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The AI-powered classroom: tutors, avatars, and new models for learning

Mary Cunningham — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:17:45 +0000

The AI-powered classroom: tutors, avatars, and new models for learning Mary Cunningham Thu, 07/09/2026 - 15:17

As health informatics expert Sanja Avramovic introduces new artificial intelligence (AI) tools into her classrooms at 91��, she's also made a point of asking students what they think, both through formal research and casual conversation.

In one early experiment, Avramovic designed AI avatars to present course material in short, on-demand videos students could watch at their own pace. Some students balked a little, finding the digital instructors monotone and robotic. They said they preferred a human.

So Avramovic asked a follow-up question: Should she remove the videos?

AI avatar created by Sanja Avramovic. Image created by AI.

"They said, 'don't you dare,'" she recalled. "'They're excellent supplemental material. Leave them. But we want you to teach.'"

That push and pull has become a central dynamic at the College of Public Health, as faculty respond and adapt to the undeniable rise of AI in higher education. The question is no longer whether AI belongs in the classroom, but how to use it in ways that actively benefit students.

“The goal isn’t AI-free learning,” Avramovic said. “It’s AI-augmented thinking.”

Learning to think with AI

Sanja Avramovic, assistant professor in the Department of Health Administration and Policy

One challenge is persistent: How do you keep students learning when AI can provide answers in seconds?

Research by Avramovic, assistant professor in the Department of Health Administration and Policy Abdul Hafeez, and colleagues found that students can become overly dependent on AI-generated answers, reducing their engagement, interaction, and critical thinking.

Rather than prohibiting AI use, faculty developed and tested AI tutors that function more like coaches than answer generators, walking students through assignments one step at a time. In order to build them, instructors map out common mistakes and teach the systems how to respond in ways that promote deeper learning. “It interviews students,” Hafeez said. “It compels them to think critically.”

Early findings suggest this approach can help counter passive AI use, with students showing stronger performance and engagement than their peers. In one analysis, undergraduates using the tutors improved performance by nearly 9 percentage points.

Tempering the trust

Along with the enthusiasm for AI’s potential, faculty are just as focused on teaching students where the technology falls short.

Vanessa Chee, an assistant professor in the Department of Global and Community Health, warns students against relying on it too early in the learning process, likening it to “using roller blades when you’re crawling.”

In one global health course, Chee requires students to develop a 2,500-word narrative and a presentation proposing a public health intervention entirely on their own. Afterward, they use AI to generate a version of the same project, and compare the two.

That exercise is often revealing. Many students walk away disappointed by the quality of the generated work, but with a sharper understanding of what their own thinking contributes, Chee said.

Katherine Scafide, an associate professor in the School of Nursing, introduces AI early in the research process, using it to help students scan the literature and identify possible gaps worth investigating. But she draws a line between assistance and analysis. Students are expected to verify sources, refine their own research questions, and critically test whether AI summaries actually hold up.

"I encourage AI to assist in some structural aspects of writing, like outlining and grammar, but not to author the work," she said. " AI can be a writing tool, but it cannot be an author."

For Avramovic, the biggest concern is that students will trust AI too quickly. She recalled one student who relied heavily on AI while studying, learned flawed logic, and then repeated it on an exam.

“Don’t use AI until you know enough to correct it,” she tells her students.

Rebuilding the classroom

As AI changes how students learn, faculty are also rethinking how they create and deliver their own course content.

With one undergraduate health informatics class, Avramovic and colleagues realized that much of the content felt disconnected from the clinical realities that nursing students—who are required to take the course—would eventually face. So, the instructors used AI tools to rewrite assignments around nursing-specific scenarios, like identifying problems in electronic health records. They also introduced AI-generated videos narrated by digital avatars, guiding students through technical material.

The updates made a difference. Nursing students in the AI-redesigned course showed statistically significant learning gains, more than half said AI-generated videos were more helpful than assigned readings, and nearly four out of five reported that the tools improved their overall learning experience.

Farrokh Alemi, a professor in the Department of Health Administration and Policy, took a similar approach in his graduate statistics course, using AI to help deliver lectures and tutor students.

For students, the change meant more access to their instructor. “Because the AI handled a lot of mechanical tasks, I used the extra time to have more interactions with students, give them career advice, call up at-risk students, just be more available,” he said.

Evolving the toolkit

Faculty at the College of Public Health compare the current moment to earlier technological shifts in education, from the arrival of calculators in math classrooms to the rise of the internet and online learning.

Students still need to learn the fundamentals, faculty said, but once they understand the underlying concepts, AI can help them explore more complex problems and apply knowledge in new ways.

“You still need the human in the loop,” Avramovic said.

The technology continues to evolve quickly. But faculty say the larger goal remains to help students build the skills they’ll need in a world where AI is already becoming part of the job.

Key Takeaways

George Mason College of Public Health faculty are using artificial intelligence tools including AI tutors and digital avatars to enhance teaching and student learning.
Instead of prohibiting tools like ChatGPT, instructors are teaching students to think critically, verify AI outputs, and use AI responsibly.
AI is helping redesign courses, personalize learning, and prepare College of Public Health students for an AI-integrated workforce.

In This Story

Sanja Avramovic, PhD

Katherine Scafide, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAAFS

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Learn more about George Mason's Grand Challenge Initiative

George Mason funds seven GCI catalyst research projects driving bold solutions for a prosperous future

ckearney — Wed, 06 May 2026 00:53:09 +0000

George Mason funds seven GCI catalyst research projects driving bold solutions for a prosperous future ckearney Tue, 05/05/2026 - 20:53

As the university’s Grand Challenge Initiative (GCI) enters its second year, 91�� today announced funding for seven catalyst research projects and the launch of the Grand Challenge Research Exchange—quarterly convenings for all GCI-related research to accelerate solutions to the grand challenge of our time.

“We have placed our first bets on building a better future for humanity,” said President Gregory Washington. “These awards represent the very best of George Mason faculty research. They sit at a crossroads where the world’s greatest problems meet our faculty’s greatest research strengths to solve them. At a time when the world’s greatest challenges can appear to be winning, today the smart money is on George Mason professors.”

Washington launched the Grand Challenge Initiative in 2025 to focus faculty expertise on tackling world’s most pressing interdisciplinary threats to solve the ultimate grand challenge of sustaining humanity’s ability to forge a peaceful and prosperous future, rather than merely a life endured.

Spanning artificial and aerial intelligence to quantum and space infrastructure development, the seven catalyst projects will also strengthen talent and workforce development across interconnected industries. The catalyst projects are:

George Mason’s Quantum Leap

Photo provided

This project will expand position George Mason as a leader in the next generation of computing. Quantum computers can tackle problems beyond the reach of today’s technology, opening new possibilities in health, climate research, and national security. This initiative will grow the university’s expertise in quantum hardware and algorithms, expand degree and training programs, and bring industry partners into the classroom and lab. By building talent, research capacity, and real‑world collaborations, Quantum Leap will help drive Virginia’s emerging quantum economy and prepare students for high‑demand careers.

Leadership Team: Patrick Vora, COS (PI); Harbir Antil, COS; Andre Clayborne, COS; John Cressman, COS; Maria Emelianenko, COS; Nadine Kabbani, COS; Jessica Rosenberg, COS; Ming Tian, COS; Giorgio Ascoli, COS/College of Engineering and Computing (CEC); Michael Jarret, COS/CEC; Ethan Ahn, CEC; Kris Gaj, CEC; Weiwen Jiang, CEC; Fei Li, CEC; Jill Nelson, CEC; Marc Sasseville, Patriot Labs/CEC; Nancy Holincheck, College of Education and Human Development (CEHD); Laurence Bray, Graduate Division; Terry Clower, Schar School of Policy and Government; and Jiasun Li, Costello College of Business.

Grand Solutions: Advancing 21st-Century Education for All, Driving Responsible Digital Innovation and Sustainable Infrastructure, Improving Human Health, Well-being, and Preparedness

Participating Colleges: College of Science, College of Engineering and Computing, College of Education and Human Development, Schar School of Policy and Government, and Costello College of Business

91�� Space Center

Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

This project will position the university as a leader in using space technology to solve real‑world problems. By designing and launching small satellites, the project will generate data that improve climate forecasting, disaster preparation, infrastructure protection, and scientific discovery. The new center will also expand degree programs, train students through hands‑on missions, and build partnerships with industry and government. Together, these efforts will strengthen Virginia’s space economy and prepare a diverse workforce for a rapidly growing sector.

