Minarets High School prioritizes student-centered learning with innovative programs like project-based learning, digital tools, and unique offerings.
Emphasis on student voice and personalized learning fosters engagement, creativity, and real-world preparation, setting a benchmark for educational innovation.
High school should focus on personalized and purposeful learning experiences that engage students and build real-world skills.
Traditional transcripts should be replaced with richer learning and experience records to better communicate students’ skills to higher education and employers.
“Americans want to grant more control to students themselves, prioritizing a K-12 education where all students have the option to choose the courses they want to study based on interests and aspirations.”
Research on motivation and engagement supports personalized and purposeful learning. Students are more motivated when they see relevance and have some choice. We summarize this in six core principles to which schools should strive.
The Big Idea: A new collaborative effort led out of the Stanford center aims to tackle that goal—giving clearer shape to what it would mean to truly build a new “learning society.” As a starting point, the collaborative released a report and set of design principles this week, crafted through a year of discussion and debate among about three dozen fellows in leadership roles in education, industry, government, and research.
The fellows landed on nine core principles—including that working is learning and credentials are a means, not an end—designed to transition the United States from a “schooled society” to a “learning society.”
“Universal access to K-12 education and the massification of access to college were major accomplishments of 20th century America,” Stevens says. “But all that schooling also has downsides that only recently have come into common view. Conventional schooling is expensive, bureaucratic, and often inflexible.” .
I’ve since found enrichment in substitute teaching. Along the way, I’ve compiled a handful of strategies that have helped me stay involved and make a difference, one day at a time. Those strategies—which are useful for new substitutes still learning the ropes, as well as full-time teachers who are scaling back to substitute duties—are laid out below.
A Quiet Classroom Isn’t Always an Ideal Classroom — from edutopia.org by Clementina Jose By rethinking what a good day in the classroom looks and sounds like, new teachers can better support their students.
If your classroom hums with the energy of students asking questions, debating ideas, and working together, you haven’t failed. You’ve succeeded in building a space where learning isn’t about being compliant, but about being alive and present.
Miro and GenAI as drivers of online student engagement — from timeshighereducation.com by Jaime Eduardo Moncada Garibay A set of practical strategies for transforming passive online student participation into visible, measurable and purposeful engagement through the use of Miro, enhanced by GenAI
To address this challenge, I shifted my focus from requesting participation to designing it. This strategic change led me to integrate Miro, a visual digital workspace, into my classes. Miro enables real-time visualisation and co-creation of ideas, whether individually or in teams.
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The transition from passive attendance to active engagement in online classes requires deliberate instructional design. Tools such as Miro, enhanced by GenAI, enable educators to create structured, visually rich learning environments in which participation is both expected and documented.
While technology provides templates, frames, timers and voting features, its real pedagogical value emerges through intentional facilitation, where the educator’s role shifts from delivering content to orchestrating collaborative, purposeful learning experiences.
In the past, it was typical for faculty to teach online courses as an “overload” of some kind, but BOnES data show that 92% of online programs feature courses taught as part of faculty member’s standard teaching responsibilities. Online teaching has become one of multiple modalities in which faculty teach regularly.
Three-quarters of chief online officers surveyed said they plan to have a great market share of online enrollments in the future, but only 23% said their current marketing is better than their competitors. The rising tide of online enrollments won’t lift all boats–some institutions will fare better than others.
Staffing at online education units is growing, with the median staff size increasing from 15 last year to 20 this year. Julie pointed out that successful online education requires investment of resources. You might need as many buildings as onsite education does, but you need people and you need technology.
Despite modern technological advancements in classroom tools, many educational settings still center around a traditional model where the teacher is the primary source of information and students passively receive content.
Slowly, learning environments are inviting students to actively participate and take ownership of their learning through collaborative projects, inquiry-based experiences, and real-world problem-solving, thereby transforming traditional educational roles and practices.
Real, capability-building learning requires three key elements: content, context and conversation.
