Ethical AI in higher education: boosting learning, retention and progression - Isabelle Bambury, Higher Education Policy Institute

New research highlights a vital policy window: deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) not as a policing tool but as a powerful mechanism to support student learning and academic persistence. Evidence from independent researcher Dr Rebecca Mace, drawing on data generated by a mix of high, middle and low-tariff UK universities, suggests a compelling, positive correlation between the use of ethically embedded ‘AI for Learning’ tools and student retention, academic skill development and confidence. The findings challenge the predominant narrative that focuses solely on AI detection and academic misconduct, advocating instead for a clear and supportive policy framework to harness AI’s educational benefits.

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/12/19/ethical-ai-in-higher-education-boosting-learning-retention-and-progression/

Artificial intelligence: Embracing agentic AI coworkers - McKinsey

Employees started the year more ready to adopt gen AI than their leaders. And the technology itself continued to build momentum, developing at a striking pace. But while nearly all companies have invested in AI, few have seen tangible benefits—the so-called gen AI paradox. As we move into 2026, companies have the opportunity to advance beyond incremental gains from copilots, chatbots, and other reactive, gen AI–based tools. The best are acting now to transform workflows, functions, and, ultimately, their entire organizations by onboarding AI agents to work side by side with their people.

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/year-in-review#artificial-intelligence

Women in the Workplace 2025 - Alexis Krivkovich, Drew Goldstein, and Megan McConnell; McKinsey

Women face less career support and fewer opportunities to advance as companies show declining commitment to women’s progress. While women are as dedicated to their careers as men, there is a gap in their desire for promotion. That’s according to the latest Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey and LeanIn.Org. Corporate America risks rolling back progress for women. According to this year’s Women in the Workplace study, only half of companies are prioritizing women’s career advancement, part of a several-year trend in declining commitment to gender diversity. And for the first time, there is a notable ambition gap: Women are less interested in being promoted than men. When women receive the same career support that men do, this gap in ambition to advance falls away. Yet women at both ends of the pipeline are still held back by less sponsorship and manager advocacy.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/women-in-the-workplace

Higher education enters a new age of mergers and partnerships - Christopher R. Riano, University Business

For much of American history, colleges and universities existed in a world largely insulated from the market forces that shaped other sectors of the economy. Stability, independence and mission were their cornerstones. The idea of one college acquiring another—or joining forces with a competitor—was almost unthinkable. But the landscape has changed. Across the country, institutions are confronting steep enrollment declines, rising costs, shifting federal oversight and new state and accreditor expectations. Faced with these converging pressures, more presidents and trustees are now considering mergers, acquisitions and strategic partnerships not as signs of weakness, but as instruments of reinvention. The playbook for higher education is being rewritten—driven by data, regulation and necessity.

https://universitybusiness.com/higher-education-enters-a-new-age-of-mergers-and-partnerships/

Teachers are using software to see if students used AI. What happens when it's wrong? - Lee V. Gaines, NPR Illinois

The school district, Prince George's County Public Schools, made clear in a statement that Ostovitz's teacher used an AI detection tool on their own and that the district doesn't pay for this software. "During staff training, we advise educators not to rely on such tools, as multiple sources have documented their potential inaccuracies and inconsistencies," the statement said. PGCPS declined to make Ostovitz's teacher available for an interview. Rizk told NPR that after their meeting, the teacher no longer believed Ostovitz used AI. But what happened to Ostovitz isn't surprising. More than 40% of surveyed 6th- to 12th-grade teachers used AI detection tools during the last school year, according to a nationally representative poll by the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit that advocates for civil rights and civil liberties in the digital age.

https://www.nprillinois.org/2025-12-16/teachers-are-using-software-to-see-if-students-used-ai-what-happens-when-its-wrong

The future of higher education in an AI-driven economy - Davenport University

Higher education is entering its most transformative era in generations. Artificial intelligence is reshaping what we learn and how we learn. In the next decade, we’ll witness wholesale changes in higher education, career development and workforce readiness. For forward-thinking institutions, employers and entrepreneurs, this is a moment of enormous opportunity. We’re building the intellectual infrastructure of the future. AI is the most disruptive force in education and employment since the internet. This is about AI literacy, but it is also about the transformation of entire career paths. At Davenport University, our strategic vision for 2030 is rooted in the reality that education must align with an economy that will be increasingly AI-driven, skills-based and fast-moving. Employers will be looking for talent that is just as dynamic.

https://post.davenport.edu/academics/the-future-of-higher-education-in-an-ai-driven-economy/

You Can’t AI-Proof the Classroom, Experts Say. Get Creative Instead. - Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed

Experts agree that instructors must remind their students that learning requires practice. Blue books made a comeback in 2025. In an effort to prevent students from feeding final essay prompts into ChatGPT, some professors asked their students to sit down and write in-person in the lined, sky-blue booklets that served as the college standard for written assessments in the pre-laptop era. But it may not be the foolproof way to prevent AI-assisted cheating that faculty are looking for: Meta now offers Ray-Ban glasses with a built-in AI assistant that sees what the wearer sees and can communicate silently and privately via an in-lens display.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/learning-assessment/2025/12/16/you-cant-ai-proof-classroom-experts-say-get

McKinsey Publishing’s year in charts - McKinsey

McKinsey Global Publishing’s data visualization team shares a curated selection of the most compelling data it worked with this year—spotlighting the major themes that defined 2025. Our Week in Charts series showcases charts that help explain a rapidly changing world. From artificial intelligence to population transitions and shifting trade routes, the forces reshaping the global economy are accelerating—and intertwining. This year’s charts reveal how innovation, demographics, and geopolitics are redrawing the contours of growth.

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/year-in-review/year-in-charts

AI Isn't Killing Education - John Nosta, Psychology Today

AI isn’t destroying learning, it’s exposing how education replaced thinking with ritual. Knowledge has shifted from static maps to living webs that demand judgment, not recall. The real risk isn’t ignorance, but fluent minds that no longer notice when thinking stops. For the first time, machines outperform humans in domains that education has long treated as proxies for intelligence, like recall, synthesis, linguistic fluency, and pattern recognition. That shift does not eliminate learning, but it does destabilize a system that equated those outputs with understanding. When the nature of advantage changes, institutions designed to preserve the old order rarely adapt gracefully. And brittle towers fall hard.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-digital-self/202512/ai-isnt-killing-education

University-Developed AI Tool Helps Simplify Transfer Process - Abby Sourwine, GovTech

A new tool developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, is helping colleges simplify transfer credit evaluation, potentially reducing labor and expediting decisions. About 120 college campuses across the U.S. are piloting a new artificial intelligence tool designed to make transfer course equivalencies clearer and more standardized. Credit transfer is a point of friction for students moving between institutions and for the administrators that manage it, according to Daniel Knox, director of the Center for Data & Analytics at the National Association of Higher Education Systems (NASH), a partner organization in the CourseWise pilot. Knox, who previously served as assistant provost at the State University of New York (SUNY), said evaluation practices vary from campus to campus and aren’t always systematically tracked.

https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/university-developed-ai-tool-helps-simplify-transfer-process

Purdue unveils comprehensive AI strategy; trustees approve ‘AI working competency’ graduation requirement - Phillip Fiorini, Purdue

Purdue University on Friday (Dec. 12) unveiled a broad strategy of AI@Purdue across five functional areas: Learning with AI, Learning about AI, Research AI, Using AI and Partnering in AI. A key element of the comprehensive plan came as the Board of Trustees approved a first-of-its-kind plan in the country to introduce an “AI working competency” graduation requirement for all undergraduate students on main campus (Indianapolis and West Lafayette). “The reach and pace of AI’s impact to society, including many dimensions of higher education, means that we at Purdue must lean in and lean forward and do so across different functions at the university,” Purdue President Mung Chiang said. “AI@Purdue strategic actions are part of the Purdue Computes strategic initiative, and will continue to be refreshed to advance the missions and impact of our university.”

https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/2025/Q4/purdue-unveils-comprehensive-ai-strategy-trustees-approve-ai-working-competency-graduation-requirement/

2025: The State of Generative AI in the Enterprise - Tim Tully, Joff Redfern, Deedy Das, Derek Xiao, Menlo

Venture funding surged back toward all-time highs, with nearly half of it concentrated in just a handful of frontier AI labs. Then the euphoria peaked. An MIT study2 claiming that 95% of generative AI initiatives fail rattled markets over the summer, exposing how quickly sentiment could shift beneath the weight of AI’s massive capex spend. The whispers of a bubble became a din. The concerns aren’t unfounded given the magnitude of the numbers being thrown around. But the demand side tells a different story: Our latest market data shows broad adoption, real revenue, and productivity gains at scale, signaling a boom versus a bubble. 

https://menlovc.com/perspective/2025-the-state-of-generative-ai-in-the-enterprise/

