AI That Understands Teaching with Brian Johnsrud of OpenAI & Kristin Vincent of Learning Commons

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First of all, we both felt alive. It was like we were designing pedagogy in a way that would be like very difficult to design otherwise. But that experience showed me just being able to imagine like what if from someone who really understands their students and their context can actually be pretty powerful. And we ended up spending a couple hours together. She probably did more deep diving into real pedagogical nuance in those couple hours than she has time for in the first semester of school typically.

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Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter, and also our event calendar. And to go deeper, check out EdTech Insiders Plus, where you can get premium content, access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events, and back channel insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoyed today's pod. Hello, EdTech Insider listeners. It's me, Ben, again, and we've got an incredibly special podcast today. We've got Brian and Kristen from OpenAI and Learning Commons here with a special announcement about their new partnership. Before I dive in, let me give a little bit of background. Brian Johnsrud is a PhD. He's OpenAI's Global Head of Educational Engagement. As a former K-12 teacher, college lecturer, researcher, and thought leader in education technology, he's passionate about helping the next generation unlock their potential and agency with AI and the skills needed for success in schools, career, and beyond. Kristen Vincent, you probably all know her well. She's been on a couple of EdTech Insider panels and is doing so much incredible work with Learning Commons. We need a separate podcast to cover that stuff. She is VP of Product at Learning Commons where she leads teams to scale proven teaching and learning practices to benefit every learner. Kristen had spent 20 years in product development, leading teams at Pearson and K12.com. She specializes in transforming complex challenges into rigorous, user-friendly solutions. Quite the intro. Welcome to the pod, Brian and Kristen. Thanks so

much for having me.

So, Brian, before we dive in, just to go a little bit beyond, everybody's thinking OpenAI is global head of education engagement. How did you land that job? Tell us a little bit about your journey.

Yeah, I mean, education and technology have always been a throughput. I was a rural Montana kid, first person in my family to go to college. And I just found technology in one way or another always ended up shaping education. My journey in higher education, as you mentioned, eventually getting a PhD. And then as I was teaching in K-12 and higher