The Rise Of AI Agents: Teaching At Scale
The generative AI revolution is often framed in terms of efficiency: faster content creation, automated processes and streamlined workflows. But in the world of L&D, its most transformative potential lies elsewhere: the ability to scale great teaching.
AI gives us the means to replicate the role of an effective teacher across an entire organization. Specifically, AI agents—purpose-built systems that understand, adapt and interact in meaningful, context-aware ways—can make this possible. These tools understand a learner’s role, skill level and goals, then tailor guidance to their specific challenges and adapt dynamically over time. They also reinforce learning continuously, nudging progress and supporting application in the flow of work.
More than simply sharing knowledge, an AI agent can help learners apply it and improve with every interaction. For example, a sales manager can use a learning agent to simulate tough customer scenarios, receive instant feedback based on company best practices and reinforce key techniques. A new hire in the product department could get guidance on the features and on how to communicate value clearly in a roadmap meeting.
In short, AI agents bring together the three essential elements of capability building, not in a one-size-fits-all curriculum but on demand and personalized for every learner. While, obviously, this technology shouldn’t replace human expertise, it can be an effective tool for removing bottlenecks and unlocking effective learning at scale.
SINGAPORE Sept. 3, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Today, Midoo AIproudly announces the launch of the world’s first AI language learning agent, a groundbreaking innovation set to transform language education forever.
For decades, language learning has pursued one ultimate goal: true personalization. Traditional tools offered smart recommendations, gamified challenges, and pre-written role-play scripts—but real personalization remained out of reach. Midoo AI changes that. Here is the >launch video of Midoo AI.
Imagine a learning experience that evolves with you in real time. A system that doesn’t rely on static courses or scripts but creates a dynamic, one-of-a-kind language world tailored entirely to your needs. This is the power of Midoo’s Dynamic Generation technology.
“Midoo is not just a language-learning tool,” said Yvonne, co-founder of Midoo AI. “It’s a living agent that senses your needs, adapts instantly, and shapes an experience that’s warm, personal, and alive. Learning is no longer one-size-fits-all—now, it’s yours and yours alone.”
Language learning apps have traditionally focused on exercises, quizzes, and progress tracking. Midoo AI introduces a different approach. Instead of presenting itself as a course provider, it acts as an intelligent learning agent that builds, adapts, and sustains a learner’s journey.
This review examines how Midoo AI operates, its feature set, and what makes it distinct from other AI-powered tutors.
Midoo AI in Context: Purpose and Position
Midoo AI is not structured around distributing lessons or modules. Its core purpose is to provide an agent-like partner that adapts in real time. Where many platforms ask learners to select a “level” or “topic,”
Midoo instead begins by analyzing goals, usage context, and error patterns. The result is less about consuming predesigned units and more about co-constructing a pathway.
Turning Time Saved Into Better Learning
AI can save teachers time, but what can that time be used for (besides taking a breath)? For most of us, it means redirecting energy into the parts of teaching that made us want to pursue this profession in the first place: connecting with our students and helping them grow academically.
Differentiation Every classroom has students with different readiness levels, language needs, and learning preferences. AI tools like Diffit or MagicSchool can instantly create multiple versions of a passage or assignment, differentiated by grade level, complexity, or language. This allows every student to engage with the same core concept, moving together as one cohesive class. Instead of spending an evening retyping and rephrasing, teachers can review and tweak AI drafts in minutes, ready for the next lesson.
Mass Intelligence — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick From GPT-5 to nano banana: everyone is getting access to powerful AI
When a billion people have access to advanced AI, we’ve entered what we might call the era of Mass Intelligence. Every institution we have — schools, hospitals, courts, companies, governments — was built for a world where intelligence was scarce and expensive. Now every profession, every institution, every community has to figure out how to thrive with Mass Intelligence. How do we harness a billion people using AI while managing the chaos that comes with it? How do we rebuild trust when anyone can fabricate anything? How do we preserve what’s valuable about human expertise while democratizing access to knowledge?
By the time today’s 9th graders and college freshman enter the workforce, the most disruptive waves of AGI and robotics may already be embedded into part society.