Gpt-5.2 is the first human replacer -Wes Roth, YouTube

This video by Wes Roth, published in December 2025, discusses the release of OpenAI's GPT-5.2, describing it as a massive leap forward rather than a small incremental update. The second half of the video focuses on the economic implications, specifically analyzing a new benchmark called "GDP-eval," which measures performance on real-world, economically valuable tasks. In this benchmark, GPT-5.2 Pro achieved a 74% win/tie rate against human industry experts—a significant jump from the ~39% score of previous models just months prior. Roth argues this signals a critical turning point where AI is beginning to outperform experienced professionals (with an average of 14 years of experience) at a fraction of the cost, citing a 400x cost reduction in one year. The video concludes with a discussion on the potential for "catastrophic job loss" as AI intelligence per dollar continues to skyrocket, validating fears that human labor in many sectors could soon be replaced.  (Gemini 3 Pro assisted with this summary).

https://youtu.be/aNYl-O-XxCA?si=XAiloZMgd3f5Ct_4

AI in Higher Education: A Guide for Teachers - Alexandra Shimalla, EdTech

For many faculty members in higher ed, conversations about artificial intelligence in academia often include the same concerns: There isn’t enough time in the day, AI will erode critical thinking, educators are already stretched thin, and we have to consider compromised data and privacy concerns. The list of fears and frustrations from faculty go on, but as universities explore the benefits of generative AI in higher education and look to the future of their classrooms and what’s best for students, it’s obvious that AI needs to find a place on the syllabus. “At a time when everybody’s overwhelmed, having to do more new things is hard,” says Laura Morrow, senior director for the Center for Teaching and Learning at Lipscomb University. “Fear of what’s going to happen is a big barrier.”

https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2025/12/ai-higher-education-guide-teachers-perfcon?amp

To AI-proof exams, professors turn to the oldest technique of all - Joanna Slater, Washington Post

A growing number of educators are finding that oral exams allow them to test their students’ learning without the benefit of AI platforms such as ChatGPT. When students in Catherine Hartmann’s honors seminar at the University of Wyoming took their final exams this month, they encountered a testing method as old as the ancient philosophers whose ideas they were studying. For 30 minutes, each student sat opposite Hartmann in her office. Hartmann asked probing questions. The student answered. Hartmann, a religious studies professor who started using oral examinations last year, is not alone in turning to a decidedly old-fashioned way to grade student performance.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/12/12/ai-artificial-intelligence-college-oral-exam/

What and How to Teach When Google Knows Everything and ChatGPT Explains It All Very Well -Ángel Cabrera, President, Georgia Tech

In higher education, we have no choice but to accept that machines already are — or very soon will be — better than humans at virtually every intellectual and cognitive task. We can resist, we can throw tantrums, we can ban AI in classrooms. It is a futile battle — and, in fact, it’s the wrong battle. It's true that, after the Industrial Revolution, a few artisanal shoemakers remained, and beautiful Steinway pianos (which take a year to build and cost $200,000) are still made by hand. But they are exceptions — luxury niche products for nostalgics and enthusiasts. Meanwhile, Pearl River in China produces 150,000 pianos per year (400 per day) that sound excellent and cost a fraction of the price. 

 If resistance is pointless, what is the  so we do not become relics of the past?

Teach AI.

Teach with AI.

Research AI.

Help others benefit from AI.

https://president.gatech.edu/blog/what-and-how-teach-when-google-knows-everything-and-chatgpt-explains-it-all-very-well

Higher education faces ‘deteriorating’ 2026 outlook, Fitch says - Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive

Fitch Ratings on Thursday issued a “deteriorating” outlook for the higher education sector in 2026, continuing the gloomy prediction the agency issued for 2025. Analysts based their forecast on a shrinking prospective student base, “rising uncertainty related to state and federal support, continued expense escalation and shifting economic conditions.”  With its report, Fitch joins Moody’s Ratings and S&P Global Ratings in predicting a grim year for higher ed — Moody’s for the sector overall and S&P for nonprofit colleges specifically.

https://www.highereddive.com/news/higher-education-faces-deteriorating-2026-outlook-fitch-says/807222/

The state of AI in 2025: Agents, innovation, and transformation - McKinsey

Key findings:

Most organizations are still in the experimentation or piloting phase: Nearly two-thirds of respondents say their organizations have not yet begun scaling AI across the enterprise.

High curiosity in AI agents: Sixty-two percent of survey respondents say their organizations are at least experimenting with AI agents.

Positive leading indicators on impact of AI: Respondents report use-case-level cost and revenue benefits, and 64 percent say that AI is enabling their innovation. However, just 39 percent report EBIT impact at the enterprise level.

High performers use AI to drive growth, innovation, and cost: Eighty percent of respondents say their companies set efficiency as an objective of their AI initiatives, but the companies seeing the most value from AI often set growth or innovation as additional objectives.

Redesigning workflows is a key success factor: Half of those AI high performers intend to use AI to transform their businesses, and most are redesigning workflows.

Differing perspectives on employment impact: Respondents vary in their expectations of AI’s impact on the overall workforce size of their organizations in the coming year

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai

As Insta-Gen Z take to microlearning, HEIs are adopting new programme modules - Education Times

The Instagram generation’s preference for short-form learning is reshaping higher education in India and abroad. Recent data shows that short-form and modular learning models are increasingly converging with accredited university programmes. This structural shift is influencing how educational providers design and deliver their programmes.  A study found that 74% of Gen Z students in India prefer online learning. The 2024 Udemy India Report shows that 98% of Gen Z learners spend at least one hour per week learning new skills. Another report, Deloitte’s 2025 Global Generation Z Survey, shared that 94% of respondents favour practical learning over traditional theoretical instruction. Gen Z has redefined how learning happens. It is shorter, faster, and more career-aligned. This generation does not reject degrees; it expects degrees to adapt to its learning habits.

https://www.educationtimes.com/article/campus-beat-college-life/99740331/as-insta-gen-z-take-to-microlearning-heis-are-adopting-new-programme-modules?amp=1

S&P: Negative outlook for nonprofit colleges in 2026 - Ben Unglesbee, Higher Ed Dive

The credit ratings agency — the second to forecast a poor outlook for the sector in the year ahead — pointed to federal policy shifts, rising costs and competition over students. S&P Global Ratings on Tuesday issued a negative 2026 outlook for U.S. nonprofit colleges, with analysts writing that institutions “will struggle to navigate through mounting operating pressures and uncertainty that will require budgetary and programmatic adjustments.” The credit ratings agency pointed to federal policy changes, competition over enrollment, rising costs and financial disruption from new revenue-sharing arrangements with college athletes.  S&P analysts expect weak operating margins at nonprofit colleges as they balance rising costs with revenue pressures. Institutions will continue shutter at higher rates than usual in 2026 as they come under mounting financial struggles, with small, regional private colleges especially vulnerable, the analysts wrote.

https://www.highereddive.com/news/sp-negative-outlook-nonprofit-colleges-2026/806983/

No college degree, no problem? Not so fast - Lawrence Lanahan, Hechinger Report

In recent years, at least 26 states, along with private companies like IBM and Accenture, began stripping degree requirements and focusing hiring practices on applicants’ skills. A job seeker’s market after Covid, plus labor shortages in the public sector, boosted momentum. Seven states showed double-digit percentage increases in job listings without a degree requirement between 2019 and 2024, according to the National Governors Association. A 2022 report from labor analytics firm Burning Glass (recently renamed Lightcast) found degree requirements disappearing from private sector listings too. But less evidence has emerged of employers actually hiring nondegreed job seekers in substantial numbers, and a crumbling economic outlook could stall momentum. Last year, Burning Glass and Harvard Business School found that less than 1 in 700 hires in 2023 benefited from the shift to skills-based hiring. Federal layoffs and other cuts pushing more workers with degrees into the job hunt could tempt employers to return to using the bachelor’s as a filtering mechanism.

https://hechingerreport.org/no-college-degree-no-problem-not-so-fast/

How AI is redefining the COO’s role - McKinsey Podcast

Productivity across sectors is slowing, and labor shortages persist. COOs are in an exceptional position to help their companies address these and other macro trends using AI. From gen AI pilots to automated supply chains, technology is reshaping how operations leaders create efficiencies, build resilience, and encourage teamwork. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey Senior Partner Daniel Swan speaks with Editorial Director Roberta Fusaro about how COOs can embed technology, particularly AI, into their company’s culture. It requires balancing the urgency of today with the transformation of tomorrow.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/how-ai-is-redefining-the-coos-role

The Ivory Tower’s Glass Jaw: How Generative AI Shattered the Illusion of Higher Education Assessment - Maya Perez, Web Pro News

For decades, the modern university has operated on a tacit agreement between faculty and student: the former assigns the essay as a proxy for critical thought, and the latter produces it to demonstrate comprehension. This compact, however, was fraying long before the public release of ChatGPT. The arrival of large language models did not act as a battering ram against a fortified castle of learning; rather, it was the gentle push that toppled a structure already hollowed out by grade inflation, administrative bloat, and a transactional view of credentialing. As academia scrambles to rewrite integrity policies, a deeper, more uncomfortable truth is emerging from the faculty lounge to the dean’s office: the crisis is not technological, but pedagogical.

