California Education Learning Lab

🎧 Episode 13 of My Robot Teacher is out! A natural follow to our recent Insight Debate event at Berkeley City College. Sarah and Taiyo are joined by April Lawson, co-founder of Insight Debate & Dialogue. Drawing on her experience facilitating structured AI conversations with faculty, students, staff, and administrators across the country, Lawson helps surface the concerns, pressures, and unexpected overlaps shaping campus debates about AI. The episode examines why conversations about AI so often collapse into caricature, how straw-man versions of opposing views make sensible policymaking harder, and why higher education may need stronger formats for collective sensemaking across disagreement. Listen now 🎙️ [link in comments] #CAHigherEd #AI #AIinEducation Foundation for California Community Colleges

🎧 Episode 13 of My Robot Teacher is out! A natural follow to our recent Insight Debate event at Berkeley City College. Sarah and Taiyo are joined by April Lawson, co-founder of Insight Debate & Dialogue. Drawing on her experience facilitating structured AI conversations with faculty, students, staff, and administrators across the country, Lawson helps surface the concerns, pressures, and unexpected overlaps shaping campus debates about AI. The episode examines why conversations about AI so often collapse into caricature, how straw-man versions of opposing views make sensible policymaking harder, and why higher education may need stronger formats for collective sensemaking across disagreement. Listen now 🎙️ [link in comments] #CAHigherEd #AI #AIinEducation Foundation for California Community Colleges

💡New on Learning Lab's Substack: "Can a Computer Scientist Still Hope?"💡 - Reflecting on the Evolution of Computing, Coding, CS Education and Learning Learning Lab Executive Director Lark Park sat down with Armando Fox, Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley, classically trained musician, and two-time Learning Lab awardee for a wide-ranging conversation about what it means to study and teach computing right now. Fox reflects on the history of computing and who's been left out of it, what AI actually changes about how CS should be taught, why returning to blue books misses the point, and what mastery learning offers that our current model doesn't. He also gets personal: about imposter syndrome, a long failure bio, and what his parents' experience as Cuban refugees taught him about what knowledge really is. Read the interview on Substack! (Link in comments) #californiahighered #aiandeducation #teachingandlearning Foundation for California Community Colleges

On February 6, faculty, staff, and administrators from California's three higher ed segments — UC, CSU, and Community Colleges — gathered in San Diego to talk honestly about AI in the classroom. Not the hype, not the panic, but the messier questions underneath: What do we actually want students to do with their minds? What does integrity mean now? Who has access, and who doesn't? Real classroom examples made it concrete — AI writing coaches, math tutors, tools being tested in real courses right now. But the conversations that lingered were the disagreements. Which is probably a good sign. Full recap in the comments — including recordings from the panel discussions and fireside chats if you want to go deeper on any of the sessions. Photos: Courtesy of UC Sand Diego Foundation for California Community Colleges #AIinHigherEd #HigherEd #EdTech #CaliforniaPublicHigherEducation

See how the Engineering Pathways Program, funded by Learning Lab, is building industry partnerships to connect California Community College engineering transfer students to meaningful internships and related support along their path to university degrees!   Foundation for California Community Colleges UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science

New on My Robot Teacher: Episode 12 - Querying the Collective Mind with CrowdSmart Co-Founder Kim Polese What if AI could summon the wisdom of a crowd—without the stupidity of the mob? In Episode 12, hosts Sarah Senk and Taiyo Inoue speaks with Kim Polese, co-founder of CrowdSmart.ai, about reimagining AI as a facilitator of collective intelligence rather than a content generator. Polese's work surfaces minority viewpoints, processes disagreement constructively, and helps groups think better together. This conversation explores: 💡 AI as a facilitator of deliberation: moving beyond consensus to surface diverse perspectives and productive dissent 💡 Applications across contexts: from citizen assemblies to seminar classrooms, and implications for collaborative learning 💡 Rethinking decision-making in education: how collective intelligence tools can transform how we teach, deliberate, and solve complex problems 🎧 Listen to Episode 12: [link in comments] Foundation for California Community Colleges

From "Schooled Society" to "Learning Society": Rethinking Higher Education in the Age of AI In our latest Substack post, California Education Learning Lab Executive Director Lark Park speaks with Mitchell Stevens, organizational sociologist and Stanford Graduate School of Education professor, about the structural challenges facing higher education and the accelerating impact of AI on learning and credentials. Stevens argues that schools function as bureaucracies designed for stability— a structure that inherently resists the rapid changes we're experiencing today. The central question isn't how to reform existing institutions, but whether we can develop parallel systems that recognize and validate learning wherever it occurs. 📌 ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Our second "In Case You Missed It" roundup —articles and reads we've been following on AI and higher education. This month: an AI retail experiment in SF, why the real center of gravity for generative AI is the global majority, and a Yale committee report on trust and expertise. Read the full post on our Substack: https://lnkd.in/gjQASKJW Foundation for California Community Colleges

Learning Lab is tracking state workforce investments and, in particular, the nexus between workforce opportunities and public higher ed. See our Building California's Resilient Workforce initiative: https://lnkd.in/ggpVS99g Kudos to the California Jobs First team on a successful summit day 1

👋 A quick update on our April 9 event! We are opening AI in Higher Education: A Bay Area Insight Debate & Dialogue up to all who are interested in the intersection of AI and teaching and learning in higher education — so feel free to share with engaged staff, administrators, students, or high school faculty who may have aligned interests, whether they are AI champions, AI averse, or somewhere in between! On Thursday, April 9 at 4 PM, Berkeley City College will host this free, in-person event using structured discussion to surface the assumptions, tensions, and areas of overlap that often remain invisible in polarized conversations about AI. Participants will: 👂 Engage in a live demonstration of debate as an AI-resilient pedagogy 🗣️ Practice active listening, reasoning, and productive dialogue 🏫 Hear diverse strategies and challenges across institutions 🔍 Examine assumptions and tensions driving AI debates, including equity, workload, and pedagogical concerns Space is limited and allocated to ensure cross-campus representation — so sign up and share widely! 👉 Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/gUFyJkB7 Foundation for California Community Colleges California Community Colleges Berkeley City College Insight Debate & Dialogue My Robot Teacher

Are you a faculty member in the Bay Area? Interested in connecting with other faculty in person to hear multiple perspectives on AI and bring insights back to your own courses and faculty discussions? Join us on Thursday, April 9 at 4 pm for AI in Higher Education: A Bay Area Insight Debate & Dialogue at Berkeley City College! Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/gsCKiNmJ Please feel free to share widely! **UPDATE: We are opening this up to all interested in the intersection of AI and teaching and learning in higher education, so feel free to also share with engaged staff, administrators, students, or high school faculty who may have aligned interests, whether they are AI champions, AI averse, or somewhere in between!** Foundation for California Community Colleges Berkeley City College Insight Debate & Dialogue My Robot Teacher