Leadership Team: Anamaria Berea, COS (PI); Ferah Munshi, COS (PI); JK Aier, Costello; Gabriele Belle, COS; Zafer Boybeyi, COS; Phillip Cunio, CEC; Jules Goldspiel, COS; Hina Kazmi, Schar; Tracy Mason, COS; Leigh McCue, CEC; Jeffrey Moran, CEC; Piotr Pachowicz, CEC; Rob Parks, COS; Peter Plavchan, COS; Ali K. Raz, CEC; Laura Aileen Sauls, College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS); Michael Summers, COS; Kun Sun, CEC; Daniel Tong, COS; Chaowei Phil Yang, COS; and Jie Zhang, COS.

Grand Solution: Pioneering Space Exploration, Research, and Collaboration

Participating Colleges: College of Science, College of Engineering and Computing, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Schar School of Policy and Government, and Costello College of Business

Teaching Initiative for Digital Education through AI (Teaching IDE-AI)

Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

This project creates a model for responsible and ethical AI integration in the classroom to help prepare teachers who will then shape AI‑ready PK–12 students across Virginia and the nation. By bringing together experts in education and technology, the initiative will create practical tools, develop training for faculty, and design easy‑to‑use AI literacy resources that help educators guide students in a rapidly changing world.

Leadership Team: Jennifer Suh, CEHD (PI); Thema Monroe‑White, Schar/CEC; Ziyu Yao, CEC; Jered Borup, CEHD; Audra Parker, CEHD; and Seth Hunter, CEHD.

Grand Solutions: Advancing 21st-Century Education for All, Driving Responsible Digital Innovation and Sustainable Infrastructure

Participating Colleges: College of Education and Human Development, College of Engineering and Computing, and Schar School of Policy and Government

Toward a Center for Aerial Intelligence and Digital Earth Histories

Photo courtesy of 91�� Libraries

With partners like the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, this project will digitize and analyze unclassified historical aerial archives into usable digital data resources for research, education, and societal impact. The project will demonstrate how this work can reveal environmental change, urban growth, and infrastructure shifts while laying the groundwork for a future full‑scale center.

Leadership Team: Dieter Pfoser, COS (PI); Jana Kosecka, CEC; Sarah Campbell, Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact; and Allan Williams, National Collection of Aerial Photography/COS.

Grand Solutions: Driving Responsible Digital Innovation and Sustainable Infrastructure, Strengthening Peace, Trust, and Engagement in Democracy, Building a Climate-Resilient Society, Advancing 21st-Century Education for All

Participating Colleges: College of Science and College of Engineering and Computing

Industry-University Working Group on Climate Change and Physical Risks

Photo by Getty Images

This project brings together industry leaders and university researchers to advance understanding of shifting climate hazards and develop practical tools that strengthen physical‑risk assessment and decision-making in the insurance, reinsurance, and finance sectors of the economy. By identifying urgent research needs and developing practical tools for insurers and financial institutions, the project will improve how physical risks are assessed and managed, strengthen climate‑risk science, support decision‑making, and help communities and industries adapt.

Leadership Team: Luis E. Ortiz, COS (PI); Natalie Burls, COS; Edward Oughton, COS; Fengxiu Zhang, Schar; and James Kinter, COS.

Grand Solutions: Driving Responsible Digital Innovation and Sustainable Infrastructure, Building a Climate-Resilient Society

Participating Colleges: College of Science and Schar School of Policy and Government

Humanitarian Forensics and Peacebuilding

Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

This project will build a multidisciplinary program that improves how human remains are located, identified, and reunified with families after war, disaster, or violence. Bringing together experts in forensic science, public health, peacebuilding, and international law, the project will launch a needs assessment and summer training program in the South Caucasus, along with a new course at George Mason. By integrating scientific precision with community‑centered practices, the initiative will strengthen global capacity for recovery and identification work that supports families and communities.

Leadership Team: Joseph DiZinno, COS (PI); Margarita Tadevosyan, Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution (PI); Katherine Scafide, College of Public Health; and Arthur R. Traldi, Scalia Law School/Lexpat Global Services.

Grand Solutions: Strengthening Peace, Trust, and Engagement in Democracy, Advancing 21st-Century Education for All, Improving Human Health, Well-being, and Preparedness

Participating Colleges: College of Science, Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, College of Public Health, and Scalia Law School.

AI-Powered Human Rights Education for All

Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

This project will create an AI‑driven virtual human rights classroom prototype that gives people everywhere access to practical, personalized tools to learn and apply human rights principles in daily life. Using the built‑in toolkit, users will explore interactive scenarios and receive personalized guidance to help them navigate real‑world dilemmas and assess the human rights impact of policies and technologies.

Leadership Team: Cher Weixia Chen, CHSS (PI); Graziella Pagliarulo McCarron, CHSS; Lei Gao, Costello; Ziwei Zhu, CEC; Antonios Anastasopoulos, CEC; and Sungsoo Ray Hong, CEC.

Grand Solutions: Advancing 21st-Century Education for All, Driving Responsible Digital Innovation and Sustainable Infrastructure, Strengthening Peace, Trust, and Engagement in Democracy

Participating Colleges: College of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Engineering and Computing, and Costello College of Business

“Spanning multiple disciplines, colleges, campuses, and the region, GCI is designed to launch new research efforts, scale promising programs, enhance faculty expertise, and build the shared infrastructure required for sustained collaboration,” said Ajay Vinzé, interim provost and executive vice president.

With $5 million supporting this first round of funding, the seven catalyst projects were selected from 41 proposals, with more than 75 PIs, submitted across every college and school at George Mason, including Mason Korea. More than 35 external partner organizations were represented across submissions; 38 were transdisciplinary, and six involved five or more colleges working together.

“George Mason's institutional investment underscores our commitment to high-impact, interdisciplinary mission-driven research,” said Andre Marshall, vice president for research, innovation, and economic impact. “GCI positions research to build our enterprise and engage additional funders to deliver real-world change.”

To support all GCI-related research, including the 41-proposal cohort, through stages of development, George Mason is launching new quarterly convenings called the Grand Challenge Research Exchange. The first convening will launch this fall. Designed in partnership with the three Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact (ORIEI) Institutes and Mason Now team, these exchanges will feature industry keynotes, expert guest lecturers, and professional development workshops about leadership development, strategic planning, financial and program management, funding support, proposal and partnership development, and community engagements models.

What Our Industry Partners Are Saying

“Northern Virginia’s long-term economic strength, environmental resilience, and quality of life depend on meaningful collaboration with its research and educational institutions. For more than 30 years, the partnership between the Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC) and 91�� has demonstrated how place-based, applied research can address complex regional challenges. Through work that aligns closely with George Mason’s Grand Challenge Initiative, our collaboration has delivered tangible outcomes—from mapping solar energy potential to advancing stormwater management models, promoting purposeful cross-national transfer of policy and technical innovations, and revitalizing stressed watersheds. These efforts have produced measurable benefits for communities throughout Northern Virginia, and NVRC looks forward to sustaining and expanding this impactful partnership.”

—Dale Medearis, Senior Environmental Planner, Northern Virginia Regional Commission

“Partnering with George Mason’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth has enabled our team to expand our conservation work in innovative ways. By collaborating with George Mason faculty whose interdisciplinary expertise complements our own, we are addressing complex environmental challenges with both scientific rigor and practical application. This partnership aligns closely with the Grand Challenge Initiative, translating research into actionable insights that advance effective conservation, community resilience, and sustainable decision-making.”

—Philip Loring, Global Director of Human Dimensions Science, The Nature Conservancy

“Cybersecurity and critical infrastructure risks have reached the scale of true grand challenges, particularly in an era shaped by artificial intelligence. What distinguishes George Mason’s Grand Challenge Initiative is its broad, interdisciplinary approach and its top‑down investment in bold, unconventional ideas that span academic disciplines and engage industry and policymakers. These problems cannot be solved in isolation, and the initiative is built for the kind of collaboration our economic and security future depends on.”

—Jeremy Epstein, Co-Director, Institute for Cybersecurity and Resilient Infrastructure Studies Center; Adjunct professor, Georgia Tech School of Cybersecurity and Privacy; Member of George Mason's Institute for Digital Innovation Industry Advisory Board

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In its first year, ACCESS Academy doubles applications and delivers strong academic results

ckearney — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 19:44:46 +0000

In its first year, ACCESS Academy doubles applications and delivers strong academic results ckearney Thu, 03/26/2026 - 15:44

In its first year, 91��’s Accelerated College and Employability Skills (ACCESS) Academy is already demonstrating strong indicators of demand, academic rigor, and early student achievement. Interest in the program has grown rapidly. For the 2026-27 admissions cycle, ACCESS received 387 applications from ninth graders, double the 193 applications submitted the previous year.