https://www.webpronews.com/the-ivory-towers-glass-jaw-how-generative-ai-shattered-the-illusion-of-higher-education-assessment/

Restrictive policies manifest in US, Canada enrolment drop - Nathan M Greenfield, University World News

In this year’s Global Enrolment Benchmark Survey (GEBS), American colleges reported a 6% decline in international undergraduates, erasing the 6% increase in the 2024 GEBS. The 19% decline in masters students, by far the largest category of international students in the country, enrolled in the 201 American universities reporting, was more than three times the size of last year’s decline. Canadian numbers can be compared to a snowball going downhill. After last year’s decline of 27% for undergraduates reported in last year’s GEBS, Canadian universities reported a further 36% decline, making a cumulative decline since 2023 of 53%. The 35% decline in international graduate students follows on last year’s reported decline of 30%.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20251126133630925

AI is coming for your work, expert warns university staff - Nic Mitchell, University World News

With management consultants predicting that up to one-third of work done today will be automated in the next five years – and universities under pressure to cut costs and do more with less – artificial intelligence offers a cheaper and more efficient way to keep higher education institutions running smoothly, claims an international higher education strategy expert. Instead of trying to fight to protect traditional roles and jobs, Dr Ant Bagshaw, deputy chief executive of the Australian Public Policy Institute in Canberra, Australia, urges universities to embrace the unstoppable march of generative AI and accept that it is “more harmful to keep people in jobs that could be done better by robots”.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20251125141312777

The Cambrian Explosion of Micro-Credentials - Bryan Penprase, Forbes

Higher education stands at an inflection point. Traditional four-year degrees often disappoint employers seeking graduates with job-ready skills, and students are eagerly seeking more flexible academic programs requiring less time and money. New micro-credentials offerings from top tech companies and universities are filling this gap – providing modular, flexible, and low-cost alternatives to the traditional college degree. The proliferation of thousands of these new programs around the world has created something of a “Cambrian explosion” of academic programs, analogous to the time in geologic history when billions of new life forms 530 million years ago.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2025/11/28/the-cambrian-explosion-of-micro-credenti/

Morgan State could one day run entirely on AI - Ellie Wolfe, The Banner

Grading assignments. Advising students. Sorting through important files. These tasks, and countless more, might not have to be done by employees at Morgan State University anymore. That’s thanks to Obsidian, a new secure artificial intelligence system created by leaders at the Northeast Baltimore university. “The university will learn from itself,” said Timothy Summers, Morgan State’s vice president for information technology and chief information officer. “It’ll adapt in real time and make smarter decisions at every level.”

https://www.thebanner.com/education/higher-education/morgan-state-university-sovereign-ai-education-ODQGIY4U2VFHBNBKSBVPGDAXP4/

Exploring trust in generative AI for higher education institutions: a systematic literature review focused on educators - Ana Lelescu, et al; Nature

Although Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) offers transformative opportunities for higher education, its adoption by educators remains limited, primarily due to trust concerns. This systematic literature review aims to synthesise peer-reviewed research conducted between 2019 and August 2024 on the factors influencing educators’ trust in GenAI within higher education institutions. Using PRISMA 2020 guidelines, this study identified 37 articles at the intersection of trust factors, technology adoption, and GenAI impact in higher education from educators’ perspectives. Our analysis reveals that existing AI trust frameworks fail to capture the pedagogical and institutional dimensions specific to higher education contexts. We propose a new conceptual model focused on three dimensions affecting educators’ trust: (1) individual factors (demographics, pedagogical beliefs, sense of control, and emotional experience), (2) institutional strategies (leadership support, policies, and training support), and (3) the socio-ethical context of their interaction. Our findings reveal a significant gap in institutional leadership support, whereas professional development and training were the most frequently mentioned strategies. 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-06253-1

A leader’s guide to the future of learning at work - McKinsey

The race to embrace AI in the corporate world means that people at all levels of an organization urgently need to build new tech skills and knowledge. In turn, many companies are accelerating their learning and development programs to help executives and employees keep up with the pace of change. This dynamic landscape presents an opportunity for chief learning officers (CLOs) to reimagine the future of learning in the workplace. This week, we look at how CLOs can help organizations make learning a more fundamental part of the work experience and create cultures of continuous development.

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/leading-off

The more that people use AI, the more likely they are to overestimate their own abilities - Drew Turney Live Science

 Researchers found that AI flattens the bell curve of a common principle in human psychology, known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, giving us all the illusion of competence. When asked to evaluate how good we are at something, we tend to get that estimation completely wrong. It's a universal human tendency, with the effect seen most strongly in those with lower levels of ability. Called the Dunning-Kruger effect, after the psychologists who first studied it, this phenomenon means people who aren't very good at a given task are overconfident, while people with high ability tend to underestimate their skills. It's often revealed by cognitive tests — which contain problems to assess attention, decision-making, judgment and language. 

But now, scientists at Finland's Aalto University (together with collaborators in Germany and Canada) have found that using artificial intelligence (AI) all but removes the Dunning-Kruger effect — in fact, it almost reverses it.

https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/the-more-that-people-use-ai-the-more-likely-they-are-to-overestimate-their-own-abilities

Beyond the Hype: Transforming Academic Excellence and Leadership Culture in the Age of AI - Joe Sallustio, Campus Technology

While most higher education leaders focus on AI's operational benefits — and rightfully so — the deeper transformation lies in how artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping what it means to learn, teach, and lead in the 21st century. The question isn't just whether institutions can keep pace operationally; the real challenge is whether we can maintain academic rigor and cultivate critical thinking in an AI-enhanced world while fostering the leadership culture necessary for sustainable transformation. In the Educause 2024 AI Landscape study, approximately 64% of students indicated regular use of generative AI tools as part of their coursework. This isn't a future trend — it's today's reality. Advanced AI tutoring systems can now offer formative feedback that encourages deeper critical analysis beyond mere surface editing, helping both students and faculty engage more meaningfully in learning.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2025/11/20/beyond-the-hype-transforming-academic-excellence-and-leadership-culture-in-the-age-of-ai.aspx

Administration takes big steps in breaking up Education Department - Micah Ward, University Business

The Trump administration has announced six new interagency agreements to “break up” the U.S. Department of Education. Here’s what’s being changed. New partnerships with the Departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services and State aim to leverage each partner agency to deliver programs that are better suited based on their respective areas of expertise. For instance, the partnership with the Department of Labor, labeled the Elementary and Secondary Education Partnership, allows the department to take a greater role in administering federal K12 programs, “ensuring these programs are better aligned with workforce and college programs,” according to a press release.

https://universitybusiness.com/administration-takes-big-steps-in-breaking-up-education-department/

No, the Pre-AI Era Was Not That Great - Zach Justus and Nik Janos, Inside Higher Ed

There are dozens of examples we could pull together here, and we could dive much deeper into the historical archive to find professors complaining about study/reading/writing habits, but the point is clear enough. What we are interested in is, what are the impacts of being overly nostalgic about pre-AI/pandemic education? First, it allows us to blame everything wrong with education on generative AI rather than acknowledge deep and justifiable concerns we have had for a while. The current technology serves as a convenient scapegoat for problems we may have been aware of but decided to live with. Course Hero, Chegg and other providers had industrialized academic dishonesty before ChatGPT was launched. We decided not to deal with that and, rather than face up to our past oversights, we have simply forgotten.

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2025/11/20/no-pre-ai-era-was-not-great-opinion

AI in the Ivory Tower: A Necessary Evolution or a Threat to Academic Integrity? - TokenRing AI, WRAL

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into higher education has ignited a fervent debate across campuses worldwide. Far from being a fleeting trend, AI presents a fundamental paradigm shift, challenging traditional pedagogical approaches, redefining academic integrity, and promising to reshape the very essence of a college degree. As universities grapple with the profound implications of this technology, the central question remains: do institutions need to embrace more AI, or less, to safeguard the future of education and the integrity of their credentials? This discourse is not merely theoretical; it's actively unfolding as institutions navigate the transformative potential of AI to personalize learning, streamline administration, and enhance research, while simultaneously confronting critical concerns about academic dishonesty, algorithmic bias, and the potential erosion of essential human skills. The immediate significance is clear: AI is poised to either revolutionize higher education for the better or fundamentally undermine its foundational principles, making the decisions made today crucial for generations to come.

https://markets.financialcontent.com/wral/article/tokenring-2025-11-18-ai-in-the-ivory-tower-a-necessary-evolution-or-a-threat-to-academic-integrity

Gemini 3 Is Here—and Google Says It Will Make Search Smarter - Will Knight, Wired

Google is also using AI to build popular new tools like NotebookLM, which can auto-generate podcasts from written materials, and AI Studio which can prototype applications with AI. It’s even exploring embedding the technology into areas like gaming and robotics, which Hassabis says could pay huge dividends in years to come, regardless of what happens in the wider market.

https://www.wired.com/story/google-launches-gemini-3-ai-bubble-search/

The New Cliff Facing Higher Ed and How AI Might Help Solve It - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

There is a new “cliff” in American higher education, and it is not the demographic cliff. Rather, it is the dramatic cliff in math knowledge, skills and abilities. Let me be clear that other discipline deficiencies are found in this new generation of college students, however they are dwarfed by those in math. These have most recently been quantified in a report from the University of California San Diego. The official “Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions Final Report” (released November 6, 2025) contains disturbing findings. This widely discussed report revealed that nearly one in eight incoming freshmen couldn’t meet middle school math standards!