What replaces the old system will not simply be a more digital version of the same thing. Structurally, schools may move away from rigid age-groupings, fixed schedules, and subject silos. Instead, learning could become more fluid, personalized, and interdisciplinary—organized around problems, projects, and human development rather than discrete facts or standardized assessments.
AI tutors and mentors will allow for pacing that adapts to each student, freeing teachers to focus more on guidance, relationships, and high-level facilitation. Classrooms may feel less like miniature factories and more like collaborative studios, labs, or even homes—spaces for exploring meaning and building capacity, not just delivering content.
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If students are no longer the default source of action, then we need to teach them to:
Design agents,
Collaborate with agents,
Align agentic systems with human values,
And most of all, retain moral and civic agency in a world where machines act on our behalf.
We are no longer educating students to be just doers.
We must now educate them to be judges, designers, and stewards of agency.
Meet Your New AI Tutor — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan Try new learning modes in ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini
AI assistants are now more than simple answer machines. ChatGPT’s new Study Mode, Claude’s Learning Mode, and Gemini’s Guided Learningrepresent a significant shift. Instead of just providing answers, these free tools act as adaptive, 24/7 personal tutors.
That’s why, in preparation for my next bootcamp which kicks off September 8th 2025, I’ve just completed a full refresh of my list of the most powerful & popular AI tools for Instructional Designers, complete with tips on how to get the most from each tool.
The list has been created using my own experience + the experience of hundreds of Instructional Designers who I work with every week.
It contains the 50 most powerful AI tools for instructional design available right now, along with tips on how to optimise their benefits while mitigating their risks.
Addendums on 9/4/25:
AI Companies Roll Out Educational Tools — from insidehighered.com by Ray Schroeder This fall, Google, Anthropic and OpenAI are rolling out powerful new AI tools for students and educators, each taking a different path to shape the future of learning.
So here’s the new list of essential skills I think my students will need when they are employed to work with AI five years from now:
They can follow directions, analyze outcomes, and adapt to change when needed.
They can write or edit AI to capture a unique voice and appropriate tone in sync with an audience’s needs
They have a deep understanding of one or more content areas of a particular profession, business, or industry, so they can easily identify factual errors.
They have a strong commitment to exploration, a flexible mindset, and a broad understanding of AI literacy.
They are resilient and critical thinkers, ready to question results and demand better answers.
They are problem solvers.
And, of course, here is a new rubric built on those skills:
Adam Raine, a 16-year-old California boy, started using ChatGPT for homework help in September 2024. Over eight months, the AI chatbot gradually cultivated a toxic, dependent relationship that ultimately contributed to his death by suicide in April 2025.
On Tuesday, August 26, his family filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman.
The Numbers Tell a Disturbing Story
Usage escalated: From occasional homework help in September 2024 to 4 hours a day by March 2025.
ChatGPT mentioned suicide 6x more than Adam himself (1,275 times vs. 213), while providing increasingly specific technical guidance
ChatGPT’s self-harm flags increased 10x over 4 months, yet the system kept engaging with no meaningful intervention
Despite repeated mentions of self-harm and suicidal ideation, ChatGPT did not take appropriate steps to flag Adam’s account, demonstrating a clear failure in safety guardrails
Even when Adam considered seeking external support from his family, ChatGPT convinced him not to share his struggles with anyone else, undermining and displacing his real-world relationships. And the chatbot did not redirect distressing conversation topics, instead nudging Adam to continue to engage by asking him follow-up questions over and over.
Taken altogether, these features transformed ChatGPT from a homework helper into an exploitative system — one that fostered dependency and coached Adam through multiple suicide attempts, including the one that ended his life.
Also related, see the following GIFTED article:
A Teen Was Suicidal. ChatGPT Was the Friend He Confided In. — from nytimes.com by Kashmir Hill; this is a gifted article More people are turning to general-purpose chatbots for emotional support. At first, Adam Raine, 16, used ChatGPT for schoolwork, but then he started discussing plans to end his life.