With only 30 seats available for the incoming ninth-grade cohort, the program has quickly become one of the most selective emerging innovation pathways in the region. Participation in the program allows advanced freshmen in high school to take college classes.

In December, ACCESS Academy students demonstrated projects and discussed their experiences with then-Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera in a robotics lab at Fuse at Mason Square. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

Early academic outcomes among the inaugural cohort also reflect the program’s rigor. The current ninth-grade ACCESS Academy class maintains an average GPA of 3.72, demonstrating strong performance across a curriculum that integrates advanced technical coursework with core high school instruction. These early indicators highlight the momentum behind the academy and the role of George Mason and its College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) in developing research-informed, workforce-aligned learning models for secondary education.

One of the most significant milestones for the academy this year is the launch of its first dual enrollment course. Thirty-seven ACCESS Academy ninth-graders are currently enrolled in a Python programming course offered through Northern Virginia Community College. Introducing a college-level computing course at the ninth-grade level represents an acceleration point within the academy’s academic pathway, providing students with foundational programming skills relevant to software development, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and data science.

Potomac Falls High School teacher Matt Wax, one of the academy instructors, said launching a new academic model required both flexibility and innovation in instructional practice. “Because the program is brand new, there aren’t many existing resources to draw from,” Wax said. “We’ve had to adapt instruction in real time, creating opportunities for students to think outside the box while adjusting expectations and course design as the program evolves.”

Early implementation has also highlighted the collaborative learning environment developing among students. While some ninth-graders are adjusting to the rigor of college-level coursework, Wax noted that peer support has become an important element of the classroom culture. “It’s been encouraging to see students who are doing well step up to help classmates who are struggling,” he said. “That willingness to support one another is one of the most positive outcomes so far.”

In addition to rigorous coursework, ACCESS students are already engaging in technical and professional learning opportunities beyond the classroom. Last fall, 31 ACCESS Academy students attended the BSidesNoVA Cyber Security/Hacker Conference, where they participated in sessions focused on cybersecurity tools, ethical hacking, and emerging digital threats. Participation in professional cybersecurity conferences at the ninth-grade level represents a distinctive feature of the academy’s early exposure model.

In the summer of 2025, ACCESS Academy offered an AI Camp to 9th through 12th graders at Fuse at Mason Square. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

Thirty ACCESS students participated in Virginia CyberSlam 2026, an event sponsored by George Mason’s Cyber Security Engineering Department and Loudoun County Public Schools. The event challenged students to apply cybersecurity concepts in simulated threat-response scenarios and collaborative problem-solving environments.

ACCESS students have also had opportunities to present their learning to state-level education leaders. During a recent visit to Fuse at Mason Square, students demonstrated projects and discussed their experiences with former Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera, providing visibility for the academy’s instructional model and student work.

At the curricular level, ACCESS Academy is emerging as a leader within Virginia’s expanding lab school network through its use of problem-based learning as core instructional framework. Rather than relying on traditional lecture-based instruction, students engage with complex, real-world problems that require research, collaboration, and iterative design. This curriculum model, developed with support from CEHD faculty, is attracting statewide attention.

Faculty affiliated with the program will present the ACCESS Academy curriculum framework at the upcoming Innovation Summit hosted by Old Dominion University, highlighting how the academy integrates computing education, interdisciplinary learning, and research-based instructional design.

For instructors, one of the most notable aspects of the program has been the diversity of students who have chosen to participate. Wax observed that the inaugural cohort includes a wide range of ability levels, interests, and backgrounds, creating opportunities for varied perspectives within collaborative learning environments. The program’s rapid growth in applications reflects the special opportunities it provides, he added.

“ACCESS offers opportunities free of charge that many students might not otherwise have access to,” he said. “For students who are looking for something different from a traditional model of schooling, it offers an accelerated and more professionally oriented pathway.”

“What we’re seeing with ACCESS Academy is early evidence of what becomes possible when we design learning as a connected pathway rather than a series of disconnected experiences,” explained Ingrid Guerra-Lopez, dean of CEHD, who led the vision and design of ACCESS Academy. “ACCESS is giving us a living platform to study and continuously improve how teaching and learning can better prepare students for the complexity of the future. This model invites us to rethink readiness not as something that begins after high school, but as something we intentionally build across the entire educational ecosystem.”

This initiative supports the Advancing 21st-Century Education for All solution of George Mason's Grand Challenge Initiative

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Higher education institutions must evolve and secure mergers and partnerships to thrive, industry leaders agree

Katarina Benson — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 18:36:29 +0000

Higher education institutions must evolve and secure mergers and partnerships to thrive, industry leaders agree Katarina Benson Wed, 03/25/2026 - 14:36

Colleges and universities face significant demographic, financial, technological, and political changes that affect enrollment, tuition and financial aid, athletics programs, and career outcomes. The institutions that will succeed in the future are the ones today transforming their operational models and establishing robust alliances across sectors.

That was the prevailing sentiment March 17 when higher education leaders from across the country convened at Fuse at Mason Square for the inaugural P3•EDU MAP Summit. (P3 is short for public–private partnerships, and MAP stands for mergers, affiliations, and partnerships.)

“Depending on how you count them, we have 6,000 institutions of higher education in this country, and not all of them are going to make it out of the next decade,” said U.S. Department of Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent. “And quite honestly, not all of them need to make it out of the next decade or should. And the ones that do are going to be the ones that adapt in a variety of ways.”

The Colleges and Universities at an Inflection Point panel at the P3•EDU MAP Summit. From left, moderator Ted Eismeier, Senior Vice President, Head of Postsecondary Communications, Whiteboard Advisors; Robert Kelchen, Professor and Department Head, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Brad Wolverton, Editor, The Chronicle of Higher Education; Mike Gavin, President and CEO, Alliance for Higher Education; and Sara Custer, Editor-in-Chief, Inside Higher Ed. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine referenced the state’s many successful public–private partnerships, including Fuse at Mason Square itself, noting different kinds of P3s he’s brokered in his many elected offices in Virginia, including urban infrastructure, Metrorail extension, and student housing near college campuses. Higher education needs to "change course and change direction while still meeting the needs of the workforce and families,” he said.

“There's this sort of false narrative about higher ed institutions needing to do everything themselves,” said James Sparkman, the P3•EDU producer whose organization is a catalyst for higher ed alliances. “I think this is unsustainable for a lot of institutions, and it's definitely not the model for the dynamic colleges and universities that I know that thrive on partnerships.”

91�� President Gregory Washington acknowledged the importance of colleges finding “a new set of solutions” by collaborating with industry, non-governmental organizations, and the public K-12 sector.

“If you have these conversations with members of government, and with many of our well-placed corporates, they will tell you there are too many universities,” Washington said. “And that the value proposition is in question. So what that means is that the calvary probably isn't coming. We’re going to have to find ways to survive, which means looking more toward partnerships and frameworks working together. Those institutions that don't do that do so at their own peril. And part of that peril is their own survival.”

Washington mentioned his “co-opetition” model in which institutions find more ways to align resources while continuing to compete against each other. But those alliances can be elusive because colleges and universities and reluctant to relinquish their autonomy.

Marjorie Hass, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, found in a previous role that it was difficult to convince neighboring colleges to sync academic calendars or library loan agreements, let alone establish the cross-institutional partnerships that higher ed survival increasingly demands.

“Our blessing is that we are not a federal higher education system,” Hass said. “Our curse is that we are individual institutions and organizations with individual histories, individual mascots, individual sports teams…. We have this radical independence, and it is, in many ways, our strength. And it does make the system more complex, more flexible, and more redundant in a way that probably increases the overall resiliency of the system. But that doesn't mean individual institutions have that resiliency.”

“We have been at inflection points before in the history of higher ed,” Inside Higher Ed editor-in-chief Sara Custer said during one of the summit panels. “This one feels completely different. One thing that is a blanket cause of where we are right now is the overcompliance and fear we’re seeing on college campuses from leadership right down to junior staff.”

Kent, who was deputy education secretary in Virginia before joining the U.S. Department of Education, said that more intentional conversations are taking place now between potential partners in and around higher ed and that the role of his department is to facilitate those partnerships through “cutting regulatory burden.”

