Kathleen is asked about the title in every media interview, before and since the Feb. 25 book release. “It has generated a lot of questions,” she said in our recent book chat. “I tell people to focus on the word, ‘who.’ Who needs college anymore? That’s in keeping with the design thinking frame, where you look at the needs of individuals and what needs are not being met.”
In the same conversation, Kathleen reminded us that only 38% of American adults have a four-year degree. “We never talk about the path to the American dream for the rest of folks,” she said. “We currently are not supporting the other really interesting pathways to financial sustainability — apprenticeships, short-term credentials. And that’s really why I wrote the book, to push the conversation around the 62% of who we call New Majority Learners at the Lab, the people for whom college was not designed.” Watch the full clip
She distills the point into one sentence in this SmartBrief essay: “The new paradigm is a ‘yes and’ paradigm that embraces college and/or other pathways instead of college or bust.”
What can colleges do moving forward? In this excellent Q&A with Inside Higher Ed, Kathleen shares her No. 1 suggestion: “College needs to be designed as a stepladder approach, where people can come in and out of it as they need, and at the very least, they can build earnings power along the way to help afford a degree program.”
In her Hechinger Report essay, Kathleen lists four more steps colleges can take to meet the demand for more choices, including “affordability must rule.”
From white-collar apprenticeships and micro-credential programs at local community colleges to online bootcamps, self-instruction using YouTube, and more—students are forging alternative paths to GREAT high-paying jobs. (source)
The problem is that these new roles demand a level of expertise that wasn’t expected from entry-level candidates in the past. Where someone might have previously learned on the job, they are now required to have relevant certifications, AI proficiency, or experience with digital platforms before they even apply.
Some current and emerging job titles that serve as entry points into industries include:
Digital marketing associate – This role often involves content creation, social media management, and working with AI-driven analytics tools.
Junior AI analyst – Employees in this role assist data science teams by labeling and refining machine learning datasets.
Customer success associate – Replacing traditional customer service roles, these professionals help manage AI-enhanced customer support systems.
Technical support specialist – While this role still involves troubleshooting software, it now often includes AI-driven diagnostics and automation oversight.
All of the articles listed below are from edutopia.org
4 Ways to Boost Students’ Self-Efficacy — by Tyler Rablin These strategies help students see what they have learned so they believe they can be successful in school in the future.
Self-efficacy, on the other hand, focuses on outcomes to drive beliefs. In essence, self-efficacy involves intentionally providing students with evidence of early success to help them build the belief that they can be successful in the future.
Self-efficacy has been a powerful focus for me because it helps me to be more intentional as a teacher. It requires me to be mindful of how I structure assessments, feedback, etc., to provide students with evidence of their successes early on to help them see potential future successes.
Maintaining Students’ Focus in the Spring — by Miriam Plotinsky Teachers can use these small ‘upgrades’ or tweaks to their regular practices to help keep students focused and involved.
As a recent MindShift article notes, “The second semester brings a lot of potential challenges to teachers’ regularly scheduled programming because of standardized testing, graduation events, and student burnout.” These challenges may be complex, but they are not insurmountable. With subtle shifts in practice, classrooms can remain safe and productive spaces—even in the spring.
She recommends a “coping jar” to help students identify moments of angst and manage their feelings. Fagell explains that when students find an effective coping mechanism, they write their idea on one side of a Popsicle stick and explain how it works on the other side. As students add ideas to the jar, they have an increased awareness of coping strategies and the importance of helping one another.
10 Picture Books That Showcase Collaboration — by Kristin Rydholm These entertaining stories feature collaboration and social-emotional skills to highlight the benefit of working together to accomplish a goal.
Are you an early childhood teacher in search of relationship-building resources to help unify your classroom? Have I got a book list for you! In the verbiage of 1970s infomercials: “This collection has everything!” The main characters are early childhood students, the setting is the school, and each plot requires the class to work collaboratively. The characters are united in curiosity, determination, and mission to work on accomplishing projects together that they couldn’t possibly do alone.
My goal is to try to preserve the messy, creative core of what it means to be an educator: curiosity, critical thinking, and the grit and energy to solve problems without always resorting to shortcuts—technological or otherwise. My hope is that my students will do the same.
