teaching & learning

Navigating Career Transitions [er.educause.edu — James, Richichi, Buszka, & Johnson]

On 06/11/2025, in adjunct faculty, business side of he, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, Emotion, face-to-face, faculty/staff, future, higher education, ideas, law schools, leadership, podcasting, teaching & learning, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Navigating Career Transitions — from er.educause.edu by Jay James, Mike Richichi, Sarah Buszka, and Wes Johnson

In this episode, we hear from professionals at different stages of their career journeys as they reflect on risk, resilience, and growth. They share advice on stepping into leadership roles, recognizing when it may be time for a change, and overcoming imposter syndrome.

.

Mary Meeker’s AI Trend-Analysis + other items re: AI in general

On 06/09/2025, in Adobe, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, digital learning, disruption, education, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, entrepreneurship, experimentation, Facebook / Meta Platforms, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Microsoft, online media, Open AI, organizational change, pace of change, pedagogy, platforms, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, universities, vendors, workplace, writing, by Daniel Christian

Mary Meeker AI Trends Report: Mind-Boggling Numbers Paint AI’s Massive Growth Picture — from ndtvprofit.com
Numbers that prove AI as a tech is unlike any other the world has ever seen.

Here are some incredibly powerful numbers from Mary Meeker’s AI Trends report, which showcase how artificial intelligence as a tech is unlike any other the world has ever seen.

AI took only three years to reach 50% user adoption in the US; mobile internet took six years, desktop internet took 12 years, while PCs took 20 years.
ChatGPT reached 800 million users in 17 months and 100 million in only two months, vis-à-vis Netflix’s 100 million (10 years), Instagram (2.5 years) and TikTok (nine months).
ChatGPT hit 365 billion annual searches in two years (2024) vs. Google’s 11 years (2009)—ChatGPT 5.5x faster than Google.

Above via Mary Meeker’s AI Trend-Analysis — from getsuperintel.com by Kim “Chubby” Isenberg
How AI’s rapid rise, efficiency race, and talent shifts are reshaping the future.

The TLDR
Mary Meeker’s new AI trends report highlights an explosive rise in global AI usage, surging model efficiency, and mounting pressure on infrastructure and talent. The shift is clear: AI is no longer experimental—it’s becoming foundational, and those who optimize for speed, scale, and specialization will lead the next wave of innovation.

Also see Meeker’s actual report at:

Trends – Artificial Intelligence — from bondcap.com by Mary Meeker / Jay Simons / Daegwon Chae / Alexander Krey

The Rundown: Meta aims to release tools that eliminate humans from the advertising process by 2026, according to a report from the WSJ — developing an AI that can create ads for Facebook and Instagram using just a product image and budget.

The details:

Companies would submit product images and budgets, letting AI craft the text and visuals, select target audiences, and manage campaign placement.
The system will be able to create personalized ads that can adapt in real-time, like a car spot featuring mountains vs. an urban street based on user location.
The push would target smaller companies lacking dedicated marketing staff, promising professional-grade advertising without agency fees or skillset.
Advertising is a core part of Mark Zuckerberg’s AI strategy and already accounts for 97% of Meta’s annual revenue.

Why it matters: We’re already seeing AI transform advertising through image, video, and text, but Zuck’s vision takes the process entirely out of human hands. With so much marketing flowing through FB and IG, a successful system would be a major disruptor — particularly for small brands that just want results without the hassle.

“The AI-enhanced learning ecosystem” [Jennings] + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 06/09/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, architecture, Augmented Reality (AR), bots, business, career development, change, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, curriculum, data related items, design, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global, Google, health, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, K-12 related, law schools, leadership, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, library / librarians, lifelong learning, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, podcasting, policy, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, skills, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, tools, traditional / tradition, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, workplace, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

The AI-enhanced learning ecosystem: A case study in collaborative innovation — from chieflearningofficer.com by Kevin Jennings
How artificial intelligence can serve as a tool and collaborative partner in reimagining content development and management.

Learning and development professionals face unprecedented challenges in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape. According to LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report, 67 percent of L&D professionals report being “maxed out” on capacity, while 66 percent have experienced budget reductions in the past year.

Despite these constraints, 87 percent agree their organizations need to develop employees faster to keep pace with business demands. These statistics paint a clear picture of the pressure L&D teams face: do more, with less, faster.

This article explores how one L&D leader’s strategic partnership with artificial intelligence transformed these persistent challenges into opportunities, creating a responsive learning ecosystem that addresses the modern demands of rapid product evolution and diverse audience needs. With 71 percent of L&D professionals now identifying AI as a high or very high priority for their learning strategy, this case study demonstrates how AI can serve not merely as a tool but as a collaborative partner in reimagining content development and management.
.

How we use GenAI and AR to improve students’ design skills — from timeshighereducation.com by Antonio Juarez, Lesly Pliego and Jordi Rábago who are professors of architecture at Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico; Tomas Pachajoa is a professor of architecture at the El Bosque University in Colombia; & Carlos Hinrichsen and Marietta Castro are educators at San Sebastián University in Chile.
Guidance on using generative AI and augmented reality to enhance student creativity, spatial awareness and interdisciplinary collaboration

Blend traditional skills development with AI use
For subjects that require students to develop drawing and modelling skills, have students create initial design sketches or models manually to ensure they practise these skills. Then, introduce GenAI tools such as Midjourney, Leonardo AI and ChatGPT to help students explore new ideas based on their original concepts. Using AI at this stage broadens their creative horizons and introduces innovative perspectives, which are crucial in a rapidly evolving creative industry.

