Center for Curriculum Redesign | Education for the Age of AI

Do Smart Technologies Make Humans Dumber?

CCR — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:23:19 +0000

In Technologies Smarter, Humans “Dumber”?, the Center for Curriculum Redesign’s (CCR) Senior Distinguished Research Fellow Dirk Van Damme, with contributions from Charles Fadel, CCR’s Founder & Chairman, examines how successive technological innovations—from writing and printing to digital media, smartphones, and artificial intelligence—have altered human cognitive capabilities and the conditions for learning. Technological progress consistently produces both cognitive gains and losses: while technologies expand abstraction, efficiency, and access to knowledge, they simultaneously weaken embodied, contextual, and internally sustained capacities. Recommendations for changes in education foci are thus provided.

CCR is a global non-profit organization dedicated to improving education and openly propagating its recommendations, frameworks, curricula, courseware, and professional development on a worldwide basis, via answering the question, “Why, What and How should students learn for the age of AI?” CCR’s focus on relevance in education brings together international organizations, jurisdictions, academic institutions, corporations, and non-profit organizations. For more information, please contact us.

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What Would A Modern Bachelor’s Degree Look Like?

CCR — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 19:40:37 +0000

A Modern Bachelor’s Degree for the Age of AI: Structure and Curriculum proposes a fundamental redesign of the 4-year U.S. Bachelor’s degree curriculum to prepare students for an AI-dominated future. It advocates for a shift from mostly declarative and procedural knowledge toward deeper conceptual and epistemic understanding that enables robust interaction with AI systems. The proposed structure and curriculum emphasize “Expertise AND Transfer” – developing broad AND deep disciplinary knowledge while ensuring practical applicability across real-world settings. Students would focus on becoming “job-ready” by jumping above the initial career rungs that AI is eliminating, supported by explicit instruction in competencies (Skills, Character, and Meta-Learning) alongside disciplinary expertise, through AI-assisted “depthification” of learning experiences, and multiple internships with prospective employers.

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Taking a Cohesive Look at Executive Functions

CCR — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 18:19:41 +0000

Research on executive functions has exploded and finds its way into translations in teacher training handbooks and professional development. However, the field is full of ill-defined concepts and insufficient analytical precision.

Our paper, Executive Functions: Conceptual Framework and Relevance for Education, synthesizes existing research and provides guidance to educators on the most suitable frameworks.

We find that attention plays a crucial role in learning, so the design of learning environments should minimize the impact of distractions. The design of teaching and learning should focus on the management of the working memory and on shaping the conditions for effective consolidation into the long-term memory. Finally, the nascent impact of AI on attention regulation is briefly discussed.

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How Do We Prepare Learners for an Age of AI?

CCR — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 22:01:06 +0000

Edly Spotlight: Rethinking Curriculum for the Age of AI

The Center for Curriculum Redesign’s (CCR) founder, Charles Fadel, joined Régis Behmo, VP of Engineering at Edly on the Edly Academy Podcast episode, “Rethinking Curriculum for the Age of AI with Charles Fadel.” In this insightful conversation, they discuss the role of AI in education, the necessity of updating curricula to meet the needs of students in the age of AI – including the addition of essential skills and competencies, lifelong learning, and redefining university entrance exams. They conclude with a vision for collaborative education, exploring the essential shifts needed to prepare learners for a world driven by artificial intelligence.

Edly Academy is a hub for in-depth exploration at the crossroads of education, technology, and curriculum innovation. There, the creators of Tutor, share hands-on insights, expert conversations, and visionary takes on the future of EdTech.

CCR is a global non-profit organization dedicated to improving education and openly propagating its recommendations, frameworks, curricula, courseware, and professional development on a worldwide basis, via answering the question, “Why, What and How should students learn for the age of AI?” CCR’s focus on relevance in education brings together international organizations, jurisdictions, academic institutions, corporations, and non-profit organizations. For more information, please contact us.

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Can AI Chatbots Be Used in Personality Assessment Research?

