Individual access
Paid Substack subscription
For educators and leaders who want selected article-companion Studios. Paid subscriber Practice Studios open through their Substack posts with no separate Inspire Higher Ed charge.
Subscribe on SubstackTwo ways to practice
Choose access for yourself or a learning experience for your institution
Institutional access
Human+AI Practice Pathways
For institutions that want a facilitator-ready, six-session continuing-learning experience with named participants, completion tracking, stackable credentials, shared discussion, and a culminating implementation artifact.
Explore available pathwaysIndividual entry points
Practice before you bring a pathway to campus
Start with the free introductory Studio as a standalone experience or before any pathway, then receive a personalized recommendation for what to practice next.
Thinking With AI
Start free, then practice deliberate dialogue, challenge, verification, and reflection.
From Prompting to Partnership
Build an accurate generative-AI mental model, test a real task, and create a repeatable Human+AI practice without surrendering human judgment.
Free universal foundation · Also available as a standalone Practice Studio
Optional before Thinking With AI · Not one of the six required Studios
Open free StudioFrom Panic to Perspective
Read alarming AI-and-learning claims in proportion and plan an evidence-based response.
Companion to “The Great AI Learning Panic: What Socrates Would Say About ChatGPT”
Pathway: Thinking With AI
Open free StudioThe Cognitive Microscope
Use AI dialogue to make reasoning visible without surrendering human judgment.
Companion to “The AI Microscope: How AI Can Enhance Critical Thinking and Creativity in Education”
Pathway: Thinking With AI
Open on SubstackBuilding AI Competency Through Practice
Six Studios that move from desired outcomes to disciplinary discernment.
From Prompting to Partnership
Build an accurate generative-AI mental model, test a real task, and create a repeatable Human+AI practice without surrendering human judgment.
Free universal foundation · Also available as a standalone Practice Studio
Optional before Building AI Competency Through Practice · Not one of the six required Studios
Open free StudioWhat Students Want Is Not What We Are Offering
Distinguish tool training from durable disciplinary competency and define the outcome one course should build.
Companion to “What Students Want Is Not What We Are Offering”
Pathway: Building AI Competency Through Practice · Session 1
Open on SubstackThe Ladder Students Can See
Locate where a course stops on the literacy-to-competency-to-expertise ladder and design the next rung.
Companion to “The Ladder Students Can See: How AI Literacy, Competency, and Expertise Look From the Inside”
Pathway: Building AI Competency Through Practice · Session 2
Open on SubstackThe Practice Gap
Replace one-shot performance with repeated low-stakes practice, feedback, revision, and transfer.
Companion to “The Practice Gap: How AI Is Giving Students the Repetitions They've Always Needed”
Pathway: Building AI Competency Through Practice · Session 3
Open on SubstackThe Guide That Fades
Build support that helps learners begin and deliberately fades as capability and independence grow.
Companion to “The Guide That Fades: What One Student's Mathematica Project Reveals About Learning With AI”
Pathway: Building AI Competency Through Practice · Session 4
Open on SubstackA Foot in the Door, for Everyone
Widen who receives consequential practice, professional feedback, and equitable routes into participation.
Companion to “A Foot in the Door, for Everyone”
Pathway: Building AI Competency Through Practice · Session 5 · Also AI, Access, and Educational Opportunity
Open on SubstackJudgment and Discernment
Define observable evidence that learners can perform, explain, verify, and adapt rather than merely produce fluent output.
Companion to “Judgment and Discernment Are Doing Different Work”
Pathway: Building AI Competency Through Practice · Session 6
Open on SubstackDesigning With the 5E Competency Framework
Develop Expertise, Experimentation, Engagement, Evaluation, and Ethics, then integrate the five across faculty readiness, assessment, and program design.
From Prompting to Partnership
Build an accurate generative-AI mental model, test a real task, and create a repeatable Human+AI practice without surrendering human judgment.