Provide step-by-step tutorials, including both written guides and video demonstrations, to illustrate how initial sketches can be effectively translated into AI-generated concepts. Offer example prompts to demonstrate diverse design possibilities and help students build confidence using GenAI.

Integrating generative AI and AR consistently enhanced student engagement, creativity and spatial understanding on our course.

How Texas is Preparing Higher Education for AI — from the74million.org by Kate McGee
TX colleges are thinking about how to prepare students for a changing workforce and an already overburdened faculty for new challenges in classrooms.

“It doesn’t matter if you enter the health industry, banking, oil and gas, or national security enterprises like we have here in San Antonio,” Eighmy told The Texas Tribune. “Everybody’s asking for competency around AI.”

It’s one of the reasons the public university, which serves 34,000 students, announced earlier this year that it is creating a new college dedicated to AI, cyber security, computing and data science. The new college, which is still in the planning phase, would be one of the first of its kind in the country. UTSA wants to launch the new college by fall 2025.

But many state higher education leaders are thinking beyond that. As AI becomes a part of everyday life in new, unpredictable ways, universities across Texas and the country are also starting to consider how to ensure faculty are keeping up with the new technology and students are ready to use it when they enter the workforce.

In the Room Where It Happens: Generative AI Policy Creation in Higher Education — from er.educause.edu by Esther Brandon, Lance Eaton, Dana Gavin, and Allison Papini

To develop a robust policy for generative artificial intelligence use in higher education, institutional leaders must first create “a room” where diverse perspectives are welcome and included in the process.

Q&A: Artificial Intelligence in Education and What Lies Ahead — from usnews.com by Sarah Wood
Research indicates that AI is becoming an essential skill to learn for students to succeed in the workplace.

Q: How do you expect to see AI embraced more in the future in college and the workplace?
I do believe it’s going to become a permanent fixture for multiple reasons. I think the national security imperative associated with AI as a result of competing against other nations is going to drive a lot of energy and support for AI education. We also see shifts across every field and discipline regarding the usage of AI beyond college. We see this in a broad array of fields, including health care and the field of law. I think it’s here to stay and I think that means we’re going to see AI literacy being taught at most colleges and universities, and more faculty leveraging AI to help improve the quality of their instruction. I feel like we’re just at the beginning of a transition. In fact, I often describe our current moment as the ‘Ask Jeeves’ phase of the growth of AI. There’s a lot of change still ahead of us. AI, for better or worse, it’s here to stay.

AI-Generated Podcasts Outperform Textbooks in Landmark Education Study — form linkedin.com by David Borish

A new study from Drexel University and Google has demonstrated that AI-generated educational podcasts can significantly enhance both student engagement and learning outcomes compared to traditional textbooks. The research, involving 180 college students across the United States, represents one of the first systematic investigations into how artificial intelligence can transform educational content delivery in real-time.

What can we do about generative AI in our teaching? — from linkedin.com by Kristina Peterson

So what can we do?

Interrogate the Process: We can ask ourselves if we I built in enough checkpoints. Steps that can’t be faked. Things like quick writes, question floods, in-person feedback, revision logs.
Reframe AI: We can let students use AI as a partner. We can show them how to prompt better, revise harder, and build from it rather than submit it. Show them the difference between using a tool and being used by one.
Design Assignments for Curiosity, Not Compliance: Even the best of our assignments need to adapt. Mine needs more checkpoints, more reflective questions along the way, more explanation of why my students made the choices they did.

Teachers Are Not OK — from 404media.co by Jason Koebler

The response from teachers and university professors was overwhelming. In my entire career, I’ve rarely gotten so many email responses to a single article, and I have never gotten so many thoughtful and comprehensive responses.

One thing is clear: teachers are not OK.
…
In addition, universities are contracting with companies like Microsoft, Adobe, and Google for digital services, and those companies are constantly pushing their AI tools. So a student might hear “don’t use generative AI” from a prof but then log on to the university’s Microsoft suite, which then suggests using Copilot to sum up readings or help draft writing. It’s inconsistent and confusing.

I am sick to my stomach as I write this because I’ve spent 20 years developing a pedagogy that’s about wrestling with big ideas through writing and discussion, and that whole project has been evaporated by for-profit corporations who built their systems on stolen work. It’s demoralizing.

NAMLE 2025 Conference
Join us for the largest professional development conference dedicated to media literacy education in the U.S. on July 11-12, 2025.

From Pre-K to Higher Education, Community Education and Libraries, the conference provides valuable resources, technology, teacher practice and pedagogy, assessments, and core concepts of media literacy education.

Cultivating a responsible innovation mindset among future tech leaders — from timeshighereducation.com by Andreas Alexiou from the University of Southampton
The classroom is a perfect place to discuss the messy, real-world consequences of technological discoveries, writes Andreas Alexiou. Beyond ‘How?’, students should be asking ‘Should we…?’ and ‘What if…?’ questions around ethics and responsibility

University educators play a crucial role in guiding students to think about the next big invention and its implications for privacy, the environment and social equity. To truly make a difference, we need to bring ethics and responsibility into the classroom in a way that resonates with students. Here’s how.