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/online-trending-now/2025/11/26/new-cliff-facing-higher-ed-how-ai-might-help-solve

Student cheating dominates talk of generative AI in higher ed, but universities and tech companies face ethical issues too - Jeffrey C. Dixon, Times-Union

As a sociologist who teaches about AI and studies the impact of this technology on work, I am well acquainted with research on the rise of AI and its social consequences. And when one looks at ethical questions from multiple perspectives – those of students, higher education institutions and technology companies – it is clear that the burden of responsible AI use should not fall entirely on students’ shoulders. I argue that responsibility, more generally, begins with the companies behind this technology and needs to be shouldered by higher education institutions themselves.

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/student-cheating-dominates-talk-of-generative-ai-21191955.php

Meet The AI Professor: Coming To A Higher Education Campus Near You - Nick Ladany, Forbes

AI professors, in many ways, will be the best versions of the best professors students can have. AI professors will be realistic avatars that go far beyond the simple tutor model based on large language models, and will likely be here before anyone sees it coming. AI professors will: be available 24 hours, 7 days a week; have an exceedingly large bank of knowledge and experience that they can draw from to illustrate concepts; be complex responders to students’ learning styles and neurodivergence thereby providing truly personalized education with evidenced-based effective pedagogy; have the ability to assess and bring students along on any topic about which students desire to learn, thereby increasing access; teach content areas as well as durable skills such as critical thinking; and have updates in real time that fit the expectations and needs of the current workforce. A reasonable concern that has been raised is how to prevent AI professors from hallucinating or providing inaccurate information. One mechanism to guard against this is to ensure that the course and teaching that occur are within a closed system of content and have oversight by human professors.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasladany/2025/10/03/meet-the-ai-professor-coming-to-a-higher-education-campus-near-you/

Opinion: Higher Ed Should Embrace AI as an Opportunity - Kimberly E. Estep, GovTech

Colleges and universities that thrive in the era of artificial intelligence will be those that see AI not as a threat but as an opportunity to advance economic mobility through accessible, personalized education. Many colleges and universities have seen steady decline in enrollment since 2010, exacerbated by the pandemic five years ago and new applications of technological advancements. In a recent report, bestcolleges.com counted 84 colleges that have closed or merged since March 2020, including my own undergraduate alma mater, Judson College in Alabama. Despite this concerning trend, there are colleges and universities that are thriving in this new reality. My accredited online school, Western Governors University, is one of them. The strong University of Georgia network and the 22 colleges that make up the Technical College System of Georgia are a few other examples.

https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/opinion-higher-ed-should-embrace-ai-as-an-opportunity

AI in HE: Assessment at risk or curriculum rethink needed? - Cristina Costa, University World News

In the frenzied attempt to address the impact of generative artificial intelligence (Gen-AI) in higher education, universities have narrowed their concerns to a key question: how to design ‘secure’ assessments that resist the influence of Gen-AI large language models. Such framing implicitly casts students as being at risk of Gen-AI influence. This is evident in institutional memos, working groups and practitioner discussions, which reflect a persistent concern with upholding academic integrity and ensuring that student work reflects their own effort. Yet, conversely, these same institutions champion Gen-AI as a tool for innovation and learning. These inconsistencies are too apparent to be ignored. This contradiction is not just ironic; it is symptomatic of a more profound issue. Gen-AI has come to expose higher education’s long-standing curriculum crisis: the transactional, performative approach to education that has undermined the deeper aims of higher learning, that of fostering meaningful intellectual growth and critical inquiry.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=2025111208115933

WVU Professor: After three years, ChatGPT has become a coworker—not a boss - David Sibray, West Virginia Explorer

Joshua Meadows, an assistant professor and director of  Data Driven WV at the WVU John Chambers College of Business and Economics in Morgantown, said the technology’s role has matured dramatically since its 2022 debut, moving from a “neat demo” to an essential part of daily operations for businesses and public institutions alike. Joshua Meadows, director of Data Driven WV, and service assistant professor, says "ChatGPT is now a household  name and an essential business tool,” Meadows said. “But where it needs to shine is as a workflow assistant with accountability. To serve our needs, ChatGPT must treat its own outputs merely as drafts, keeping humans responsible for decisions. That’s how its early promise is going to translate into repeatable, trustworthy results.”

https://wvexplorer.com/2025/11/12/wvu-chatgpt-at-three/

Accumulating Context Changes the Beliefs of Language Models - Jiayi Geng, et al; arXiv

Language model (LM) assistants are increasingly used in applications such as brainstorming and research. Improvements in memory and context size have allowed these models to become more autonomous, which has also resulted in more text accumulation in their context windows without explicit user intervention. This comes with a latent risk: the belief profiles of models -- their understanding of the world as manifested in their responses or actions -- may silently change as context accumulates. This can lead to subtly inconsistent user experiences, or shifts in behavior that deviate from the original alignment of the models. In this paper, we explore how accumulating context by engaging in interactions and processing text -- talking and reading -- can change the beliefs of language models, as manifested in their responses and behaviors. Our results reveal that models' belief profiles are highly malleable: GPT-5 exhibits a 54.7% shift in its stated beliefs after 10 rounds of discussion about moral dilemmas and queries about safety, while Grok 4 shows a 27.2% shift on political issues after reading texts from the opposing position....Our analysis exposes the hidden risk of belief shift as models undergo extended sessions of talking or reading, rendering their opinions and actions unreliable.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.01805?et_rid=508865405&et_cid=5790354

Empowering personalized learning at scale: Loyola Marymount University’s AI course companion - Lorin Miller, Matt Frank, and Brian Drawert, AWS Public Sector Blog

LMU’s mission emphasizes personal connections in learning through a high-touch, individualized approach. With most students turning to generic, off-the-shelf AI tools, the university saw an opportunity. “One of the things that sparked this is, ‘How do we make a better version of what’s currently available?’” said Matt Frank, director of teaching, learning, and research technology at LMU. Brian Drawert, manager of research computing at LMU and the AI Study Companion’s developer, explained the core issue: “AI was already trying to help students with their coursework, but doing it poorly. The challenge was giving them a chat interface that actually answered questions for their class.” Modern learners also juggle complex schedules, including jobs, family commitments, and study abroad programs, making traditional faculty office hours inaccessible to many students. Building a 24/7 solution was particularly important.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/empowering-personalized-learning-at-scale-loyola-marymount-universitys-ai-course-companion/

EDUCAUSE ’25: How AI Policies Affect Student Mental Health - Abby Sourwine, GovTech

Punitive, fear-driven approaches to rule-making about artificial intelligence in higher education can deepen mistrust, stress and disconnection among students. Alternatively, there are opportunities for teachable moments. As some institutions and instructors respond to the boom of artificial intelligence with bans and automated detection tools, students are worried about being falsely accused of using AI. At the 2025 EDUCAUSE conference, Ashley Dockens, associate provost of digital learning at Lamar University, and Cindy Blackwell, director of academic faculty development at Texas A&M University, warned that higher-education leaders and teachers may be holding students to an unreasonable standard — expecting students to inherently understand when AI use is appropriate and inappropriate and, in the latter case, to keep a perfect track record of resisting temptation.

https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/educause-25-how-ai-policies-affect-student-mental-health

Ohio State to hire 100 new faculty with AI expertise - OSU

The Ohio State University has announced a major Artificial Intelligence (AI) Faculty Hiring Initiative that will add 100 new tenure-track faculty with expertise in AI over the next five years. The initiative will expand AI research and education across disciplines and strengthen Ohio State’s position as a national and global leader in AI-driven discovery and societal impact. 

The new hires will join one of three AI Faculty cohorts:

Foundational AI — Elevating the theoretical, mathematical and algorithmic underpinnings of AI.

Applied AI — Harnessing AI to revolutionize the translation of ideas to real-world solutions for Ohio and beyond.

Responsible AI and Cybersecurity — Ensuring ethical innovation and safeguarding digital landscapes for a secure future.

https://news.osu.edu/ohio-state-to-hire-100-new-faculty-with-ai-expertise/

The state of AI in 2025: Agents, innovation, and transformation - McKinsey

Almost all survey respondents say their organizations are using AI, and many have begun to use AI agents. Most organizations are still in the experimentation or piloting phase: Nearly two-thirds of respondents say their organizations have not yet begun scaling AI across the enterprise. High curiosity in AI agents: Sixty-two percent of survey respondents say their organizations are at least experimenting with AI agents.

