Public schools do not work for everyone. But options have increased since 1922, when Oregon tried to ban private education. The Supreme Court shut down that scheme fast. But now, after more than 100 years, political insiders are rallying again to stop a new source of choice.
The target this time is microschooling, a Covid-era alternative that has outlasted the pandemic. Key players in the movement will gather May 8–9, 2025, at the International Microschools Conference in Washington, D.C. I will join them.
Most likely, I will meet educators running all kinds of programs in all kinds of community spaces. Microschools blur the lines between home, public, and private schooling—combining elements from all three models.
The result is a fourth category of schooling that hinges on flexibility. Some parents pool their resources and hire outside instructors. Other groups rotate teaching duties among themselves, gathering daily or perhaps only once or twice per week. These are the do-it-yourselfers. Professionals also get involved with standalone enterprises and national networks.
AI in K12: Today’s Breakthroughs and Tomorrow’s Possibilities (webinar) How AI is Transforming Classrooms Today and What’s Next
Audio-Based Learning 4.0— from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman A new & powerful way to leverage AI for learning?
At the end of all of this my reflection is that the research paints a pretty exciting picture – audio-based learning isn’t just effective, it’s got some unique superpowers when it comes to boosting comprehension, ramping up engagement, and delivering feedback that really connects with learners.
While audio has been massively under-used as a mode of learning, especially compared to video and text, we’re at an interesting turning point where AI tools are making it easier than ever to tap into audio’s potential as a pedagogical tool.
What’s super interesting is how the solid research backing audio’s effectiveness is and how well this is converging with these new AI capabilities.
From DSC: I’ve noticed that I don’t learn as well via audio-only based events. It can help if visuals are also provided, but I have to watch the cognitive loads. My processing can start to get overloaded — to the point that I have to close my eyes and just listen sometimes. But there are people I know who love to listen to audiobooks and prefer to learn that way. They can devour content and process/remember it all. Audio is a nice change of pace at times, but I prefer visuals and reading often times. It needs to be absolutely quiet if I’m tackling some new information/learning.
In Conversation With… Ashton Cousineau — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman A new video series exploring how L&D professionals are working with AI on the ground
In Conversation With… Ashton Cousineau by Dr Philippa Hardman
A new video series exploring how L&D professionals are working with AI on the ground
AI-Infused Learning Design – A structured approach to AI-enhanced assignments using a three-step model for AI integration.
Mathematical Dance and Creativity in STEAM – Using AI-powered motion capture to translate dance movements into mathematical models.
AI-Generated Instructional Videos – How adaptive AI-powered video learning enhances problem-solving and knowledge retention.
Immersive Language Learning with XR & AI – A new framework for integrating AI-driven conversational agents with Extended Reality (XR) for task-based language learning.
Decision-Making in Learning Design – A scoping review on how instructional designers navigate complex instructional choices and make data-driven decisions.
Interactive E-Books and Engagement – Examining the impact of interactive digital books on student motivation, comprehension, and cognitive engagement.
Elevating Practitioner Voices in Instructional Design – A new initiative to amplify instructional designers’ contributions to research and innovation.
Here’s a quick teaser of key developments in the world of AI & learning this month:
DeepSeek R-1, OpenAI’s Deep Seek & Perplexity’s ‘Deep Research’ are the latest additions to a growing number of “reasoning models” with interesting implications for evidence-based learning design & development.
The U.S. Education Dept release an AI Toolkit and a fresh policy roadmap enabling the adoption of AI use in schools.
Anthropic Release “Agentic Claude”, another AI agent that clicks, scrolls, and can even successfully complete e-learning courses…
Oxford University Announce the AIEOU Hub, a research-backed research lab to support research and implementation on AI in education.
“AI Agents Everywhere”: A Forbes peek at how agentic AI will handle the “boring bits” of classroom life.
[Bias klaxon!] Epiphany AI: My own research leads to the creation of a specialised, “pedagogy first” AI co-pilot for instructional design marking the continued growth of specialised AI tools designed for specific industries and workflows.
Through my work with leading educational institutions at Kaltura, I’ve seen firsthand how AI agents are rapidly becoming indispensable. These agents alleviate the mounting burdens on educators and provide new generations of tech-savvy students with accessible, personalized learning, giving teachers the support they need to give their students the personalized attention and engagement they deserve.