Debating with industry pioneers on incorporating ethical frameworks in innovation, product development or technology adoption is eye-opening because it can lead to students confronting assumptions they hadn’t questioned before.
…
Students need more than just skills; they need a mindset that sticks with them long after graduation. By making ethics and responsibility a key part of the learning process, educators are doing more than preparing students for a career; they’re preparing them to navigate a world shaped by their choices.

The 2025 Global Skills Report [Coursera]

On 06/04/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, business, career development, colleges, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, credentialing, curriculum, emerging technologies, Europe, expectations, faculty/staff, future, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, IT in HE, learning ecosystem, legislatures / government / legal, microlearning, real-world assignments, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, teaching & learning, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The 2025 Global Skills Report— from coursera.org
Discover in-demand skills and credentials trends across 100+ countries and six regions to deliver impactful industry-aligned learning programs.

GenAI adoption fuels global skill demands
In 2023, early adopters flocked to GenAI, with approximately one person per minute enrolling in a GenAI course on Coursera —a rate that rose to eight per minute in 2024. Since then, GenAI has continued to see exceptional growth, with global enrollment in GenAI courses surging 195% year-over-year—maintaining its position as one of the most rapidly growing skill domains on our platform. To date, Coursera has recorded over 8 million GenAI enrollments, with 12 learners per minute signing up for GenAI content in 2025 across our catalog of nearly 700 GenAI courses.

Driving this surge, 94% of employers say they’re likely to hire candidates with GenAI credentials, while 75% prefer hiring less-experienced candidates with GenAI skills over more experienced ones without these capabilities.8 Demand for roles such as AI and Machine Learning Specialists is projected to grow by up to 40% in the next four years.9 Mastering AI fundamentals—from prompt engineering to large language model (LLM) applications—is essential to remaining competitive in today’s rapidly evolving economy.

Countries leading our new AI Maturity Index— which highlights regions best equipped to harness AI innovation and translate skills into real-world applications—include global frontrunners such as Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States.

Insights in action

Businesses
Integrate role-specific GenAI modules into employee development programs, enabling teams to leverage AI for efficiency and innovation.

Governments
Scale GenAI literacy initiatives—especially in emerging economies—to address talent shortages and foster human-machine capabilities needed to future-proof digital jobs.

Higher education
Embed credit-eligible GenAI learning into curricula, ensuring graduates enter the workforce job-ready.

Learners
Focus on GenAI courses offering real-world projects (e.g., prompt engineering) that help build skills for in-demand roles.

Making Learning Matter [Pitts Donahoe]

On 05/31/2025, in colleges, community colleges, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, real-world assignments, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Making Learning Matter — from emilypittsdonahoe.substack.com by Emily Pitts Donahoe
We’ve got to get better at talking to students

In a recent newsletter, John Warner articulated a problem I’ve been mulling over for quite some time now:

“The challenge is to convince students that there is a genuine benefit in the struggle of learning as something distinct from the steady forced march of schooling. How do I convey the genuine value of thinking when the cultural message of the moment is the opposite?”

If higher education is to have any meaningful future at all, we have to find real answers to this question.

So, for a long time, I’ve been lamenting that we don’t talk enough with students about the value of work in our disciplines. We should devote more time to exploring how this knowledge operates in the real world! We should explicitly communicate its benefits not only for students’ future professional lives but also for their personal lives, and for the world at large! We should give them a self-transcendent purpose for learning! We should show them that what they learn has real, tangible meaning beyond the classroom!

“Our education sector urgently needs scalable solutions to help students navigate a disappearing career ladder — and quickly.” [Salisbury]

On 05/31/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, credentialing, curriculum, education, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, expectations, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, online learning, skills, society, student-related, teaching & learning, teaching online, United States, universities, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, workplace, XR - extended reality, youth, by Daniel Christian

Also relevant/see:

Report: 93% of Students Believe Gen AI Training Belongs in Degree Programs — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

The vast majority of today’s college students — 93% — believe generative AI training should be included in degree programs, according to a recent Coursera report. What’s more, 86% of students consider gen AI the most crucial technical skill for career preparation, prioritizing it above in-demand skills such as data strategy and software development. And 94% agree that microcredentials help build the essential skills they need to achieve career success.

For its Microcredentials Impact Report 2025, Coursera surveyed more than 1,200 learners and 1,000 employers around the globe to better understand the demand for microcredentials and their impact on workforce readiness and hiring trends.

1 in 4 employers say they’ll eliminate degree requirements by year’s end — from hrdive.com by Carolyn Crist
Companies that recently removed degree requirements reported a surge in applications, a more diverse applicant pool and the ability to offer lower salaries.

A quarter of employers surveyed said they will remove bachelor’s degree requirements for some roles by the end of 2025, according to a May 20 report from Resume Templates.

In addition, 7 in 10 hiring managers said their company looks at relevant experience over a bachelor’s degree while making hiring decisions.
…
In the survey of 1,000 hiring managers, 84% of companies that recently removed degree requirements said it has been a successful move. Companies without degree requirements also reported a surge in applications, a more diverse applicant pool and the ability to offer lower salaries.

Why AI literacy is now a core competency in education — from weforum.org by Tanya Milberg

Education systems must go beyond digital literacy and embrace AI literacy as a core educational priority.
A new AI Literacy Framework (AILit) aims to empower learners to navigate an AI-integrated world with confidence and purpose.
Here’s what you need to know about the AILit Framework – and how to get involved in making it a success.