“We are all about breaking down silos,” Kent said. “We are all about doing things in a different way. We are all about questioning the status quo in this administration. We are breaking a lot of molds in the way that we do things, and we think for the betterment of students and taxpayers, and quite honestly, for the betterment of higher education as a whole.”

“P3s are something that Virginia embraces, and we're very excited about it, being able to put all stakeholders around the table,” Kaine said. “Because without that, it's really hard to do projects. And it's just a tribute to the fact that good things in life now hardly happen by the say-so of a dynamic president or the say-so of a dynamic governor. It takes a lot of people around the table.”

This initiative supports the Advancing 21st-Century Education for All solution of George Mason's Grand Challenge Initiative

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Podcast: The future classroom: Teaching and learning in age of AI

sholla4 — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 17:00:08 +0000

Podcast: The future classroom: Teaching and learning in age of AI sholla4 Mon, 03/23/2026 - 13:00

As society navigates rapid technological advancement and escalating challenges at home and abroad, it’s up to our educators to prepare students to meet the evolving needs of the state, the nation, and the world. We call this Advancing 21st Century Education for All: one of the key pillars of our Grand Challenge Initiative.

On today’s episode of Access to Excellence, Ingrid Guerra-López, dean of George Mason’s College of Education and Human Development, joins President Gregory Washington to discuss the future of education in a rapidly changing world and why the irreplaceable human elements of teaching will define the profession's future even as technology transforms it.

We don't have the luxury of looking away and saying, well, I don't like technology and I don't like the AI thing, or whatever the technology might be. And just say, well, I'm not gonna engage. The world has moved on, right? So I think one of the critical things that is gonna be really important for educators and, and educational systems is to promote the ability for students to engage in lifelong learning and adaptability 'cause that is always going to be a constant requirement. — Ingrid Guerra-López

Read the transcript

Intro (00:04):
Trailblazers in research, innovators in technology, and those who simply have a good story: all make up the fabric that is 91��, where taking on the grand challenges that face our students, graduates, and higher education is our mission and our passion. Hosted by Mason President Gregory Washington, this is the Access to Excellence podcast.

President Gregory Washington (00:27):
The world is changing. Virginia and the nation require institutions that can rapidly align the next generation workforce with the evolving needs of the economy and our communities. More is already demanded of this generation than any before them. We have no choice but to prepare them for a task that is nothing short of saving the world. At George Mason, we call it advancing 21st century education for all. It's one of the key pillars of our Grand Challenge initiative, and I can't think of a better person to talk to us about it than our guest. Dr. Ingrid Guerra-López, dean of George Mason's College of Education and Human Development, Dean Guerra-López, welcome to the show.

Ingrid Guerra-López (01:22):
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

President Gregory Washington (01:25):
Well, let me start high level here. Where does your passion for education come from?

Ingrid Guerra-López (01:32):
So, it, it actually, I would say maybe doesn't come quite from education, it comes from learning. I've always been really drawn to asking questions, to needing to understand how things connect, just overall general inquiry and curiosity, you know, how things fit together. And so learning to me is ultimately what the promise of education is. Learning in itself, it, it's intrinsically valuable. It expands us. It, it deepens our judgment. Uh, it fuels so many other things. And education is one of those means. It's one of the many pathways through which learning can occur. We can learn through so many ways: on our own, through reflection and experience, uh, informally in our communities, through family, through our work, vicariously by watching others, and through that formal educational system. So I think it's, it's really important to distinguish the education from the actual point of it, which is learning and growth.

President Gregory Washington (02:29):
You got teachers and you have learners, right?

Ingrid Guerra-López (02:31):
That's right.

President Gregory Washington (02:32):
So, before we talk a bit about the future in the 21st century, talk to me a little bit about the current status of the education system, right? What are our streams, what are our current challenges? And there are very few areas more maligned in, in my opinion, than education, especially, especially at the K-12 level in the country. And so, talk to me a little bit about where we are currently positioned.

Ingrid Guerra-López (02:58):
Yeah, I, I do think that we do have a deep commitment for equity and for access. And there's a, a genuine sustained effort across states and districts to expand access. And whether it's through early childhood programs or inclusive special education services or college access pathways, you know, even support for multilingual learners. We've expanded who education is for, and that matters enormously. Now, the next step is really ensuring that access translates into meaningful opportunity and high quality learning experiences for everybody, for every learner. So I think that's one really important strength that we, we have right now. I think that there are also extraordinary, uh, innovation pockets across the country. Uh, we know that educators are experimenting boldly, whether it's through problem-based learning or competency-based progression, industry partnerships, AI-assisted instruction. There's a lot of things that are going well in terms of innovation. The challenge isn't a lack of innovation, it's that innovation is often localized.

Ingrid Guerra-López (04:04):
It's isolated in pockets rather than scaled system-wide. So I would say that that's really important. I would also highlight that the research base is fairly strong. We know more than ever before, um, how children learn. We know about brain development, uh, motivation and engagement, effective feedback, et cetera. The learning sciences and human development research base is, it's pretty robust. That's part of the work that we do through our partnerships at the College of Education and Human Development. One of our really exciting initiatives is a research practice partnership ERA•NOVA, our Educational Research Alliance of Northern Virginia, where we engage with over 20 school divisions across the region and beyond connecting research directly to district level practice, especially this year around AI readiness.

President Gregory Washington (04:54):
So you gave me a lot of the strengths, and you talked about scalability. I see that as being a challenge. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But if we know how to do this right, if our research has given us more insight than ever before, we, we have all of this positive, why do we not have better educational outcomes, especially at the K-12 level?

Ingrid Guerra-López (05:18):
So there's, there's a couple of things. I think our educators are represent an interesting variable, because on the one hand, the resiliency of those educators are, um, it's a strength, right? They've shown us that they can navigate a, a, a global pandemic, um, rapid technological change, et cetera. But at the same time, we're seeing more teacher burnout and issues with retention than ever before. We're asking them to be all things to all people, instructional designers, and data analysts, and technology integrators, and social workers. All the things without systematically redesigning workload, support structures, compensation. And preparation alone is not enough, right? You need that induction and that support and the mentorship and the professional growth systems that, that have to evolve with it. So that's why modernizing educator preparation and building stronger support pipelines is so central. So what I'm getting at is really that, that we have a structural mismatch. Our current system was largely optimized for predictable career pathways and content transmission and standardized pacing, like all of the things of the industrial area workforce required. Today's economy though, requires more, uh, adaptability and continuous learning. It requires comfort with a certain level of ambiguity, and it also requires us to think across different disciplines. So we're still organized around seat time and subject silos, while the world rewards problem solvers right across different boundaries. So, um, I don't know if it's a, a failure as much as it's a structural lag.

President Gregory Washington (07:02):
Structural lags unimplemented manifest themselves to the broader public as failures, right?

Ingrid Guerra-López (07:09):
Yeah.

President Gregory Washington (07:09):
Yeah. So let's back up for a second. You, you hear these calls of reform, you hear these calls of rethinking college education. Where does the call come from the loudest?

Ingrid Guerra-López (07:21):
I think it comes from, uh, different people, from everybody, really, but for different reasons, right? So you have employers who want graduates who can navigate complexity and technology and, and, and change. Understandably, families want return on investment and a good quality of life for their graduates. Governments want workforce alignment and economic competitiveness, right? They want our educational systems to be aligned with that. Students just want relevance. You, you go into a classroom at any level and you hear students asking you like, how does this connect to the real world? You know, what will I do with this? They don't reject rigor. They reject irrelevance. Right? And then you have industries like healthcare and technology sectors who want interdisciplinary thinkers, because those fields are evolving so quickly that narrow specializations aren't enough. They want engineers who understand ethics. They want healthcare professionals who understand data. They want leadership who can translate between disciplines, you know, and technologists who understand human behavior.

President Gregory Washington (08:29):
If I were to now ask the real question, the big question, you know, we're sitting in the 21st century, right? We largely have a 20th century educational framework. Uh, classes today aren't taught that much differently than what they were taught in 1999. Uh, we, we had electronic means of delivering content, and that was incorporated into our world. Fast forward, we have the most disruptive technology of our generation. Artificial intelligence has now moved beyond the laboratory, beyond the application of a few people who are on the bleeding edge to really being mainstream. Right? Right. Now, 50% of American households use AI in some form. It's about as mainstream as you can get. So what should 21st century education look like at different levels? So from early childhood through doctoral programs, what should it look like? Put your crystal ball on.