Unplug and reconnect: Challenge yourself and your students to embark on an AI detox. Step away from AI tools where possible, and rediscover the power of human creativity and independent thought. Start a journal to document the journey, exploring questions like “How does it feel to rely solely on my own intellect?” or“What challenges arise when AI isn’t there to assist?” This activity can foster resilience, raise self-awareness, and cultivate a deeper appreciation for the human capacity to think, create, problem-solve, and innovate.
Blind Spot on AI — from the-job.beehiiv.com by Paul Fain Office tasks are being automated now, but nobody has answers on how education and worker upskilling should change.
Students and workers will need help adjusting to a labor market that appears to be on the verge of a historic disruption as many business processes are automated. Yet job projections and policy ideas are sorely lacking.
…
The benefits of agentic AI are already clear for a wide range of organizations, including small nonprofits like CareerVillage. But the ability to automate a broad range of business processes means that education programs and skills training for knowledge workers will need to change. And as Chung writes in a must-read essay, we have a blind spot with predicting the impacts of agentic AI on the labor market.
“Without robust projections,” he writes, “policymakers, businesses, and educators won’t be able to come to terms with how rapidly we need to start this upskilling.”
Imagine with me for a moment: Training is no longer confined to scheduled sessions in a classroom, an online module or even a microlearning you click to activate during your workflow. Imagine training being delivered because the system senses what you are doing and provides instructions and job aids without you having to take an action.
The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and wearable technology has made it easier than ever to seamlessly integrate learning directly into the workflow. Smart glasses, earpieces, and other advanced devices are redefining how employees gain knowledge and skills by delivering microlearning moments precisely when and where they are needed.
AI plays a crucial role in this transformation by sensing the optimal moment to deliver the training through augmented reality (AR).
Kennelly and Geraffo are part of a small team at their school in Denver, DSST: College View High School, that is participating in the School Teams AI Collaborative, a year-long pilot initiative in which more than 80 educators from 19 traditional public and charter schools across the country are experimenting with and evaluating AI-enabled instruction to improve teaching and learning.
The goal is for some of AI’s earliest adopters in education to band together, share ideas and eventually help lead the way on what they and their colleagues around the U.S. could do with the emerging technology.
“Pretty early on we thought it was going to be a massive failure,” says Kennelly of last semester’s project. “But it became a huge hit. Students loved it. They were like, ‘I ran to second period to build this thing.’”
As writing instructors, we have a choice in how we frame AI for our students. I invite you to:
Experiment with AI as a conversation partner yourself before introducing it to students
Design assignments that leverage AI’s strengths as a thought partner rather than trying to “AI-proof” your existing assignments
Explicitly teach students how to engage in productive dialogue with AI—how to ask good questions, challenge AI’s assumptions, and use it to refine rather than replace their thinking
Share your experiences, both positive and negative, with colleagues to build our collective understanding of effective AI integration
We introduce AI co-scientist, a multi-agent AI system built with Gemini 2.0 as a virtual scientific collaborator to help scientists generate novel hypotheses and research proposals, and to accelerate the clock speed of scientific and biomedical discoveries.
There is a speed limit. GenAI technology continues to advance at incredible speed. However, most organizations are moving at the speed of organizations, not at the speed of technology. No matter how quickly the technology advances—or how hard the companies producing GenAI technology push—organizational change in an enterprise can only happen so fast.
Barriers are evolving. Significant barriers to scaling and value creation are still widespread across key areas. And, over the past year regulatory uncertainty and risk management have risen in organizations’ lists of concerns to address. Also, levels of trust in GenAI are still moderate for the majority of organizations. Even so, with increased customization and accuracy of models—combined with a focus on better governance— adoption of GenAI is becoming more established.
Some uses are outpacing others. Application of GenAI is further along in some business areas than in others in terms of integration, return on investment (ROI) and expectations. The IT function is most mature; cybersecurity, operations, marketing and customer service are also showing strong adoption and results. Organizations reporting higher ROI for their most scaled initiatives are broadly further along in their GenAI journeys.