Also from Allison Salisbury, see:

Cultivating a responsible innovation mindset among future tech leaders — from timeshighereducation.com by Andreas Alexiou
The classroom is a perfect place to discuss the messy, real-world consequences of technological discoveries, writes Andreas Alexiou. Beyond ‘How?’, students should be asking ‘Should we…?’ and ‘What if…?’ questions around ethics and responsibility

University educators play a crucial role in guiding students to think about the next big invention and its implications for privacy, the environment and social equity. To truly make a difference, we need to bring ethics and responsibility into the classroom in a way that resonates with students. Here’s how.
…
Debating with industry pioneers on incorporating ethical frameworks in innovation, product development or technology adoption is eye-opening because it can lead to students confronting assumptions they hadn’t questioned before. For example, students could discuss the roll-out of emotion-recognition software. Many assume it’s neutral, but guest speakers from industry can highlight how cultural and racial biases are baked into design decisions.

Leveraging alumni networks and starting with short virtual Q&A sessions instead of full lectures can work well.

Are we overlooking the power of autonomy when it comes to motivating students? — from timeshighereducation.com by Danny Oppenheimer
Educators fear giving students too much choice in their learning will see them making the wrong decisions. But structuring choice without dictating the answers could be the way forward

So, how can we get students to make good decisions while still allowing them agency to make their own choices, maintaining the associated motivational advantages that agency provides? One possibility is to use choice architecture, more commonly called “nudges”: structuring choices in ways that scaffold better decisions without dictating them.
…
Higher education rightly emphasises the importance of belonging and mastery, but when it ignores autonomy – the third leg of the motivational tripod – the system wobbles. When we allow students to decide for themselves how they’ll engage with their coursework, they consistently rise to the occasion. They choose to challenge themselves, perform better academically and enjoy their education more.

“Faculty AI Guides” + “Teachers using AI tools more regularly” + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 05/27/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, Australia, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, digital learning, digital textbooks, education, education reform, education technology, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, liberal arts, personalized/customized learning, skills, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

AI & Schools: 4 Ways Artificial Intelligence Can Help Students — from the74million.org by W. Ian O’Byrne
AI creates potential for more personalized learning

I am a literacy educator and researcher, and here are four ways I believe these kinds of systems can be used to help students learn.

Differentiated instruction
Intelligent textbooks
Improved assessment
Personalized learning

5 Skills Kids (and Adults) Need in an AI World — from oreilly.com by Raffi Krikorian
Hint: Coding Isn’t One of Them

Five Essential Skills Kids Need (More than Coding)
I’m not saying we shouldn’t teach kids to code. It’s a useful skill. But these are the five true foundations that will serve them regardless of how technology evolves.

Loving the journey, not just the destination
Being a question-asker, not just an answer-getter
Trying, failing, and trying differently
Seeing the whole picture
Walking in others’ shoes

The AI moment is now: Are teachers and students ready? — from iblnews.org

Day of AI Australia hosted a panel discussion on 20 May, 2025. Hosted by Dr Sebastian Sequoiah-Grayson (Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Engineering, UNSW Sydney) with panel members Katie Ford (Industry Executive – Higher Education at Microsoft), Tamara Templeton (Primary School Teacher, Townsville), Sarina Wilson (Teaching and Learning Coordinator – Emerging Technology at NSW Department of Education) and Professor Didar Zowghi (Senior Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO’s Data61).

Teachers using AI tools more regularly, survey finds — from iblnews.org

As many students face criticism and punishment for using artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT for assignments, new reporting shows that many instructors are increasingly using those same programs.

Addendum on 5/28/25:

A Museum of Real Use: The Field Guide to Effective AI Use — from mikekentz.substack.com by Mike Kentz
Six Educators Annotate Their Real AI Use—and a Method Emerges for Benchmarking the Chats

Our next challenge is to self-analyze and develop meaningful benchmarks for AI use across contexts. This research exhibit aims to take the first major step in that direction.

With the right approach, a transcript becomes something else:

A window into student decision-making
A record of how understanding evolves
A conversation that can be interpreted and assessed
An opportunity to evaluate content understanding

This week, I’m excited to share something that brings that idea into practice.

Over time, I imagine a future where annotated transcripts are collected and curated. Schools and universities could draw from a shared library of real examples—not polished templates, but genuine conversations that show process, reflection, and revision. These transcripts would live not as static samples but as evolving benchmarks.

This Field Guide is the first move in that direction.

‘What I learned when students walked out of my AI class’ [Hogg] + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 05/19/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, business side of he, change, colleges, communications, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, metacognition / metacognitive skills, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, UK, United States, universities, vendors, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

‘What I learned when students walked out of my AI class’ — from timeshighereducation.com by Chris Hogg
Chris Hogg found the question of using AI to create art troubled his students deeply. Here’s how the moment led to deeper understanding for both student and educator

Teaching AI can be as thrilling as it is challenging. This became clear one day when three students walked out of my class, visibly upset. They later explained their frustration: after spending years learning their creative skills, they were disheartened to see AI effortlessly outperform them at the blink of an eye.

This moment stuck with me – not because it was unexpected, but because it encapsulates the paradoxical relationship we all seem to have with AI. As both an educator and a creative, I find myself asking: how do we engage with this powerful tool without losing ourselves in the process? This is the story of how I turned moments of resistance into opportunities for deeper understanding.