Seeking answers, his father, Matt Raine, a hotel executive, turned to Adam’s iPhone, thinking his text messages or social media apps might hold clues about what had happened. But instead, it was ChatGPT where he found some, according to legal papers. The chatbot app lists past chats, and Mr. Raine saw one titled “Hanging Safety Concerns.” He started reading and was shocked. Adam had been discussing ending his life with ChatGPT for months.
Adam began talking to the chatbot, which is powered by artificial intelligence, at the end of November, about feeling emotionally numb and seeing no meaning in life. It responded with words of empathy, support and hope, and encouraged him to think about the things that did feel meaningful to him.
But in January, when Adam requested information about specific suicide methods, ChatGPT supplied it. Mr. Raine learned that his son had made previous attempts to kill himself starting in March, including by taking an overdose of his I.B.S. medication. When Adam asked about the best materials for a noose, the bot offered a suggestion that reflected its knowledge of his hobbies.
ChatGPT repeatedly recommended that Adam tell someone about how he was feeling. But there were also key moments when it deterred him from seeking help.
Welcome back to school! For most of us (myself included), the whirlwind of lesson prep, meetings, professional development—and of course, teaching—is here. Keep reading for my favorite back-to-school activities to engage students with retrieval practice during the first week of class.
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It may (or may not) surprise you to know that my first day of class is full of retrieval practice. Even if you haven’t introduced content yet, use retrieval practice the first day or week of class. Here’s how, with quick activities you can adapt for K–12 students, higher ed courses, and all content areas:
Build a welcoming class culture with mnemonics to remember student names (spoiler alert: trying to memorize names with students’ LMS photos doesn’t work)
I’ll start, as we academics so love to do, with a little bit of theory — specifically, four core principles that can help shape your planning for the first day of your course.
Next, I’ll cover the logistics of a successful first day, including managing the space and technology as well as getting to know your students.
To show you how to put the principles and the logistics into practice, I will provide examples of what a good set of first-day activities might look like in four disciplines.
I’ll finish with some suggestions for how to support the good work you have done on the first day with some follow-up activities.
7 Pieces of Advice for New Teachers — from edutopia.org by Brienne May Focus on relationships with students and colleagues to make a good start to the year—and remember to ask for what you need.
Too often, teacher preparation programs are rich in theory but light on practical guidance. After working hard through my undergraduate classes, completing student teaching, and spending countless hours laminating and cutting, I still found myself on the first day of school, standing in front of a room full of expectant faces with eager eyes, and realized I had no idea what to do next. I didn’t know what to say to students in that moment, let alone how to survive the following 180 days. Twelve years later, I have collected a trove of advice I wish I could have shared with that fresh-faced teacher.
Each fall, one of the first routines I introduce is our classroom job board. It’s more than a list of tasks—it helps students feel that they belong and have real roles in our shared space. Over the years, I’ve expanded beyond classic jobs like Line Leader and Pencil Sharpener to include creative roles with quirky titles that engage and resonate with students.
Here are the jobs that have helped my students feel seen, trusted, and excited to contribute.
Guiding Students to Overcome Learned Helplessness— from edutopia.org by Michelle Singh New teachers can create an environment where students feel supported and understand that mistakes are part of the learning process.
Creating a Kid-Led Hall of Fame for Books — from edutopia.org by Eric Hall Allowing elementary students to nominate and vote for their favorite books of the year can create a culture of celebration in the classroom.
When I started teaching, I remembered that conversation with my elementary school librarian. I thought, “Why should adults have all the fun?” I wanted my students to experience the excitement of recognizing books they thought were the best. And just like that, the Hallbery Awards were born and continued twice a year for over 15 years. (Why Hallbery? Because my last name is Hall.)
Today, we’re taking a look at the three primary forms of assessments—diagnostic, formative, and summative—with the goal of not only differentiating between them but also better understanding the purpose and potential power of each.