The Learning Accelerator is building an evidence base of what high-quality virtual and hybrid learning looks like and how it can be a catalyst for expanding access to powerful learning opportunities.
An analysis of 64 high-quality models revealed that virtual and hybrid learning occurs in various contexts, from state-based, fully-virtual programs to individual, hybrid schools and meets the needs of different student populations, including those underserved or disengaged by traditional education systems as well as looking for increased flexibility and course access.
Employers and opportunity seekers are excited about the possibilities of a skills-based ecosystem, but this new process for codifying a person’s experiences and abilities into skills requires one significant, and missing, piece: Trust.Employers need to trust that the credentials they receive from opportunity seekers are valid representations of their skills. Jobseekers need to trust that their digital credentials are safe, accurate, and will lead to employment and advancement.
Our hypothesis
We posit that the trust needed for the validation of skills to be brought into a meaningful reality is established through a network of skills validation methods and opportunities. We also recognize that the routes through which an individual can demonstrate skills are as varied as the individuals themselves. Therefore, in order to equitably create a skills-based employment ecosystem, the routes by which skills are validated must be held together with common standards and language, but flexible enough to accommodate a multitude of validation practices.
The L&D Global Sentiment Survey, now in its 12th year, once again asked two key questions of L&D professionals worldwide:
What will be hot in workplace learning in 2025?
What are your L&D challenges in 2025?
For the obligatory question on what they considered ‘hot’ topics, respondents voted for one to three of 15 suggested options, plus a free text ‘Other’ option. Over 3,000 voters participated from nearly 100 countries. 85% shared their challenges for 2025.
The results show more interest in AI, a renewed focus on showing the value of L&D, and some signs of greater maturity around our understanding of AI in L&D.
“The good news is, though, with early intervention and with the appropriate types of modifications and intervention, people with dyslexia thrive in today’s world.”
From DSC: I have a retired friend who is dyslexic and, to this very day, feels the pain of being told — and treated like — he was stupid in the majority of his K-12 years. He later went on to get trained on how to operate missiles, solve a variety of highly technical IT-related problems, set up networks, run security departments, and more. He is a highly intelligent individual. But he is dsylexic. And he recalls the pain of those early education days.
I’m glad that we’ve made some significant progress in understanding dsylexia. And I hope that today’s dyslexic students don’t have experiences like his.
The learning space is that space between “not knowing” and “knowing.” It can be very frustrating. But don’t be discouraged when you are frustrated. It means that you are learning. Eventually, you’ll get to “knowing.” .
When education is limited, so is opportunity. Without education, students with disabilities face higher rates of poverty, unemployment, poor health, and social isolation. Education is the foundation for independence, inclusion, and a future with choices. Strip it away, and we are not just limiting potential—we are forcing millions of people into a lifetime of barriers and hardship.
This issue is personal for me. As a former deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and a lifelong advocate for disability rights, I have seen firsthand what happens when children with disabilities face barriers—and how the Department of Education steps in to make things right.
An excerpt from Derek Bruff’s newsletter entitled, “Digital reading, belonging stories, escape rooms, and more”
Course Contributors
At the Top Hat Engage conference last week, I met Whitney Silvis-Sawyer, who teaches education courses at Louisiana Tech University. She regularly invites her students to provide feedback on her courses, and when she makes a change to a course in response to student feedback, she acknowledges that student by name (and with permission) in a “course contributors” section of her syllabus.Some of her course syllabi now have dozens of students listed who have helped shape her courses. I love this as a way to help students see that you take their feedback seriously and as a way to acknowledge sources of inspiration for one’s teaching.
… In-Class Escape Rooms
Over on Bluesky, I was delighted to see that Lisa Fazio, who teaches psychology at Vanderbilt University, shared images of the escape room activity she designed as a review for her social cognition course. Her students worked in teams of four to complete a series of puzzles and open a number of combination locks, all of which required them to apply social cognition concepts they had been studying. Lisa writes, “Watching them race through the puzzles today brought me joy!” See Lisa’s thread for all the details.