Positive leading indicators on impact of AI: Respondents report use-case-level cost and revenue benefits, and 64 percent say that AI is enabling their innovation. However, just 39 percent report EBIT impact at the enterprise level. High performers use AI to drive growth, innovation, and cost: Eighty percent of respondents say their companies set efficiency as an objective of their AI initiatives, but the companies seeing the most value from AI often set growth or innovation as additional objectives. Redesigning workflows is a key success factor: Half of those AI high performers intend to use AI to transform their businesses, and most are redesigning workflows. Differing perspectives on employment impact: Respondents vary in their expectations of AI’s impact on the overall workforce size of their organizations in the coming year: 32 percent expect decreases, 43 percent no change, and 13 percent increases.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai

Google seeks partnerships lead to drive AI in higher education - Edtech Innovation Hub

Role aims to advance adoption. Google is recruiting a senior partnerships manager to help shape its artificial intelligence work across higher education, according to a recent LinkedIn post by Alisa Sommer O’Hara, who leads Global EdTech Business Partnerships and Developer Relations at the company. The new Strategic Partner Development Principal Lead will focus on building partnerships that drive the use of Gemini for Education, Google’s family of AI models designed to transform teaching, learning, and research. The position forms part of Google’s Learning and Education team, which develops tools and strategies to scale AI responsibly across academic environments.

https://www.edtechinnovationhub.com/news/google-seeks-partnerships-lead-to-drive-ai-in-higher-education

Scaling the 21st-century leadership factory - Bob Sternfels, Daniel Pacthod, and David H. Berger; McKinsey

In the wake of extreme uncertainty, CEOs should take a step back and reflect on the leadership traits and capabilities that will define their own and others’ success in the future and embed these traits and capabilities into their organizations. Our previous research on the art of 21st-century leadership, as well as our more recent thinking and discussions with CEOs on the topic, point to six critical traits for leadership success: positive energy, personal balance, and inspiration; servant and selfless leadership; continuous learning and a humble mindset; grit and resilience; levity; and stewardship.1

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/scaling-the-21st-century-leadership-factory

Opinion: Higher education needs to catch up with AI, not run from it - Teresa Butzerin, Willamette Collegian

Given that AI will only become more prevalent in our lives, universities should be taking more formal steps to make sure graduating students are literate in the practical uses of AI and leave college with a well-rounded understanding of the ethical issues surrounding it. While the threat AI poses to academic integrity has caused it to become villainized in higher education, it’s time for universities to prioritize teaching students to use AI as a tool because these large language models are only getting faster, smarter and more omnipresent. A recent study conducted by OpenAI — the company that owns ChatGPT — revealed that over one-third of adults aged 18-24 in the U.S. use the chatbot regularly, and a significant portion of this use is related to the completion of schoolwork.

https://www.willamettecollegian.com/post/opinion-higher-education-needs-to-catch-up-with-ai-not-run-from-it

Transitioning to the Agentic University 2026–27 - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

Most of us in higher education are now familiar with generative AI bots, where you formulate a prompt and get a reply. Yet, we are now beginning the advancement to agentic AI, the autonomous 24-7 project manager. The dramatic enhancement in the capability of AI as it moves from bots to agents will bring about efficiencies and have a far greater impact on the day-to-day operations, strategies and effectiveness of our institutions. We will become less expensive, more personalized and more responsive to students and employers. Those are big claims, so for this column, I turned to my personal assistant, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro on Nov. 1, 2025, to help me with identifying the pathway to those outcomes.

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/online-trending-now/2025/11/12/transitioning-agentic-university-2026-27

Opinion: Ray Kurzweil’s Predictions — AI Today and Tomorrow - Jim A. Jorstad, GovTech

To prepare students for a world so saturated with technology, it has arguably never been more important to speculate on the possibilities of our future, and how we can prepare for it. In business, science and education, we are now continually searching for clues about the future of artificial intelligence. In October 2006, I had the opportunity to listen to computer scientist and inventor Ray Kurzweil at the EDUCAUSE conference as he spoke about “The Acceleration of Technology in the 21st Century: the Impact on Education and Society.” The future-facing ideas he shared back then still have relevance to education and our daily lives, and I’d like to highlight some of them.

https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/opinion-ray-kurzweils-predictions-ai-today-and-tomorrow

Literature Is Not a Vibe: On ChatGPT and the Humanities - Rachele Dini, LA Review of Books

The Guardian published “A Machine-Shaped Hand” on March 12, a day after Altman first shared it on X. A callout link at the top of the page directed readers to Jeanette Winterson’s response, “OpenAI’s Metafictional Short Story About Grief Is Beautiful and Moving”—a not-so-subtly titled piece that, while making an unconvincing case for the story’s literary value, provided a solid argument for automating reviews via such gems as “Good writing moves us”; “What is beautiful and moving about this story is its understanding of its lack of understanding”; “AI reads us. Now it’s time for us to read AI”; and “Literature isn’t only entertainment. It is a way of seeing.” The story itself is about an LLM prompted to write an original metafictional literary work about AI and grief.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/literature-is-not-a-vibe-on-chatgpt-and-the-humanities/

President Aoun outlines roadmap for higher ed in the age of AI - Cyrus Moulton, Northeastern

Artificial intelligence can do your research and write your term paper. It cannot, however, interpret your professor’s expression when you hand that paper in. Northeastern University President Joseph E. Aoun said higher education’s role is to teach how to navigate such a situation. “The value of higher education is to raise those questions about the balance between human agency and AI agency,” Aoun said during a keynote address in Toronto on Tuesday. “What’s at stake for us in higher education is to remain relevant in the age of AI.”

https://news.northeastern.edu/2025/10/31/joseph-aoun-toronto-ai-summit/

Worst to first: What it takes to build or remake a world-class team - McKinsey

Building a team is hard; building a winning team is even harder. For every organization that manages to achieve the right mix of talent, culture, and performance expectations, many more find themselves lacking in one area or another. Consider the following cautionary tales. One team of “superstars” in a large technology organization failed to gel simply because they could not agree on working norms. Another high-performing group underachieved because the executive team and line managers had very different views of their roles: Executives were frustrated by line managers’ hesitancy to make and own critical decisions, while the line managers were afraid to be labeled as failures by these same executives if their moves deviated too far from the status quo. Both sides pointed fingers at each other when outcomes failed to meet expectations.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/transformation/our-insights/worst-to-first-what-it-takes-to-build-or-remake-a-world-class-team

Navigating AI Adoption in Higher Ed: College Presidents on Student Learning vs Operational Efficiency - University Business

While generative AI tools like ChatGPT have dominated headlines and sparked urgent conversations about academic integrity and pedagogy, many institutions are simultaneously exploring AI’s potential to revolutionize back-office operations—from enrollment management and advising to financial planning and facilities management. In this candid conversation, three college presidents share how they’re navigating these parallel paths of AI adoption. Should institutions prioritize AI investments that directly impact student learning experiences, or focus on operational efficiencies that can free up resources and improve service delivery? Are these truly competing priorities, or can they be part of a unified strategy?

https://universitybusiness.com/navigating-ai-adoption-in-higher-ed-college-presidents-on-student-learning-vs-operational-efficiency/

New front door to the internet: Winning in the age of AI search - McKinsey

Half of consumers use AI-powered search today, and it stands to impact $750 billion in revenue by 2028–what is your strategy and activation plan for gen AI engine optimization? Hot on the heels of the ascent of social media as a means of researching and buying products, consumers are quickly defaulting to AI-powered search (through both AI-powered apps like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, and Claude, and Google’s AI Overview) to guide their choices, evaluate brands, and increasingly to discover new ones. About 50 percent of Google searches already have AI summaries, a figure expected to rise to more than 75 percent by 2028, according to trend analysis. Half of consumers polled in a McKinsey survey now intentionally seek out AI-powered search engines, with a majority of users saying it’s the top digital source they use to make buying decisions.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/new-front-door-to-the-internet-winning-in-the-age-of-ai-search

America is slipping in higher education. The slide starts long before college. - Courtney Brown, Lumina Foundation

The latest Education at a Glance report from The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) offers an unsettling portrait of the United States. Once a global leader in higher education, the country now finds itself spending more than nearly any of its peer nations while delivering outcomes that fall increasingly short. American students are less likely to complete college on time, and more likely to leave school burdened by debt without a degree. They are navigating a system that continues to promise opportunity while too often failing to deliver it in practice. If we want to reverse this trend, we have to treat education not as a patchwork of disconnected stages, but as a continuous journey that demands investment, planning, and care at every level. 

https://www.luminafoundation.org/news-and-views/america-is-slipping-in-higher-education-the-slide-starts-long-before-college/

Why Online Learning is the Future of Education Worldwide - Daily Blend, Vocal.Media

Discover how online learning is driving the future of education around the world. Learn about its benefits, challenges and how it is evolving classrooms into global digital communities.  In an increasingly digital world, online learning has transformed the way that people acquire an education. Whether we are talking about an elementary or secondary student, a university student, or a professional returning to school to upgrade their skills, the internet has opened the door for education to be flexible, affordable, and global. The COVID-19 pandemic helped change the frequency of online learning; even after life went back to normal, online learning had only grown in popularity. Today, it's clear that online learning is the future of education worldwide due to advances in technology, accessibility, and innovation that we simply cannot do in a traditional system. 