In the AI era, how do we battle cognitive laziness in students? — from timeshighereducation.com by Sean McMinn
With the latest AI technology now able to handle complex problem-solving processes, will students risk losing their own cognitive engagement? Metacognitive scaffolding could be the answer, writes Sean McMinn

The concern about cognitive laziness seems to be backed by Anthropic’s report that students use AI tools like Claude primarily for creating (39.8 per cent) and analysing (30.2 per cent) tasks, both considered higher-order cognitive functions according to Bloom’s Taxonomy. While these tasks align well with advanced educational objectives, they also pose a risk: students may increasingly delegate critical thinking and complex cognitive processes directly to AI, risking a reduction in their own cognitive engagement and skill development.

Make Instructional Design Fun Again with AI Agents — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
A special edition practical guide to selecting & building AI agents for instructional design and L&D

Exactly how we do this has been less clear, but — fuelled by the rise of so-called “Agentic AI” — more and more instructional designers ask me: “What exactly can I delegate to AI agents, and how do I start?”

In this week’s post, I share my thoughts on exactly what instructional design tasks can be delegated to AI agents, and provide a step-by-step approach to building and testing your first AI agent.

Here’s a sneak peak….

AI Personality Matters: Why Claude Doesn’t Give Unsolicited Advice (And Why You Should Care) — from mikekentz.substack.com by Mike Kentz
First in a four-part series exploring the subtle yet profound differences between AI systems and their impact on human cognition

After providing Claude with several prompts of context about my creative writing project, I requested feedback on one of my novel chapters. The AI provided thoughtful analysis with pros and cons, as expected. But then I noticed what wasn’t there: the customary offer to rewrite my chapter.
…
Without Claude’s prompting, I found myself in an unexpected moment of metacognition. When faced with improvement suggestions but no offer to implement them, I had to consciously ask myself: “Do I actually want AI to rewrite this section?” The answer surprised me – no, I wanted to revise it myself, incorporating the insights while maintaining my voice and process.

The contrast was striking. With ChatGPT, accepting its offer to rewrite felt like a passive, almost innocent act – as if I were just saying “yes” to a helpful assistant. But with Claude, requesting a rewrite required deliberate action. Typing out the request felt like a more conscious surrender of creative agency.

Also re: metacognition and AI, see:

In the AI era, how do we battle cognitive laziness in students? — from timeshighereducation.com by Sean McMinn
With the latest AI technology now able to handle complex problem-solving processes, will students risk losing their own cognitive engagement? Metacognitive scaffolding could be the answer, writes Sean McMinn

The concern about cognitive laziness seems to be backed by Anthropic’s report that students use AI tools like Claude primarily for creating (39.8 per cent) and analysing (30.2 per cent) tasks, both considered higher-order cognitive functions according to Bloom’s Taxonomy. While these tasks align well with advanced educational objectives, they also pose a risk: students may increasingly delegate critical thinking and complex cognitive processes directly to AI, risking a reduction in their own cognitive engagement and skill development.

By prompting students to articulate their cognitive processes, such tools reinforce the internalisation of self-regulated learning strategies essential for navigating AI-augmented environments.

EDUCAUSE Panel Highlights Practical Uses for AI in Higher Ed — from govtech.com by Abby Sourwine
A webinar this week featuring panelists from the education, private and nonprofit sectors attested to how institutions are applying generative artificial intelligence to advising, admissions, research and IT.

Many higher education leaders have expressed hope about the potential of artificial intelligence but uncertainty about where to implement it safely and effectively. According to a webinar Tuesday hosted by EDUCAUSE, “Unlocking AI’s Potential in Higher Education,” their answer may be “almost everywhere.”

Panelists at the event, including Kaskaskia College CIO George Kriss, Canyon GBS founder and CEO Joe Licata and Austin Laird, a senior program officer at the Gates Foundation, said generative AI can help colleges and universities meet increasing demands for personalization, timely communication and human-to-human connections throughout an institution, from advising to research to IT support.

Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Chatbots — from derekbruff.org by Derek Bruff

Here are the predictions, our votes, and some commentary:

“By 2028, at least half of large universities will embed an AI ‘copilot’ inside their LMS that can draft content, quizzes, and rubrics on demand.” The group leaned toward yes on this one, in part because it was easy to see LMS vendors building this feature in as a default.
“Discipline-specific ‘digital tutors’ (LLM chatbots trained on course materials) will handle at least 30% of routine student questions in gateway courses.” We learned toward yes on this one, too, which is why some of us are exploring these tools today. We would like to be ready how to use them well (or avoid their use) when they are commonly available.
“Adaptive e-texts whose examples, difficulty, and media personalize in real time via AI will outsell static digital textbooks in the U.S. market.” We leaned toward no on this one, in part because the textbook market and what students want from textbooks has historically been slow to change. I remember offering my students a digital version of my statistics textbook maybe 6-7 years ago, and most students opted to print the whole thing out on paper like it was 1983.
“AI text detectors will be largely abandoned as unreliable, shifting assessment design toward oral, studio, or project-based ‘AI-resilient’ tasks.” We leaned toward yes on this. I have some concerns about oral assessments (they certainly privilege some students over others), but more authentic assignments seems like what higher ed needs in the face of AI. Ted Underwood recently suggested a version of this: “projects that attempt genuinely new things, which remain hard even with AI assistance.” See his post and the replies for some good discussion on this idea.
“AI will produce multimodal accessibility layers (live translation, alt-text, sign-language avatars) for most lecture videos without human editing.” We leaned toward yes on this one, too. This seems like another case where something will be provided by default, although my podcast transcripts are AI-generated and still need editing from me, so we’re not there quite yet.

