI, they meaningfully engaged with it. Many reported that the experience felt valuable precisely because the simulated conversation partner pushed back. Unlike classmates who sometimes hesitate to challenge one another, the AI consistently maintained its position. Students had to work harder, listen more carefully and apply the communication strategies they had spent weeks learning. And, importantly, they practised.

Here’s how to show students what responsible AI use looks like — from timeshighereducation.com by Andrew Firr and Alex Fenton
Well-designed assessments can highlight generative AI’s limitations, where it can provide support and what responsible practice looks like. Andrew Firr and Alex Fenton offer strategies

We have been exploring ways to offer this in our Level 7 module for MSc engineering management students, many of whom come from the Global South. Assessment is built around a practical design problem: students examine how a real campus process operates, where delays occur, evidence they observe and how a feasible redesign might improve the system – in a 3,000-word essay.

They can use AI for planning and providing clarity, but not for generating the evidence on which the analysis rests. Invented observations, measurements, screenshots or unverifiable citations are prohibited. The assessment design reinforces this through a case study, diagram, fact-checking exercise and a short AI use statement.

Requiring an AI use statement encourages students to reflect on their processes. We ask which tool they used, how they used it, how they checked the output and which parts of the work depended on their own evidence and judgement. It reminds them that evidence must be theirs and that citations must be manually verified.

Slow math: Kids may learn more when AI makes them review mistakes — from hechingerreport.org by Jill Barshay and Kristin Fasiang
A randomized experiment involved more than 6,000 Tennessee middle school students learning fractions

In an experiment involving more than 6,000 middle schoolers in Tennessee, students learned slightly more math when an AI tutor walked them through their mistakes and then required them to demonstrate the same skill correctly three times in a row before moving on.
…
The winning combination wasn’t the addition of AI tutoring alone, but AI tutoring plus repetition, with the idea that students needed to stick with the skill to demonstrate some level of mastery. The students who practiced math with this AI-enhanced “mastery learning” approach scored about 3 percentage points higher than students receiving conventional computerized instruction. The advantage was small.

I Built a Team of AI Bots That Write Feedback Better than Me. Here’s How. — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr Philippa Hardman
Aka, how to make learners love AI-assisted feedback, rather than loathe it.

This wasn’t hidden from the cohort. For reasons I’ll come to below, I always tell my cohorts at the very start that an AI assistant will be helping me draft their feedback. The aim wasn’t to remove me from the process, but to find out whether AI could help me to deliver feedback at a volume and quality that I simply couldn’t maintain without AI.

Spoiler: the experiment worked — but not for the reason I expected. In this post, I’ll share exactly what I built, tell you how to build a version for your course and reveal the three conditions that decide whether learners trust AI-assisted feedback or quietly stop reading it.

TL;DR: the spec for my feedback assistant is long not because the model needs persuading, but because it’s where my judgement lives. Every rule in it is a decision AI would otherwise make by itself, with limited expertise. A spec doesn’t make the model smarter — it makes expertise and judgement legible enough for the model to follow.

Of the five stages of AI grief, some managers are stuck in denial— from timeshighereducation.com by Shadi Mohamed
Acceptance is not surrender. It is about getting beyond a policing obsession and rethinking what assessment aims to measure, says Shadi Mohamed

In that moment of institutional blindness, it struck me: universities are not merely struggling with a technological adoption curve. They are grieving the demise of the modern university’s economic and institutional logic.

To understand the scale of this threat posed by AI, consider what the internet did to journalism. Newspapers thrived by bundling together classified advertising with quick news hits, sports scores and opinion columns, using that reliable revenue to fund the expensive social necessity of investigative reporting. The rise of internet advertising did not kill journalism outright but it shattered the bundle, leaving the expensive core product without its historical financial engine.

Universities operate on a similar logic, bundling content delivery, assessment, credentialling, research and professional formation. But generative AI is now commodifying the most visible parts of that package. When AI can deliver personalised explanations instantly and generate the essays and reports we use to measure student capability, the traditional degree loses its role in the labour market as a proxy for understanding. If the bundle breaks, the economic model that funds our deeper purposes is in peril.

Learning Ecosystems

The Checklist That Didn’t Exist: A Field Guide to Cutting Extraneous Load [Mervine Kiser]

When Learning Feels Like a Vulnerability [Hall]

How a studio-based format transforms online teaching [via multiple authors from Cranfield University]

Categories

Tags