Learning in the Age of GenAI: Practice, Policy, and Pedagogy

Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to research labs or technical infrastructure—it is embedded in classrooms, creative practice, healthcare systems, communication platforms, and planetary-scale infrastructures. As AI systems move from experimental tools to everyday companions, decision-makers, and mediators of social life, the question is no longer whether AI will shape our future, but how—and by whom.

At the Design Lab, we approach AI not simply as an algorithmic achievement, but as a fundamentally human-centered design challenge. Intelligent systems must be technically robust, yet responsive to lived experience; powerful at scale, yet grounded in context; innovative, yet attentive to equity and responsibility. Across seven sessions, Design@Large in Spring 2026 brings together leading voices from research, industry, education, law, health, and the arts to explore how AI is designed, deployed, governed, and experienced in real-world settings. From generative AI in education and music to embodied intelligence in XR, from disability justice and communication to sustainable computing and Indigenous data sovereignty, and from personal AI companions to value-based care in health systems, the series examines AI where it meets people, institutions, and infrastructures.

Rather than treating AI as a purely technical system, we frame it as a site of negotiation among human values, institutional incentives, cultural norms, and material conditions. Each session pairs scholars, practitioners, and industry leaders to interrogate how design decisions shape agency, creativity, trust, access, and care at scale.

Design@Large is open to the broader public and livestreamed online, while also serving as a core seminar for over 100 undergraduate and graduate students at UC San Diego. Together, we ask: What does it mean to design AI responsibly? How do we ensure that intelligent systems amplify human capability without reproducing harm? And how can design guide AI toward more just, inclusive, and sustainable futures?

Generative AI is reshaping how knowledge is produced, taught, assessed, and governed across educational contexts—from K–12 classrooms to university computer science labs. This session examines how AI tools are being integrated into pedagogy, how misuse and cognitive offloading are understood and managed, and how institutions are defining new norms and policies around learning. Rather than asking whether AI belongs in education, the discussion focuses on how educators, researchers, and school leaders are actively shaping its role in practice.

Stephen MacNeil is an Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Sciences at Temple University, where he directs the Temple HCI lab. His research focuses on designing and studying human-AI systems in collaboration with the people who use them to understand how AI can improve outcomes while sometimes producing unintended or harmful consequences.

In his research on computing education, undergraduate students collaboratively design, build, and study AI-powered education technology for their own classrooms. This participatory approach has resulted in more than 75 undergraduate researchers coauthoring a paper or a poster.

Dr. MacNeil extends this participatory approach to assistive technology, co-designing augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems with people with communication limitations while adapting design methods to ensure that users' voices shape the tools on which they rely. Dr. MacNeil currently serves as a Principal Investigator at Temple University for the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC), advancing accessibility for those with communication limitations.

Leo Porter is a Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at UC San Diego. He is best known for his research on the impact of Peer Instruction in computing courses, the development of the Basic Data Structures Concept Inventory, and integrating GenAI into the CS curriculum. He co-wrote the first book on integrating LLMs into the instruction of programming with Daniel Zingaro. He has received seven Best Paper Awards, an ICER Lasting Impact Award, the SIGCSE 50th Anniversary Top Ten Symposium Papers of All Time Award, and the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award at UC San Diego. He co-Directs the GenAI in CS Education Consortium, aimed at helping faculty and institutions integrate GenAI into the CS Curriculum.

Sydney Sullivan is a full-time lecturer at San Diego State University and holds a PhD in Education from the University of California, Davis, where her research focused on education and digital rhetoric with an emphasis on well-being. Alongside her teaching, she continues to develop administrative and curricular design expertise to support writing programs that integrate digital rhetoric with student well-being. She is also the author of a forthcoming book with Palgrave MacMillian that examines the intersection of critical media literacy and student well-being in higher education.

At San Diego State University, Dr. Sullivan works closely with students to strengthen their critical digital literacy skills. While the rise of social media, digital news, and emerging technologies has led some educators to perceive students as distracted or disengaged, she views these cultural shifts as an opportunity. She argues that digital rhetoric should be central to contemporary curricula. By analyzing how platforms, algorithms, and media environments shape arguments, students become more informed and empowered participants in public life. Dr. Sullivan believes that pairing this work with well-being is essential, as meaningful civic engagement requires self-awareness, emotional regulation, and resilience.

Rafael Eaton is the Director of Libraries at La Jolla Country Day School, a PreK-12 independent school in San Diego, and the Co-director of Forward Libraries, a 501(c)3 dedicated to practical professional growth for information workers.

Dedicated to the "ground truth" of student development, Rafael’s current work centers on the transition from traditional information literacy to Epistemic Agency—equipping students with the cognitive architecture required to navigate a world of synthetic media. By reimagining the school library as a laboratory, he works with a team of educators in designing media and data literacy principles that bridge the gap between foundational K-12 skill-building and the complex demands of continuing education. His focus remains on ensuring that AI becomes a partner in inquiry rather than a bypass for critical thought. He is currently between sourdoughs.

https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/94527659032?pwd=MHIO8tMJWL5tMS9jx6ZtWbd27Tm0GQ.1

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