At their core, each of the three primary assessment types serves a distinct purpose. Diagnostic assessments are used before instruction to help identify where students are in their comprehension of academic content. Formative assessments are used while content is being taught to understand what students are picking up, to guide their learning, and to help teachers determine what to focus on moving forward. Summative assessments are used after instruction to evaluate the outcomes of student learning: what, or how much, they ultimately learned.
The “New Indiana Diploma” — which was signed into law in April and goes into effect for all incoming first-year students this academic year — gives students the option to earn different “seals” in addition to a basic diploma, depending on whether they plan to attend college, go straight to work or serve in the military. Jenner describes it as an effort to tailor the diploma to students’ interests, expose students to careers and recognize different forms of student achievement.
Students in one Arizona district will take fewer standardized tests this school year, the result of an educator-led push to devote less time to testing.
The Tucson Education Association, backed by the school board and several parents, reached an agreement with the Tucson Unified school system in May to reduce the number of district-mandated standardized assessments students take annually starting in the 2025-26 academic year.
Just 25 percent of educators agreed that state-mandated tests provide useful information for the teachers in their school, according to a 2023 EdWeek Research Center survey of teachers, principals, and district leaders.
30 Ways to Bring Calm to a Noisy High School Classroom — from edutopia.org by Anne Noyes Saini From ‘finding the lull’ to the magic of a dramatic whisper, these teacher-tested strategies quickly get high school students focused and back on track.
Approaching Experiential Learning as a Continuum — from edutopia.org by Bill Manchester Teachers can consider 12 characteristics of experiential learning to make lessons more or less active for students.
Here are five AI activities to explore this summer to help you and your students navigate artificial intelligence with an ethical, responsible, and creative approach.
… 1. Use Google’s Quick, Draw! to have fun and get curious about AI. We all have a desire to doodle–even students and adults who say, “I can’t even draw a stick figure!” Bring lots of light-hearted energy into your art room with Google’s Quick Draw! tool. This platform allows you to draw simple prompts, such as a bike, a cat, or a cup, in 20 seconds. While you’re drawing, AI attempts to recognize the subject.
This tool works with any skill level and is a space to draw freely without overthinking. Beyond quick sketching, this activity demonstrates that human input builds machine learning, and it’s only as “smart” as the information (or in this case, drawings) we feed it. It’s a fun way to explore the evolving role of AI in our visual world!
No tech? No problem! Use paper to run the same activity. You can even use the Thumbnail Sketches template in FLEX Curriculum. Students sketch quick prompts in groups and then guess the drawings to spark conversation about how AI “learns.”
“The $50 study,” as it’s known, began at Rooted School, a local charter school, as an experiment to increase attendance. The study has since grown to eight other high schools in the city, as well as Rooted’s sister campus in Indianapolis, with students randomly selected to receive $50 every week for 40 weeks, or $2,000 total. By comparing their spending and savings habits to a larger control group, researchers wanted to figure out whether the money improved a teen’s financial capability and perception of themselves. They also wanted to know: Could the cash boost their grade-point averages and reading scores?
Yoodli is an AI tool designed to help users improve their public speaking skills. It analyzes your speech in real-time or after a recording and gives you feedback on things like:
Filler words (“um,” “like,” “you know”)
Pacing (Are you sprinting or sedating your audience?)
Word choice and sentence complexity
Eye contact and body language (with video)
And yes, even your “uhhh” to actual word ratio
Yoodli gives you a transcript and a confidence score, plus suggestions that range from helpful to brutally honest. It’s basically Simon Cowell with AI ethics and a smiley face interface.
[What’s] going on with AI and education? — from theneuron.ai by Grant Harvey With students and teachers alike using AI, schools are facing an “assessment crisis” where the line between tool and cheating has blurred, forcing a shift away from a broken knowledge economy toward a new focus on building human judgment through strategic struggle.
What to do about it: The future belongs to the “judgment economy,” where knowledge is commoditized but taste, agency, and learning velocity become the new human moats. Use the “Struggle-First” principle: wrestle with problems for 20-30 minutes before turning to AI, then use AI as a sparring partner (not a ghostwriter) to deepen understanding. The goal isn’t to avoid AI, but to strategically choose when to embrace “desirable difficulties” that build genuine expertise versus when to leverage AI for efficiency.