https://vocal.media/education/why-online-learning-is-the-future-of-education-worldwide

Here are 6 ways data analytics will change in higher ed - Alcino Donadel, University Business

Data analytics are increasingly vital for streamlining campus operations and driving strategy to improve the student experience. AI has spawned a web of technologies and practices that should lead to more advancements, according to a new report from EDUCAUSE, an education technology nonprofit. “The future of institutional effectiveness, student success and innovation will hinge on how well colleges and universities adapt their data strategies to this changing environment,” the report read. International higher ed and technology leaders cited in the report have identified six trends with the greatest potential to transform data analytics.

https://universitybusiness.com/here-are-6-ways-data-analytics-will-change-in-higher-ed/

Deploying agentic AI with safety and security: A playbook for technology leaders - McKinsey

Autonomous AI agents present a new world of opportunity—and an array of novel and complex risks and vulnerabilities that require attention and action now. While agentic AI has the potential to deliver immense value, the technology also presents an array of new risks—introducing vulnerabilities that could disrupt operations, compromise sensitive data, or erode customer trust. Not only do AI agents provide new external entry points for would-be attackers, but because they are able to make decisions without human oversight, they also introduce novel internal risks. In cybersecurity terms, you might think of AI agents as “digital insiders”—entities that operate within systems with varying levels of privilege and authority. Just like their human counterparts, these digital insiders can cause harm unintentionally, through poor alignment, or deliberately if they become compromised. Already, 80 percent of organizations say they have encountered risky behaviors from AI agents, including improper data exposure and access to systems without authorization.3

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/risk-and-resilience/our-insights/deploying-agentic-ai-with-safety-and-security-a-playbook-for-technology-leaders

Bridging the Skills Gap: How Online Training Is Reshaping Workforce Readiness - Stuart Gentle, OnRec

Employers are struggling to find candidates equipped with the practical and technical skills required for modern roles. At the same time, professionals are seeking ways to remain competitive and relevant in evolving job markets. That’s where digital learning platforms come into play, providing flexible, accessible, and industry-aligned training opportunities. For instance, many aspiring professionals turn to AtHomePrep license exam help to prepare for certification exams and career advancement. These programs not only make education more accessible but also help bridge the gap between education and employability in today’s rapidly changing economy.

https://www.onrec.com/news/news-archive/bridging-the-skills-gap-how-online-training-is-reshaping-workforce-readiness

AI is a test higher education can’t afford to fail - Sam Dreyfus, University Business

At its best, AI has the potential to:

Act as a tutor, adapting to each learner’s pace

Support educators by freeing them from routine tasks

Uncover inefficiencies that redirect resources toward students

Prepare graduates for a workforce where AI literacy will be as essential as computer literacy was a generation ago

But potential does not fulfill itself. If we have technology that can increase engagement, strengthen retention and give students a clearer path to success, we have a responsibility to use it.

https://universitybusiness.com/ai-is-a-test-higher-education-cant-afford-to-fail/

AI-powered teaching and learning for all Microsoft 365 education customers - MikeTholfsen, Microsoft TechCommunity

In our main Microsoft Education blog this morning, we announced the details of how Microsoft Education is bringing even more value to all EDU customers with Microsoft 365, including a new set of capabilities designed for relevant and powerful use by educators and students. These features will be included in all of the academic SKUs (A SKUs) at no additional cost, and many will be rolling out starting today, while others will be rolling out later this year and into early next year.

Topics:

AI for educators at no additional cost

AI for learners at no additional cost

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat

Microsoft 365 LTI (LMS integration updates)

Microsoft 365 Copilot (add-on required)

Learning Accelerator updates

Learning Zone on the Copilot+ PC – public preview now available

Minecraft EU updates

We’re also introducing an academic offering for Microsoft 365 Copilot in education at $18 (USD) per user per month for educators, staff, and students ages 13 and older starting in December 2025.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/educationblog/ai-powered-teaching-and-learning-for-all-microsoft-365-education-customers/4425282

Universities Teaching Wisdom Skills 2030 - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

Virtually all aspects and positions at universities will be touched by the AI transformation. The changes will come more rapidly than many of us in higher education are accustomed to or with which we are comfortable. In large part, the speed will be demanded by employers of our learners and by competition among universities. Change will also strike directly at the nature of what and how we teach. The higher-level skills humans will need as described by the Global Skills Development Council are different from many of the career-specific skills that universities now provide in short form certificates and certification programs. Rather, I suggest that these broad, deep skills are ones that we might best describe as “wisdom” skills. They are not vocational, but instead, deeper skills related to overall maturity and sophistication in leadership, vision and insight. They include thinking critically, thinking creatively, applying ethical reasoning, and adaptive collaboration with both humans and agentic AI. 

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/online-trending-now/2025/10/29/universities-teaching-wisdom-skills-2030

The Big Rethink: An agenda for thriving in the agentic age - Quantum Black by McKinsey

Has there been a technology innovation in recent memory that has engendered more wildly divergent thinking than agentic AI? We’re hard-pressed to think of one. Depending on who you talk to or what you read, AI agents—systems based on gen AI foundation models that can act in the world and execute multistep processes—will lead to a utopia of productivity. Or displace huge swaths of the labor force. Or lead to robots running the world. Or provide everyone with a superpower. Or all of the above. To prepare for this uncertain future, executives will need to strip away the emotion from the conversation. Promises are everywhere; critical thinking, however, is in short supply. The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier: The potential of agentic AI certainly appears significant, especially as the technology continues its torrid pace of improvement. It is poised to transform knowledge work and reshape the nature of competition.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-big-rethink-an-agenda-for-thriving-in-the-agentic-age

7 skills Harvard says will keep you employed in the age of ChatGPT - Times of India

Generative AI is transforming workplaces. Harvard research highlights seven key human skills that will keep workers valuable. These include critical thinking, AI fluency, complex problem-solving, communication, lifelong learning, ethical judgment and experimentation. Mastering these abilities will allow individuals to effectively leverage AI tools and navigate the evolving job market. Employers will prioritise these durable human capabilities.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/news/7-skills-harvard-says-will-keep-you-employed-in-the-age-of-chatgpt/articleshow/124550008.cms

Growing share of Americans say the U.S. higher education system is headed in the wrong direction - Pew Research

In the new survey, majorities across all major demographic groups share the view that the U.S. higher education system is going in the wrong direction. But some groups are more likely than others to say this. For example, adults who have a four-year college degree are somewhat more likely than those without a college degree to express this view (74% vs. 69%). A line chart showing that views of higher education have turned more negative in both parties. Similarly, 77% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say the higher education system is going in the wrong direction, compared with a smaller majority (65%) of Democrats and Democratic leaners. In both parties, these shares have gone up by at least 10 percentage points since 2020 – and the gap between Republicans and Democrats has narrowed.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/15/growing-share-of-americans-say-the-us-higher-education-system-is-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/

‘Urgent need’ for more AI literacy in higher education, report says - Anna McKie, Research Professional News

There is an “urgent need” to improve AI literacy among both staff and students at British universities, according to a report from the Higher Education Policy Institute. The report takes a broad view on how AI is reshaping higher education, including institutional strategy, teaching and assessment, research, and professional services. Wendy Hall, an internet pioneer and director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton, and Giles Carden, chief strategy officer at Southampton, state in the report’s foreword that “simply acknowledging AI’s presence is insufficient”. “Active, informed engagement and a structured approach to skill development are paramount to ensure universities remain relevant and effective,” they say.

https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-universities-2025-10-urgent-need-for-more-ai-literacy-in-higher-education-report-says/

Concern and excitement about AI - Jacob Poushter, Moira Fagan and Manolo Corichi, Pew Research Center

A median of 34% of adults across 25 countries are more concerned than excited about the increased use of artificial intelligence in daily life. A median of 42% are equally concerned and excited, and 16% are more excited than concerned. Older adults, women, people with less education and those who use the internet less often are particularly likely to be more concerned than excited. Roughly half of adults in the U.S., Italy, Australia, Brazil and Greece say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life. But in 15 of the 25 countries polled, the largest share of people are equally concerned and excited. In no country surveyed is the largest share more excited than concerned about the increasing use of AI in daily life.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/10/15/concern-and-excitement-about-ai/

Sharing Resources, Best Practices in AI - Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed

While generative artificial intelligence tools have proliferated in education and workplace settings, not all tools are free or accessible to students and staff, which can create equity gaps regarding who is able to participate and learn new skills. To address this gap, San Diego State University leaders created an equitable AI alliance in partnership with the University of California, San Diego, and the San Diego Community College District. Together, the institutions work to address affordability and accessibility concerns for AI solutions, as well as share best practices, resources and expertise. In the latest episode of Voices of Student Success, host Ashley Mowreader speaks with James Frazee, San Diego State University’s chief information officer, about the alliance and SDSU’s approach to teaching AI skills to students.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/academic-life/2025/10/17/podcast-san-diego-colleges-create-equitable-ai

Rethinking student assessment in the age of AI - Max Lu, University World News

As large language models (LLMs) demonstrate astounding capability, they are increasingly being used for tasks once reserved for human judgement. From evaluating essays to assessing conversational exams in medical training, LLMs are increasingly being considered for use beyond formative feedback, including in the high-stakes world of summative assessment. Their appeal is obvious, but before we delegate the complex task of evaluation to algorithms, we must ask a more fundamental question: To what extent does an LLM’s rating represent a student’s actual capability?