CCR — Tue, 20 May 2025 05:22:12 +0000

Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrate strong potential in supporting exploratory tasks in educational and psychological research. While they have not yet proved reliable enough for formal assessments, LLM-based analysis offers a cost-effective and accessible way to surface early insights, generate hypotheses, and evaluate patterns during early-stage studies.

Our Research

Our paper, “Evaluating AI Chatbots for Personality Assessment and Competency Visualization: Opportunities and Limitations,” evaluates the feasibility of using advanced AI chatbots for competency visualization and personality mapping tasks. Specifically, we asked multiple advanced LLMs to map 21 teacher-generated “synthetic” student personas to HEXACO personality traits and to rank the traits for each profile.

Our findings indicate that:

Teachers were the primary source of inaccuracy, as they unwittingly overweighed the synthetic students’ profiles from the norms.
AI models exhibit significant output drift when performing repeated assessment tasks, such as mapping student personas to personality traits. Additionally, although AI-generated visualizations were generally clear and informative, we frequently observed errors in precise statistical calculations, including miscalculations of mean and median values.

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How Does Agency Shape Education? – Getting Smart Interview

CCR — Sat, 10 May 2025 00:59:26 +0000

The Center for Curriculum Redesign’s (CCR) founder, Charles Fadel, sat down with Getting Smart’s Mason Pashia and Tom Vander Ark to discuss how agency shapes education.

Agency

Agency, a combination of curation and purpose, is a driver throughout CCR’s Four-Dimensional (4D) Framework. In the age of AI, the curation of taste—how you spend your attention and what you trust—is more important than ever. At the same time, people who are emboldened and empowered by purpose will thrive in an age of smart tools.

Topics

Charles, Mason, and Tom, discussed AI in general, and agency specifically, through the following topics:

The Evolution of AI and Its Surprises
Debating Agency vs. Intelligence
The New Mission of Schools
The Role of Knowledge and Competencies
Challenges and Opportunities for Teachers
Cognitive Offload and Meta Learning
Building Adaptability and Self-Directed Learning

Conclusion

The world is changing rapidly and schools need to adapt by focusing on agency, purpose, and adaptability, to prepare students for this world. Understanding the evolving role of AI in education can better support student’s learning journeys and future readiness.

Getting Smart shapes the future of learning by designing, accelerating and amplifying innovations that help learners thrive in a complex world. As a catalyst for transformative change, they connect leaders across sectors to break down barriers and create bold, student-centered solutions. With decades of experience working with K-12, post-secondary and lifelong learning organizations, they lead the conversation and co-create the future of education through strategic design, advocacy and storytelling.

CCR is a global non-profit organization dedicated to improving education and openly propagating its recommendations, frameworks, curricula, courseware, and professional development on a worldwide basis, via answering the question, “Why, What and How should students learn for the age of AI?” CCR’s focus on relevance in education brings together international organizations, jurisdictions, academic institutions, corporations, and non-profit organizations. For more information, please contact us.

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Navigating the Future of Education in an AI-Inspired World – Fadel on MindShareTV Podcast

CCR — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 18:57:25 +0000

The Center for Curriculum Redesign’s (CCR) founder, Charles Fadel, joined Robert Martellacci on the Mindshare Learning Podcast episode, “Navigating the Future of Education in an AI-Inspired World.” They discuss his book, Education for the Age of AI, which Martellacci says, “offers a powerful roadmap for reimagining learning in an AI-driven world.”

The mission of Mindshare Learning Podcast is to transform education by sharing knowledge of 21st Century innovative best practices and success stories in the Canadian education market space and beyond. We harness the power of Web 2.0 technologies to feature engaging Vodcasts, podcasts, polling, Canadian educational technology news headlines & upcoming strategic industry events in the K-12, Higher Ed and corporate eLearning market segments. Other elements of the MSL Report eMagazine include: successful practices, ask an educator, ask a professor, research & tech tools, GreenIT and career listings, to support educators, etc.