This HQ includes all of my AI guides, organized by tool/platform. This list is updated each time a new one is released, and outdated guides are removed/replaced over time.
Artificial intelligence is poised to fundamentally change the job of teaching. AI-powered tools can shave hours off the amount of time teachers spend grading, lesson-planning, and creating materials. AI can also enrich the lessons they deliver in the classroom and help them meet the varied needs of all students. And it can even help bolster teachers’ own professional growth and development.
Despite all the promise of AI, though, experts still urge caution as the technology continues to evolve. Ethical questions and practical concerns are bubbling to the surface, and not all teachers feel prepared to effectively and safely use AI.
In this special report, see how early-adopter teachers are using AI tools to transform their daily work, tackle some of the roadblocks to expanded use of the technology, and understand what’s on the horizon for the teaching profession in the age of artificial intelligence.
With that out of the way, I prefer Claude.ai for writing. For larger projects like a book, create a Claude Project to keep all context in one place.
Copy [the following] prompts into a document
Use them in sequence as you write
Adjust the word counts and specifics as needed
Keep your responses for reference
Use the same prompt template for similar sections to maintain consistency
Each prompt builds on the previous one, creating a systematic approach to helping you write your book.
Using NotebookLM to Boost College Reading Comprehension— from michellekassorla.substack.com by Michelle Kassorla and Eugenia Novokshanova This semester, we are using NotebookLM to help our students comprehend and engage with scholarly texts
We were looking hard for a new tool when Google released NotebookLM. Not only does Google allow unfettered use of this amazing tool, it is also a much better tool for the work we require in our courses. So, this semester, we have scrapped our “old” tools and added NotebookLM as the primary tool for our English Composition II courses (and we hope, fervently, that Google won’t decide to severely limit its free tier before this semester ends!)
If you know next-to-nothing about NotebookLM, that’s OK. What follows is the specific lesson we present to our students. We hope this will help you understand all you need to know about NotebookLM, and how to successfully integrate the tool into your own teaching this semester.
AFTER two years of working closely with leadership in multiple institutions, and delivering countless workshops, I’ve seen one thing repeatedly: the biggest challenge isn’t the technology itself, but how we lead through it. Here is some of my best advice to help you navigate generative AI with clarity and confidence:
Break your own AI policies before you implement them. …
Fund your failures. …
Resist the pilot program. …
Host Anti-Tech Tech Talks …
…+ several more tips
While generative AI in higher education obviously involves new technology, it’s much more about adopting a curious and human-centric approach in your institution and communities. It’s about empowering learners in new, human-oriented and innovative ways. It is, in a nutshell, about people adapting to new ways of doing things.
Maria Anderson responded to Clay’s posting with this idea:
Here’s an idea: […] the teacher can use the [most advanced] AI tool to generate a complete solution to “the problem” — whatever that is — and demonstrate how to do that in class. Give all the students access to the document with the results.
And then grade the students on a comprehensive followup activity / presentation of executing that solution (no notes, no more than 10 words on a slide). So the students all have access to the same deep AI result, but have to show they comprehend and can iterate on that result.
In this age of distrust, misinformation, and skepticism, you may wonder how to demonstrate your sources within a Google Document. Did you type it yourself, copy and paste it from a browser-based source, copy and paste it from an unknown source, or did it come from generative AI?
You may not think this is an important clarification, but if writing is a critical part of your livelihood or life, you will definitely want to demonstrate your sources.
That’s where the new Grammarly feature comes in.
The new feature is called Authorship, and according to Grammarly, “Grammarly Authorship is a set of features that helps users demonstrate their sources of text in a Google doc. When you activate Authorship within Google Docs, it proactively tracks the writing process as you write.”
AI Agents Are Coming to Higher Education — from govtech.com AI agents are customizable tools with more decision-making power than chatbots. They have the potential to automate more tasks, and some schools have implemented them for administrative and educational purposes.
Custom GPTs are on the rise in education. Google’s version, Gemini Gems, includes a premade version called Learning Coach, and Microsoft announced last week a new agent addition to Copilot featuring use cases at educational institutions.
Generative Artificial Intelligence and Education: A Brief Ethical Reflection on Autonomy— from er.educause.edu by Vicki Strunk and James Willis Given the widespread impacts of generative AI, looking at this technology through the lens of autonomy can help equip students for the workplaces of the present and of the future, while ensuring academic integrity for both students and instructors.
