universities

Pinpoint, Explained | A guide to Google’s free tool, now open to all [Caplan]

On 06/05/2026, in adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, data related items, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, education, education technology, faculty/staff, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, IT in HE, journalism, K-12 related, languages and translation, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, library / librarians, research, teaching & learning, tools, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Pinpoint, Explained — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan
A guide to Google’s free tool, now open to all

.Jeremy prompted ChatGPT to generate illustrations in his post.

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Learn about Pinpoint— from support.google.com

Pinpoint is an AI-powered research platform designed to help journalists and academics analyze large collections of documents. With Pinpoint, you can:

Analyze massive collections: Easily search, filter, transcribe and organize thousands of documents, including PDFs, images, and audio files.
Leverage generative AI: Use Gemini’s capabilities to answer research questions together with supporting evidence found in your documents.
Foster collaborative research: share your work with colleagues and tackle large scale projects as a team. You can also publicly share – supporting community-driven research.

For assistance with Pinpoint, please consult our Community Forum or you can contact our support team.

Addendum:

AI Budgets in Education Show No Sign of Decline — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Key Takeaways

Education AI budgets are holding steady or increasing: Wasabi found that 98% of education organizations expect AI infrastructure budgets to increase or remain steady, with 46% planning increases.
Storage costs are the top AI implementation challenge: Half of education respondents cited data storage issues, including storage and access costs, as the No. 1 challenge for AI projects.
Cloud security and ROI remain pressure points: Only 47% feel confident keeping data unaltered and operational after a cyberattack, 44% lost access to public cloud data after an attack, and 37% of AI projects currently show positive ROI.

Cleveland Institute of Art’s Interactive Media Lab Redefines What an Art School Can Be — from edtechmagazine.com

The landscape for specialized colleges and universities such as art schools is shifting as higher education continues to evolve to fit emerging job markets and student interest.

Founded in 1882, Cleveland Institute of Art continuously challenges itself to stay modern and relevant. Years ago, the school’s leadership had the vision to partner with the city to revitalize an area due for reinvigoration.

The result was the Interactive Media Lab, which brings together the university, the city and private industry into a satellite campus that gives students and the community a space to create media, art and experiences with the most up-to-date tools available.

Also see:

Former foster youth face very low odds of college or workforce success. Some people are trying to change that [Sanchez]

On 06/04/2026, in colleges, community colleges, Emotion, funding / grants, higher education, learning ecosystem, policy, student-related, United States, universities, youth, by Daniel Christian

Former foster youth face very low odds of college or workforce success. Some people are trying to change that — from hechingerreport.org by Olivia Sanchez
College-based programs connect students with each other and with basic needs resources

The Guardian Scholars Program at Sacramento State is one of hundreds around the country designed to help students who are former foster youth stay enrolled, thrive academically and graduate with plans to build stable careers. It offers a window into policies that work — from scholarships to housing help to social connections for emotional support — at a time when the federal government has begun focusing renewed attention on these students and holding out the promise of more investment in them.

Former foster youth — a term that includes anyone who has spent time in the child welfare system, typically due to abuse or neglect — have some of the worst college graduation rates of any demographic group. An estimated 8 to 11 percent of former foster youth go on to earn any college degree, compared to 49 percent of adults overall, according to one analysis. They also typically have lower rates of employment and lower earnings than their peers with similar levels of education.

4 Strategies For Teaching With AI Effectively — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Health sciences professor Humberto López Castillo urges students to use AI to help with science research, but never to lose sight of the human element.

Castillo, a trained pediatrician and professor in the Department of Health Sciences, has also seen students use AI in creative ways to promote public health understanding, and as a research tool. For one project, Castillo asks students to explain health concepts from class to non-experts, and since he started encouraging students to use AI, he’s seen the projects get better. Students have created health-themed board games and Hamilton-style rap songs. Others have designed AI to aid in health research in ways that wouldn’t be possible without the technology.

This compassionate and student-centered approach to AI use is part of why Castillo was named Superhuman (formerly Grammarly’s) 2026 Educator of the Year.
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“You are the one who’s responsible for that writing,” Castillo tells his students. “Your name is the only name that’s going to be among the published authors, so you are the one who needs to verify those sources.”

He adds that rather than being a drawback, allowing students to make these types of mistakes with AI use in the college setting has value.

“It is a teaching opportunity,” Castillo says. “This is the moment to make those mistakes.”

Tuition discount rate reaches 57% for private nonprofits, NACUBO says [Unglesbee]

On 06/01/2026, in business side of he, colleges, higher education, trends, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Tuition discount rate reaches 57% for private nonprofits, NACUBO says — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
Price cuts are getting even deeper for first-year undergraduates, while net tuition revenue has fallen, according to the organization.