‘We Have to Really Rethink the Purpose of Education’
The Ezra Klein Show

Description: I honestly don’t know how I should be educating my kids. A.I. has raised a lot of questions for schools. Teachers have had to adapt to the most ingenious cheating technology ever devised. But for me, the deeper question is: What should schools be teaching at all? A.I. is going to make the future look very different. How do you prepare kids for a world you can’t predict?

And if we can offload more and more tasks to generative A.I., what’s left for the human mind to do?

Rebecca Winthrop is the director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. She is also an author, with Jenny Anderson, of “The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better.” We discuss how A.I. is transforming what it means to work and be educated, and how our use of A.I. could revive — or undermine — American schools.

“Student Guide to AI”; “AI Isn’t Just Changing How We Work — It’s Changing How We Learn”; + other items re: AI in our LE’s

On 05/12/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, change, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, digital learning, digital video, education, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, expectations, experimentation, Facebook / Meta Platforms, faculty/staff, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global, Google, health, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, languages and translation, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, learning spaces, media/film, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), multimedia, new media literacies, online media, online tutoring, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, skills, society, staying relevant, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, wearables, workplace, XR - extended reality, youth, by Daniel Christian

.Get the 2025 Student Guide to Artificial Intelligence — from studentguidetoai.org
This guide is made available under a Creative Commons license by Elon University and the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U).
.

AI Isn’t Just Changing How We Work — It’s Changing How We Learn — from entrepreneur.com by Aytekin Tank; edited by Kara McIntyre
AI agents are opening doors to education that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable. Here’s how.

Agentic AI is taking these already huge strides even further. Rather than simply asking a question and receiving an answer, an AI agent can assess your current level of understanding and tailor a reply to help you learn. They can also help you come up with a timetable and personalized lesson plan to make you feel as though you have a one-on-one instructor walking you through the process. If your goal is to learn to speak a new language, for example, an agent might map out a plan starting with basic vocabulary and pronunciation exercises, then progress to simple conversations, grammar rules and finally, real-world listening and speaking practice.
…
For instance, if you’re an entrepreneur looking to sharpen your leadership skills, an AI agent might suggest a mix of foundational books, insightful TED Talks and case studies on high-performing executives. If you’re aiming to master data analysis, it might point you toward hands-on coding exercises, interactive tutorials and real-world datasets to practice with.

The beauty of AI-driven learning is that it’s adaptive. As you gain proficiency, your AI coach can shift its recommendations, challenge you with new concepts and even simulate real-world scenarios to deepen your understanding.

Ironically, the very technology feared by workers can also be leveraged to help them. Rather than requiring expensive external training programs or lengthy in-person workshops, AI agents can deliver personalized, on-demand learning paths tailored to each employee’s role, skill level, and career aspirations. Given that 68% of employees find today’s workplace training to be overly “one-size-fits-all,” an AI-driven approach will not only cut costs and save time but will be more effective.

What’s the Future for AI-Free Spaces? — from higherai.substack.com by Jason Gulya
Please let me dream…

This is one reason why I don’t see AI-embedded classrooms and AI-free classrooms as opposite poles. The bone of contention, here, is not whether we can cultivate AI-free moments in the classroom, but for how long those moments are actually sustainable.

Can we sustain those AI-free moments for an hour? A class session? Longer?
…
Here’s what I think will happen. As AI becomes embedded in society at large, the sustainability of imposed AI-free learning spaces will get tested. Hard. I think it’ll become more and more difficult (though maybe not impossible) to impose AI-free learning spaces on students.

However, consensual and hybrid AI-free learning spaces will continue to have a lot of value. I can imagine classes where students opt into an AI-free space. Or they’ll even create and maintain those spaces.

Duolingo’s AI Revolution — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
What 148 AI-Generated Courses Tell Us About the Future of Instructional Design & Human Learning

Last week, Duolingo announced an unprecedented expansion: 148 new language courses created using generative AI, effectively doubling their content library in just one year. This represents a seismic shift in how learning content is created — a process that previously took the company 12 years for their first 100 courses.

As CEO Luis von Ahn stated in the announcement, “This is a great example of how generative AI can directly benefit our learners… allowing us to scale at unprecedented speed and quality.”

In this week’s blog, I’ll dissect exactly how Duolingo has reimagined instructional design through AI, what this means for the learner experience, and most importantly, what it tells us about the future of our profession.

Are Mixed Reality AI Agents the Future of Medical Education? — from ehealth.eletsonline.com

Medical education is experiencing a quiet revolution—one that’s not taking place in lecture theatres or textbooks, but with headsets and holograms. At the heart of this revolution are Mixed Reality (MR) AI Agents, a new generation of devices that combine the immersive depth of mixed reality with the flexibility of artificial intelligence. These technologies are not mere flashy gadgets; they’re revolutionising the way medical students interact with complicated content, rehearse clinical skills, and prepare for real-world situations. By combining digital simulations with the physical world, MR AI Agents are redefining what it means to learn medicine in the 21st century.

