Innovating Higher Ed

Could a shared AI learning lab help educators and students work through a real course challenge together? In this Original Feature, Dr. Norma Jones proposes two models: faculty sessions built around a teaching question, and class visits where the professor, students and an AI teaching specialist develop and test a lesson on the spot. She also considers how selected sessions might bring in workplac...

What could educators try with more room to explore? Dr. Norma Jones opens this week's Innovation Pulse with a faculty learning lab idea, followed by practical stories on teaching, university strategy, workforce skills and a bionic arm's first home trial. Listen to this 7:04 edition, then read all 12 pieces, including Dr. Jones's Original Feature: https://www.innovatinghighered.com/innovation-pulse...

AI in higher education: Stanford’s Paper2Agent turns published research methods into research assistants. This week also examines course policies, faculty development and how students use AI. The complete Innovation Pulse for September 12–18, 2026. Runtime: 7:39. In this episode: • Stanford’s Paper2Agent research assistants • Helping faculty move from experiments to course redesign • Students usin...

In this complete 10:19 Innovation Pulse for September 5–11, 2026:   1. Harvard's David Deming Wants Students to Show Their Thinking. 2. Texas A&M Finds the Instructional Design Behind Better AI Role-Play. 3. A Five-Level AI Scale Starts With the Assignment's Purpose. 4. Austin Community College Wants Student Alerts to Lead Somewhere Useful. 5. Dartmouth Pairs Permission to Use AI With Work Oth...

AI in higher education: four new models and what they could help you build, plus assignment design and human judgment. Listen to the complete 6:07 Innovation Pulse: four stories from August 29–September 4, 2026, plus a later Grant Portal launch update. This episode covers OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta’s four new AI models; writing conferences at Santa Clara University; student-written exams i...

Before setting AI guidelines, MIT’s final AI and education report asks what an MIT education is meant to help students learn, practice, demonstrate, and value. In Feature Coverage, Dr. Norma Jones examines what that principles-before-policy sequence could mean for assessment, mentored learning, and campus policy. This 9:14 Innovation Pulse also covers new AI-era degree paths at USC and UCLA, Clems...

A.I. fluency is appearing in degree requirements, new majors, and general-education courses. The episode also covers student choice, A.I. literacy, role-play for judgment, accountable guidance, staff training, business curricula, robot learning, and teen safeguards. Full written coverage and source links: https://www.innovatinghighered.com/innovation-pulse/2026-08-21?utm_source=podbean&utm_med...

Claude's new text watermark may appear after proofreading or translation and may disappear after substantial rewriting. This episode examines what the mark can establish and what it cannot, then covers student agency, A.I.-assisted learning, Grok Bot, dental simulations, an A.I. course, human skills, and an adult A.I. academy. Full written coverage and source links: https://www.innovatinghighered....

Universities are turning off A.I.-detection tools and redesigning assessments around process, judgment, and evidence. The episode also covers A.I. curricula, employer skill questions, classroom assignments, psychiatry simulations, teaching prompts, A.I. literacy, and career preparation. Full written coverage and source links: https://www.innovatinghighered.com/innovation-pulse/2026-08-07?utm_sourc...

OpenAI is providing 100,000 academic researchers with free access to its advanced A.I. models through 2027. The episode also covers campus A.I. readiness, student demand, data-center training, student policy, newsroom verification, and A.I. tutoring investment. Full written coverage and source links: https://www.innovatinghighered.com/innovation-pulse/2026-07-31?utm_source=podbean&utm_medium=p...

Harvard President Alan Garber said researchers in quantitative fields, science, and engineering are unlikely to remain at the forefront without using A.I. The episode also covers teaching approaches, applied A.I. degrees, hiring shifts, assignment frameworks, affordability, agent security, and model safeguards. Full written coverage and source links: https://www.innovatinghighered.com/innovation-p...

