strategy

AI Adoption in the Workplace Accelerates, but Trust Gap Remains [Parker]

On 08/25/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, change, emerging technologies, leadership, pace of change, policy, strategy, workplace, by Daniel Christian

AI Adoption in the Workplace Accelerates, but Trust Gap Remains — from campustechnology.com by Sean Parker

Key Takeaways

AI adoption is accelerating across the workplace, with 62% of U.S. workers now using generative AI for professional purposes.
Employee concerns about AI’s impact on jobs remain high, even among workers actively using technology.
Companies are adopting AI faster than they are creating clear guidelines, raising questions around trust, leadership and workplace readiness.

A new Pulse of the Workforce Special Topic Report published by Idealis and CivicScience found that while AI adoption is accelerating across the U.S. workforce, confidence is not growing at the same pace. The report points to a central tension: AI is becoming common at work before many organizations have built the policies, training, and leadership practices employees need to use it with confidence.

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

Once globally preeminent, U.S. universities are sliding into decline — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
High costs, political attacks take a toll as fewer students come, top scholars leave

Top scholars are leaving. Fewer international students are coming. U.S. universities are slipping in international rankings. And American universities have failed to keep pace as other countries pour resources into their higher education systems.
…
Blaming the interruptions in funding that have already occurred, top research universities have admitted 15 percent fewer doctoral students for the coming fall, including in fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, according to the Association of American Universities, or AAU. Many didn’t take any new doctoral students at all.

Colleges made deep staff cuts while adding tenure-track faculty last year — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
The latest survey of higher education employees from CUPA-HR found the biggest spike in tenure-track professors since at least 2016.

Dive Brief:

Full-time staff at colleges dropped 6.6% in 2025 compared to the year before, ending several years of growth, according to data released Wednesday by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.
The decline was even sharper among part-time staff, whose ranks plunged by 23.9% last year, CUPA-HR’s latest survey data showed.
However, faculty numbers grew overall during the year. Tenure-track faculty headcounts saw the largest spike at 7% year over year, the biggest increase for that group since at least 2016.

Pace of college closings picks up, with more projected — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
Falling enrollment, rising debt have put an estimated 1 in 4 institutions at risk

More than 440 of the nation’s private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities are now at risk, based on enrollment trends, debt and other measures, according to projections by Huron Consulting Group. That’s a quarter of the total.

Among the most endangered: small, rural and religiously affiliated institutions.

And how to dispose of the real estate is among the least of the challenges facing shuttering campuses and the students they serve.

University of Houston slashes 40% of courses from its core curriculum — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
The Texas institution cut about 100 classes, including in women’s and LGBT studies, to comply with a state law mandating general education reviews.

Dive Brief:

The University of Houston has slashed about 40% of courses from the flagship’s core curriculum as it works to comply with a new state law dictating the architecture of general education requirements at Texas public colleges.
In the 2026-27 academic year, UH will adopt a core curriculum list with roughly 100 fewer classes after the University of Houston System’s board unanimously approved administrators’ proposal on Thursday. Among the classes dropped were courses in women’s and LGBT studies.
The overhaul is meant to satisfy the Texas statute known as SB 37, which mandates that public institutions’ core courses be “foundational” to postsecondary education, prepare students for the workforce and civic life, and cover “a breadth of knowledge.”

From DSC:
Re: Jeff’s posting above…I think that faculty often taught what THEY wanted to teach — versus what the market was asking for. If I were on the academic administration side of the house right now, I’d be seeking out and listening very closely to what the adjunct faculty members on campus are saying.

As fewer young people choose college, this district wants to ensure they have career options — from hechingerreport.org by Ariel Gilreath
In Niagara Falls, New York, a town with shrinking job options, students are encouraged to consider their careers in ninth grade

At Niagara Falls High School, students are encouraged to consider their careers upon arrival in ninth grade. By 11th grade, every student at the school must pick from one of five pathways, ranging from business and finance to design and engineering. The shift toward career education comes as about one-third of seniors at Niagara Falls High are rejecting college and instead choosing to enter the workforce after graduation, compared with roughly a quarter a decade ago, said Superintendent Mark Laurrie, who retired in June. In a town that’s struggled with population declines, where now-shuttered manufacturing plants once dominated the local labor market, there’s an urgency to prepare high school students for careers.

“It’s important to give them hope for the future with a career pathway — a career, not a job — to have something to aspire to and, hopefully, keep them in the city and in the state,” Laurrie said.

“Paying vendors for student results” [Barshay] From DSC: This could be tough to do. But it’s an interesting posting.

On 08/10/2026, in education, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, learning, learning ecosystem, strategy, teachers, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Paying vendors for student results — from hechingerreport.org by Jill Barshay
The first evaluation of outcomes-based contracting found student achievement sometimes improved under this approach

Instead of paying vendors simply for delivering these tools, school districts are experimenting with a new approach to purchasing, called outcomes-based contracting, in which part of a vendor’s payment depends on whether students actually use the service and meet agreed-upon academic goals. The idea is to share risk between schools and vendors — and create incentives for both sides to pay closer attention to whether an intervention is working.