Free universal foundation · Also available as a standalone Practice Studio
Optional before Designing With the 5E Competency Framework · Not one of the six required Studios
Open free StudioFrom Fluent Output to Grounded Judgment
Build the judgment floor students need to question, verify, and use fluent AI output responsibly.
Companion to “The Rung You Cannot Skip: Why the Knowledge Comes Before the Tool, Not After”
Pathway: Designing With the 5E Competency Framework · Expertise
Open on SubstackRoom to Run It Again
Redesign one learning activity so a first response becomes a purposeful attempt-feedback-revision cycle.
Companion to “Room to Run It Again: Why the Scaffold That Works Is a Stance, Not a Procedure”
Pathway: Designing With the 5E Competency Framework · Experimentation
Open on SubstackThe Stakeholder Route Map
Turn one simulated activity into a bounded route to real stakeholders, live constraints, reciprocal value, and equitable access.
Companion to “Someone on the Other End: Why Real Stakeholders Change What Students Learn”
Pathway: Designing With the 5E Competency Framework · Engagement · Also a Session 5 alternative in Building AI Competency Through Practice
Open on SubstackEvery Output Is a First Draft
Verify evidence, question the frame, and design a forcing function that makes student evaluation visible.
Companion to “Every Output Is a First Draft: Teaching Students to Interrogate What AI Hands Them”
Pathway: Designing With the 5E Competency Framework · Evaluation
Open on SubstackEthics Is Not a Module
Thread ethical discernment into ordinary technical decisions, make reasoning visible, and turn recognition into an advocacy move.
Companion to “Ethics Is Not a Module: Why the Fifth Competency Runs Through the Other Four”
Pathway: Designing With the 5E Competency Framework · Ethics
Open on SubstackThe Two Ceilings
Map one competency across a program, connect faculty readiness to assessment design, and turn the gaps into an implementation decision.
Companion to “The Two Ceilings: Why Students Cannot Reach What Programs Have Not Built”
Pathway: Designing With the 5E Competency Framework · Session 6 Integration Capstone
Open on SubstackFrom AI-Vulnerable to AI-Partnered Courses
Redesign learning around human judgment, visible process, and appropriate AI support.
From Prompting to Partnership
Build an accurate generative-AI mental model, test a real task, and create a repeatable Human+AI practice without surrendering human judgment.
Free universal foundation · Also available as a standalone Practice Studio
Optional before From AI-Vulnerable to AI-Partnered Courses · Not one of the six required Studios
Open free StudioDesigning for Partnership
Define the partnership-oriented outcome that will guide a course or assignment redesign.
Companion to “Designing for Partnership”
Pathway: From AI-Vulnerable to AI-Partnered Courses
Open on SubstackHuman Purpose, Character, and Curiosity
Practice the human capacities education should deliberately cultivate when intelligent tools can produce sophisticated outputs.
From Prompting to Partnership
Build an accurate generative-AI mental model, test a real task, and create a repeatable Human+AI practice without surrendering human judgment.
Free universal foundation · Also available as a standalone Practice Studio
Optional before Human Purpose, Character, and Curiosity · Not one of the six required Studios
Open free StudioThe Oldest Educational Idea Is Now the Most Revolutionary: Teaching Students How to Think
Learn seven complementary strands of critical thinking and redesign one activity so human reasoning becomes visible and gradable.
Companion to “The Oldest Educational Idea Is Now the Most Revolutionary: Teaching Students How to Think”
Pathway: Human Purpose, Character, and Curiosity · Session 1
Open on SubstackStandalone Studios
Focused practice that is not part of a credential pathway.
From Prompting to Partnership
Build an accurate generative-AI mental model, test a real task, and create a repeatable Human+AI practice without surrendering human judgment.
Free universal foundation · Optional before every Human+AI Practice Pathway
Standalone Studio · No pathway enrollment required
Open free StudioCRAFT Coach
Build stronger prompts through Context, Role, Action, Format, and Tone.
