AI in Education Podcast

Higher Marks, Lower Learning? AI's Favourite Magic Trick
This week, Ray and Dan unpack a bumper collection of AI in education news and research, all pointing to one critical question: Is AI helping students learn…or just helping them score higher?
The episode begins with a striking case from Brown University, where a take-home exam averaged 96%, only for the same cohort to average 48% in a supervised final. From there, Ray and Dan explore what the latest research says about AI-assisted assessment, automated marking, AI tutors, critical thinking, and the growing importance of student agency.
They also discuss:
New evidence on AI marking compared with human examiners
Research showing how guided AI tutoring can improve maths learning
Why critical thinking is the biggest predictor of successful AI use
The risks of "never-skilling" when students rely too heavily on AI
AI detectors: what they can (and can't) reliably tell us
New Australian data on AI's impact on employment
The latest Digital Education Council survey of university students
Online safety and the growing challenge of AI-assisted image abuse
As always, the episode is packed with practical insights, research summaries, and plenty of discussion about what all this means for educators, schools and universities.
Links - News
Voice got an upgrade
https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-live/
Inside Higher Ed article: Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI to Cheat
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/learning-assessment/2026/07/08/brown-professor-suspects-most-his-class-used-ai-cheat
Digital Education Council AI in Higher Education Global Survey
https://www.digitaleducationcouncil.com/resource-library-items/ai-in-higher-education-global-survey-2026
One in 25 teens affected by AI-assisted online abuse, study finds. Read Lee Barrett's opinion: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lee-barrett-a7624923b_boys-major-victims-of-ai-assisted-online-share-7480417534723244033-OjWU/
AI and employment in Australia - report from Department of Education and Workplace Relations
https://www.dewr.gov.au/download/17666/ai-and-employment-australia/43205/ai-and-employment-australia/pdf
 
Links - Research
AI in University Assessment: Evaluating the Opportunities and Risks of Automated Marking
https://www.emotional-cognition.psychol.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/OpRaise%20Report_DIGITAL.pdf
LLM Performance on a Real, Double-Marked GCSE Benchmark
https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.24973
Teaching with Gemini: Measuring the impact of Guided Learning on student mathematics progress in Sierra Leone
https://deepmind.google/blog/measuring-the-impact-of-learning-with-ai-in-sierra-leone-and-beyond/
https://storage.googleapis.com/deepmind-media/LearnLM/learnLM_sierraleone_may26.pdf
Access is Not Enough: Human Support Improves Engagement with AI Tutoring
https://nssa.stanford.edu/studies/access-not-enough-human-support-improves-engagement-ai-tutoring
The Generative AI Learning Penalty: Evidence from Chinese Secondary Education
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6868618
The agency gap: perceived human AI agency, reflection and generative AI learning across UK and China based higher education contexts
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2026.2686986
How Do Autonomy, Critical Thinking, and Artificial Intelligence Value Perception Affect University Student Self-regulated Learning?
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11528-026-01203-3
The cognitive impact of ChatGPT in higher education: A systematic review of critical and creative thinking outcomes
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666920X26000330
AI-induced never-skilling in medical education
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-026-04438-y (Paywalled)
Who wrote this? Evaluating the reliability of AI detection tools in higher education
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40979-026-00226-w 
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Most Australian students won't graduate into global tech companies. They'll build careers in small and medium businesses. So are schools and universities preparing them for that reality?
In this episode, Dan and Ray are joined by Amanda Rose - Co-founder and Director of Women in AI Australia and Founder & CEO of Entrepreneurial & Small Business Women Australia (ESBWA) -to explore what education can learn from the businesses driving Australia's economy.
Amanda shares practical advice on introducing AI without losing critical thinking, why educators should partner with local businesses to bring authentic problem-solving into the classroom, and how simple AI policies can help schools and organisations move from uncertainty to action. The conversation also tackles AI equity, bias in AI systems, and why students need to develop their own voice and judgement before relying on AI tools.
If you're a teacher, school leader, university educator or anyone interested in preparing learners for an AI-enabled workforce, this episode offers practical strategies you can put into practice straight away.
Find out more about:
Women in AI Australia

Entrepreneurial & Small Business Women Australia (ESBWA)