Early data from the 2025-26 academic year shows historically deep tuition discounts getting even deeper at private nonprofit colleges, according to a study released Monday from the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

For first-time undergraduates, the tuition discount rate at these colleges is projected to reach 57.1% in the current academic year. That’s up from 54.5% from the year before, and the highest point in the past decade. For all undergraduates, the discount rate is poised to hit 51.3%, up from 50% last year and above the most recent peak at 50.8% in 2022-23.

However, revenue declines across the undergraduate body pose difficulties for tuition-dependent colleges. It “suggests that retention alone is not enough to eliminate financial strain at many tuition-dependent institutions,” NACUBO said in its report.

GenAI practice blossoms through the open exchange of insights — from timeshighereducation.com by Samuel Doherty, who is the education and innovation coordinator at the University of Newcastle in Australia
How a structured GenAI professional development series, built around practice, peer voices and multiple entry points, fosters open exchange among colleagues, universities and industry

Connect internal practice to sector-wide thinking
Whatever is happening within any single institution is only part of the picture. Effective GenAI practice grows through open exchange of insights among colleagues, universities, professional bodies and industry, and a development programme that is entirely inward-looking risks missing both useful knowledge and important shifts in expectation.

Our AI sector voices sessions aim to bring external contributors into the programme: researchers, practitioners and sector representatives working at the intersection of GenAI and higher education. The aim is to situate institutional practice within the wider conversation and to signal to staff that the institution is genuinely engaged with that conversation, not just managing it internally.

In the Australian context, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Teqsa) people pillar positions staff as drivers, enablers, users and innovators of GenAI practice, and identifies a lack of information or understanding as one of the primary barriers to ethical and effective engagement. That framing is useful regardless of regulatory context: institutions that treat their people as active participants in shaping practice, rather than recipients of policy, are likely to develop more durable capability.

Regular, lightweight communications, a weekly community of practice update and a monthly all-staff digest can maintain momentum between sessions without adding significantly to anyone’s workload.

What AI-Enabled Education Actually Looks Like When It’s Working for Workforce Students — from gettingsmart.com by Stephen Griffin

Key Points

Institutions can use AI to make skills, pathways, and job outcomes visible to students and employers in ways traditional transcripts cannot.
Academic affairs, workforce development, career services, and employers need a shared definition of readiness and competency before tools can deliver meaningful value.

The second is portable competency records. Learning and employment records — AI-enabled documentation of what a student knows and can do, expressed in language employers recognize — are the infrastructure that makes credentials legible across the education-to-employment continuum. When a student can show an employer not just “completed Supply Chain Management 101” but “demonstrated proficiency in inventory optimization, route planning, and logistics software at the industry-recognized level,” the credential stops being abstract. It becomes evidence. Building these records requires investment in tools, yes — but more importantly, it requires faculty, workforce development staff, and employer partners to agree on what competency actually looks like before the technology is ever purchased.

Students say law school isn’t prepping them to use AI in practice, new survey shows [Hill]

On 05/31/2026, in faculty/staff, law schools, learning ecosystem, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Students say law school isn’t prepping them to use AI in practice, new survey shows — from abajournal.com by Julianne Hill; note this may be behind a paywall

Just 30% of third-year law students think that their school is preparing them for artificial intelligence in practice, leaving 70% of soon-to-be bar candidates to learn best practices for the emerging technology on their own.

That’s according to the results of the Thomson Reuters Institute’s 2026 Law Student Pulse Survey of 1,874 U.S. law students between April 6 and April 19.

Also see:

Grads of non-ABA-accredited law school can sit for Washington state bar exam — from abajournal.com by Julianne Hill; note this may be behind a paywall

As of Sept. 1, graduates of non-ABA-accredited law schools will be allowed to sit for the bar exam in Washington state after a policy change by the state’s bar association.

Law.com reported Thursday that the change had been formally adopted by the Washington State bar Association’s Board of Governors.

Can colleges still deliver in the age of AI? One Ivy League school is investing $30 million to improve career outcomes — from cnbc.com by Jessica Dickler

Key Points

College students are increasingly worried about what an AI-driven jobs apocalypse could mean for their employment prospects.
To that end, many colleges and universities are racing to recalibrate.
Even at nation’s most elite schools, the focus is shifting to career readiness.

Autistic students who make it through college face a bigger challenge: getting jobs [Field]

On 05/29/2026, in career development, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, ideas, Microsoft, neurodivergent/special needs, student-related, United States, universities, vocational / trades, youth, by Daniel Christian

Autistic students who make it through college face a bigger challenge: getting jobs — from hechingerreport.org by Kelly Field
Colleges now offer career readiness classes and one-on-one coaching for students with autism

Recognizing these strengths, some major companies — including tech giants SAP and Microsoft, and financial institutions Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase — began building neurodiverse hiring programs roughly a decade ago.

