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Complacency around AI job replacement is insanity
Last week I couldn’t contain myself, and had to share the post below on LinkedIn. Excuse me, but: 🤬 THIS! Our society deserves better! “AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years, Amodei told [Axios] in an interview from his…
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Maybe we do need nutrition labels on software
Back in November 2023 I posited the idea of using nutrition labels for generative AI products. It wasn’t intended to be an in-depth exploration, but rather the beginnings of a mental model. The idea was to reframe these large language models (LLMs) as being neither all good nor all bad, but rather to take a…
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Moments unfocused
There are moments in my life where things become unfocused. My steps clumsy and my direction aimless. I am moving, my legs are tired, but the sense of progress is invisible. An object of my desire is in the distance somewhere in front of me but its edges are hazy. Like a faulty camera lens,…
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Moving beyond raised hands with technology
It’s fascinating how certain classroom habits, like the classic “raise your hand if you know the answer,” continue to stick around even though we know their limitations. Despite my best efforts to create a more interactive, inclusive learning environment, I often catch myself falling back on this old routine. Why is it so hard to…
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UX education that feels like you're at work
One of the biggest changes I made to my UX course last year was asking students to submit their assignments directly in Figma by a set deadline. Over the last seven years of teaching, I’ve become increasingly aware of what impacts students’ engagement and how instructors can pull on different behavioral and cognitive levers to…
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When the Steps Don’t Match the Beat
If you’re designing a learning experience and it seems like the participants are still not getting it, you might be suffering from the curse of knowledge. In a dance class this week, the instructor expressed something that turned on a few lightbulbs among the students: the steps are not the same as the beat. So…
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The Idea DJ method to unblock creativity
As anyone working on research or creative projects knows, there are moments when ideas feel fuzzy, and articulating them becomes a challenge. The process of refining and developing ideas can be daunting when exploring new concepts. I want to share how I use AI tools like ChatGPT to break through those creative blocks and refine…
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Making “think twice” a tangible tool for learning
In a given piece of text, we can find some elements more interesting than others. Once core aspect of developing creativity and critical thinking is developing your sense of taste—or at the very least forming an awareness of what you’re attention naturally gravitates towards. From there, the next step is to analyze why you gravitated…
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The Magic of Students Giving Themselves Advice
Every student faces challenges that feel insurmountable—whether it’s a difficult project, a personal struggle, or a moment of self-doubt. But what if the key to solving these problems wasn’t about looking inward, but outward? What if by asking students to offer advice to ‘someone else,’ we could help them uncover the solutions they were seeking…
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Using technology to break the learning styles myth
I was always skeptical about media-based “learning styles” from the moment I learned about them. It seemed strange to me that we’re all happily enabling people to limit how they learn to only one style, when our brains are learning machines that can learn in a plethora of contexts. Dividing learning into Visual, Auditory, Read/Write,…
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From students seeking cheat codes to embracing dice rolls
Teaching students industry processes isn’t about guaranteeing success, it’s about improving odds. Instructors need to pay attention to both how they teach any given process, and the desperation students typically have to use processes as shortcuts to success. In the past few years of teaching many different problem-solving and UX design processes, students always find…
