J.D. Mosley-Matchett, PhD (00:30)
Welcome to the InforMaven AI Update, a podcast for higher education administrators to discuss the practical use of AI and intelligent agents. I'm J.D. Mosley-Matchett, the founder and CEO of InforMaven, a company that helps you work smarter by harnessing the power of intelligent agents. And this month, our guest is Dr. Jarek Janio, a faculty coordinator at Santa Ana College School of Continuing Education,

and the founder of the SLO Symposium and Friday SLO Talks, a conference and discussion forum that convene higher education professionals in the United States and abroad to advance the assessment of student learning. Welcome to the podcast, Jarek.

Jarek Janio, PhD (01:16)
Well, thank you very much. I'm very happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

J.D. Mosley-Matchett, PhD (01:20)
I first learned about your work years ago through the Friday SLO Talks. What prompted you to start that discussion forum?

Jarek Janio, PhD (01:29)
really an outcome of a long journey and actually an opportunity that opened up with COVID out of all things. The silver lining of the pandemic was

J.D. Mosley-Matchett, PhD (01:38)
⁓

Jarek Janio, PhD (01:43)
of Friday SLO Talks. The first

Symposium took place back in 2014 and ever since then, I was wondering how can I possibly spread the word,

about the importance of assessment of student learning to broader audiences. The topic that's so broad, so profound, so impactful, cannot really be readily addressed

once a year

⁓ just when after all those years talking to colleagues, I started trying to figure out how to perhaps establish some regional

You know, what would be the best way to sit around the table and talk about those topics with greater frequency. COVID happened.

The SLO symposium was finished by the end of January 2020. And two or three weeks later, everything shut down practically.

J.D. Mosley-Matchett, PhD (02:40)
Yes.

Jarek Janio, PhD (02:41)
That's without really ⁓ looking back, that's what we started. Initially, it was just like SLO Symposium started with just a few people around the table or virtual table, so to speak. And we sat around on Fridays, because that's when everybody was done for the week, talking about the assessment of student learning. And it initially started with very, very few people, 20, maybe 30 in the

By now, we get 100, 150 people in the audience weekly.

I'm just very happy that it continues and then it grows and people certainly appreciate ⁓ the importance of it. So again, it was nothing but an opportunity, but we were ready for this opportunity, right? So again, it was just a number of years devoted to the in-depth understanding of what it means to pay attention to assessment of student planning and how important it is for public data research.

J.D. Mosley-Matchett, PhD (03:20)
Yes.

The AI Update audience includes higher education administrators who aren't normally in the

But you have some interesting thoughts about AI and student learning. So let's start with this first

How can AI be used in higher education to increase student agency by shifting responsibility for learning from faculty-directed instruction

to student-driven production and decision-making.

Jarek Janio, PhD (04:02)
Right, so I believe that's a crucial question and I'm very happy to start with that because we are going to continue with

From the administrative perspective, I suppose, I can only address it as a challenge because AI, artificial intelligence as we know it, has posed a number of challenges for us and they all start in the classroom impacting everything that we do up the chain of command, so to speak, at our institutions.

⁓ We have to start it from the classroom because ultimately when we think about it, our institutions are designed, are meant for students to learn rather than just for them to ⁓ persist and generate apportionment. So AI, artificial intelligence with all its power, is just simply not a simply tool of instruction.

⁓ It really is a force that questions the validity, the importance, the gist of our missions and visions as we have them at our universities. Again, it's not enough for us to think that we addressing students' needs. You mentioned in the question student agency, that's what needs to be supported together with student services, together with infrastructure, together with access to technology, together with financial aid.

That part about student learning is probably

the

main focus point of our conversations because AI is impacting it so ⁓ strongly. So now we hear all those horror stories coming from the classrooms where teachers are practically having nervous

AI is taking over their lecture content, the AI is taking over material development, students are taking notes, instantly generating answers, let alone the whole realm of writing as a skill that's been forever required of any graduating student. Trust me, it's going to be good for you. You need to be able to write because it's important that you know how to communicate your ideas to other people in other places in different times. Now with AI,

those answers to those questions are being generated in a matter of seconds and they are very high quality. That's why we question their validity and we question where they came from. It's just that that's becoming a norm. We can't just simply plan for the future of higher education on the basis of denying that students will not be able to use AI. And that's probably from the admin's perspective, that's a very important realization.

Because it is important that instead of trying to forward the instructional, the institutional effectiveness and institutional structures as we've known them for decades, we do need to be paying attention to what's happening in the classroom and support faculty and support students by very direct transparent policies and regulations as to what constitutes learning, how learning is documented,

and what it is that students can do with it once they graduate. So again, this is going to

our visions, our missions, and everything that we do in higher education. I'm certainly looking forward to it, but again, it is a challenge rather than a ready to go solution.

J.D. Mosley-Matchett, PhD (07:22)
That's a very interesting perspective. And

as AI becomes a norm, how should institutions determine what counts as credible student work and how that work will be demonstrated?

Jarek Janio, PhD (07:37)
Fascinating question. And I tell you, this is what I've been studying in our student learning outcomes, the Symposium work and the Friday SLO

gist of this question is that students are supposed to be doing certain things as a result of instruction, right?

So the question that I've been trying to answer in our Friday SLO Talks and SLO Symposium work was how do you document the learning and what does it exactly mean?

Well, there are certain

skills and competencies that students should be demonstrating.

The issue here is that I can't, with all due respect to cognitive science, I can't tell what's happening in people's heads. And faculty are exactly in the same situation in the classrooms. The problem is that because of the feedback that faculty have been receiving, because of the professional development that they have been receiving for years, well, yeah, pay attention to multiple intelligences, pay attention to student motivation, pay attention to student grit, pay attention to their

persistent patterns. Okay, in the classroom, how can I tell if someone has a grit or they don't, whether they are motivated or not, whether they have ⁓ inner insights that I don't know about? I mean, only because they look at me and they smile, is that enough really? Is that enough of a sign for me that they are learning anything?

