There's a version of the AI conversation in education that focuses on the tools: which platforms schools should use, how teachers should adapt assignments, whether students should be allowed to use ChatGPT.
A more fundamental question is what are schools actually preparing students for, and how should AI change this?
AI's biggest selling point at the moment is efficiency, and it delivers on that promise. Students can write essays faster, build presentations faster, and work through assignments faster, and a lot of schools are adopting it on exactly those terms.
Leading with efficiency as a goal is transactional: you want to reach an outcome, and if you can get there with as few resources as possible, that counts as a win. What it doesn't do is ask whether that outcome was the right one to begin with.
At d.tech, we don't design for efficiency. We design for human agency: the ability to know who you are, adapt when things change, work with others toward something real, and get things done in a world full of uncertainty. These are skills that don't show up on a transcript, but they're what colleges are starting to look for, what employers are already asking for, and what students need regardless of where AI goes from here.
Design thinking is how we build those skills, and the deeper goal is for it to become a permanent part of how students think and work over time.
That's what the Innovation Certificate + mentorship program is built around. And it's what this newsletter is here to share. This is our first issue. We're glad you're with us.