The principle of autonomy stresses that we should be free agents who can govern ourselves and who are able to make our own choices. This principle applies to AI in higher education because it raises serious questions about how, when, and whether AI should be used in varying contexts. Although we have only begun asking questions related to autonomy and many more remain to be asked, we hope that this serves as a starting place to consider the uses of AI in higher education.
“I mean, that’s what I’ll always want for my own children and, frankly, for anyone’s children,” Khan said. “And the hope here is that we can use artificial intelligence and other technologies to amplify what a teacher can do so they can spend more time standing next to a student, figuring them out, having a person-to-person connection.”
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“After a week you start to realize, like, how you can use it,” Brockman said. “That’s been one of the really important things about working with Sal and his team, to really figure out what’s the right way to sort of bring this to parents and to teachers and to classrooms and to do that in a way…so that the students really learn and aren’t just, you know, asking for the answers and that the parents can have oversight and the teachers can be involved in that process.”
More than 100 colleges and high schools are turning to a new AI tool called Nectir, allowing teachers to create a personalized learning partner that’s trained on their syllabi, textbooks, and assignments to help students with anything from questions related to their coursework to essay writing assistance and even future career guidance.
…
With Nectir, teachers can create an AI assistant tailored to their specific needs, whether for a single class, a department, or the entire campus. There are various personalization options available, enabling teachers to establish clear boundaries for the AI’s interactions, such as programming the assistant to assist only with certain subjects or responding in a way that aligns with their teaching style.
“It’ll really be that customized learning partner. Every single conversation that a student has with any of their assistants will then be fed into that student profile for them to be able to see based on what the AI thinks, what should I be doing next, not only in my educational journey, but in my career journey,” Ghai said.
How Will AI Influence Higher Ed in 2025? — from insidehighered.com by Kathryn Palmer No one knows for sure, but Inside Higher Ed asked seven experts for their predictions.
As the technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, no one knows for sure how AI will influence higher education in 2025. But several experts offered Inside Higher Ed their predictions—and some guidance—for how colleges and universities will have to navigate AI’s potential in the new year.
In the short term, A.I. will help teachers create lesson plans, find illustrative examples and generate quizzes tailored to each student. Customized problem sets will serve as tools to combat cheating while A.I. provides instant feedback.
…
In the longer term, it’s possible to imagine a world where A.I. can ingest rich learner data and create personalized learning paths for students, all within a curriculum established by the teacher. Teachers can continue to be deeply involved in fostering student discussions, guiding group projects and engaging their students, while A.I. handles grading and uses the Socratic method to help students discover answers on their own. Teachers provide encouragement and one-on-one support when needed, using their newfound availability to give students some extra care.
Let’s be clear: A.I. will never replace the human touch that is so vital to education. No algorithm can replicate the empathy, creativity and passion a teacher brings to the classroom. But A.I. can certainly amplify those qualities. It can be our co-pilot, our chief of staff helping us extend our reach and improve our effectiveness.
Today, I want to reflect on two recent OpenAI developments that highlight this evolution: their belated publication of advice for students on integrating AI into writing workflows, and last week’s launch of the full GPTo1 Pro version. When OpenAI released their student writing guide, there were plenty of snarky comments about how this guidance arrives almost a year after they thoroughly disrupted the educational landscape. Fair enough – I took my own side swipes initially. But let’s look at what they’re actually advising, because the details matter more than the timing.
Tutoring programs exploded in the last five years as states and school districts searched for ways to counter plummeting achievement during COVID. But the cost of providing supplemental instruction to tens of millions of students can be eye-watering, even as the results seem to taper off as programs serve more students.
That’s where artificial intelligence could prove a decisive advantage. A report circulated in October by the National Student Support Accelerator found that an AI-powered tutoring assistant significantly improved the performance of hundreds of tutors by prompting them with new ways to explain concepts to students. With the help of the tool, dubbed Tutor CoPilot, students assigned to the weakest tutors began posting academic results nearly equal to those assigned to the strongest. And the cost to run the program was just $20 per pupil.