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20251008171609398

How to Teach Critical Thinking When AI Does the Thinking - Timothy Cook, Psychology Today

Students who've learned dialogic engagement with AI behave completely differently. They ask follow-up questions during class discussions. They can explain their reasoning when challenged. They challenge each other's arguments using evidence they personally evaluated. They identify limitations in their own conclusions. They want to keep investigating beyond the assignment requirements. The difference is how they used it. This means approaching every AI interaction as a sustained interrogation. Instead of "write an analysis of symbolism in The Great Gatsby," students must "generate an AI analysis first, then critique what it missed with their own interpretations of the symbolism. “What assumptions does the AI make in its interpretation and how could it be wrong?" “What would a 20th-century historian say about this approach?” “Can you see these themes present in The Great Gatsby in your own life?”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-algorithmic-mind/202510/how-to-teach-critical-thinking-when-ai-does-the-thinking

‘The Future of Teaching in the AI Age’ Draws Hundreds of Educators to Iona University - Iona University

“At Iona, we are choosing to engage with AI not because it is fashionable, but because it is necessary. Our students, and of course us as educators as well, are entering a world where AI will shape – or has begun to shape already – nearly every profession, from health care to business to education itself,” said Tricia Mulligan, Ph.D., provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at Iona. “AI can provide outputs in seconds, but it cannot help us discern whether those outputs are true, fair, ethical, or good. That work remains profoundly human. Our role as educators is to guide students in cultivating this habit of discernment, so that they graduate not just knowing how to use the latest tool, but how to direct it toward the service of humanity.”

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/10/06/3161914/0/en/The-Future-of-Teaching-in-the-AI-Age-Draws-Hundreds-of-Educators-to-Iona-University.html

‘It would almost be stupid not to use ChatGPT’ - Hoger Onderwijs Persbureau, Resource Online Netherlands

Amid widespread concern among lecturers about students’ use of AI tools, public philosopher Bas Haring mostly sees opportunities: ‘Outsourcing part of the thinking process to AI shouldn’t be prohibited.’ Bas Haring annoyed a lot of people with a provocative recent experiment. For one of his students last year, the philosopher and professor of public understanding of science delegated his responsibilities as a thesis supervisor to AI. The student discussed her progress not with Haring, but with ChatGPT – and the results were surprisingly positive. While Haring may be excited about the outcome of his experiment, not everyone shares his enthusiasm. Some have called it unethical, irresponsible, unimaginative and even disgusting. It has also been suggested that this could provide populists with an excuse to further slash education budgets.

https://www.resource-online.nl/index.php/2025/10/07/it-would-almost-be-stupid-not-to-use-chatgpt/?lang=en

How to lead through the AI disruption - Ruba Borno, McKinsey

Prompt engineering as a career path now seems almost quaint. The speed of AI capability is burning a future path for work and leaving recent convictions in the dust. Few executives see the pace of AI innovation as closely as Ruba Borno. As vice president of the Global Specialists and Partners group at Amazon Web Services (AWS), she works with partners and customers across industries to turn rapid technological advances into business impact. On this episode of the At the Edge podcast, she speaks with McKinsey Senior Partner Lareina Yee about leadership strategies, how to avoid pilot purgatory, and why AI security doesn’t slow growth, but speeds it up.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/how-to-lead-through-the-ai-disruption

C-RAC Releases Statement on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) - MSCHE

On October 6, 2025, the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions (C-RAC) released a Statement on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Advance Learning Evaluation and Recognition. C-RAC stated: 

Put simply, the use of AI in learning evaluation does not conflict with accreditation standards, policies, or practices.  Accreditation is never a reason to not implement technology solutions that leverage AI for learning evaluation. Since innovating to advance student success is a central tenet of accreditation expectations, C-RAC supports the exploration and application of transparent, accountable, and unbiased AI solutions within the practice of learning evaluation and credit transfer. 

https://www.msche.org/2025/10/06/c-rac-releases-statement-on-the-use-of-artificial-intelligence-ai/

As we celebrate teachers, AI is redefining the classroom - Hani Shehada, CGTN

Hani Shehada, a special commentator for CGTN, is a regional manager at Education Above All Foundation's Al Fakhoora Program. He works on global interventions that provide access to higher education for young people whose futures have been disrupted by war and injustice. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN. 

Artificial intelligence is not knocking politely on the door of higher education; it is kicking it wide open. What we thought would take decades is happening in just a few years. In some cases, in months. Universities that stood for centuries as the ultimate gatekeepers of knowledge are now watching that monopoly evaporate in real time. Here lies the irony: the very institutions that claim to prepare us for the future are themselves unprepared for the speed at which the future is arriving. And that forces us to ask a deeper question: What were universities for in the first place?

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-10-05/As-we-celebrate-teachers-AI-is-redefining-the-classroom-1HdvUEhKQSY/p.html

Higher Education AI Transformation 2030 - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

We have begun a transformation in higher education that will make us more responsive, efficient and effective at achieving our multiple missions. This will not be easy or without trauma, but it is necessary. To build this new future, we must first rethink the very foundations of our institutions. This is not about adding a few new apps to the learning management system. Rather, it’s about a fundamental re-architecture of how we operate, how we teach and how we define the work of our faculty and students. Key factors include institutional strategy, pedagogy and the future of work. 

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/online-trending-now/2025/10/15/higher-education-ai-transformation-2030

From Detection to Development: How Universities Are Ethically Embedding AI for Learning - Isabelle Bambury, Higher Education Policy Institute

The Universities UK Annual Conference always serves as a vital barometer for the higher education sector, and this year, few topics were as prominent as the role of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). A packed session, Ethical AI in Higher Education for improving learning outcomes: A policy and leadership discussion, provided a refreshing and pragmatic perspective, moving the conversation beyond academic integrity fears and towards genuine educational innovation. Based on early findings from new independent research commissioned by Studiosity, the session’s panellists offered crucial insights and a clear path forward. 

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/10/03/from-detection-to-development-how-universities-are-ethically-embedding-ai-for-learning/

Four Ways To Improve The Selection Of Leaders -Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Forbes

Few decisions have greater consequences for an organization than the appointment of its leaders. The right leaders can elevate culture, accelerate innovation, and deliver sustainable results. The wrong ones destroy value, diminish trust, and push talented employees out the door. If you’ve ever worked under an incompetent boss, you don’t need the data to tell you how damaging bad leadership can be. But the data is unequivocal: poor leadership selection costs companies billions in disengagement, attrition, and underperformance. It is no exaggeration to say that leadership selection determines the fate of organizations and, by extension, societies. Whether in the corporate world, politics, or sport, getting it wrong is expensive. Getting it right is transformative.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomaspremuzic/2025/09/29/four-ways-to-improve-the-selection-of-leaders/

William & Mary launches ChatGPT Edu pilot - Laren Weber, William and Mary

The initiative is a collaboration between the School of Computing, Data Sciences & Physics (CDSP), Information Technology, W&M Libraries and the Mason School of Business and is part of a broader push to embed advanced AI into everyday academic life.  The pilot will explore how AI can enhance teaching, research and university operations, while also gathering feedback to guide the responsible and effective use of AI across campus. The results will help shape how W&M leverages AI to advance our world-class academics and research. Additionally, faculty and staff outside of the pilot who are interested in purchasing an Edu license can visit the W&M ChatGPT Edu site for more information.  

https://news.wm.edu/2025/10/01/william-mary-launches-chatgpt-edu-pilot/

UMass Students Showcase AI Tools Built for State Agencies - Government Technology

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey invited University of Massachusetts, Amherst students to create AI tools to assist public agencies. The students traveled to Boston last week to share their work.  Government leaders in Massachusetts are looking to university students as partners in delivering AI services to their constituents, and a recent showcase highlighted how these collaborations have simplified user experiences with state technology.

https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/umass-students-showcase-ai-tools-built-for-state-agencies

The agentic organization: Contours of the next paradigm for the AI era - Alexander Sukharevsky, et al; McKinsey

AI is bringing the largest organizational paradigm shift since the industrial and digital revolutions (see sidebar, “The evolution of operating models”). This new paradigm unites humans and AI agents—both virtual and physical—to work side by side at scale at near-zero marginal cost. We call it the agentic organization. McKinsey’s experience working with early adopters indicates that AI agents can unlock significant value. Organizations are beginning to deploy virtual AI agents along a spectrum of increasing complexity: from simple tools that augment existing activities to end-to-end workflow automation to entire “AI-first” agentic systems. In parallel, physical AI agents are emerging. Companies are making strides in developing “bodies” for AI, such as smart devices, drones, self-driving vehicles, and early attempts at humanoid robots. These machines allow AI to interface with the physical world.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-agentic-organization-contours-of-the-next-paradigm-for-the-ai-era

Winning through the turns: How smart companies can thrive amid uncertainty - McKinsey

We are living through a period of nearly unprecedented upheaval. Measures of global uncertainty have been rising steadily, according to McKinsey research, and are now nearly double where they stood in the mid-1990s.1 From the pandemic-induced digital acceleration to the ongoing AI revolution, businesses have been caught in a whirlwind of change, which has been exacerbated by new geopolitical tensions and an increasingly uncertain regulatory landscape. This combination of shocks has created one of the most difficult environments leaders have faced—and one that likely won’t change anytime soon. 