Companion to “How You Ask Is What You Get”
Standalone Studio · Not part of a credential pathway
Open on SubstackHow access works: Weekly essays and the full article archive are free for everyone. Most article companion Studios and premium practice resources are available to paid Substack subscribers.
Institutional Practice Pathways
Four available pathways, with three more in development
Each pathway is designed for cohorts of up to 25 participants. Estimated time: six to twelve weeks, depending on the cohort cadence. Every Studio earns a Human+AI Skill Badge, all six badges earn the Human+AI Practice Credential for that pathway, and an approved implementation project earns the pathway’s Human+AI Competency.
The complete six-Studio sequences, facilitator resources, tracking, and pathway credentials are institutional offerings.
Thinking With AI
Replace passive, one-prompt AI use with deliberate dialogue, challenge, verification, and reflection.
- Central question
- How can people use AI as a thinking partner without outsourcing judgment?
- Primary audience
- Faculty, staff, and academic leaders developing more deliberate AI practice.
- Unit of change
- An individual workflow, learning activity, or professional task.
- Best readiness fit
- Awareness moving toward Integration.
- Core emphasis
- Dialogue, challenge, verification, reflection, and visible thinking.
Participants produce: a classroom-ready critical AI engagement activity with a visible-thinking record.
View the six-session sequence
- From Panic to Perspective
- The Cognitive Microscope
- From Magic Eightball to Thinking Partner
- The Push-Back Protocol
- The Scaffold That Teaches
- The Three Zones
From AI-Vulnerable to AI-Partnered Courses
Diagnose assignment vulnerability and redesign learning around human judgment, visible process, and appropriate AI support.
- Central question
- How should a course or assignment change when AI can already produce conventional outputs?
- Primary audience
- Faculty, course teams, and instructional designers responding to AI-disrupted assignments.
- Unit of change
- One assignment or course.
- Best readiness fit
- Faculty working at the Integration tier.
- Core emphasis
- Human judgment, visible process, appropriate boundaries, and purposeful AI partnership.
Participants produce: a complete AI-partnered assignment brief with boundaries, process evidence, and assessment criteria.
View the six-session sequence
- Designing for Partnership
- What Real AI Partnership Looks Like
- The Assignment That Talks Back
- Designed to Fade
- From Ghost Energy to Ghost Writers
- The Two Sides of the Room
Building AI Competency Through Practice
Move beyond AI literacy toward disciplinary competency through deliberate practice, feedback, rehearsal, and discernment.
- Central question
- How do students progress from AI literacy to disciplinary competency?
- Primary audience
- Faculty and teaching cohorts designing repeated opportunities for student practice.
- Unit of change
- A course, assignment, or learning sequence.
- Best readiness fit
- Awareness moving toward Integration.
- Core emphasis
- Progression, deliberate practice, feedback, fading support, access, and discernment.
Participants produce: a competency-development blueprint with practice cycles, feedback, and transfer checks.
View the six-session sequence
- What Students Want Is Not What We Are Offering
- The Ladder Students Can See
- The Practice Gap
- The Guide That Fades
- A Foot in the Door, for Everyone Alternative Studio: The Stakeholder Route Map
- Judgment and Discernment
Designing With the 5E Competency Framework
Translate AI competency into connected course and program design across Expertise, Experimentation, Engagement, Evaluation, and Ethics.
- Central question
- What capabilities must students develop to use AI competently within a discipline?
- Primary audience
- Program teams, curriculum committees, faculty leaders, and instructional designers.
- Unit of change
- A curriculum, program, or connected set of courses.
- Best readiness fit
- Integration moving toward Innovation.
- Core emphasis
- Expertise, Experimentation, Engagement, Evaluation, and Ethics.
Participants produce: a 5E curriculum and assessment map with redesign priorities and an implementation plan. The pathway begins with an included 5E Program Readiness Snapshot; a broader Institutional AI Readiness Assessment is available as an add-on.
