HGSE AI Center
How might an education school respond to the AI era?
AI is quickly reshaping the education landscape, both as a tool used in learning as well as by changing the requirements of what should be taught. In this nascent stage, AI adoption in education has largely been steered by big tech, leaving a growing need for guardrails that ensure innovations serve learners as the bottom line.
The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) has been a leading figure in learning science research, but like many other higher education institutions, it is only beginning to understand its role in the AI movement. Working on a team assembled by the AI in Education Associate Lead, we have been developing both a short and long term strategy for how HGSE should adapt to meet this moment.
Working in a UX/engineering role, I was tasked with planning and developing digital infrastructure for a new proposed AI center at HGSE. Through interviews with students, faculty, and staff, I centered the following questions:
How can HGSE learn and experiment collectively to stay on the cutting edge with AI innovations?
How can HGSE share relevant knowledge built on long-standing expertise in learning science that advocates for the rights of the learner?
These two questions led to a distinction between the internal and external facing sides of the proposed center:
Case Study:
AI Commons: a platform for collective learning and innovation on AI
Through conversations with faculty and staff, I collected perspectives around the current barriers to effective knowledge sharing and collaboration at HGSE, particularly around the quickly moving target of AI literacy. I then synthesized these perspectives into two primary problems:
While valuable AI work is being created at HGSE by faculty and students, it is rarely shared with the community, resulting in a lack of collaboration.
Existing learning resources around AI are siloed, resulting in a lack of production of collective knowledge.
What does AI Commons add?
The AI Commons is designed to be a collaboration site and learning library dedicated to AI-related ideas. It is designed to:
Be a living repository of AI work that grows through member engagement.
Engage alumni in the collaboration and learning, providing proximity to industry partnerships and donation streams.
The following pages make up the bulk of the engagement avenues for HGSE community members:
Forums
A digital system for collaboration and dialogue.
View live demo →Library
A repository of resources and knowledge collected across the HGSE community.
View live demo →Projects
Visibility to ongoing research and projects.
View live demo →Alumni
Opportunities for alumni involvement, bringing industry connections and donation paths closer.
View live demo →Please reach out if you would like to hear more about this ongoing work. If you would like a window into the UI design process, check out this prototyping page.