teaching & learning

A Practical Digital Accessibility Check for Learning Materials [Bigelow]

On 09/19/2026, in accessibility / UDL, Australia, education, IT in HE, neurodivergent/special needs, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

A Practical Digital Accessibility Check for Learning Materials — from educationtechnologysolutions.com by John Bigelow

A learning resource can be accurate, attractive and impossible for some students to use.

The barrier is often not dramatic. It may be a scanned PDF that cannot be read aloud, a video without captions, a chart whose meaning depends on colour, or a page with headings that only look like headings. Each problem is small at the point of creation and expensive when a student encounters it during a lesson.

Accessibility is therefore best treated as part of preparing the material, not as a repair requested after access has already failed.

Australian educators and education providers have obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, including making reasonable adjustments so students with disability can participate and learn on the same basis as other students. The Australian Government provides educator resources explaining those responsibilities.

The following check is not a full accessibility audit. It is a practical first pass that teachers can apply before uploading a document, slide deck, video or LMS page.

New study: 15 community college presidents on what it will take to lead higher ed’s next chapter [eddesignlab.org]

On 09/19/2026, in career development, change, changing business models, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, skills, student-related, teaching & learning, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

New study: 15 community college presidents on what it will take to lead higher ed’s next chapter — from eddesignlab.org

Community colleges are at a pivotal moment.

As learners, employers, and regional economies change, these institutions have an opportunity to lead the next evolution of higher education — if they can move beyond structures built for a different era.

In the Lab’s new study, Insights from 15 Community College Presidents on the Future of Learning in a New Economy, leaders share their perspectives on the opportunities and barriers facing the sector, as well as the institutional changes needed to help more learners access economic mobility.

Their insights validate Education Design Lab’s Future of Learning framework, which asks five essential design questions:

How might we make skills and competencies visible?
How might we create stackable pathways that credential skills along the way?
How might we make learning universally flexible through multiple modalities?
How might we guarantee applied learning opportunities for every learner?
How might we ensure every learner has access to adequate support services?

How to Reduce Cognitive Load in Digital Lessons — from educationtechnologysolutions.com by etsmagazine

A digital lesson can be beautifully designed and still make learning unnecessarily hard.

Students may be asked to watch a video, remember an instruction, find a link, switch tabs, interpret unfamiliar icons and submit a response—all before they have dealt with the idea the lesson was meant to teach.

That friction is often mistaken for rigour. It is not. Productive difficulty comes from thinking about the content. Avoidable difficulty comes from navigating the lesson.

The goal is not to make learning effortless. It is to spend students’ limited attention on the knowledge and skill that matter.

The above article links to:

Managing cognitive load optimises learning — from edresearch.edu.au
Implications for policymakers

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

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.

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.

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.

“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.

Student Voices: Technology as a Future Learning Partner — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush
A Q&A with Eli Blouin and Mark Frydenberg

Key Takeaways

With advanced technologies, we’re moving from accessing learning resources to participating in technology learning partnerships.
Technology learning partners participate in the learning process by asking questions and giving feedback, not just information search results.
Tomorrow’s technology learning partners will understand the whole learner — including knowledge gaps and personal learning style.
Student experiences with AI and other technologies today will inform the next generation of human/machine learning partners.

Grush: What do you think may be among the most meaningful changes in, say, the next five years?

Blouin: When I think of what will improve in the next five years — and I truly believe it’s where we’re ultimately heading — I think it will be the technology learning partner’s ability to gain a full picture of the learner. The technology will be able to take absurd amounts of context — and data — and understand the learner as a whole: where their gaps are, what they need to learn, how they learn, and how to create content tailored to a particular student. In an instant it would be able to assess, to test knowledge, and know the student as a whole person. That would be an ideal learning partner.

How to Design Around Cognitive Offloading [Hardman]

On 08/10/2026, in corporate universities / corporate training, emerging technologies, faculty/staff, instructional design, learning, Learning Experience Design, learning theories, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, research, teachers, teaching & learning, training / L&D, by Daniel Christian

How to Design Around Cognitive Offloading — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr Philippa Hardman
Three new studies shed light on when offloading to AI harms learning, when it helps — and how to design for the difference

A cluster of new studies — most published in the last few weeks in the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education — lets us answer two questions with more precision than ever before:

When does cognitive offloading actually happen?
When does using AI improve cognition?

The answers in turn help us to start to design learning which intentionally uses AI to drive – rather than diminish – learning.
.

The 5 college majors students are betting on right now [Borden]

On 08/10/2026, in adjunct faculty, business, colleges, community colleges, computer science, drama/theater, faculty/staff, higher education, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, music, psychology, student-related, teaching & learning, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

The 5 college majors students are betting on right now — from linkedin.com by Taylor Border

Learning Ecosystems

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

How to Design Around Cognitive Offloading [Hardman]

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