View the six-session sequence
- Expertise: From Fluent Output to Grounded Judgment
- Experimentation: Room to Run It Again
- Engagement: The Stakeholder Route Map
- Evaluation: Every Output Is a First Draft
- Ethics: Ethics Is Not a Module
- Integration: The Two Ceilings
Leading Institutional AI Transformation
Approach AI transformation as a strategic, human, and organizational challenge—not simply a technology rollout.
- Central question
- How can an institution turn AI pressure into coordinated, human-centered change?
- Primary audience
- Cabinet members, academic leaders, deans, and cross-functional leadership teams.
- Unit of change
- An institution, division, or strategic portfolio.
- Best readiness fit
- Leadership teams coordinating Integration or Innovation.
- Core emphasis
- Strategy, people, governance, clarity, foresight, and execution.
Participants produce: a 90-day institutional AI action agenda with priorities, owners, risks, and learning measures.
View the six-session sequence
- The Dual Transformation Imperative
- The Great Divide
- The Human Side of Transformation
- The Clarity Crisis
- Strategic Foresight
- The One Agent Problem
Human Purpose, Character, and Curiosity
Explore what education should deliberately cultivate when intelligent tools can produce increasingly sophisticated outputs.
- Central question
- What should education deliberately cultivate when AI can produce increasingly sophisticated outputs?
- Primary audience
- Faculty, student-affairs educators, curriculum leaders, and mission or formation teams.
- Unit of change
- A learning experience, program, or institutional statement of educational purpose.
- Best readiness fit
- Integration moving toward Innovation.
- Core emphasis
- Purpose, curiosity, character, wonder, and gift discovery.
Participants produce: a human-development design statement and one learning experience that cultivates a chosen quality.
View the six-session sequence
- The Oldest Educational Idea Is Now the Most Revolutionary: Teaching Students How to Think
- The Curiosity Deficit
- Unleashing Wonder
- The Character Revolution
- AI as Character Coach
- Education as Gift Discovery
AI, Access, and Educational Opportunity
Use AI to expand access to practice, feedback, expertise, and opportunity while protecting quality and human agency.
- Central question
- How can AI expand educational opportunity without weakening quality, agency, or equity?
- Primary audience
- Access and student-success leaders, faculty, workforce teams, and partnership programs.
- Unit of change
- An access barrier, student-support pathway, or opportunity-expansion pilot.
- Best readiness fit
- Integration moving toward Innovation.
- Core emphasis
- Accessibility, practice, feedback, expertise, opportunity, and safeguards.
Participants produce: an opportunity-expansion pilot with safeguards, human supports, and success measures.
View the six-session sequence
- The Accessibility Burden
- A Foot in the Door, for Everyone
- Not College or Nothing
- The Equalizer Effect
- The Impossible Made Possible
- What If Accreditation Actually Told You Something?
Transparent institutional pricing
Start with a workshop, continue through demonstrated practice
Institutional workshops create shared understanding and momentum. Add a Practice Pathway to continue the learning through sustained application, evidence, and credentialing after the workshop.
Human+AI Skill Badge
Participants earn one verifiable badge for each completed Studio—six badges are available in every pathway.
Human+AI Practice Credential
Completing the six-Studio sequence earns the pathway’s named Human+AI Practice Credential.
Human+AI Competency
The Practice Credential plus an approved implementation project demonstrates applied competency.
Institutional AI Workshop
From $15,000 per day
A flexible workshop engagement for institutional alignment, shared language, practical application, and action priorities for up to 50 attendees. Select from 12 topics to fit institutional needs.
30 days of premium BoodleBox platform accessIncluded for every workshop attendee, up to 50 attendees. Additional attendees may be added for an additional charge.
- One- or multi-day format
- In-person facilitation and workshop materials
- Travel included
- Institutional action priorities
- Recommended Practice Pathway continuation
Badge & Practice Credential Pathway
$4,500 per cohort
One six-Studio pathway for one cohort of up to 25 named participants.