Designing the Classroom of the Future: 5 Easy Pieces — from ed-spaces.com by Leslie Stebbins When designing new classrooms the most important factors to consider are designs that encourage movement, provide space for collaborative and independent work, seamlessly embed technology, promote creativity, and provide flexibility.
Design for Movement: Sitting is the new smoking!
Build for Collaboration and Independent Work
Embed Technology Seamlessly: Clean up your Cables!
3 Ways to Begin to Develop Preschoolers’ Literacy Skills— from edutopia.org by Jacquelyn Bobien-Blanton Developmentally appropriate activities focused on foundational reading skills can help young children have fun while they learn.
7 Learning Myths Your Students Probably Believe — from edutopia.org by Daniel Leonard
From left- and right-brain thinking to the notion that talent beats persistence, these common myths can hinder student learning. Here’s how teachers can help.
A Triangular Approach to Science Instruction— from edutopia.org by Kristin Acchione
Combining science literacy, data science, and hands-on learning helps get elementary students engaged in science lessons.
AI in K12: Today’s Breakthroughs and Tomorrow’s Possibilities (webinar) How AI is Transforming Classrooms Today and What’s Next
Audio-Based Learning 4.0— from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman A new & powerful way to leverage AI for learning?
At the end of all of this my reflection is that the research paints a pretty exciting picture – audio-based learning isn’t just effective, it’s got some unique superpowers when it comes to boosting comprehension, ramping up engagement, and delivering feedback that really connects with learners.
While audio has been massively under-used as a mode of learning, especially compared to video and text, we’re at an interesting turning point where AI tools are making it easier than ever to tap into audio’s potential as a pedagogical tool.
What’s super interesting is how the solid research backing audio’s effectiveness is and how well this is converging with these new AI capabilities.
From DSC: I’ve noticed that I don’t learn as well via audio-only based events. It can help if visuals are also provided, but I have to watch the cognitive loads. My processing can start to get overloaded — to the point that I have to close my eyes and just listen sometimes. But there are people I know who love to listen to audiobooks and prefer to learn that way. They can devour content and process/remember it all. Audio is a nice change of pace at times, but I prefer visuals and reading often times. It needs to be absolutely quiet if I’m tackling some new information/learning.
In Conversation With… Ashton Cousineau — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman A new video series exploring how L&D professionals are working with AI on the ground
In Conversation With… Ashton Cousineau by Dr Philippa Hardman
A new video series exploring how L&D professionals are working with AI on the ground
AI-Infused Learning Design – A structured approach to AI-enhanced assignments using a three-step model for AI integration.
Mathematical Dance and Creativity in STEAM – Using AI-powered motion capture to translate dance movements into mathematical models.
AI-Generated Instructional Videos – How adaptive AI-powered video learning enhances problem-solving and knowledge retention.
Immersive Language Learning with XR & AI – A new framework for integrating AI-driven conversational agents with Extended Reality (XR) for task-based language learning.
Decision-Making in Learning Design – A scoping review on how instructional designers navigate complex instructional choices and make data-driven decisions.
Interactive E-Books and Engagement – Examining the impact of interactive digital books on student motivation, comprehension, and cognitive engagement.
Elevating Practitioner Voices in Instructional Design – A new initiative to amplify instructional designers’ contributions to research and innovation.
Here’s a quick teaser of key developments in the world of AI & learning this month:
DeepSeek R-1, OpenAI’s Deep Seek & Perplexity’s ‘Deep Research’ are the latest additions to a growing number of “reasoning models” with interesting implications for evidence-based learning design & development.
The U.S. Education Dept release an AI Toolkit and a fresh policy roadmap enabling the adoption of AI use in schools.
Anthropic Release “Agentic Claude”, another AI agent that clicks, scrolls, and can even successfully complete e-learning courses…
Oxford University Announce the AIEOU Hub, a research-backed research lab to support research and implementation on AI in education.
“AI Agents Everywhere”: A Forbes peek at how agentic AI will handle the “boring bits” of classroom life.
[Bias klaxon!] Epiphany AI: My own research leads to the creation of a specialised, “pedagogy first” AI co-pilot for instructional design marking the continued growth of specialised AI tools designed for specific industries and workflows.