Ingrid Guerra-López (09:34):
Yes. Yes. Love to bring out my crystal ball. So, I, I think at those, uh, very early years and early childhood, it's really critical to cultivate curiosity, play-based problem solving. And of course, you, you wanna integrate with early digital literacy, right? Not just screen time, but digital understanding.

President Gregory Washington (09:55):
So, unpack that. It sounds intriguing. What does that actually look like?

Ingrid Guerra-López (10:00):
It's really, um, understanding what the technology is, right? Where, how algorithms work and, and again, at a developmentally appropriate way, you know, making a distinction between, you know, real world connection and what you might get out of the, the technology. It, it's a, it's a lot of different things. They're born into a generation where, um, technology all around them. So understanding what it does well, what it doesn't do well, that early discernment about how technology can help, but what the limitations are as well. I think that there are other things, right? So we, we, we tend to talk about technology and technology being such a disruptor, but, but there are also those uniquely human skills that are just as critical. Uh, and so as you think of the progression through K 12, the project-based learning is really important because it builds in that relevance, and it really does create an environment where you have to integrate knowledge, different subject matters into a coherent project that's tied to a, a real world authentic environment.

Ingrid Guerra-López (11:13):
So, you know, even in stem, it, it needs to be applied, right? Like, what community problem are you solving? Uh, and again, that AI literacy that's appropriate at, at every level. And, and really critically, again, I would have emphasize that it's that real world problem solving tied to community challenges. That's something that, you know, is so integral to what, what Mason does. And I think that that's really critical. As we move through undergraduate, again, the interdisciplinary learning is really critical. Industry connected experience is one of the things that we try to do at our college is, you know, engage our students in sometimes as many as, as two different kinds of internships or applied learning experiences in workplaces or in those kind of environments, because it's so critical. The data literacy, you know, whether they're gonna go on to work in a classroom or any other setting, we live in these highly technology-integrated, uh, data-rich environments.

Ingrid Guerra-López (12:15):
And the, the data literacy is, is really critical. And just like the technology piece is important, the ethical reasoning is important, right? It's, it's not just the use of technology. It's ethical reasoning around technology. And, and we know from, there's a really interesting survey that is deployed every three years by the World Economic Forum, and they survey employers across the globe, um, every three years or so. And, you know, those, the skills that they consistently have at the top as desirable for global employers continues to be those transferable skills, right? So adaptability, critical thinking, communication, systems thinking. So that has to be embedded, uh, in our undergraduate curriculum all the way through our, our graduate, um, stages with systems thinking and research to impact pipelines. Again, I think one of the things that's unique and a great strength of George Mason is that we really focus on research of consequence. That there is an immediate sort of transdisciplinary approach to what we do in that we work closely with the community. We work on societal challenges that matter to our communities. And so that has to be a critical environment through which we, we teach at the graduate level or at the doctoral level, those research skills that are, you know, really tied in that, uh, problem of practice.

President Gregory Washington (13:40):
But you walk in the classroom of today, and those young people are living in a half virtual half real environment, right? They're on their phones when they go home, they're on their iPads, they're on their laptops, and the like. They're literally interfacing with ai. AI is a helper for them. They're asking it questions, they're engaged with it. They are already there, right? And so what does educating this next generation of educators look like so that they can actually engage with young people at that level? Because it can't be traditional, it cannot be the way you and I learned, because the young people, aren't they, we didn't have the tools. We didn't have the tools that they had. I remember hours in stacks, right, in the library. Or I remember getting online and spending hours with Google searches, and they're not using Google searches anymore. They go right to the answer and to the references in a very quick way just by knowing how to properly prompt or do they, right? So these are the kinds of things that I'm trying to see where we are in terms of educating the next generation of educators who have to teach to students who have these tools.

Ingrid Guerra-López (15:06):
Yeah, no, absolutely. Right? If, if we're serious about preparing students for a rapidly changing world, then that means we have to start with the adults who guide them, and, and that's our teachers. So modernizing education begins with modernizing the teaching profession in a lot of ways. And, you know, today's teachers are not, they're not just content experts or deliverers. It's a complex professional operating and dynamic environment. So I think, you know, education today and for the next, uh, generation of educators, uh, they're, you know, clearly instructional designers because the content isn't enough and a textbook is not really enough. They're designing learning experiences that are integrating many of those elements that I, I, I talked about, right? Whether it's project-based learning and then technology tools in a purposeful way, or interdisciplinary content applied right in real world problems. They have to understand how to scaffold learning how to potentially use those technology tools to differentiate instruction, how to potentially use those AI tools to develop meaningful performance based assessments.

Ingrid Guerra-López (16:19):
So that's one component of, you know, what they're now having to do in this next generation. But again, going back to the data-rich environments that also have to be data interpreters, right? We know that classrooms are increasingly data-rich environments, and teachers have to be able to interpret assessment results, identify learning patterns, and adjust instruction in real times in many ways. So that, that data fluency, it's not just about spreadsheets, it's about instructional decision making. The technology component, right? They have to be technology integrators. It's not as an add-on. It's embedded in, as you were saying, in describing how students learn and how they work and how they live. So teachers need to understand when technology enhances learning and when it distracts from it, you know, there have been many instances where in some cases, technologies were integrated in the classroom. I'm thinking of the, the smart board, for example. And then they sat there as symbols of progress, but there wasn't any support in many cases provided to teachers to take advantage of the technology, not only to enhance teaching practices, but to enhance learning outcomes and to model for students how to use technology effectively. So, so they have to now know how to integrate AI tools responsibly and how to help maintain academic integrity while at the same time embracing innovation. And, and that's a balance.

President Gregory Washington (17:51):
This is where I, I want to have a, a more lengthy discussion, right? Should our teachers educate our students in how to effectively develop and utilize prompts so that they can properly interface and engage with a large language model.

Ingrid Guerra-López (18:12):
So AI is, is a lot of things, right? There's a, certainly a, a literacy component to it, just as far as understanding what it is. And it, it, it's also a tool in that it helps them apply learning sciences.

President Gregory Washington (18:27):
Yeah. But it, but it has a language. And that's the thing. So, so, you know, I tell people all the time, if you get on your computer, you give it a PDF of a paper or of a book, and you say, review this book for me, and give me, and give me your summary of it. I would contend to them that that is an improper way to use AI, right? But it's the way in which people engage and interact with it, right? But they're not really speaking the language of how the computer, which AI is really giving you your answers based on associations. It associates the, the words that you write with specific sets of other words and other outcomes that it knows. So if you don't want it to hallucinate or give you things that are really, shouldn't be part of the question in which you ask it, you actually need to take care of that in how you ask it, right?

President Gregory Washington (19:26):
You need to start to focus the large language model to a general framework, a general area that's involved with the document or that, that you've given it. You need to tell it who it is, so it knows where to pull prerequisite information to help it do the identifications that are necessary to get your answer, right. So one example is you have a person do a general prompt. You give them a, the same book, you have them do a general prompt where they ask it, summarize this for me, blah, blah, blah. And let's say it's on physics, you know, it's on electromagnetics. I'm, I'm sorry, I'm giving you an engineering scenario.

Ingrid Guerra-López (20:10):
It's, it's okay.

President Gregory Washington (20:10):
But let's say it's on electromagnetics and you say, summarize this book on electromagnetics. That's one way, another way to say is, you are the foremost electromagnetics physicists in the world. Your research is on blank relative to electromagnetics. Take this book, summarize it. Give me relative feedback with emphasis on A, D, C, D and E. I'm gonna get a very different set of outcomes that I've gotten with just a straight summarize this. Yeah. Right? And because our young people are gonna be interfacing in dealing with young people who are gonna be interfacing with this technology, to me, it's critical that they know how to do it. People are gonna use it. So you, you better learn, they better know how to use it in the most efficient way, in the most efficient mechanism possible. Right? And so we're still debating whether it's cheating or not, and we really should be about how do you best employ it to give you an advantage over the other folk who are still debating whether it should even be used or not. Right? Because to me, that ship is kind of sailed.

