Mind Shift: Learning 2049

What happens when a university commits to being "AI-first"? In this conversation, Associate Professor Sarah Midford (interim Pro Vice Chancellor of Learning and Teaching at La Trobe University) joins us to discuss how generative AI is shifting higher education from product-oriented grading to process-based assessment, the realities of teaching AI literacy, and what universities might look like in 2049.This conversation interrogates hard questions:Is the essay truly dead? Can we preserve the critical thinking of the essay by grading the process of learning rather than just the final product?How can educators redesign oral examinations when students can use LLMs to predict and practice responses to almost any question?Will outsourcing research tasks to AI diminish core human reasoning, and how should institutions monitor the impact of increased screen time on student isolation?How can academic workloads be restructured to focus on active, human-to-human collaboration instead of grading standardised outputs?Will traditional degrees become obsolete, giving way to highly transactional, mastery-based credentials alongside nostalgic, deep-thinking spaces?Guest Bio:Associate Professor Sarah Midford is the interim Pro Vice Chancellor of Learning and Teaching at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. With extensive experience in curriculum reform, digital learning design, and the scholarship of learning and teaching (SoLT), she has led large-scale projects recognised with national awards and a Senior Fellowship from Advance HE. Drawing on her academic background as a classicist, her work bridges ancient history, cultural reception studies, and modern educational equity.#AIinEducation #AILiteracy #AssessmentDesign #HigherEducation #EducationalReform #LaTrobeUniversity #FutureOfEducation #EdTech #AIethics #HigherEdAI

What happens when advanced AI is used to train humans in high-stakes environments? In this conversation, Dr. Jeanine DeFalco (Founder and CEO of Mixta AI) joins us to discuss the ethics, cognitive psychology, and design of adaptive instructional systems.This conversation goes beyond typical AI hype to interrogate the hard questions:What happens when educational systems prioritize simple completion metrics over genuine, deep-context reasoning?How do we prevent AI from acting as a "predictive gatekeeper" that limits human potential rather than supporting it?Are we creating a new digital divide where wealthy students receive face-to-face instruction while others are left with automated screens?Why is teaching philosophy and ethics essential for the future of computer science and learning engineering?How do we design AI-driven adaptive systems to protect vulnerable populations like students and the military?Guest Bio:Dr. Jeanine DeFalco is the Founder and CEO of Mixta AI, a learning-engineering platform powered by AI. With over 20 years of experience as an educator and learning scientist, her work sits at the intersection of cognitive psychology, learning engineering, and AI ethics. She serves as Vice Chair of the IEEE Computer Society Artificial Intelligence Standards Committee and Chair of IEEE 2247.4, the recommended practice for ethically aligned design of AI in Adaptive Instructional Systems.Tags: #AIethics #AdaptiveLearning #LearningEngineering #EdTech #HumanCentricAI #EducationalTechnology #IEEEStandards #EthicalAI #InstructionalDesign #FutureOfEducation

What happens to higher education when the "proxy" for thinking—the academic essay—is broken by Generative AI? In this episode of Mind Shift, Adam White and Robert Wells are joined by Cassie Thu Ngan Ngo to discuss the urgent need to move beyond banning AI and toward "AI Literacy."Cassie discusses some of the findings of her research into AI in higher education, "Integrating AI literacy into EAP: A pathway to academic success?" (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889490624000504). The study introduces a novel framework, AI for Academic Purposes (AIAP), which helps students move from "outsourcing" their work to AI to using it as a critical tool for development.This conversation dives into the shifting paradigms of the modern classroom:The AI Literacy Framework: How to teach students to critically evaluate AI output rather than just prompt-hacking.The Death of the Proxy: Why we can no longer assume that a good essay equals a good thinker, and how to assess the "thinking process" instead.Ethics & Bias: Addressing the "unseen" issues of AI, from environmental impact to gender and racial bias in training data.The Future of Assessment: Why Vivas (oral exams) and reflective practice are becoming the new gold standard in a GenAI world.The Social Cost of Tech: A discussion on student "atomization" and whether we need a "digital detox" to restore human-to-human interaction in universities.Guest Bio:Cassie is an Academic teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at the University of Manchester. Her research work focuses on the integration of AI literacy into pathway programs, ensuring international students are equipped for an AI-assisted workforce.MELD Institute is an education consultancy offering support in curriculum development, online programme design, and training to schools and higher education institutions. We create tech solutions, including bespoke education apps to support and enhance learning. Visit our website for more information: www.MELD.InstituteTags: #AILiteracy #HigherEducation #GenAI #AcademicIntegrity #UniversityAssessment #AIAP #EdTech #FutureOfLearning #MindShift #AcademicEnglish #GenerativeAI #EAP