MindShare Learning Technology is at the forefront of educational innovation, driving impactful change in Canada and beyond. As a leader in EdTech consulting and media, we empower educators from kindergarten to post-secondary (K-20) with cutting-edge technological solutions, backed by over 25 years of expertise in digital media and marketing strategy. Our initiatives create transformative learning experiences, equipping students and teachers alike with the tools to adapt and excel in an increasingly digital world. MindShare Learning is proud to publish the influential MindShare EdTech Reports and to have founded the Canadian EdTech Leadership Summits and the prestigious Canadian EdTech Awards. Join us in shaping the future of education—driving innovation, enhancing learning outcomes, and redefining the way we teach and learn.

CCR is a global non-profit organization dedicated to improving education and openly propagating its recommendations, frameworks, curricula, courseware, and professional development on a worldwide basis, via answering the question, “Why, What and How should students learn for the age of AI?” CCR’s focus on relevance in education brings together international organizations, jurisdictions, academic institutions, corporations, and non-profit organizations. For more information, please contact us.

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Beyond Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs): Validity AND Relevance

CCR — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 14:00:04 +0000

The advantages and disadvantages of RCTs are well-known: they trade validity for reproducibility. In “The Power of Proofs: (Much) Beyond RCTs,” CCR proposes a broader view of what constitutes useful research in education and beyond, at different levels of validity, while incorporating relevance:

Instead of ranking research methods in a rigid hierarchy, CCR’s paper advocates for a pluralist approach—one that values both the power of scientific proof and practical relevance. By integrating diverse types of evidence, including qualitative insights and real-world applications, we can develop a more comprehensive understanding of what works in education.

At present the integration of all these approaches represents a challenge. However, it is possible that AI can be used in the future to harvest information from the different data sources, while assigning human-devised validity weights to them.

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How Do We Overcome Inertia in Education Reform?

CCR — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 14:00:00 +0000

Like a massive supertanker, the education system is powerful, but requires a correspondingly large amount of force to change its direction. One of the main obstacles in changing the goals, standards, and curricula of education is historical inertia— established structures persist because the elements within them continue to reinforce their existence.

The Challenge of Changing an Established System

It is difficult to effectively insert new subjects, skills and character education into an already established system. Even incremental innovation becomes nearly impossible in a set and content-crowded curriculum. In most cases, new goals and content additions are simply layered on top, where they get ignored. With the pressure of preparing for standardized tests, few educators are able to consistently provide the time needed to effectively integrate new learning goals into the curriculum.

Understanding the Forces Behind Inertia

In “Overcoming System Inertia in Education Reform,” the Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) examines the various motivational and cognitive mechanisms that contribute to education’s resistance to change. These include:

Dated university entrance requirements (from SAT/GPA to Abitur to Gaokao to Baccalaureat to A-Levels to Bachillerato to…). In 2019, since then interrupted by Covid, CCR organized the first International Symposium on Employability and the Learner Profile (ISELP) with OECD participation, starting a global discussion on the topic which will resume in 2025.
Instability of (democratic) politics, as parties flip-flop on preceding decisions, as a matter of (sad) principle of opposition for opposition’s sake.
Difficulty for experts to achieve consensus, as academia considers that any disagreement must be taken into account, unlike the majority-decision mindset of the corporate world.

The US’s extra complexity

While most education systems around the world are controlled top-down, directed by a central authority or ministry, the U.S. system is highly decentralized. Its last top-down graduation requirements decision was made by the Committee of Ten in 1894. This makes it particularly difficult to modify, as it is locked in by the College Board’s SAT tests. Watch this space…

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How do we help students learn contemporary contexts?

CCR — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 15:00:32 +0000

Modern contexts, such as environmental literacy and computational thinking, represent common strands of learning. Running these strands through most educational disciplines is important, as they matter to many jurisdictions and cultures. Because these themes are persistent in our lives, using them provides thematically relevant contexts. Relevant contexts help students develop deeper and broader understandings.

In “Interdisciplinary Themes: Embedding Contemporary Contexts within Content,” the Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) lays out how these diverse interdisciplinary themes (content areas, and forms of literacy) make learning relevant, real-world-oriented, motivating, and purpose-and-action-driven. Because these themes are important for humanity, they should be embedded in the disciplines as priority items. This will help students develop broader, deeper understandings, and a better sense of purpose.

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