Ingrid Guerra-López (21:24):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. What you are describing, so I mentioned earlier, AI is a lot of different things, right? It can be seen as a tool, as a career pathway, uh, as a disruptor. But to me, you're describing AI as a literacy, right? It's something that students must understand. We teach reading and writing because literacy empowers agency and AI literacy is gonna serve a similar function. Um, students and educators both need to understand how AI systems are trained, where bias can enter, what hallucinations are, how to verify an AI generated output, or what ethical boundaries really matter as you create your prompt or as you think about how to engage with AI and how data privacy works as well. So without that kind of literacy, I definitely agree. Like we risk creating passive consumers of, of technology instead of informed critical users.

President Gregory Washington (22:27):
You know, we have very, very highly regarded education programs here at George Mason from special ed to education leadership. And so what makes Mason stand out as an education institution in your mind?

Ingrid Guerra-López (22:41):
Yeah, I think, um, and I mentioned this a little bit earlier, I think the fact that we have such strong ties to our community and our educational partners, we're working in real problems of practice that our school partners see as, as priorities. One of the, the really exciting initiatives that I mentioned our ERA•NOVA partnership. We're really approaching, even AI, for example, not, not from a high perspective, but working directly with our, uh, school division leaders to define what readiness actually means. Whatever your subject matter is, it's gonna be relevant a across the different, uh, content areas of teaching. So we're asking things like, you know, what competencies should teachers have in an AI enabled classroom? Um, and, and, you know, responsible classroom integration look like. What, what is that? How do we balance innovation with student safety? Um, how do we actually even know whether AI is improving learning?

Ingrid Guerra-López (23:46):
So one of the things that, um, we are doing as a result of that collaboration is identifying very specifically the kind of skills that we should be embedding across all of our educational programs across all of our teacher preparation programs, whether it's in special education or early childhood education, or secondary education, because that's just going to be part of the job. I've heard some alarmist kind of warnings that, you know, AI is going to, uh, eliminate teachers, and that just simply isn't true. We've been hearing those concerns for a long time. We heard it, you know, with the radio and the television and the internet and the cell phones <laugh>, what it's going to do is elevate the teaching profession, right? Because if you look at not just the teaching profession, but all professions, it is fundamentally changing the way in which you work, the actual critical tasks that are required, how well you do it. So it is, uh, in my opinion, going to elevate. So I think that's one of the things that's really unique about us. It's that integration between research and practice. It, we don't just stay at the theory of things, but we're using research and, uh, research capacity and theory to work with our educational partners and the educational community to, to address real challenges.

President Gregory Washington (25:13):
So if I were to ask you who's actually successfully making this change and adapting as you've highlighted here, who, who's doing that at George Mason?

Ingrid Guerra-López (25:25):
You mean across our educational programs or?

President Gregory Washington (25:27):
Yeah.

Ingrid Guerra-López (25:27):
Yeah. I, I think I, like I said, I think we're, we're all doing it that ERA•NOVA that research practice partnership, we have faculty across many programs, including educational leadership who are really vested in working. We have, uh, a couple of faculty right now. We, we were successful in, uh, obtaining a global data sharing agreement with a couple of our school divisions. And what we did is we prioritized the areas of interest of those school partners. So we already have faculty in the college testing out AI tools to enhance math instruction and literacy instruction. And that's huge because it, it, you know, it requires for the school division to have a lot of trust in us. And so we're, that's just the, the kind of, I think, work that we're doing in partnership with our school divisions to, to modernize the teaching profession.

President Gregory Washington (26:25):
These technologies are gonna solve some significant problems for us. I, I do believe, as you highlighted that the teaching profession isn't going away. What I caution is stating that it's not going to have to radically change, right? You can interface with a teacher who understands many of the great works of Shakespeare, right? Or you can interface with a bot that has read every great work on any subject and can correlate it, right? And so how does that professor engage with a student that has access to that tool, right? Because in some instances, the, the, the, the, the tool, the technology actually has a greater knowledge base and is able to synthesize that knowledge base better than the professor. The tool itself has the ability to synthesize and bring information together. And, and, and for lack of a better way of saying this, and almost like a human-like manner. So we have to teach people how to find their place in that environment. And I think that that's critical and non-trivial, right? I know we have people thinking about this and working on this here. Do you have some examples of any programs that are utilizing that?

Ingrid Guerra-López (28:01):
I guess I would kind of take us a little further back. It's not about content, right? The role of an educator. It requires that human judgment. We can't compete with the knowledge generation, the analysis, in some cases, the synthesis, but that's not the value of an educator, right? It's really that human connection. It's that mentorship, it's discernment. It's very subtle art of recognizing when a student is struggling. It's the human connection. It is the helping to love to learn, to engage with learning on an ongoing basis. That's the challenge is right now, we're, and you know, lots of folks are, are talking about this. We're, we're educating students for a world that we probably can't even imagine.

President Gregory Washington (28:53):
No, that's right. Right? But, but I contend to you that we've always educated young people for worlds that they could not imagine. Right? I remember we were educating people in the early and mid-2000s for an explosion of wireless and internet of things based technologies that hit long before these young, we didn't know what those technologies were gonna look like, right? But we graduated young people who can interface and, and engage with them. And so I think you're hitting the nail right on the head with this whole piece of leaning into that human connectedness part, right? My, the best teachers, uh, the best teachers that I've had throughout my career have been people who could do that, right? Who could look at you and see your strengths in your development cycle, who could see your weaknesses, right? And they didn't do that by, uh, a test per se. They did this by discerning, they did this by watching you engage and seeing, you know, it could be where you stopped your pencil as you were writing. It could be the look that was on your face as you were engaging, right? It could just be the feeling that they got from engaging with you on a specific issue or on a specific problem, right? Those pieces are, in my opinion, uniquely human.

Ingrid Guerra-López (30:30):
That's right.

President Gregory Washington (30:31):
And we have to figure out how to emphasize them and lean into the tools.

Ingrid Guerra-López (30:39):
That's right.

President Gregory Washington (30:40):
You, you, you get what I mean.

Ingrid Guerra-López (30:41):
Absolutely.

President Gregory Washington (30:42):
That is the solution. That's, that is, or at least, that's the solution right now, <laugh>,

Ingrid Guerra-López (30:47):
Right? That that's right. We, because don't be because we

President Gregory Washington (30:49):
Don't know what the future's gonna look like.

Ingrid Guerra-López (30:49):
That's right. We, we don't know what the new thing will be. And so regardless of the change and the, regardless of, of the tools that come along, right? What we're really trying to promote is adaptability. And again, change is always, it, it's only accelerating, right? So we don't have the luxury of looking away and saying, well, I don't like technology and I don't like the AI thing, or whatever the technology might be. And just say, well, I'm not gonna engage. The world has moved on, right? So I think one of the critical things that is gonna be really important for educators and, and educational systems is to promote the ability for students to engage in lifelong learning and adaptability 'cause that is always going to be a constant requirement.

President Gregory Washington (31:37):
So let me ask you this, because you, you clearly are, uh, as an educator, you're gonna have to deal with humanist on the, the ethical values of what you teach and what you don't teach, right? And so how can classical liberal arts education evolve to meet the needs of these 21st century students and workers and employees and employers, right? How do we evolve the classical liberal arts framework in order to meet that need?

Ingrid Guerra-López (32:09):
Yeah. I, I think, you know, it's just as important as it's, as it has always been. Um, I think, you know, we want to, um, leverage, you know, the logic, the logical reasoning that comes from, from philosophy and, you know, the history, uh, patterns right across history. So I, I think they're just as relevant as before, but I think like everything else, it has to evolve and we have to do, uh, a better job of applying those insights, right? Like to me, liberal arts as, as someone who navigated philosophy and English and psychology, uh, in my undergrad, I have found those skills to be so critical to everything I do. And so I, I think it's just making sure that we're taking it a step further and that we are using the liberal arts in a way that's applied, and that is clearly relevant. I, I think it's relevant, but as educators, I think we need to do a better job of, of making that connection. But, you know, as I said, again, this whole idea of, uh, critical thinking, um, and, uh, collaboration and insight, those are all things that I think our liberal arts are, are really good at helping us develop.

President Gregory Washington (33:30):
If you were talking to a young person right now, somebody just graduating out of high school and entering into the profession, you say, I want to be a teacher. Teachers really impacted me my entire life. And that's where I see myself having the greatest impact as a human. And that young person was looking at you, what are three things you would tell that person to make sure you do now while you're going through your educational framework in order to make you a, an effective teacher going forward?