Through my work with leading educational institutions at Kaltura, I’ve seen firsthand how AI agents are rapidly becoming indispensable. These agents alleviate the mounting burdens on educators and provide new generations of tech-savvy students with accessible, personalized learning, giving teachers the support they need to give their students the personalized attention and engagement they deserve.
This HQ includes all of my AI guides, organized by tool/platform. This list is updated each time a new one is released, and outdated guides are removed/replaced over time.
Artificial intelligence is poised to fundamentally change the job of teaching. AI-powered tools can shave hours off the amount of time teachers spend grading, lesson-planning, and creating materials. AI can also enrich the lessons they deliver in the classroom and help them meet the varied needs of all students. And it can even help bolster teachers’ own professional growth and development.
Despite all the promise of AI, though, experts still urge caution as the technology continues to evolve. Ethical questions and practical concerns are bubbling to the surface, and not all teachers feel prepared to effectively and safely use AI.
In this special report, see how early-adopter teachers are using AI tools to transform their daily work, tackle some of the roadblocks to expanded use of the technology, and understand what’s on the horizon for the teaching profession in the age of artificial intelligence.
The higher education community continues to grapple with questions related to using artificial intelligence (AI) in learning and work. In support of these efforts, we present the 2025 EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study, summarizing our community’s sentiments and experiences related to strategy and leadership, policies and guidelines, use cases, the higher education workforce, and the institutional digital divide.
The California State University system has partnered with OpenAI to launch the largest deployment of AI in higher education to date.
The CSU system, which serves nearly 500,000 students across 23 campuses, has announced plans to integrate ChatGPT Edu, an education-focused version of OpenAI’s chatbot, into its curriculum and operations. The rollout, which includes tens of thousands of faculty and staff, represents the most significant AI deployment within a single educational institution globally.
We’re still in the early stages of AI adoption in education, and it is critical that the entire ecosystem—education systems, technologists, educators, and governments—work together to ensure that all students globally have access to AI and develop the skills to use it responsibly
Leah Belsky, VP and general manager of education at OpenAI.
As you read through these use cases, you’ll notice that each one addresses multiple tasks from our list above.
1. Researching a topic for a lesson
2. Creating Tasks For Practice
3. Creating Sample Answers
4. Generating Ideas
5. Designing Lesson Plans
6. Creating Tests
7. Using AI in Virtual Classrooms
8. Creating Images
9. Creating worksheets
10. Correcting and Feedback
What if students had the power to design their own learning journeys?
Across the U.S., states are moving beyond one-size-fits-all education and embracing unbundled learning, creating personalized pathways that equip students with the skills they need for the future. Getting Smart’s Unbundled Learning Podcast Series explores how Colorado, Arizona, and New Hampshire are leading the way—expanding real-world learning, shifting to competency-based models, empowering learner agency, and aligning education with workforce needs.
For policymakers, the newly released Policymaker’s Guide offers a roadmap for fostering unbundled systems. It highlights key priorities such as competency-driven accountability, flexible credentialing, and funding models that prioritize equity, helping state leaders create policies that expand opportunities for all learners.
Explore how unbundled learning is shaping the future of education and how states can build more personalized, future-ready systems.
New Pathways > Unbundled Learning — from gettingsmart.com We used to think that learning had to happen in a school building. Spoiler alert…that was never true.
How might we create an ecosystem where learning doesn’t just happen at school? With Unbundled Learning, learners don’t need permission to have equitable experiences. Unbundled Learning removes all the barriers and allows learning to happen at school, after school, with industry partners and anywhere a learner can imagine. Unbundled Learning is the foundation for which new learning models are built, learners are supported and systems are scaled.
If we used to think that school was the only answer, now we know we have options. .
How do investigative journalists organize years of research, thousands of documents, and piles of notes? With toolkits like that of Madison Hopkins, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting has exposed Chicago’s fatal fire safety failures and flawed surveillance programs.
Read on for Madison’s tools for managing long-term investigative projects — from her note-taking system to her workflow for tracking public records. Whether you’re a journalist or manage other kinds of projects, you’ll find multiple resources for your own work. – Jeremy