Faculty must have the time and support necessary to come to terms with this new technology and that requires us to change how we view professional development in higher education and K-12. We cannot treat generative AI as a one-off problem that can be solved by a workshop, an invited talk, or a course policy discussion. Generative AI in education has to be viewed as a continuum. Faculty need a myriad of support options each semester:
Course buyouts
Fellowships
Learning communities
Reading groups
AI Institutes and workshops
Funding to explore the scholarship of teaching and learning around generative AI
Education leaders should focus on integrating AI literacy, civic education, and work-based learning to equip students for future challenges and opportunities.
Building social capital and personalized learning environments will be crucial for student success in a world increasingly influenced by AI and decentralized power structures.
Our 2024 Sector Analysis shows the median average for number of children served by a microschool at launch is 9, at the end of the first year is 12 and currently serving is 16.
What this doesn’t show is all of the ups and downs in between.
It’s not uncommon for first year microschooling founders to see a dip in enrolled students between the start of the year and the end of the year. October and November can be two of the most stressful months for new microschool founders as numbers either dip or don’t grow as anticipated. There are a few things that can be helpful for microschool founders during this time:
Kids representing a broad range of special populations have a strong presence in today’s microschooling movement. Children with neurodiversities, other special needs, and those coming to microschools at two or more grades below “grade level mastery” as defined by their state all are served by more than 50 percent of microschools surveyed nationally, according to the Center’s 2024 American Microschools Sector Analysis report.
Children who have experienced emotional trauma or have experienced housing or food insecurity are also being served widely in microschools, according to leaders surveyed nationally.
This won’t come as a surprise to most in the microschooling movement. But to those who are less familiar, understanding the many ways that microschooling is about thriving for families and children who have struggled in their prior schooling settings. .
…you will see that they outline which skills you should consider mastering in 2025 if you want to stay on top of the latest career opportunities. They then list more information about the skills, how you apply the skills, and WHERE to get those skills.
I assert that in the future, people will be able to see this information on a 24x7x365 basis.
Which jobs are in demand?
What skills do I need to do those jobs?
WHERE do I get/develop those skills?
And that last part (about the WHERE do I develop those skills) will pull from many different institutions, people, companies, etc.
BUT PEOPLE are the key! Oftentimes, we need to — and prefer to — learn with others!
The Tutoring Revolution— from educationnext.org by Holly Korbey More families are seeking one-on-one help for their kids. What does that tell us about 21st-century education?
Recent research suggests that the number of students seeking help with academics is growing, and that over the last couple of decades, more families have been turning to tutoring for that help.
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What the Future Holds Digital tech has made private tutoring more accessible, more efficient, and more affordable. Students whose families can’t afford to pay $75 an hour at an in-person center can now log on from home to access a variety of online tutors, including Outschool, Wyzant, and Anchorbridge, and often find someone who can cater to their specific skills and needs—someone who can offer help in French to a student with ADHD, for example. Online tutoring is less expensive than in-person programs. Khan Academy’s Khanmigo chatbot can be a student’s virtual AI tutor, no Zoom meeting required, for $4 a month, and nonprofits like Learn to Be work with homeless shelters and community centers to give virtual reading and math tutoring free to kids who can’t afford it and often might need it the most.
New Microschools for a New School Year — from the74million.org by Kerry McDonald As parent demand for more individualized education options grows, everyday entrepreneurs are stepping up to meet that demand by launching microschools
Microschools and similarly creative schooling options gained increased popularity in the wake of the pandemic, and they continue to gain momentum. Not only are new schools and spaces opening across the U.S. but existing ones are expanding.
New data from VELA, a philanthropic nonprofit organization and entrepreneur community, reveals that over 90 percent of the unconventional learning environments it surveyed had more learners last fall than they did at their launch date, and the median compound rate of growth for these programs was 25 percent a year.
In our 2024 Sector Analysis the Center analyzed data received for 400 microschools representing 41 states.
We asked “How many staff, other than yourself and cofounder if applicable, do you have?” and here is what we learned:
The most common staffing arrangement, for one in four microschools, is for founders to be supported by two or three staff members, who may be but are not always full-time personnel.
One-third of microschools are run by the founders with no more than one other full- or part-time staff member, while 15% of microschools have no other staff than the founders themselves. We often talk about the many hats that microschool founders wear, and for these in seven, they truly are doing it all and all on their own.
One in seven microschools reported having more than ten full- or part-time staff members supporting founders regularly.
Picking the right projector for school can be a tough decision as the types and prices range pretty widely. From affordable options to professional grade pricing, there are many choices. The problem is that the performance is also hugely varied. This guide aims to be the solution by offering all you need to know about buying the right projector for school where you are.
