The higher education sector is facing an onslaught of challenges, including attacks from the Trump administration, fading public confidence and the demographic cliff. But higher education leaders didn’t shy away from these issues at the annual ASU+GSV Summit, an education and technology conference held this week in San Diego. “The moment is actually a productive moment for us, because we can and should and will use some of the chaos in order to build new kinds of institutions, new infrastructures, new ways of thinking,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, during a discussion Wednesday.
Monday, April 21, 2025
Sunday, April 20, 2025
Kishwaukee College creates AI guidelines for use in higher education - Dekalb County Daily Chronicle
“The AI Implementation Playbook is a responsive and evolving resource that reflects Kishwaukee College’s commitment to innovation and excellence in education,” Kishwaukee College president Laurie Borowicz said in a news release. “This plan is very adaptable and will be updated to address changes in technology and the needs of our students,” The college developed the artificial intelligence playbook with industry leaders, organizations and colleges. Kishwaukee College outlined a four-step approach to implement artificial intelligence. The steps include tracking artificial intelligence-related activities; researching industry best practices; developing a technology integration and product development process; and fostering an experimentation, awareness, literacy and adoption culture.
Saturday, April 19, 2025
What Students Really Think of Technology and AI - EDUCAUSE
This podcast discusses how students are integrating technology and AI into their education [00:06, 00:12]. Students utilize interactive platforms, like live quiz software, finding them engaging and effective for demonstrating learning compared to traditional methods [01:13, 01:46]. However, challenges arise from outdated systems and faculty lacking training [02:15], and even good platforms can be difficult if not well-organized by instructors [02:24]. Some technologies are perceived as unhelpful, particularly if instructors are unfamiliar with them [02:38]. The role of AI in education is a major topic [02:50], though some students don't find it very useful in their classes [03:24]. Faculty opinions on AI are divided, with some viewing it as a helpful tool and others as a threat to academic honesty [03:30]. A lack of clear guidelines on the ethical use of AI in coursework is also noted [03:53]. Ultimately, the podcast emphasizes the importance for students to understand and effectively use evolving technology [04:28]. (summary by Gemini 2.5 Pro)
Friday, April 18, 2025
Morehouse College Unveils AI Teaching Assistants - Eric Glick, Ed Tech
In what is being hailed as a significant technological leap forward, Morehouse College is offering 3D avatars that can stand in for teaching assistants. These humanlike figures can answer student questions 24 hours a day. The school, regarded as a higher education innovator in immersive learning, notes that the artificial intelligence-powered instructors are trained from teachers’ lectures and course notes. They are designed to offer students a more personalized alternative to chatbots. AI has been hailed a potentially powerful tool in higher education’s arsenal, particularly when it comes to supplemental teaching aids. Morehouse’s latest implementation sets a new standard for education. Morehouse does not currently employ teaching assistants, so the avatars may represent a constructive addition to students' overall learning experience.
Thursday, April 17, 2025
The Ripple Effects of Draining the Ph.D. Pool - Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed
Deep cuts to federal research funding and crackdowns on international students could mean far fewer graduate students next fall and beyond. If that happens, undergraduates, faculty and research productivity would all suffer. Under mounting financial and political pressures, universities have paused or rescinded graduate student admissions on an unprecedented scale, which could create cross-campus ripple effects next fall and beyond. The extent of the cuts to the graduate student workforce remains unclear and will vary from institution to institution. But if and when those losses come to pass, experts say that employing fewer graduate students—particularly Ph.D. students, who typically hold years-long research and teaching assistantships—will undermine universities’ broader operations, including undergraduate education, faculty support and the future of academic research, which is reliant on training the next generation of scholars.
Wednesday, April 16, 2025
How apprenticeships can broaden access to education and quality jobs - Marieke Vandeweyer and Vlasis Korovilos, OECD Ed Today
In today’s economy, rapid changes such as the digital and green transition are creating a demand for specialised skills. But in many sectors, the demand for skills outpaces the supply of qualified professionals. This situation underscores the urgent need for accessible educational pathways – including in higher education. One promising option is the expansion of apprenticeships: giving people hands-on training, earning potential and career advancement opportunities. By taking on apprentices, businesses give themselves a sustainable method of recruiting and training employees to meet skills needs, helping them to stay competitive and foster employee loyalty and retention. At the recent joint OECD-CEDEFOP symposium ‘New fields for apprenticeship’, experts highlighted the potential of apprenticeship for different sectors of the economy and different types of learners. “Apprenticeships do work across different sectors and levels,” the Head of the OECD Centre for Skills El Iza Mohamedou told the audience. “(But) we still have to do a lot of work to further the case for apprenticeships.”
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Honing leadership excellence in the public sector - McKinsey
When asked what characterized the most outstanding leaders they had worked with, the respondents suggested that character is destiny: One of the most-cited traits was being respected for character, values, and integrity. As one interviewee put it, “Your integrity and ethics are the core of being in the public service.” This set the foundation for two other essential traits—clarity of purpose and the ability to deliver results despite ambiguity and change. In our survey and interviews, we asked leaders what differentiated the public sector from other sectors and what this meant for leadership (Exhibit 1). By far, the most significant difference was navigating the ever-changing political dynamics and complexities of cabinet government. As several leaders noted, when senior leaders join government from the private sector, they are often shocked at how little linear accountability there is.