Professors are redesigning assignments around discussion, process, judgment, and authentic work so a copied A.I. output has less value. The episode also covers liberal-arts strengths, agent limits, trade-school enrollment, advising, campus governance, A.I. literacy, and Claude for teachers. Full written coverage and source links: https://www.innovatinghighered.com/innovation-pulse/2026-07-17?utm_s...

OpenAI released the GPT-5.6 model family for enterprise work, coding, and scientific research. The episode also covers biomedical A.I. agents, cancer-recurrence testing, nursing simulations, work-based learning, educator attitudes, and university A.I. curricula. Full written coverage and source links: https://www.innovatinghighered.com/innovation-pulse/2026-07-10?utm_source=podbean&utm_medium=...

Fifty percent of faculty feel overwhelmed by new tech, yet student AI use is soaring. In this episode, Dr. Norma Jones talks with Professor Chesa Caparas, media-literacy scholar and Fulbright researcher, about a people-first path to AI adoption in higher education. Chesa shares how a two-question survey surfaces hidden anxieties, how faculty can adapt without burnout, and why over reliance on AI d...

Can a chocolate factory and a power ring teach us about the future of AI on campus? Dr. Norma Jones introduces the “Wonka-Lantern Framework,” pairing boundless creativity with moral clarity to guide AI integration across teaching, learning, and administration.

Textbooks can cost more than tuition,AI‑powered OER wipes that cost out entirely. In this conversation, Dr. Sarah Harmon, Adjunct Professor of Spanish and Linguistics, OER / ZTC Coordinator at Cañada College, and Chair of the SMCCCD Academic Senate Standing Committee on Teaching and Learning (DTLC), lays out the five‑spoke ZTC Wheelthat drives course material costs to $0 without sacrificing rigor....

Can a chatbot rewrite your toughest assignments in under five minutes? In this episode, Dr. Norma Jones talks with Scott James—an instructional-design veteran who began in disability services and now builds AI copilots for faculty. Scott explains how his PlayLab custom-bot lets instructors quarantine course materials, slash hallucinations, and surface crystal-clear rubrics—all without surrendering...

Welcome to Tinker Lab, a dynamic new segment of Innovating Higher Ed. In this episode, host Dr. Norma Jones tests OpenAI’s powerful ChatGPT Pro and its premium Deep Research feature. Norma shares her firsthand experience using AI to draft and enhance chapters for an Open Educational Resources (OER) textbook on Public Speaking. Discover how ChatGPT Pro helped identify gaps, suggested valuable updat...

In this compelling episode of the Innovating Higher Ed Podcast, Dr. Norma Jones sits down with Dr. Suha Aljuboori—a visionary educator whose passion for teaching led her from the war-torn reality of Iraq, through rebuilding her career in Jordan, and ultimately to establishing one of the first AI departments in the California community college system. Discover how Dr. Aljuboori overcame language ba...

Nine in ten rookie nurses freeze during their first real code—no matter how many textbooks they’ve aced. What if they could practice the chaos in a headset first? In this episode, Dr. Norma Jones talks with Dr. Jenna Zeller, Assistant Director of Cabrillo College’s nursing program, about a layered VR workflow that lets students “fail safe,” page a cranky on-call physician, and still make it to lab...

Can a VR headset and two smart prompts rekindle student belonging in a single class period? Dr. Norma Jones sits down with Dr. Garrick Grace—Director of Professional Development for the California Virtual Campus—to reveal how extended-reality simulations and adaptive AI tools are reshaping classrooms across the nation’s largest community-college system. Grace recounts using grade-leveled articles...

Eighty-six percent of students already lean on AI—yet only 22 percent of faculty have even opened ChatGPT. Author-trainer Lynn Dickinson joins Dr. Norma Jones to help instructors close that gap. Lynn traces her journey from wary observer to classroom pioneer, shares the prompt pattern she uses to build full slide decks in about ten minutes, and explains how a one-month writing sprint (with ChatGPT...