AI Adoption and Integration in Higher Education: Learning Design and Research

Catalog description

AI Adoption and Integration in Higher Education: Learning Design and Research explores how artificial intelligence is transforming teaching, learning, research, and policy in higher education. This course frames and explicates the knowledge, mindsets, and strategies needed to approach AI thoughtfully, ethically, and strategically, advance institutional missions, and maximize engagement and learning outcomes. Students examine the pedagogical, organizational, and ethical dimensions of AI and develop frameworks for human-centered and data-informed adoption and integration. Central to the course is understanding faculty and leader perspectives on AI—how to recognize and engage invisible logics and fears, resistance, and inequities while building trust and capability for adaptive AI learning and adoption. Using case studies, collaborative design, and applied research, participants craft actionable strategies that foster faculty and staff learning, organizational agility, and continuous learning for a diffusion of innovations. Grounded in adaptive leadership theory, organizational learning, and systemic sense-making theories and principles, the course prepares students to guide higher education institutions through complex technological change with integrity, empathy, and creativity—positioning AI as a catalyst for learning transformation and bridging the digital use divide.