From DSC:
This could be tough to do. But it’s an interesting posting/idea/approach/strategy. Are the goals reached due to the tools/products/services of the vendors or are those products and services just one piece of the overall learning pie?

From DSC:
Below is an item on futures thinking. Don’t blow this off. This topic — and skill/strategy — is important not only to traditional institutions of higher education, but also to businesses and organizations of all sizes. In fact, even students can practice developing a list of potential scenarios and implement their plans of action if one of those scenarios occurs.

Chris Mayer’s posting on LinkedIn.com

What Teaching Faculty Want From Professional Development (That’s Not Just Workshops) [Dodson]

On 07/15/2026, in adult learning, K-12 related, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, strategy, teachers, United States, by Daniel Christian

What Teaching Faculty Want From Professional Development (That’s Not Just Workshops) — from rdene915.com by guest author Tessa Dodson

The journey toward a more meaningful, empowering, and effective model of professional development for teachers begins with dialogue. By asking educators what they need to grow and trusting their answers, school leaders can take the first crucial step toward building a culture where both teachers and students can thrive.

What Teachers Really Want From Professional Development
The most effective frameworks for teachers’ professional development are built on a foundation of empowerment. This involves a profound shift in mindset, from viewing teachers as recipients of training to recognizing them as professionals who can and should guide their own learning. When school structures are designed to foster teacher autonomy, the impact on professional growth is significant.

A 2023 study found that teachers’ autonomous behavior predicted professional development at work. The study identified key structural factors, such as “empowering teachers” and the “decentralization of responsibilities,” as crucial to creating an environment in which this autonomy could flourish. By trusting teachers to take ownership of their professional growth, leaders can unlock their intrinsic teacher motivation and capacity for innovation.

Instructional Design Trends: What’s Shaping The Future Of Learning? [Pappas] + “The Future Of Personalized Learning And The Leaders Being Trained To Deliver It” [Ayers]

On 07/06/2026, in analytics, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, game-changing environment, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, leadership, organizational change, personalized/customized learning, skills, strategy, traditional / tradition, training / L&D, trends, user experience (UX), by Daniel Christian

Instructional Design Trends: What’s Shaping The Future Of Learning? — from elearningindustry.com by Christopher Pappas

Table of contents

1. Why Instructional Design Is Entering A New Era
2. The State Of Instructional Design Today
3. Top Instructional Design Trends Shaping 2026
4. The Future Of Instructional Design And Technology

Also from elearningindustry.com, see:

The Future Of Personalized Learning And The Leaders Being Trained To Deliver It — by Ryan Ayers

Table of contents

1. Personalized Learning For Future Leaders
2. Where Personalized Learning Is Heading
3. What Implementing Personalized Learning At Scale Actually Requires
4. The Educational Leaders Being Trained To Deliver This Future
5. Conclusion

Will learning curated by employers replace degrees? — from universityworldnews.com by Louise Nicol

If universities do not future-proof their offer through deeper and more credible partnerships with employers and industry, what exactly prevents employers from educating and training people themselves?

This is why the future of higher education depends on far deeper and more operational partnerships with industry. Not symbolic advisory boards or occasional guest lectures but genuine co-design of curricula, shared ownership of applied projects and clear accountability for graduate capability.

Universities that integrate live industry problems, cross-faculty collaboration and work-based learning into the core of their programmes make themselves harder to replace. Those that acknowledge the existence of external learning platforms and deliberately build them into a broader educational journey strengthen rather than weaken their position.

The real risk for universities is not replacement but marginalisation. Employers will not abandon universities out of hostility or ideology. They will do so pragmatically if universities fail to add distinctive value beyond what employers can now deliver themselves.

The Current State of Play: AI in Higher Education and the Road Ahead [Gamby, Kil, Koblic, LeBlanc, Moldoveanu & Siemens]

On 06/29/2026, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, culture, emerging technologies, ethics, expectations, experimentation, faculty/staff, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, IT in HE, leadership, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, morals/values, organizational change, pace of change, parents/guardians, personalized/customized learning, policy, reinvent, relationships, skills, society, strategy, student-related, teaching & learning, trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The Current State of Play: AI in Higher Education and the Road Ahead — from er.educause.edu by Tanya Gamby, David Kil, Rachel Koblic, Paul LeBlanc, Mihnea Moldoveanu and George Siemens

The conventional explanation for this strategic vacuum points to the speed of technological change; it is moving too fast for institutions built for deliberation. That is true. . . and incomplete. The deeper issue is cultural. In fairness to higher education, many industries are struggling to keep up with the pace of AI advances. Higher education, however, moves even more slowly and is not built for the kind of transformational speed now underway. Getting institutional stakeholders to engage, rethink the work, and move faster may be the central challenge facing presidents and chancellors today, and that’s saying a lot in such volatile times.