Monday, April 14, 2025
Artificial intelligence in educational leadership: a comprehensive taxonomy and future directions - Martin Sposato, International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education
Through a systematic literature review and inductive analysis of publications from 2017 to 2024, the research synthesizes diverse AI applications into ten distinct domains: Administrative Efficiency, Personalized Learning, Enhancing Teaching Practices, Decision-Making and Policy Formulation, Student Support Services, Organizational Leadership and Strategic Planning, Governance and Compliance, Community Engagement and Communication, Ethical AI Leadership, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives. The resulting taxonomy, validated across various higher education contexts, provides educational leaders with a structured framework for understanding, evaluating, and implementing AI solutions in their institutions. This study contributes to the field by offering a common language and conceptual framework for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, while also identifying critical areas for future research.
Sunday, April 13, 2025
Anthropic launches an AI chatbot plan for colleges and universities - Maxwell Zeff, TechCrunch
Anthropic announced on Wednesday that it’s launching a new Claude for Education tier, an answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Edu plan. The new tier is aimed at higher education, and gives students, faculty, and other staff access to Anthropic’s AI chatbot, Claude, with a few additional capabilities. One piece of Claude for Education is “Learning Mode,” a new feature within Claude Projects to help students develop their own critical thinking skills, rather than simply obtain answers to questions. With Learning Mode enabled, Claude will ask questions to test understanding, highlight fundamental principles behind specific problems, and provide potentially useful templates for research papers, outlines, and study guides.
Saturday, April 12, 2025
If Anthropic Succeeds, a Nation of Benevolent AI Geniuses Could Be Born - Steve Levy, Wired
When Dario Amodei gets excited about AI—which is nearly always—he moves. The cofounder and CEO springs from a seat in a conference room and darts over to a whiteboard. He scrawls charts with swooping hockey-stick curves that show how machine intelligence is bending toward the infinite. His hand rises to his curly mop of hair, as if he’s caressing his neurons to forestall a system crash. You can almost feel his bones vibrate as he explains how his company, Anthropic, is unlike other AI model builders. He’s trying to create an artificial general intelligence—or as he calls it, “powerful AI”—that will never go rogue. It’ll be a good guy, an usher of utopia. And while Amodei is vital to Anthropic, he comes in second to the company’s most important contributor. Like other extraordinary beings (Beyoncé, Cher, Pelé), the latter goes by a single name, in this case a pedestrian one, reflecting its pliancy and comity. Oh, and it’s an AI model. Hi, Claude!
Friday, April 11, 2025
AI Literacy in Higher Education: Preparing Students for the Future Workforce - Jaspreet Bindra, Best Colleges India
AI literacy is essential for students as industries embrace artificial intelligence, making its integration into higher education crucial for future job readiness. The rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming industries worldwide, making AI literacy an essential skill for students entering the workforce. As AI continues to disrupt traditional job roles, higher education institutions must integrate AI literacy into their curricula to equip students with the knowledge and skills needed for the evolving job market. This article explores the importance of AI literacy in higher education, key components of AI education, and strategies for preparing students for an AI-driven workforce.
Thursday, April 10, 2025
First Therapy Chatbot Trial Yields Mental Health Benefits - Morgan Kelly, Dartmouth
Dartmouth researchers conducted the first-ever clinical trial of a generative AI-powered therapy chatbot and found that the software resulted in significant improvements in participants’ symptoms, according to results published March 27 in NEJM AI. People in the study also reported they could trust and communicate with the system, known as Therabot, to a degree that is comparable to working with a mental-health professional. The trial consisted of 106 people from across the United States diagnosed with major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or an eating disorder. Participants interacted with Therabot through a smartphone app by typing out responses to prompts about how they were feeling or initiating conversations when they needed to talk. People diagnosed with depression experienced a 51% average reduction in symptoms, leading to clinically significant improvements in mood and overall well-being, the researchers report. Participants with generalized anxiety reported an average reduction in symptoms of 31%, with many shifting from moderate to mild anxiety, or from mild anxiety to below the clinical threshold for diagnosis.
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Age of AI: The augmented mind in the university classroom - James Yoonil Auh, University World News
Today, we are surrounded – indeed, immersed – in a world of digital devices quietly powered by artificial intelligence. Whether through Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s predictive search, Grammarly’s real-time editing, or the invisible algorithms guiding us through traffic and daily decisions, we are engaged in a kind of ambient co-thinking with machines. Most of the time, we are unaware of the extent to which our thoughts are being shaped, streamlined or scaffolded by these tools. Use is no longer a matter of conscious choice; it is the architecture of our environment.