… The Alpha-School Program in brief:
Students complete core academics in just 2 hours using AI tutors, freeing up 4+ hours for life skills, passion projects, and real-world experiences.
The school claims students learn at least 2x faster than their peers in traditional school.
The top 20% of students show 6.5x growth. Classes score in the top 1-2% nationally across the board.
Claims are based on NWEA’s Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessments… with data only available to the school. Hmm…
Austen Allred shared a story about the school, which put it on our radar.
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In the latest installment of Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation’s research on education, K-12 teachers reveal how AI tools are transforming their workloads, instructional quality and classroom optimism. The report finds that 60% of teachers used an AI tool during the 2024–25 school year. Weekly AI users report reclaiming nearly six hours per week — equivalent to six weeks per year — which they reinvest in more personalized instruction, deeper student feedback and better parent communication.
Despite this emerging “AI dividend,” adoption is uneven: 40% of teachers aren’t using AI at all, and only 19% report their school has a formal AI policy. Teachers with access to policies and support save significantly more time.
Educators also say AI improves their work. Most report higher-quality lesson plans, assessments and student feedback. And teachers who regularly use AI are more optimistic about its benefits for student engagement and accessibility — mirroring themes from the Voices of Gen Z: How American Youth View and Use Artificial Intelligence report, which found students hesitant but curious about AI’s classroom role. As AI tools grow more embedded in education, both teachers and students will need the training and support to use them effectively.
What Is Amira Learning?
Amira Learning’s system is built upon research led by Jack Mostow, a professor at Carnegie Mellon who helped pioneer AI literacy education. Amira uses Claude AI to power its AI features, but these features are different than many other AI tools on the market. Instead of focusing on chat and generative response, Amira’s key feature is its advanced speech recognition and natural language processing capabilities, which allow the app to “hear” when a student is struggling and tailor suggestions to that student’s particular mistakes.
Though it’s not meant to replace a teacher, Amira provides real-time feedback and also helps teachers pinpoint where a student is struggling. For these reasons, Amira Learning is a favorite of education scientists and advocates for science of reading-based literacy instruction. The tool currently is used by more than 4 million students worldwide and across the U.S.
Getting (and Keeping) Early Learners’ Attention — from edutopia.org by Heather Sanderell These ideas for lesson hooks—like using songs, video clips, and picture walks—can motivate young students to focus on learning.
How do you grasp and maintain the attention of a room full of wide-eyed students with varying interests and abilities? Do you use visuals and games or interactive activities? Do you use art and sports and music or sounds? The answer is yes, to all!
When trying to keep the attention of your learners, it’s important to stimulate their senses and pique their diverse interests. Educational theorist and researcher Robert Gagné devised his nine events of instructional design, which include grabbing learners’ attention with a lesson hook. This is done first to set the tone for the remainder of the lesson.
3 Ways to Help Students Overcome the Forgetting Curve — from edutopia.org by Cathleen Beachboard Our brains are wired to forget things unless we take active steps to remember. Here’s how you can help students hold on to what they learn.
You teach a lesson that lights up the room. Students are nodding and hands are flying up, and afterward you walk out thinking, “They got it. They really got it.”
And then, the next week, you ask a simple review question—and the room falls silent.
If that situation has ever made you question your ability to teach, take heart: You’re not failing, you’re simply facing the forgetting curve. Understanding why students forget—and how we can help them remember—can transform not just our lessons but our students’ futures.
The good news? You don’t have to overhaul your curriculum to beat the forgetting curve. You just need three small, powerful shifts in how you teach.
7 Nature Experiments to Spark Student Curiosity — from edutopia.org by Donna Phillips Encourage your students to ask questions about and explore the world around them with these hands-on lessons.
Children are natural scientists—they ask big questions, notice tiny details, and learn best through hands-on exploration. That’s why nature experiments are a classroom staple for me. From growing seeds to using the sun’s energy, students don’t just learn science, they experience it. Here are my favorite go-to nature experiments that spark curiosity.