- Six Human+AI Skill Badges
- Human+AI Practice Credential
- Participant dashboard and completion tracking
- Cohort completion report
Competency Practice Pathway
$7,500 per cohort
Completion credentialing plus a train-the-trainer onboarding session that prepares an institutional contact to facilitate the pathway and review project submissions.
- Everything in the Badge & Practice Credential Pathway
- One facilitator onboarding session
- Institutional project-review authority
- Human+AI Competency credentials for approved projects
Institutional Pathway Portfolio
$25,000 per year
A portfolio license for institutions building Human+AI capability across multiple learning communities.
- Up to three pathways
- Up to four cohorts
- Up to 100 pathway enrollments
- Skill Badge, Practice Credential, and Competency administration
- Facilitator onboarding and consolidated annual reporting
Popular combinations
Carry workshop momentum into sustained practice
One workshop day + one Competency Practice Pathway
A tailored workshop day followed by one facilitated, credential-bearing cohort.
$21,500A tailored workshop day followed by one facilitated, credential-bearing cohort.
One workshop day + two Competency Practice Pathways
A tailored workshop day followed by two distinct pathways for the institution.
$26,500A tailored workshop day followed by two distinct pathways for the institution.
One workshop day + first-year Institutional Pathway Portfolio
A tailored workshop day plus a year of multi-pathway, multi-cohort implementation and reporting.
$35,000A tailored workshop day plus a year of multi-pathway, multi-cohort implementation and reporting.
Expansion and customization: Additional cohorts, pathways, and pathway enrollments are available at published expansion rates. Curriculum customization, institution-specific content development, additional facilitator preparation, and consulting are separately scoped. Customization does not change the requirements for earning Skill Badges, Practice Credentials, or Competency credentials.
Pilot opportunities
AI Practice Labs
Inspire Higher Ed is developing structured learning environments where students and professionals can rehearse field-specific human capabilities through AI-supported simulation, guided reflection, coaching, and implementation support.
The purpose is not to automate human work. It is to help learners practice judgment, communication, preparation, adaptability, ethical decision-making, and reflection before they encounter complex professional situations in the field.
We are looking for thoughtful course, department, center, and professional-learning partners to test focused, evidence-informed pilots before scaling.
AI Practice Lab for Journalism Interviews
A focused practice lab for journalism students learning how to interact with unfamiliar, reluctant, guarded, irritated, official, or difficult-to-read sources before encountering those situations in the field.
Best for
Journalism courses, reporting classes, student media preparation, communication programs, and experiential learning environments.
What learners practice
- Preparing for source conversations with a clear reporting goal
- Interviewing cautious officials or law-enforcement officers
- Navigating gatekeepers who control access to a source
- Engaging professional but guarded administrators
- Adapting when an interaction strengthens, deteriorates, or stalls
- Reflecting on choices, missed opportunities, and next steps
A pilot may include
- Two or three journalism-specific AI source personas
- Student instructions and responsible-use guidance
- A guided reflection worksheet
- A faculty observation or assessment rubric
- A post-pilot findings and recommendations summary
AI Practice Lab for Sales Conversations
A practice-centered lab for learners and professionals who want to rehearse buyer conversations, discovery, objection handling, ethical persuasion, coaching, and adaptive follow-up with AI-supported personas and reflection.
Best for
Sales education programs, business schools, sales centers, professional selling courses, leadership development, and industry training.
What learners practice
- Buyer discovery conversations
- Asking better questions and listening for need
- Handling resistance without becoming scripted or manipulative
- Preparing for client conversations and surfacing assumptions
- Practicing ethical persuasion and trust-building
- Reflecting on choices, tradeoffs, and improvement opportunities
A pilot may include
- An AI-supported buyer or stakeholder persona
- Learner instructions and a responsible-use guide
- Reflection prompts
- A faculty or manager coaching guide
- Evidence collection on confidence, authenticity, reflection quality, and transfer
Start where you are
Practice individually. Learn together institutionally.
Subscribe for article-companion Practice Studios, or choose a transparent institutional pathway, workshop, or portfolio.