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Interest in studying in US dropped 42% in January - Nathan M Greenfield, University World News
Interest in studying in the United States by international graduate students plummeted by more than 40% since the first week of January 2025, when the Republicans took control of the US Senate and House of Representatives, and the nation prepared for the the inauguration of US President Donald J Trump on 24 January, data released to University World News by StudyPortals shows. This decline is all the more dramatic because, according to a study released last November by NAFSA: Association of International Educators, international enrolment at American colleges and universities had risen 6.6% from 2023 to 2024 and 11.5% the year before that.
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250318151109452
Monday, April 7, 2025
Tracing the thoughts of a large language model - Anthropic
Language models like Claude aren't programmed directly by humans—instead, they‘re trained on large amounts of data. During that training process, they learn their own strategies to solve problems. These strategies are encoded in the billions of computations a model performs for every word it writes. They arrive inscrutable to us, the model’s developers. This means that we don’t understand how models do most of the things they do. Knowing how models like Claude think would allow us to have a better understanding of their abilities, as well as help us ensure that they’re doing what we intend them to.
Sunday, April 6, 2025
AI-Driven Education Poised for Breakthrough as StudyPal Launches Next-Generation Learning Platform - Yahoo!
StudyPal, an innovative AI-powered education platform, today announced the launch of its latest suite of AI-driven learning tools, designed to revolutionize student engagement and personalized learning. As the debate over AI in education continues, StudyPal aims to demonstrate how artificial intelligence can enhance comprehension, retention, and accessibility for learners worldwide. AI has rapidly integrated into nearly every sector, and education is no exception. However, its adoption has sparked controversy. In January 2023, the New York City Department of Education restricted AI use due to concerns over academic integrity and misinformation. Despite these reservations, StudyPal is taking a proactive approach, proving that AI, when applied responsibly, can support individualized learning experiences rather than hinder them.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-driven-education-poised-breakthrough-183700438.html
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Virtual Classes and AI Help Students With Some College, No Credential - Abby Sourwine, Government Technology
Southern New Hampshire University's online offerings and artificial intelligence-powered support tools are re-engaging learners who left college without a degree. More than 40 million Americans have earned some college credit but never finished a degree, according to a report last year from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC). It’s a population that continues to grow — up 1.4 million from 2021 to 2022 — and, according to a recent policy brief from the Center for Higher Education Policy and Practice (CHEPP), represents both a failure of traditional higher education and an opportunity for institutions to meet these learners where they are. At CHEPP's parent institution, Southern New Hampshire University, flexible online courses and insights from artificial intelligence are now helping to make up for those failures.
Friday, April 4, 2025
Key Considerations for AI and Accessibility in Higher Education - Emily Cook, Every Learner Everywhere
Every Learner Everywhere and Teach Access have partnered to publish a new resource titled Where AI Meets Accessibility: Considerations for Higher Education, to support educators and administrators in higher education in exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and accessibility, with a particular focus on the needs of people with disabilities (PWD). Created through collaboration with experts from academia, industry, and the disability community, this resource aims to help educators and institutional administrators discover innovative ways to foster access and opportunity in higher education for PWD. As AI becomes increasingly embedded into educational settings and practices, it offers both opportunities and challenges. This comprehensive resource will help navigate both aspects— demonstrating how AI can help overcome technology barriers and highlighting areas where it may inadvertently create new obstacles for PWD. It is also a practical toolkit for incorporating accessible AI in higher education, complete with example activities, discussion questions, and reading lists.
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Which LLM Should You Use for Your Business? [Pros and Cons] - Nathan Lands and Matt Wolfe, Hubspot
Choosing the right large language model can feel overwhelming with so many options out there, especially if you’re not exactly living and breathing AI. But as we’ve worked through each one, we’ve gotten a real sense of what they’re good at (and where they fall short). So, let’s talk about what to use, when.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
How to make the most of AI in careers advice – and avoid the grifts - Séan Richardson, Keiran Whitwell; Times Higher Education
How many of your colleagues are talking about artificial intelligence? Better yet, how many in careers advice and guidance are talking about how to use AI? The space between these questions might seem small, but it creates a chasm when it comes to how higher education is integrating AI to help our students transition into the workplace. Young people are overwhelmingly using AI, as are the recruiters who will decide which of our graduates find employment. If we do not respond swiftly, then students and the job market will outpace service provision in terms of AI use and expertise. Yet careers services are perfectly placed to make interventions, both by becoming experts on AI-enhanced careers advice and by training students on how better to use tools to facilitate their recruitment journeys. Here are four practical methods for careers counsellors to use AI and support their students.
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Human Augmentation: The Core Promise of AI - Lee Ott,Tech Crunch
At the heart of AI is the goal of elevating human potential. When technology manages mundane or repetitive tasks, we are free to focus on creativity, collaboration, and decision-making. By offloading routine tasks to AI, workflows that once took days can be completed in hours, enabling people to think bigger and move faster. This shift from purely transactional tools to truly human-centric experiences underscores a core truth: One of technology’s most powerful purposes is to empower individuals, and by extension enterprises, while ensuring ethical, secure, and responsible innovation. AI’s real value lies in its ability to unlock new levels of productivity, spark innovation and drive responsible, human-centered progress.
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