What happens when AI meets the deeply human work of qualitative research? In this conversation, Dr. David Marshall (Auburn University) and Dr. David Naff (Virginia Commonwealth University) discuss their study on the ethics of artificial intelligence in educational research, "The Ethics of Using Artificial Intelligence in Qualitative Research" (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38881315/).This conversation goes beyond typical AI hype to interrogate the hard questions:Did we get informed consent to use AI on participant data?What happens to deep data immersion when AI does the transcription?How do we maintain researcher positionality in an automated world?What are we losing when students use AI to summarise instead of read?Guest Bios:Dr. David T. Marshall is a researcher at Auburn University specializing in educational research methods and the ethical implications of emerging technologies in qualitative inquiry.Dr. David B. Naff is a researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University whose work examines research ethics, methodological innovation, and the responsible integration of technology in educational research.Tags: #AIethics #QualitativeResearch #EducationalResearch #ResearchMethods #AcademicAI #ResearchEthics #HigherEducation #AIinEducation #DataPrivacy #AcademicIntegrity

In this conversation, with Bassem Nasir, we explore the challenges that face educators in light of the money and power of big tech. We touch on the underlying purposes for education and whether AI might move us towards or away from these goals.Bassem Nasir is an education specialist at UNICEF. He has extensive leadership experience in education, youth development, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and corporate responsibility having worked with a broad range of multilateral organizations, corporations, NGOs, governments, and academic institutions. At the International Youth Foundation (IYF), Bassem served as the director of programs. In this role, he led a large portfolio of youth empowerment, employability, and life skills related programs and worked with different donors such as UNICEF, the World Bank, USAID, and international and local corporations and foundations. At Intel Corporation, Bassem served as the MENA regional education manager driving the company's multi-million-dollar corporate responsibility programs in the region working with Ministries of Education and Higher Education, as well as universities, to enhance quality of education through technology. Bassem holds a B.Sc. in chemical engineering from Purdue University, USA and an M.P.A. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, USA.MELD Institute is an education consultancy offering support in curriculum development, online programme design, and training to schools and higher education institutions. We create tech solutions, including bespoke education apps to support and enhance learning.

In the debut episode of this six-part series, Robert Wells and Adam White dive into AI, the "transformative technology" currently disrupting academia. From the staggering rise in student usage to the "flatfooted" response of institutional leadership, Robert and Adam explore whether AI is a tool for scaffolding better learning or a shortcut to cognitive decline.They move beyond the simple "cheating" narrative to discuss the philosophy of education: What happens when we remove "friction" from the learning process? If an AI can write an essay, was the essay ever a good assessment of knowledge to begin with?Key Topics Discussed:The 95% Reality: Discussing the massive gap between institutional policy and the reality of student usage (referencing recent studies where 95% of students use AI consistently).The Researcher’s New Toolkit: An exploration of "Agentic AI" and RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) technology. Adam explains how these tools can help academics navigate the "endemic problem" of keeping up with ever-expanding literature.Scaffolding vs. Brain Rot: Does AI reduce cognitive load to allow for higher-level thinking, or does it simply make us "dumber" by removing the necessary struggle of research?The Death of the Essay: Why the current "Python-esque" situation—where lecturers use AI to write materials and students use AI to answer them—proves that the traditional assessment model is broken.The Value of Friction: A philosophical look at "frictionless" learning. Robert and Adam discuss the "atomisation" of society and why "messy," imperfect human teachers are vital to the student experience.From Consumption to Production: Rethinking the "Why" of education and moving toward project-based learning and social impact in an AI-driven economy.Series Note:This is part 1 of a 6-episode exploration into the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Education. Join Dr. Robert Wells and Adam White as they navigate the transition from traditional academic structures to the unknown future of the "AI Economy."Tags: #AIethics #QualitativeResearch #EducationalResearch #ResearchMethods #AcademicAI #ResearchEthics #HigherEducation #AIinEducation #DataPrivacy #AcademicIntegrity