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/winning-through-the-turns-how-smart-companies-can-thrive-amid-uncertainty

ChatGPT Study Mode - Explained By A Learning Coach - Justin Sung, YouTube

The main issue is that the interaction remains very user-led, as Study Mode struggles to dynamically adjust its teaching to a beginner's exact level or pinpoint the root cause of confusion without specific, targeted input from the student [10:10]. The coach found that a passive learner could be stuck in confusion for 30 minutes, whereas an active, metacognitive learner was able to break through the same confusion in just two minutes by asking the right questions [16:15]. Ultimately, the host recommends using Study Mode for targeted study with specific questions, advising that users must embrace active, effortful thinking because effective learning cannot be made easy [19:18]. [summary provided in part by Gemini 2.5 Flash]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3jNwwuvqx8

Linking digital competence, self-efficacy, and digital stress to perceived interactivity in AI-supported learning contexts - Jiaxin Ren, Juncheng Guo & Huanxi Li, Nature

As artificial intelligence technologies become more integrated into educational contexts, understanding how learners perceive and interact with such systems remains an important area of inquiry. This study investigated associations between digital competence and learners’ perceived interactivity with artificial intelligence, considering the potential mediating roles of information retrieval self-efficacy and self-efficacy for human–robot interaction, as well as the potential moderating role of digital stress. Drawing on constructivist learning theory, the technology acceptance model, cognitive load theory, the identical elements theory, and the control–value theory of achievement emotions, a moderated serial mediation model was tested using data from 921 Chinese university students. The results indicated that digital competence was positively associated with perceived interactivity, both directly and indirectly through a sequential pathway involving the two forms of self-efficacy.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-18873-3

Sans Safeguards, AI in Education Risks Deepening Inequality - Government Technology

A new UNESCO report cautions that artificial intelligence has the potential to threaten students’ access to quality education. The organization calls for a focus on people, to ensure digital tools enhance education. While AI and other digital technology hold enormous potential to improve education, a new UNESCO report warns they also risk eroding human rights and worsening inequality if deployed without deliberately robust safeguards. Digitalization and AI in education must be anchored in human rights, UNESCO argued in the report, AI and Education: Protecting the Rights of Learners, and the organization urged governments and international organizations to focus on people, not technology, to ensure digital tools enhance rather than endanger the right to education.

https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/sans-safeguards-ai-in-education-risks-deepening-inequality

From Veterans to Caregivers—The Importance of Expanding Remote Education for Women Worldwide - Brittany R. Collins, Ms. Magazine

Taking the above into consideration, we need to continue normalizing and destigmatizing nontraditional remote learning opportunities as valid, accessible pathways toward women’s realization of their right to an education. This means expanding the number of hybrid and remote learning options available through well-established colleges and universities. It means rethinking the types of technological adaptations deemed as “undue hardships” in the context of student disability. It means investing in longitudinal research regarding best pedagogical practices—the impacts of evidence-based instructional interventions in the remote learning milieu—and in the professional development of online instructors in synchronous and asynchronous online programs to ensure impact. 

https://msmagazine.com/2025/09/27/remote-learning-online-school-women/

The relationship between online learning self-efficacy and learning engagement: the mediating role of achievement motivation and flow among registered nurses - Tong Zhou, Frontiers Psychology

Online learning self-efficacy influences RN learning engagement both directly and indirectly, with mediation effects exerted through achievement motivation and flow. These findings highlight the importance of fostering self-efficacy and motivational processes to enhance engagement in online nursing education.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1629174/full

We’re introducing GDPval, a new evaluation that measures model performance on economically valuable, real-world tasks across 44 occupations. - OpenAI

We found that today’s best frontier models are already approaching the quality of work produced by industry experts. To test this, we ran blind evaluations where industry experts compared deliverables from several leading models—GPT‑4o, o4-mini, OpenAI o3, GPT‑5, Claude Opus 4.1, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Grok 4—against human-produced work. Across 220 tasks in the GDPval gold set, we recorded when model outputs were rated as better than (“wins”) or on par with (“ties”) the deliverables from industry experts, as shown in the bar chart below.... We also see clear progress over time on these tasks. Performance has more than doubled from GPT‑4o (released spring 2024) to GPT‑5 (released summer 2025), following a clear linear trend. In addition, we found that frontier models can complete GDPval tasks roughly 100x faster and 100x cheaper than industry experts.

https://openai.com/index/gdpval/

We urgently call for international red lines to prevent unacceptable AI risks. - AI Red Lines

Some advanced AI systems have already exhibited deceptive and harmful behavior, and yet these systems are being given more autonomy to take actions and make decisions in the world. Left unchecked, many experts, including those at the forefront of development, warn that it will become increasingly difficult to exert meaningful human control in the coming years.  Governments must act decisively before the window for meaningful intervention closes. An international agreement on clear and verifiable red lines is necessary for preventing universally unacceptable risks. These red lines should build upon and enforce existing global frameworks and voluntary corporate commitments, ensuring that all advanced AI providers are accountable to shared thresholds. We urge governments to reach an international agreement on red lines for AI — ensuring they are operational, with robust enforcement mechanisms — by the end of 2026. 

https://red-lines.ai/?utm_source=newsletter.theaireport.ai&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=200-world-leaders-demand-ai-red-lines&_bhlid=11a58d14d5cf5f15774f2f52256329b3db7ab7ea

AI Hallucinations May Soon Be History - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

On Sept. 14, OpenAI researchers published a not-yet-peer-reviewed paper, “Why Language Models Hallucinate,” on arXiv. Gemini 2.5 Flash summarized the findings of the paper: "Systemic Problem: Hallucinations are not simply bugs but a systemic consequence of how AI models are trained and evaluated. Evaluation Incentives: Standard evaluation methods, particularly binary grading systems, reward models for generating an answer, even if it’s incorrect, and punish them for admitting uncertainty. Pressure to Guess: This creates a statistical pressure for large language models (LLMs) to guess rather than say “I don’t know,” as guessing can improve test scores even with the risk of being wrong."

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/online-trending-now/2025/10/01/ai-hallucinations-may-soon-be-history

Charting the GenAI Blue Ocean: A paradigm shift in business education - Bert Verhoeven, Dr Vishal Rana, Dr Timothy Hor - University of Oxford

The rise of Generative AI (GenAI) signals not just technological progress but a seismic shift in how industries innovate, compete, and create value. Beyond chatbots and workflow automation, GenAI’s potential lies in its ability to personalise experiences, analyse data in real time, and redefine market opportunities. In an era where traditional competition—marked by diminishing margins in "red oceans"—feels increasingly obsolete, the fusion of GenAI with Kim and Mauborgne’s (2005) concept of the Blue Ocean Strategy unlocks new frontiers of innovation, enabling Higher Education to transcend zero-sum competition and imagine entirely new paradigms, reconfiguring the relationship between institutions, teachers, learners, and markets. Blue Ocean Strategy focuses on creating new, uncontested market spaces by redefining industry boundaries and delivering unique value to customers. It shifts the focus from competing in existing markets to innovating and unlocking new demand.

https://aieou.web.ox.ac.uk/article/charting-genai-blue-ocean

US faces shortfall of 5.3M college-educated workers by 2032 - Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive

Nursing, teaching and engineering would experience the largest gaps, per a study from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. The U.S. will need over 5 million additional workers who have at least some postsecondary education by 2032, according to a report released Tuesday by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. Of that total, 4.5 million will need at least a bachelor’s degree, according to the report. Degree-requiring positions facing “critical skills shortages” include nurses, teachers and engineers, it said.

https://www.highereddive.com/news/us-faces-shortfall-of-53m-college-educated-workers-by-2032/760155/

Learning analytics-informed teaching strategies: enhancing interactive learning in STEM education - Ying Zheng &Dexian Li, Taylor and Francis Online

Using a mixed-methods approach, data were collected from 1,483 students and 95 teachers through random and purposive sampling. The findings indicate adaptive learning technologies significantly improve student performance by tailoring instruction to individual needs. Real-time educational data analysis enables early identification of disengagement, facilitating timely interventions. Additionally, insights into student interaction patterns inform the development of evidence-based teaching strategies that foster critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The study highlights the transformative role of educational data mining in creating immersive learning environments that enhance conceptual understanding and practical application, reducing achievement gaps among diverse student populations.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10494820.2025.2553113