Those efforts have yielded significant revenue for companies, some of them say, with EY, one of the big four accounting firms, reporting in 2023 that its neurodiverse employees have generated nearly $1 billion in business value. A study by J.P. Morgan Chase found that its autistic employees were much more productive than its neurotypical ones.

Consumer finance company Synchrony, which plans to hire 15 neurodivergent interns this year, says the program has changed how teams work across the company.

Also on a somewhat-related note and also from Kelly Field at The Hechinger Report, see:

Many boys aren’t interested in school. Can opening more career-focused high schools help?
Some research suggests that career and technical schools keep boys on track to graduation — but seats are limited

Why universities must become flexible lifelong partners, not one-time providers [Sivarajah]

On 05/28/2026, in adjunct faculty, apprenticeships, business, career development, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, credentialing, curriculum, Daniel S. Christian, Europe, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, internships, leadership, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, MBA, new business models, organizational change, pace of change, participation, pathways, professional development, skills, strategy, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), UK, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Why universities must become flexible lifelong partners, not one-time providers — from timeshighereducation.com by Sankar Sivarajah
As careers become increasingly non-linear and shaped by rapid change, universities must evolve beyond traditional degree provision, says Sankar Sivarajah. Here, he outlines strategies

From programmes to learning ecosystems
These pressures point towards a broader redefinition of higher education. Rather than viewing education as a one-time experience culminating in a degree, universities increasingly need to see themselves as partners in professional development across an entire career.

This means moving from a model centred on programmes to one focused on learning ecosystems that allow individuals to enter, leave and re-engage with higher education as their needs evolve.

Business schools may be particularly well placed to lead this shift because of their close engagement with employers and their long tradition of educating professionals at different stages of their careers.

But success will depend on more than introducing new modules or certificates. Universities must confront a fundamental question. Are the systems, structures and cultures that define higher education capable of supporting genuinely flexible learning?

The sector has already embraced the language of lifelong learning – the next step is ensuring that universities themselves are built to deliver it.

From DSC:
Long-time readers of this blog have seen this graphic of mine posted over the last 12+ years:
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Also relevant/see:

What if the undergraduate journey were a four-year internship? — from timeshighereducation.com by Michelle Seref
Treating work placements and co-curricular programmes as optional or supplementary misses deeper questions about whether traditional degrees prepare students for careers. Michelle Seref explains

Attending workshops or polishing a résumé in their final semester does not make students career-ready. They need to practise how to work – how to collaborate, navigate ambiguity, manage projects and apply knowledge in context – throughout their academic experience. The reality is that career readiness is not a co-curricular programme; it is an essential part of an integrated curriculum.

To be clear, employers do not expect classrooms to become training centres. What they are asking for – implicitly and explicitly – is graduates who can function in complex environments from day one. That means graduates who can work in teams, communicate professionally with stakeholders, adapt when plans change, apply theory to real constraints and learn continuously on the job.

These capabilities do not develop through passive learning. But experiential learning is often misunderstood as a single, high-impact activity: an internship, a capstone project or study abroad. In reality, its power comes from repetition and progression. One experience introduces exposure. A sequence of experiences builds competence.

We are proposing a paradigm shift: repositioning the undergraduate journey as a four-year professional internship rather than a continuation of the K-12 classroom environment.

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From DSC:
The problem with this innovative idea is that faculty often are not out in the “real world.” The best chance higher ed has to deliver on this idea is via the adjunct faculty members out there. Often, they are the ones practicing what they are teaching. They are constantly pulse-checking — and actively involved with — their industries and have more up-to-date, practical knowledge.

But this is a problem for traditional institutions of higher education, which have treated their adjunct faculty members poorly through the years. Adjunct faculty members hardly make minimum wage, have no benefits, no retirement plans, etc. — plus they have little to no say in faculty senates.

Organizational change would be a requirement.

Where does your institution stand? [Saunders]

On 05/26/2026, in adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, colleges, community colleges, dangers of the status quo, faculty/staff, higher education, leadership, Michigan, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Mapping the Structural Divide — from kylesaunders.com by Kyle Saunders
Institutional Resilience, Post-College Market Position, and Artificial Intelligence Exposure Across 1,556 U.S. Colleges and Universities

Where does your institution stand?
U.S. four-year colleges and universities face compounding pressures — demographic decline, fiscal stress, and artificial intelligence — that will reshape the sector over the next decade. This project maps where 1,556 institutions are structurally positioned across two dimensions, using federal data anyone can verify.