4 Reasons To Use Claude AI to Teach — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Features that make Claude AI appealing to educators include a focus on privacy and conversational style.

After experimenting using Claude AI on various teaching exercises, from generating quizzes to tutoring and offering writing suggestions, I found that it’s not perfect, but I think it behaves favorably compared to other AI tools in general, with an easy-to-use interface and some unique features that make it particularly suited for use in education.

2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report | Teaching and Learning Edition

On 05/12/2025, in 21st century, accessibility / UDL, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), colleges, community colleges, credentialing, digital audio, disruption, economics, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, neurodivergent/special needs, pedagogy, privacy, skills, social learning / networks, society, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), trends, United States, universities, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, workplace, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report | Teaching and Learning Edition — from library.educause.edu

Higher education is in a period of massive transformation and uncertainty. Not only are current events impacting how institutions operate, but technological advancement—particularly in AI and virtual reality—are reshaping how students engage with content, how cognition is understood, and how learning itself is documented and valued.

Our newly released 2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report | Teaching and Learning Edition captures the spirit of this transformation and how you can respond with confidence through the lens of emerging trends, key technologies and practices, and scenario-based foresight.

#teachingandlearning #highereducation #learningecosystems #learning #futurism #foresight #trends #emergingtechnologies #AI #VR #gamechangingenvironment #colleges #universities #communitycolleges #faculty #staff #IT

Something alarming is happening to the job market [Thompson] + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems and in the workplace

On 05/05/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, business, career development, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Microsoft, new business models, organizational change, platforms, podcasting, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, research, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, trends, United States, universities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

DC: THIS could unfortunately be the ROI companies will get from large investments in #AI — reduced headcount/employees/contract workers. https://t.co/zEWlqCSWzI

— Daniel S. Christian (@dchristian5) May 1, 2025

..which links to:

Duolingo will replace contract workers with AI — from theverge.com by Jay Peters
The company is going to be ‘AI-first,’ says its CEO.

Duolingo will “gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle,” according to an all-hands email sent by cofounder and CEO Luis von Ahn announcing that the company will be “AI-first.” The email was posted on Duolingo’s LinkedIn account.

According to von Ahn, being “AI-first” means the company will “need to rethink much of how we work” and that “making minor tweaks to systems designed for humans won’t get us there.” As part of the shift, the company will roll out “a few constructive constraints,” including the changes to how it works with contractors, looking for AI use in hiring and in performance reviews, and that “headcount will only be given if a team cannot automate more of their work.”

Relevant links:

Something strange, and potentially alarming, is happening to the job market for young, educated workers.

According to the New York Federal Reserve, labor conditions for recent college graduates have “deteriorated noticeably” in the past few months, and the unemployment rate now stands at an unusually high 5.8 percent. Even newly minted M.B.A.s from elite programs are struggling to find work. Meanwhile, law-school applications are surging—an ominous echo of when young people used graduate school to bunker down during the great financial crisis.

What’s going on? I see three plausible explanations, and each might be a little bit true.

It’s Time To Get Concerned As More Companies Replace Workers With AI — from forbes.com by Jack Kelly

The new workplace trend is not employee friendly. Artificial intelligence and automation technologies are advancing at blazing speed. A growing number of companies are using AI to streamline operations, cut costs, and boost productivity. Consequently, human workers are facing facing layoffs, replaced by AI. Like it or not, companies need to make tough decisions, including layoffs to remain competitive.

Corporations including Klarna, UPS, Duolingo, Intuit and Cisco are replacing laid-off workers with AI and automation. While these technologies enhance productivity, they raise serious concerns about future job security. For many workers, there is a big concern over whether or not their jobs will be impacted.

The future of career navigation — from medium.com by Sami Tatar

Career navigation market overview

Key takeaway:
Career navigation has remained largely unchanged for decades, relying on personal networks and static job boards. The advent of AI is changing this, offering personalised career pathways, better job matching, democratised job application support, democratised access to career advice/coaching, and tailored skill development to help you get to where you need to be. Hundreds of millions of people start new jobs every year, this transformation opens up a multi-billion dollar opportunity for innovation in the global career navigation market.
…

A.4 How will AI disrupt this segment?
Personalised recommendations: AI can consume a vast amount of information (skills, education, career history, even youtube history, and x/twitter feeds), standardise this data at scale, and then use data models to match candidate characteristics to relevant careers and jobs. In theory, solutions could then go layers deeper, helping you position yourself for those future roles. Currently based in Amsterdam, and working in Strategy at Uber and want to work in a Product role in the future? Here are X,Y,Z specific things YOU can do in your role today to align yourself perfectly. E.g. find opportunities to manage cross functional projects in your current remit, reach out to Joe Bloggs also at Uber in Amsterdam who did Strategy and moved to Product, etc.

Tales from the Front – What Teachers Are Telling Me at AI Workshops — from aliciabankhofer.substack.com by Alicia Bankhofer
Real conversations, real concerns: What teachers are saying about AI

“Do I really have to use AI?”

No matter the school, no matter the location, when I deliver an AI workshop to a group of teachers, there are always at least a few colleagues thinking (and sometimes voicing), “Do I really need to use AI?”