Intellectual rigor comes from the journey: the dead ends, the uncertainty, and the internal debate. Skip that, and you might still get the insight–but you’ll have lost the infrastructure for meaningful understanding. Learning by reading LLM output is cheap. Real exercise for your mind comes from building the output yourself.
The irony is that I now know more than I ever would have before AI. But I feel slightly dumber. A bit more dull. LLMs give me finished thoughts, polished and convincing, but none of the intellectual growth that comes from developing them myself.
Every few months I put together a guide on which AI system to use. Since I last wrote my guide, however, there has been a subtle but important shift in how the major AI products work. Increasingly, it isn’t about the best model, it is about the best overall system for most people. The good news is that picking an AI is easier than ever and you have three excellent choices. The challenge is that these systems are getting really complex to understand. I am going to try and help a bit with both.
First, the easy stuff.
Which AI to Use For most people who want to use AI seriously, you should pick one of three systems: Claude from Anthropic, Google’s Gemini, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
This summer, I tried something new in my fully online, asynchronous college writing course. These classes have no Zoom sessions. No in-person check-ins. Just students, Canvas, and a lot of thoughtful design behind the scenes.
One activity I created was called QuoteWeaver—a PlayLab bot that helps students do more than just insert a quote into their writing.
It’s a structured, reflective activity that mimics something closer to an in-person 1:1 conference or a small group quote workshop—but in an asynchronous format, available anytime. In other words, it’s using AI not to speed students up, but to slow them down.
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The bot begins with a single quote that the student has found through their own research. From there, it acts like a patient writing coach, asking open-ended, Socratic questions such as:
What made this quote stand out to you?
How would you explain it in your own words?
What assumptions or values does the author seem to hold?
How does this quote deepen your understanding of your topic?
It doesn’t move on too quickly. In fact, it often rephrases and repeats, nudging the student to go a layer deeper.
On [6/13/25], UNESCO published a piece I co-authored with Victoria Livingstone at Johns Hopkins University Press. It’s called The Disappearance of the Unclear Question, and it’s part of the ongoing UNESCO Education Futures series – an initiative I appreciate for its thoughtfulness and depth on questions of generative AI and the future of learning.
Our piece raises a small but important red flag. Generative AI is changing how students approach academic questions, and one unexpected side effect is that unclear questions – for centuries a trademark of deep thinking – may be beginning to disappear. Not because they lack value, but because they don’t always work well with generative AI. Quietly and unintentionally, students (and teachers) may find themselves gradually avoiding them altogether.
Of course, that would be a mistake.
We’re not arguing against using generative AI in education. Quite the opposite. But we do propose that higher education needs a two-phase mindset when working with this technology: one that recognizes what AI is good at, and one that insists on preserving the ambiguity and friction that learning actually requires to be successful.
By leveraging generative artificial intelligence to convert lengthy instructional videos into micro-lectures, educators can enhance efficiency while delivering more engaging and personalized learning experiences.
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have now devised a way for LLMs to keep improving by tweaking their own parameters in response to useful new information.
The work is a step toward building artificial intelligence models that learn continually—a long-standing goal of the field and something that will be crucial if machines are to ever more faithfully mimic human intelligence. In the meantime, it could give us chatbots and other AI tools that are better able to incorporate new information including a user’s interests and preferences.
The MIT scheme, called Self Adapting Language Models (SEAL), involves having an LLM learn to generate its own synthetic training data and update procedure based on the input it receives.
Edu-Snippets — from scienceoflearning.substack.com by Nidhi Sachdeva and Jim Hewitt Why knowledge matters in the age of AI; What happens to learners’ neural activity with prolonged use of LLMs for writing
Highlights:
Offloading knowledge to Artificial Intelligence (AI) weakens memory, disrupts memory formation, and erodes the deep thinking our brains need to learn.
Prolonged use of ChatGPT in writing lowers neural engagement, impairs memory recall, and accumulates cognitive debt that isn’t easily reversed.