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X-axis: Institutional Resilience
Can this institution absorb financial and enrollment shocks?
Endowment per student · Revenue diversification · Enrollment trend · Admissions selectivity

Y-axis: Post-College Market Position
How well does this institution position graduates for the labor market ahead?
Completion rate · Earnings-to-debt ratio · AI exposure (inverted) · Demographic trajectory

Three items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 05/26/2026, in adjunct faculty, business, career development, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, liberal arts, policy, productivity / tips and tricks, student-related, teaching & learning, training / L&D, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

I Was a University AI Czar. I’m Not Equipped to Teach in the Age of AI. — from jgellers.substack.com by Josh Gellers, PhD

The reason that I claim I am not well-suited to thrive as an instructor in the age of AI is because both AI Enthusiasts and AI Resisters put a lot of thought and energy into completely redesigning their classes in response to AI. This is the one takeaway that I don’t think the Exhausted Majority has fully accepted yet—to excel as a teacher in this AI era, you need to totally revise how you teach and how you assess what students learn in your classes.

I can say this much—whatever solution our industry comes up with, it’s likely to emerge from teaching and learning centers. Contrary to what Paul Schofield wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education, pedagogy experts are the best hope we have to equip today’s faculty with the tools required to succeed in this uncertain educational environment. As I always tell my students, “I was trained for 7 years to become a researcher and 2 days to become a teacher.” The idea that only disciplinary experts know how to teach and have nothing to learn from so-called “nonscholars” is so laughable that one has to wonder whether an AI agent jokingly wrote that sad opinion piece to troll the whole academe.

Also from Dr. Gellers, see:

The Worst AI Policy in Higher Ed
How Berkeley Law Boalt-ed From Expertise in Favor of Abstinence

Last week, one of the top law schools in the United States, the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, released its final policy on artificial intelligence, effective summer 2026. In the span of a breezy 1.5 pages, the school outlined the challenge AI poses to legal education and how it plans to address this problem. Despite these intentions, this AI policy is, in my estimation, the worst AI policy in higher education I have seen.

From AI Tutors to AI Study Mates— from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr Philippa Hardman
New research reveals how AI can enable real learning — not just productivity gains

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The point isn’t that AI is inherently bad for learning — it’s that the meta-analyses showing that LLMs improve assignment and performance scores are measuring the wrong thing. They’re measuring performance with the AI present, not learning that persists once it’s gone.

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From DSC:
Notice that when an AI-based learning system can remember what you’ve worked on and how you are doing — where you are struggling or doing well — it can have a positive impact on your longer-term learning. That, to me, is where long-term based learner profiles come in.

Later in the article, Dr. Hardman points out that “if we want to deliver AI tooling which supports substantive learning, we need to intentionally create a new category of AI tool for ‘learning at work’ which prioritises learning and development over productivity.” While I agree with that, I do wonder if businesses will care, so long as the work gets done and gets done well. But this calls into mind the word “experience” — something that traditionally has been hard fought to get in the corporate world. But the corporate realm often doesn’t like to pay for experience (beyond key AI-based jobs) when they perceive it’s getting too expensive. Ask all those 50 and over who had or have a target on their backs.

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Deans for Impact Releases New Edition of The Science of Learning — from deansforimpact.org
Second edition of seminal report reflects new research amidst growing momentum for evidence-based instruction in teacher preparation and PK-12.

AUSTIN, Texas (May 19, 2026) – Deans for Impact (DFI) today released the second edition of The Science of Learning, a report translating cognitive-science research into practical implications for teaching. The updated edition includes new research on memory, attention, motivation, and learning misconceptions, offering educators a research-based foundation for understanding how to support durable student learning.

First released in 2015, The Science of Learning is DFI’s most widely-used and cited resource, with more than one million downloads. Since its publication, DFI has supported nearly 300 teacher-preparation programs to make instructional quality a priority in the way teachers are prepared, directly impacting more than 110,000 teachers over the last decade.

The second edition arrives at a moment when more than 40 states have made meaningful investments in strengthening evidence-based instruction, particularly in early literacy, mathematics, and the use of high-quality instructional materials. The science of learning supports future teachers to build a comprehensive foundation for instructional decision-making that cuts across content areas and grade levels.
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The report has been endorsed by more than 100 field experts and leading organizations across the United States and internationally.

Download the report at deansforimpact.org/thescienceoflearning.

An example excerpt:

Learning Ecosystems

Cleveland Institute of Art’s Interactive Media Lab Redefines What an Art School Can Be [edtechmagazine.com]

Tuition discount rate reaches 57% for private nonprofits, NACUBO says [Unglesbee]

Students say law school isn’t prepping them to use AI in practice, new survey shows [Hill]

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