Ingrid Guerra-López (34:08):
I definitely think that I would ask them to model adaptability, right? To make sure that as you enter the teaching profession, that you're aware that students are also looking at you and how well you embrace change. So I think that's one critical thing. Also, this idea that, that I mentioned before around problem-based learning is really critical. The world needs problem solvers, right? Ethical problem solvers that regardless of the workplace or context can work with others to solve complex problems. And so embedding that in the learning environment and in the learning experiences is, is really critical. So I, I think those are some of the critical things that I would make sure that they know is, is essential for an effective teacher.

President Gregory Washington (34:59):
Given where you sit as a leader and an administrator, right? And you're leading now cohorts of faculty, what do you tell them about how this disruption that's coming from AI, this, this change that's coming to the profession, what do you tell them about what they should be doing right now to adapt and to coexist with these technologies as they evolve?

Ingrid Guerra-López (35:29):
Experiment, right? I think one of the things that, that we're working on in the college is to have, or to develop an AI and other kind of emerging technologies tinkering lab where people are in an environment where they can explore and they can tinker and they can try out tools, whether it's with, uh, with fellow educators or, you know, a space for other, for educational leaders as well. There's on both ends of the spectrum in some, in some cases, a lot of fear about safety and the implications of using it. And then the other hand, very eager, uh, folk who want to use it and think it's the tool for all the, the problems. And so I think just having that community space for educators to explore, to experiment, to ask questions, to break things, to say, well, what happens if we do this? And, and to make that part of the learning experience, I think that's only going to reduce the fear and anxiety of the unknown.

President Gregory Washington (36:29):
Well, this is all good stuff, and the kind of thing that positions us well for the future. What do you tell your fellow deans, you know, some of which are really struggling with this technology, and you are kind of at the forefront of it, because outside of computer science, it probably affects your discipline more than any other.

Ingrid Guerra-López (36:50):
Yeah. I mean, we certainly talk, uh, I think as leaders often about, you know, how the implications of AI in the university and, and of course the workplace as well. I, I think, you know, what I would reiterate with my colleagues is that there is no one area that isn't impacted by the shifts in technology, whether it's AI or whatever comes after every single career, every single sector, every single space and community is being impacted by technology in one way or the other. And so we have a responsibility to understand if that's already changed our communities, and it's gonna change it even further. How do we adapt the preparation that we provide those students during the time they're with us to make sure that they're capable and ready to shape and contribute in that kind of world?

President Gregory Washington (37:47):
That's it. Well, we're gonna have to leave it there. Ingrid, thank you for sharing your vision and leadership with the educators of our future. I'm George Mason president Gregory Washington. Thanks for listening. And tune in next time for more conversations that show why we are all together different.

Outro (38:16):
If you like what you heard on this podcast, go to podcast.gmu.edu for more of Gregory Washington's conversations with the thought leaders, experts, and educators who take on the grand challenges facing our students, graduates, and higher education. That's podcast gmu.edu.

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College of Education and Human Development launches initiative to strengthen Virginia’s educator workforce

Katarina Benson — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 16:04:24 +0000

College of Education and Human Development launches initiative to strengthen Virginia’s educator workforce Katarina Benson Mon, 02/23/2026 - 11:04

The College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) at 91�� is kicking off Future Ready Teachers, a new initiative designed to strengthen Virginia’s educator workforce by removing financial barriers, innovating and elevating teacher preparation, and supporting teachers from entry through their early years in the classroom.

Future Ready Teachers responds to a growing challenge in Virginia and across the nation: Too many aspiring educators step away from the profession—or leave it early—due to cost, limited early-career support, and salaries that often do not align with the cost of living. The result is a teacher shortage that disproportionately affects high-poverty, rural, and high-need schools, limiting PK–12 students’ access to stable, high-quality learning environments. With deep regional partnerships and a strong track record of preparing effective educators, George Mason is positioned to deliver a scalable, high-impact solution.

Future Ready Teachers supports future educators. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

“At 91��, we believe every aspiring educator deserves the opportunity to succeed, regardless of financial barriers or the realities of sustaining a career in teaching today,” said Ingrid Guerra-López, dean of CEHD. “Future Ready Teachers reflects our responsibility to address the nation’s teacher shortage by investing not only in access, but in forward-looking innovative preparation, sustained support, and long-term success in the profession.”

The urgency is clear. Eighty-six percent of U.S. public schools report hiring challenges due to a lack of qualified applicants, with Virginia reporting more than 3,600 teacher vacancies in 2024-25. Each Future Ready Teachers scholar represents a stable classroom and hundreds of students reached over a career, strengthening schools and communities across the commonwealth.

“Teacher preparation is the cornerstone of educational excellence,” said Audra Parker, director of CEHD’s Office of Teacher Preparation. “When we invest in teachers and teacher preparation, we’re investing in the lives of students who will shape tomorrow’s future.”

The initiative focuses on three priorities: removing financial barriers, advancing teacher preparation for evolving classrooms demands, and supporting educators beyond graduation. Funds raised will provide full-ride and cost-of-living scholarships and sustain a rigorous model that integrates structured mentorship, a three-year induction program, and preparation for technology-enabled, data-rich learning environments, positioning teaching as a rigorous, future-ready profession designed to attract and retain top talent.

This comprehensive approach positions Future Ready Teachers as more than a scholarship effort; It is a workforce strategy designed to increase teacher retention, reduce preventable turnover, and strengthen long-term classroom stability.

“Future Ready Teachers represents a bold commitment to every child, every classroom, and every future,” said Guerra-López. “It is an investment in people and in the long-term strength and stability of our education system.”

This initiative supports the Advancing 21st-Century Education for All solution of George Mason's Grand Challenge Initiative

Future Ready Teachers is part of the Mason Now campaign.

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K-12 Partnerships

workforce

George Mason researchers lead statewide study on ethical use of AI in higher education

sbrown79 — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 16:07:37 +0000

George Mason researchers lead statewide study on ethical use of AI in higher education sbrown79 Tue, 02/17/2026 - 11:07

91��’s leadership in advancing 21st-century education took another leap forward this month when several university researchers were named to a statewide project exploring the impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI) on teaching and learning in higher education classrooms.  

Funded by a State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) Fund for Excellence and Innovation grant, the cross-disciplinary, cross-institutional project aims to promote ethical integration of AI into educational settings. 

The initiative, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Teaching and Learning,” involves 80 faculty, graduate students, and staff from multiple Virginia institutions including University of Virginia, James Madison University, Roanoke College, Bridgewater College, and Virginia Commonwealth University. 

Amanda Bryan, an assistant professor in George Mason’s Department of English and co-lead on the study, said it is “designed to test onboarding activities in increasing students’ ethical and responsible use of AI tools.”

Amanda Bryan. Photo provided.

 The study is an example of a Mega Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, or SoTL, project. It’s one of 11 projects George Mason is involved in, generating evidence of learning from multiple institutions.

“The research team designed the activities, which we then make available to other professors to adapt to their own disciplines and provide us data on how effective the activities were in increasing ethical use of AI tools for the students,” said Bryan.

The team also considered different levels of activities to accommodate students who were inexperienced with AI versus those who had advanced skills. 

“We took the task on ourselves that we’re asking students to do because we actually used AI to revise the activities in the ethical, responsible way that we would want students to be able to do,” said Bryan, who is conducting this project with data from students in her ENGH 302 Advanced Composition course. 

“We asked students open-ended questions, including whether they think they’re over-reliant or under-reliant on generative AI tools. That feeds directly into the next activity, which is all about under-reliance, over-reliance, and the harm of being either. We want students to find a cushy middle,” she said. 

The team got their first round of data from students in spring 2025, which showed that just providing these discussion spaces has increased students’ ethical thinking about AI use in college by more than 60%, explained Bryan. 

“We went to the institutional review boards at all the different institutions to get permission to do the research,” said Breana Bayraktar, an educational developer with George Mason and one of the projects primary investigators.  

Students working on their laptops in class. Photo by Getty Images.

Bayraktar said thanks to the support of the SCHEV grant, they've been able to hire graduate research assistants and get undergraduates involved in organizing the collected data. 

“We support each of the institutional teams for their research objectives and collect data from students,” said Bayraktar. “There's a number of teams that have done presentations or have written projects that are either published or on the track to publication that have come out of the different research projects. With this data, we were able to make one coherent project with one survey.” 

Students in George Mason’s Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP), and OSCAR Research Assistant (OSCAR-RA) Program also helped in the research. 

“The students really gain professional experience and exposure to real-world research practices. It’s very much a mentoring role with the students,” Bayraktar said. 