This week, Ray and Dan dive into a mountain of new AI in education research, so you don't have to.
They unpack major reports from around the world covering how students are really using AI, why schools are still struggling to provide clear guidance, and what the latest AI literacy and education readiness frameworks mean for teachers and leaders.
Along the way they discuss Norway's AI restrictions in primary schools, student concerns about AI data centres, new guidance on AI in assessment, and the growing importance of the human skills that AI can't replace.
If you're trying to make sense of where AI in education is heading, this episode brings together the latest evidence, trends and practical insights in one conversation. And hopefully you won't have to read all the reports below, but our conversation has given you a head start to find the right one(s) for you!
Power Toys (to turn your Copilot button into a shortcut for any AI)
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/keyboard-manager 
EU: Norway imposes near ban on AI in elementary schools
https://www.reuters.com/technology/norway-imposes-near-ban-ai-elementary-school-2026-06-19/ 
Australia: Sunshine Coast students push back as Australia positions itself as a global AI leader
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-23/students-protest-ai-amid-growing-national-concerns/106808776 
UK: Navigating AI in Education - Pupils' perspectives on the role of AI in the classroom
https://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/oxed/research-reports/Navigating_AI_in_Education_Research_Report_June2026_v05.pdf 
US: Common Sense Media Census: AI use by Teens and Tweens
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/a-comprehensive-report-on-teens-tweens-and-ai 
Australia: Learning First School Research
https://learningfirst.com/s/Learning-First_AI-use-in-schools-Taking-action-now_FINAL.pdf 
Global: AI Literacy Framework from OECD & EC
https://ailiteracyframework.org/ 
Global: New WEF report: Shaping the Future of Learning: Education Readiness for the Age of AI
https://www.weforum.org/publications/shaping-the-future-of-learning-education-readiness-for-the-age-of-ai/ 
Australia: AI in Higher Education Research in Australia
https://aiinhe.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026-hedx-conference-260617_0114.pdf 
US: Lumina Foundation/Gallup - "AI in Higher Education: Widespread Use, Unclear Rules"
https://www.luminafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Lumina-Foundation-Gallup-SOHE_AI_Report.pdf 
Australia: TEQSA's new guidance on detecting AI use in student assessments
https://www.teqsa.gov.au/guides-resources/protecting-academic-integrity/academic-integrity-toolkit/risks-academic-integrity-ai/detecting-plagiarism-ai-generated-text-student-assessments-and-securing-take-home-written-assessments 
Global: Preparing students for the future of work from Microsoft 
https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-preparing-students-for-the-future-of-work.html
Global: QS World Future Skills Index
https://www.qs.com/world-future-skills-index/2027

AI systems are increasingly being used in education, but what happens when those systems introduce hidden bias into learning, feedback, assessment and career advice?
In this episode, we're joined by Victoria Hedlund (AKA The AI Bias Girl), founder of GenEd Labs, former physics teacher, consultant and researcher specialising in AI bias in education.
Victoria shares practical examples of how AI tools can produce different outputs based on gender, names, backgrounds and other personal characteristics. From explanations of how a light bulb works to career guidance and assessment, we explore how seemingly small biases can compound over time and influence attainment, wellbeing and opportunity.
The conversation covers AI tutors, safeguarding concerns, assessment risks, the importance of keeping humans in the loop, and why educators need to adopt a more experimental mindset when working with generative AI.
This is a thought-provoking discussion about fairness, agency and what every teacher needs to know as AI becomes increasingly embedded in education.
For more background, here's two bits of Victoria's writing:
Deep dive on using AI for marking
https://victoriahedlund.substack.com/p/bias-bytes-special-edition-evidence 
Deep dive on Squishmallow Top Trumps
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/victoriamhedlund_biasgirl-biasaware-chatgpt-ugcPost-7452959849623220225-bIWG 
And finally, free downloads from Victoria, including 8 bias-mitigating prompts for teachers, and a growing set of other resources on AI bias in education.
https://genedlabs.ai/downloads

What happens when AI helps students earn more A grades, and also contributes to more failures when it's taken away?
In this episode, Ray and Dan explore new research on AI's impact on student performance, assessment integrity, and learning. They discuss studies linking AI to rising grades, the risks of over-reliance on AI, and growing evidence that AI tutors may support learning better than general-purpose chatbots.
The conversation also covers AI detectors, AI humanisers, teacher workload, Microsoft's latest Copilot updates, and a new tool for measuring the environmental footprint of AI use.
AI in Education Research Papers
Artificial Intelligence and Grade Inflation
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/80x8d3qd 
ps WSJ wrote an article on this https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/a-grades-are-suddenly-everywhere-since-the-arrival-of-chatgpt-845baae7 
Failing grades soar as professors see greater AI usage, dwindling math skills in UC Berkeley computer science classes
https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/academics/failing-grades-soar-as-professors-see-greater-ai-usage-dwindling-math-skills-in-uc-berkeley/article_16fad0bf-02cb-4b8c-8d88-888ffd9f8608.html


Building AI Companions that Prioritise Learning over Performance
https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.04816


Effective Personalized AI Tutors via LLM-Guided Reinforcement Learning
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6423358


Law Professors prefer AI over peer answers
https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/salinas_et_al.pdf


Fixing teachers' problems? exploring teachers' repair and maintenance work around generative AI technologies
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01596306.2026.2657793\


Dramaturgies of Deception: AI Humanizers and the Performance of Legitimacy in Higher Education Assessment
https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.02649


Homogenizing effect of large language models (LLMs) on creative diversity: An empirical comparison of human and ChatGPT writing
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S294988212500091X 
AI Detectors Fail Diverse Student Populations: A Mathematical Framing of Structural Detection Limits
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.20254
 
AI News 
Copilot Cowork released
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/06/16/copilot-cowork-is-now-generally-available/ 


Copilot notebooks released for all free copilot chat basic accounts
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/educationblog/copilot-notebooks-and-study-guide-now-available-to-copilot-chat-users/4527320


Andy Masley's Carbon footprint calculator|
https://www.andymasley.com/visuals/ai-prompt-footprint/ 

Mazenod College: Year 12 students caught using AI to cheat
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-09/year-12-students-in-melbourne-caught-cheating-using-ai/106777700