Future of education in the age of AI: Anthea Roberts at the Harvard Askwith Education Forum

RegNet Professor and Dragonfly Thinking CEO Anthea Roberts came together with Professor Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education, for an exploratory dialogue on Thinking in an AI-Augmented World at Harvard Graduate School of Education's Askwith Forum. They discussed how AI is reshaping the field of education, in the way we learn, teach and lead.

Professor Roberts, who is also a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, shared how she uses AI in her work and how views on cognition and education have shifted amid the rise of generative AI and large language models (LLM). Some of the key topics discussed include:

• From memorisation to meta‑learning: teaching how disciplines work and how to ask better questions
• The benefits of multi‑lens analysis to synthesise diverse perspectives
• Evolving human roles with AI: from actor to director, writer to editor, and player to coach
• Critical use vs critical non‑use of AI in classrooms and knowledge work
• Respect and ethics as core outcomes alongside cognitive skills
• Equity, culture, and bias: broadening perspectives beyond Western defaults
• Environmental considerations and the energy footprint of AI at scale
• Polarisation vs “regression to the mean”: social media dynamics vs LLM tendencies

Read more about the forum in The Harvard Gazette and The Harvard Crimson, and watch the full discussion here.