There is an Open Educational Resources (OER) portion of the study, “so even after this study is complete, all of the research methods and activities we’re using are being compiled into OERs for future use under a creative commons license,” said Bryan.  

Under this SCHEV grant, George Mason is hosting three conferences on AI, the last of which will be in May 2026. The grant funding goes through summer 2026. 

Learn more about AI at George Mason

In This Story

Amanda Leigh Bryan

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SCHEV

Office of Student Scholarship Creative Activities and Research (OSCAR)

George Mason's College of Education and Human Development is advancing responsible AI in education

ckearney — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 20:39:13 +0000

George Mason's College of Education and Human Development is advancing responsible AI in education ckearney Wed, 01/28/2026 - 15:39

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to reshape education, 91��’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) is helping chart a path for schools to adapt AI responsibly, equitably, and effectively. Through the Educational Research Alliance of Northern Virginia (ERA.NOVA), a research and practice partnership that connects CEHD and other George Mason faculty with K–12 and state leaders, the college is convening some of the region’s most forward-thinking voices to define what readiness for AI in education truly means.

ERA.NOVA Fall Convening brought together state policymakers, division technology officers, superintendents, and faculty researchers to explore how AI is changing the K-12 landscape across Virginia. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

This year’s focus on AI in education within ERA.NOVA reflects the vision of CEHD Dean Ingrid Guerra-López and ERA.NOVA’s school superintendent partners. It positions the alliance as a catalyst for forward-looking, research-informed solutions for school districts across the region and will strengthen educational opportunity and readiness for the future.

That necessity of the shared vision was evident at the ERA.NOVA Fall Convening in late October, which brought together state policymakers, division technology officers, superintendents, and faculty researchers to explore how AI is changing the K-12 landscape across Virginia. Participants shared a common understanding: The question is no longer whether AI belongs in education, but how to implement it in ways that strengthen instruction, prepare students, and ensure safety.

Superintendent Dan Hornick of Orange County Public Schools described his district’s efforts to balance innovation with responsibility. “We cannot pretend the future does not exist,” he said. “If we do not teach students to use AI responsibly, we are not preparing them for the world they are entering.”

Hornick’s division created flexible guidelines and integrated conversations about AI into curriculum planning and professional learning communities. Success, he said, depends on taking time to address privacy, safety, and teacher preparation before expanding implementation.

At the state level, Calypso Gilstrap, executive director of the Virginia Department of Education’s Office of Innovation, outlined the commonwealth’s Guidelines for AI Integration Throughout Education (PDF), which emphasize age-appropriate use of AI, careful tool selection, family engagement, and collaborative policy development.

“AI readiness is no longer optional,” Gilstrap said. “There are 32,000 jobs in the United States right now with AI in the title. Our students need these skills today, not 10 years from now.”

By 2029, she added, the department expects AI to be part of problem-based learning across grade levels, beginning with early exposure in kindergarten.

Gilstrap stressed that AI should not be seen as a shortcut to learning. Students must learn to question AI-generated content, verify information, and maintain human connection as they use digital tools. “Well-trained teachers can use AI to enhance their work, not replace it,” she said.

From George Mason CEHD’s research perspective, Elizabeth Davis, postdoctoral fellow with EdPolicyForward, shared findings from the AI for Responsive Inclusive School Enhancement (ARISE) project. The project examines how school districts can use AI to identify and interpret research, such as to expand evidence-based interventions used to support school improvement planning.

Davis coauthored AI in K-12 Education: What School Divisions May Consider in Preparing for the Future and the companion PDF resource AI in K-12 Education: Preparing for the Future . Both publications were shared with convening participants and highlight emerging research on effective and ethical implementation.

“Efficiency must never come at the cost of human judgment,” Davis said.

Her team’s findings, focused on AI literacy, ethical design, and data governance, reflected many of the same priorities discussed by district leaders. She also noted that Northern Virginia’s position as the world’s largest data center hub gives the region an opportunity to lead in sustainable and ethical AI use.

District technology leaders Aaron Smith of Loudoun County Public Schools and Sharon Shewbridge of Stafford County Public Schools shared how their divisions are turning policy and research into local action. Smith emphasized the importance of protecting students and ensuring that the tools brought into classrooms are safe and developmentally appropriate. “Our focus has to be on protecting students and understanding what K–12 really needs from AI before we bring it into classrooms,” he said.

Audra Parker, director of George Mason’s Office of Teacher Preparation, underscored that preparing educators is essential to any successful AI strategy. “AI readiness is ultimately about people,” Parker said. “Teachers need structured opportunities to build confidence, deepen their understanding, and practice using these tools in ways that elevate the irreplaceable human work of teaching. When we invest in educator preparation, we ensure that AI supports learning rather than driving it.”

Participants agreed that responsible integration of AI requires more than access to new tools. It calls for a shared framework grounded in educator expertise, ethical design, and a commitment to equity. Several divisions are also involving students directly in AI policy discussions, forming advisory committees and encouraging young people to provide feedback on how these technologies are used in classrooms.

“Students are already using these tools,” Gilstrap noted. “The question is how we guide them to use it well.”

The convening also reflected CEHD’s growing role as a thought leader, particularly in defining how institutions can prepare students and educators for a future shaped by intelligent systems. Under Dean Guerra-López’s direction, ERA.NOVA is intentionally bridging scholarly expertise with the urgent, practical needs of school divisions navigating AI’s rapid evolution.

Guerra-López emphasized that this kind of collaboration reflects CEHD’s mission to bridge research, policy, and practice for the public good. “Artificial intelligence is accelerating the evolution of work and learning.” Guerra-López said. “We launched this year’s ERA.NOVA focus on AI because our partners told us they needed guidance grounded in both research and real-world practice. As we prepare future educators, we have both an opportunity and a responsibility to lead—to ensure AI strengthens human development, expands opportunity, and supports ethical, future-ready learning across our schools.”

The Fall Convening was the first in ERA.NOVA’s 2025–26 series on Artificial Intelligence in Education. Upcoming sessions will continue to explore readiness, capacity building, and ethical implementation across all levels of the education system.

Learn more about the Grand Challenge Initiative

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ACCESS Academy freshmen to become dual-enrolled college students this spring

Katarina Benson — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 17:52:45 +0000

ACCESS Academy freshmen to become dual-enrolled college students this spring Katarina Benson Mon, 11/03/2025 - 12:52

An open house at Fuse at Mason Square offered an exciting glimpse into the future for 91��’s Accelerated College and Employability Skills (ACCESS) Academy, complete with robotics demonstrations and hands-on technology experiences. Behind the buzz and energy was a deeper message: Through a collaborative partnership with Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), ACCESS Academy freshmen will take their first college course this spring, an opportunity rarely available to ninth-grade students.

The inaugural cohort will enroll in an asynchronous Information Technology course through NOVA Online, making them officially dual-enrolled college students while still in their first year of high school. It’s a bold step that underscores the program’s mission to accelerate learning and expand access to higher education.

To prepare students for this milestone, NOVA staff and a dedicated online student success coach will guide them through registration and orientation, helping them understand what it means to take a college-level course in an online, asynchronous format. Students will learn about managing study time, accessing digital course materials, and communicating effectively with college faculty. Webinars and virtual office hours will also provide opportunities to connect with NOVA staff and ask questions as they adjust to this new academic experience.

Through dual enrollment, ACCESS Academy students can meet their Virginia high school graduation requirements while earning college credit in courses taught by NOVA instructors. Over time, students will be able to take dual enrollment classes in English, social studies, math, and science, earning up to 13 college credits before graduation.

“This partnership represents the best of what dual enrollment can offer: early access, equity, and opportunity,” said Kristen Carter, associate director of dual enrollment at Northern Virginia Community College. “By working together, we are opening college doors to students much earlier, providing a strong framework of support, and instilling the confidence to see themselves as future college graduates.”

The benefits of dual enrollment are well documented. Research shows that high school students who earn college credit before graduation are more likely to persist in college, earn higher GPAs, and complete degrees at higher rates. They also report greater confidence and a stronger understanding of what it takes to succeed in college.

“To be eligible to take a college-level Python programming course as ninth graders, students must maintain at least a 3.25 GPA. This standard reflects both their readiness and the rigor of this experience,” said Ingrid Guerra-López, dean of George Mason’s College of Education and Human Development. “At the same time, ACCESS Academy is deeply committed to creating the conditions for every student to thrive. Our mission is to open doors to opportunities like this for all learners, preparing them to be future-ready across college, career, and life."

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Lab School

K-12 Partnerships