Luke covers a variety of topics including:
Types of projectors
Screen quality
Light type
Connectivity
Pricing
From DSC: I posted this because Luke covered a variety of topics — and if you’re set on going with a projector, this is a solid article. But I hesitated to post this, as I’m not sure of the place that projectors will have in the future of our learning spaces. With voice-enabled apps and appliances continuing to be more prevalent — along with the presence of AI-based human-computer interactions and intelligent systems — will projectors be the way to go? Will enhanced interactive whiteboards be the way to go? Will there be new types of displays? I’m not sure. Time will tell.
Today’s microschooling movement continues to attract major coverage in national and local media outlets around the country. This week saw important new feature articles highlighting microschools in two of the most influential.
The New York Times ran this piece by its lead national education reporter Dana Goldstein, who visited several Georgia microschools and conducted research and interviews with leaders there and around the country. “…The appeal goes beyond the Republican base and includes many working- or middle-class Black and Latino parents — especially those whose children are disabled, and who feel public schools are not meeting their needs,” the article found. The National Microschooling Center was pleased to see several of the Times’ explanations and background about our exciting movement cited in our own published research.
It’s part of a growing trend, both in Maine and nationally, of new schools and spaces offering smaller, more individualized, more flexible learning options that parents and teachers desire. Many of these programs, including School Around Us, are part of the VELA Founder Network that supports alternative education environments across the U.S. with grants and entrepreneurial resources.
According to the new Johns Hopkins UniversityHomeschool Hub, homeschooling numbers now hover around six percent of the total K-12 school-age population, a dramatic increase from pre-pandemic estimates. Maine has seen its homeschooling numbersremainhigh since 2020.
Some readers may be surprised to learn that many U.S. high schools deny entry to legally eligible students. It is, after all, conventional wisdom that public schools are open to all families and that they eagerly seek to serve all potential students.
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Available to All launched in early 2023 as a nonpartisan watchdog defending equal access to public schools. We have documented many cases in which schools turn away students, either unfairly or illegally, based on discriminatory criteria…
Families should have the legal right to apply to any public school, and the school should be required to publish a formal letter of denial if a child is rejected, explaining the legal basis for the decision. Every public school should be required to publish application and enrollment data, and every American family should have the right to appeal denial of enrollment to a neutral third party (as families already do in a handful of states, including California and Arkansas).
SAN FRANCISCO, June 19, 2024/PRNewswire/ — Leading online learning platform, Outschool announced today the launch of Courses, new classes and features designed specifically for homeschool and alternative education families. Outschool’s Courses is designed to empower homeschooling families and power-users of Outschool to craft their own individualized education with expert teachers, unique and engaging classes, easy scheduling, and progress tracking. Outschool Courses has been created to help families put their learner’s unique educational needs first.
More American children than ever are qualifying for special education, but schools are struggling to find enough teachers to meet their needs.
A record 7.5 million students accessed special-education services in U.S. schools as of 2022-2023, including children with autism, speech impairments and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. That is 15.2% of the public-school student population…
From DSC: For anyone who really believes that teaching is easy, try attending a few Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings. You’ll be blown away about how intricate and challenging teaching can be.
There has been a surge in new microschools in the U.S. since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Microschooling Network estimates there are about 95,000 microschools in the country.The median microschool serves 16 students.
There is no regulatory body solely responsible for tracking microschools, so it is difficult to determine just how much their popularity has grown.
Advocates for microschools say they offer some students — especially those who are gifted or have learning disabilities — a greater chance to thrive academically and socially than traditional schools do.
At Sphinx Academy, a micro-school based in Lexington, Ky., almost all 24 students are “twice exceptional,” meaning they are gifted in one academic area but have one or more learning disabilities like ADHD or dyslexia, according to the school’s director Jennifer Lincoln.
The stakes are high: Students have a lot of academic ground to make up following the pandemic. Yet they’re not fully engaged in the classroom, teachers report in a new national survey.
Connecting young people with career awareness needs to start at an early age to provide them with the necessary landscape view of opportunity and skills.
Whether young people engage client-focused opportunities, internships, or endure academically challenging coursework, career-connected learning is an environment to cultivate a sense of self-awareness, determination, and direction, essential for their success in both education and life.