Nearly three years after ChatGPT 3.5 landed in our lives and disrupted workflows in ways we’re still unpacking, most schools are swiftly catching up. Training sessions, like the ones I lead, are springing up everywhere, with principals and administrators trying to answer the same questions: Which tools should we use? How do we use them responsibly? How do we design learning in this new landscape?

But here’s what surprises me most: despite all the advances in AI technology, the questions and concerns from teachers remain strikingly consistent.
…
In this article, I want to pull back the curtain on those conversations. These concerns aren’t signs of reluctance – they reflect sincere feelings. And they deserve thoughtful, honest answers.

Welcome To AI Agent World! (Everything you need to know about the AI Agent market.) — from joshbersin.com by Josh Bersin

This week, in advance of major announcements from us and other vendors, I give you a good overview of the AI Agent market, and discuss the new role of AI governance platforms, AI agent development tools, AI agent vendors, and how AI agents will actually manifest and redefine what we call an “application.”

I discuss ServiceNow, Microsoft, SAP, Workday, Paradox, Maki People, and other vendors. My goal today is to “demystify” this space and explain the market, the trends, and why and how your IT department is going to be building a lot of the agents you need. And prepare for our announcements next week!

DeepSeek Unveils Prover V2 — from theaivalley.com

DeepSeek has quietly launched Prover V2, an open-source model built to solve math problems using Lean 4 assistant, which ensures every step of a proof is rigorously verified.

What’s impressive about it?

Massive scale: Based on DeepSeek-V3 with 671B parameters using a mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture, which activates only parts of the model at a time to reduce compute costs.
Theorem solving: Uses long context windows (32K+ tokens) to generate detailed, step-by-step formal proofs for a wide range of math problems — from basic algebra to advanced calculus theorems.
Research grade: Assists mathematicians in testing new theorems automatically and helps students understand formal logic by generating both Lean 4 code and readable explanations.
New benchmark: Introduces ProverBench, a new 325-question benchmark set featuring problems from recent AIME exams and curated academic sources to evaluate mathematical reasoning.

Artificial Intelligence: Lessons Learned from a Graduate-Level Final Exam — from er.educause.edu by Craig Westling and Manish K. Mishra

The need for deep student engagement became clear at Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine when a potential academic-integrity issue revealed gaps in its initial approach to artificial intelligence use in the classroom, leading to significant revisions to ensure equitable learning and assessment.

Deep Research with AI: 9 Ways to Get Started — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan
Practical strategies for thorough, citation-rich AI research
.

From George Siemens “SAIL: Transmutation, Assessment, Robots e-newsletter on 5/2/25

All indications are that AI, even if it stops advancing, has the capacity to dramatically change knowledge work. Knowing things matters less than being able to navigate and make sense of complex environments. Put another way, sensemaking, meaningmaking, and wayfinding (with their yet to be defined subelements) will be the foundation for being knowledgeable going forward.

That will require being able to personalize learning to each individual learner so that who they are (not what our content is) forms the pedagogical entry point to learning.(DSC: And I would add WHAT THEY WANT to ACHIEVE.)LLMs are particularly good and transmutation. Want to explain AI to a farmer? A sentence or two in a system prompt achieves that. Know that a learner has ADHD? A few small prompt changes and it’s reflected in the way the LLM engages with learning. Talk like a pirate. Speak in the language of Shakespeare. Language changes. All a matter of a small meta comment send to the LLM. I’m convinced that this capability to change, transmute, information will become a central part of how LLMS and AI are adopted in education.
…
Speaking of Duolingo– it took them 12 years to develop 100 courses. In the last year, they developed an additional 148. AI is an accelerant with an impact in education that is hard to overstate. “Instead of taking years to build a single course with humans the company now builds a base course and uses AI to quickly customize it for dozens of different languages.”

FutureHouse Platform: Superintelligent AI Agents for Scientific Discovery — from futurehouse.org by Michael Skarlinski, Tyler Nadolski, James Braza, Remo Storni, Mayk Caldas, Ludovico Mitchener, Michaela Hinks, Andrew White, & Sam Rodriques

FutureHouse is launching our platform, bringing the first publicly available superintelligent scientific agents to scientists everywhere via a web interface and API. Try it out for free at https://platform.futurehouse.org.

Micro-Credentials Impact Report [coursera.org]

On 05/02/2025, in career development, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, credentialing, expectations, experimentation, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, skills, student-related, teaching & learning, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Micro-Credentials Impact Report — from coursera.org
Get exclusive insights on how industry-aligned micro- credentials are bridging skill gaps, driving career outcomes, and building a future-ready workforce—with data from 2,000+ students and employers across six regions.

See how micro-credentials are driving student success, meeting industry demand, and transforming higher education institutions. Deliver industry-aligned learning with confidence—whether you’re leading a university or designing workforce development programs.
…
Our data shows that 90% of employers are willing to offer higher starting salaries to those with micro-credentials. Most offer 10–15% more for credit-bearing vs. non-credit credentials—even higher for GenAI. Help your graduates earn more by integrating micro-credentials into your programs.
…
Students are 2x as likely to choose programs with micro-credentials—even more if credentials are credit-bearing, the report finds. Higher education leaders echo this trend, with 7 in 10 saying students are more likely to enroll in programs that offer micro-credentials for academic credit.

Learning Ecosystems

Navigating Career Transitions [er.educause.edu — James, Richichi, Buszka, & Johnson]

Categories

Tags