From DSC:
I highlighted this paragraph because it hits upon the key item involved here — culture. “The deeper issue is cultural.” I think that’s a very true statement.

Part of the culture and setup of many institutions includes giving faculty members full rein of their classes and their departments. Faculty members have a great deal of leeway and power in how they do things. So trying to get X faculty members to get on board — including the Department Chairs — is not an easy task.

Another part of culture involves being willing — or not — to change in the first place. Some institutions are like Google and are used to making changes and being more innovative. But those institutions are not the norm, at least in my experience. And this doesn’t even address another topic the article mentioned — the pace of these changes. As the authors point out, most institutions of traditional higher education are not equipped to deal with the current pace of change (nor are most of our other types of institutions and our corporations as well).

I’m going to end this posting with another brief excerpt from the article:

Institutions rooted in human relationships, committed to truth-seeking, and oriented toward the full development of persons play a central role. AI cannot manufacture the experience of mattering to another human being. It cannot model intellectual courage or ethical discernment. It cannot build the kind of community in which students discover who they are and what they believe.

These are not small things. They are, in fact, the things most worth doing. At their best, colleges and universities are not only preparing better workers but shaping individuals and strengthening society.

The Evolving L&D Roles in 2026 Exploring who you might become next — from liftedlnd.substack.com by Lifted L&D

1. The Learning Experience Architect
This is really the evolution of the instructional designer. The difference is that the focus is no longer on building individual courses. Instead, the focus shifts towards designing capability ecosystems.

In modern learning platforms, learning is dynamic and increasingly personalised. AI engines infer skill levels, recommend resources, generate practice scenarios and adapt content based on how people engage. The role of the Learning Experience Architect is to orchestrate that environment so it genuinely supports capability development.
…

Across all of these emerging roles, three themes keep appearing.

The first is data fluency. …
The second is systems thinking. …
The third is human judgement.

Also relevant/see:

The Tyranny of College Admissions: Why It’s So Challenging to Have Real Change in K-12 Education — from gettingsmart.com by Jon Alfuth

Key Points

College admissions policy shapes K-12 practice. If colleges continue to privilege course sequences, seat time, and grades, high schools will remain constrained in how far they can move toward competency-based learning.
States and institutions already offer models for change. Wisconsin, Colorado, Indiana, and pilots like CUNY and Michigan Ross show that admissions can incorporate portfolios, demonstrations of learning, and durable skills.

If we could instead orient K-12 education around skill development and application rather than Carnegie Units and grades, we could create a new paradigm for where, when and how students demonstrate college and career readiness. Competency-based education moves schools and systems towards this desirable future that balances knowledge with skills.

Despite tremendous evidence of its potential, efforts to accelerate this shift have been stymied by the tyranny of college admissions requirements and processes. Parents, teachers, administrators and policymakers end up in a quandary. Anyone attempting to shift away from this traditional course sequence is criticized as trying to lock kids out of higher education and we snap back to the way things have always been done.

And here’s the link to Robert’s posting on LinkedIn.

How Constructivism Learning Theory Shapes Modern Instructional Design And L&D Strategy — from elearningindustry.com by Christopher Pappas
.

Also see:

Microlearning Trends And Strategies In 2026 — from elearningindustry.com by Christopher Pappas

What Michigan schools reveal about reversing chronic absenteeism | Time-intensive home visits show promise [Barshay]

On 06/01/2026, in education, education reform, K-12 related, leadership, learning ecosystem, Michigan, parents/guardians, participation, research, society, strategy, student-related, teachers, United States, youth, by Daniel Christian

What Michigan schools reveal about reversing chronic absenteeism — from hechingerreport.org by Jill Barshay
Time-intensive home visits show promise

Absenteeism is a huge and seemingly intractable problem for the nation’s public schools. And Michigan has one of the worst attendance rates in the country.
…
Yet a new study released in May offers hope. Researchers found that some Michigan schools appear to be substantially better than others at getting students to show up, and identified one intervention — frequent home visits to families whose children are absent from class — that was used more often by schools making a difference.

The findings are a reminder that “best practices” recommendations often overstate what researchers actually know. Schools can make a meaningful difference in attendance, but identifying genuinely successful schools is hard, isolating why they succeed is even harder, and simple solutions rarely hold up under scrutiny.

Learning Ecosystems

“Paying vendors for student results” [Barshay] From DSC: This could be tough to do. But it’s an interesting posting.

Instructional Design Trends: What’s Shaping The Future Of Learning? [Pappas] + “The Future Of Personalized Learning And The Leaders Being Trained To Deliver It” [Ayers]

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