When you think about it, a conversation of a student at the high school level with ChatGPT is quite different from a conversation of a college student with ChatGPT, right? Then we have doctoral graduate students in specific fields. They are going to have conversations with ChatGPT of completely different magnitude. And we need to realize that that's where we are. That those conversations

produce certain understandings as a result of that, certain behaviors, as a result of that, certain products. And unless we learn how to accept those products as documents that really tell us that students have acquired certain skills and competencies, we will just not be happy. And this is the change. So from the administrator's perspective,

I would call for formation of specific areas of study, but in terms of faculty engagement in the courses that they are teaching. Why? So to make sure that we have a clear understanding, clear path to what it is that students learn as a result of our instruction. So research group, faculty focus groups, inquiry groups, things that faculty

could find relevant enough that they would spend time developing and with immediate application of those practices in the classroom. That's probably the best thing that any chancellor, any administrator out there could do. Again, to keep our faculty sane, to make sure that students are happy because they know that they are learning something as a result, and keep our institutions in place

without creating more chaos than we have experienced so far.

J.D. Mosley-Matchett, PhD (10:59)
Well said, sir! All right.

Attendance, class participation, test scores. Those have been the traditional proxies for learning. So how is AI changing the way we evaluate student performance?

Jarek Janio, PhD (11:15)
performance is going to be ⁓ more important than ever before, and AI puts us puts a very, very strong light on the gap between persistence and learning. See, we all know we know this is just a given. Persistent does not guarantee any type of learning. Only because I show up,

and I say hello to the teacher and I smile and I show up for office hours even. No, no, no, not until I do something. It's just that see the system of grading and accountability that we've been used to is just not doing the trick either. And it's not really necessarily faculty's fault. We've all been in our educational institutions for years.

When you include our elementary school, people spend 15, 16, 20, 24 years until they get their doctorate degree, based basically on the same principle: Here's a chapter from the book, read it, the exam is next week at 5 p.m. on Thursday. If you're not prepared, well, sorry, you'll just have to either, you know, there's going to be consequences. And that we just simply cannot maintain

as a valid ⁓ measure of any kind of accountability. Because again, what's persistence? What's attendance? What's even graduation? Unless these activities specifically result in learning. Without that, we are really losing our missions, our visions, and before we know it, ChatGPT, as it evolves daily (practically)

is going to snatch the rug from below our operations. And one day we'll just wake up without really knowing what hit us. But this is what's coming. So those, what I may call antiquated measures of accountability as we understand them, as we have them right now, as we practice them, are really at the door. And it is for up to administrators working with faculty, with accrediting bodies, and with really

public at reaching out to employers, reaching out to workplace, making sure that what our institutions do is for the benefit of the students so that they know what to do in their future. Otherwise, you know how it is. Here's the diploma. Good riddance. It's just not good enough. AI is going to substitute the process for us very, very, very soon.

J.D. Mosley-Matchett, PhD (13:57)
Okay, so let's take a look at the positive

How might AI level the playing field for students who struggle with language or confidence or access?

Jarek Janio, PhD (14:10)
That's right. That's right. That's a very, important ⁓ question because as much as we would like to ⁓ dismiss or regulate or police for lack of a better expression, ⁓ artificial intelligence in the classroom, we have to realize that ⁓ there is ⁓ segments of the public that we serve who clearly benefit from access to artificial intelligence.

Who knows, maybe I just missed a specific class that was devoted to the topic in the previous class or the week before or whatever the case is. I'm kind of like stuck. So I send a text to my buddy or I try to get a hold of the professor. There is a delay, there is a delay, there is a delay. Finally, there is the exam happens and I'm still kind of like not clear on the concepts that I just read about.

Those days are gone. Those days are over.

Student agency, as we discussed earlier, is what's going to take over our operations. Ultimately, students are understanding better and faster that it's up to them. The teacher is not really the sage on the stage any longer, and AI points it, shines a very, very bright light at it. And we know that it's just what's happening in our classrooms. It's our reality now.

So it's not the matter of what we think is going to happen in the future. The future as trite as it sounds, it's already here. ⁓ And that's for us to deal with. So ⁓ when it comes to, again, documenting of student learning and making sure that students have access to ⁓ artificial intelligence tools more rather than less is of utmost importance. Let's just think of students who...

who come to our classrooms with all kinds of disabilities, with all kinds of backgrounds, with English as a second language speakers, ⁓ those students all of a sudden are given this bright, shiny tool with which they can abolish a lot of barriers to access.

And I agree that this is really a question about celebration, about the positive aspect of artificial intelligence. There are people who try to scare us because of the, you know, artificial intelligence is hallucinating.

That's the good thing here is that that's how you develop your critical thinking skills. That's how you can discern, you learn how to ⁓ figure out the middle road and what works for you. With ChatGPT, we still lack that in terms of communication. We normally don't ask ChatGPT questions. If someone were to ⁓ shoot a ⁓ hole in my argument, what would they say?

If they were to question my understanding of the topic, what arguments could they use against me? And see, that's something that opens up yet a completely different ⁓ frame, different floodgates for our collective understanding of what it means to ⁓ interact with ChatGPT and ⁓ what are the benefits that we can

also Another type of scare is the part with environmental scare, right? That every time you ask a question, it's like pouring bottle of water down the drain. It's just that see, there's just so many other things that are so much more ⁓ damaging to our environment that we should be addressing. AI, when you think about it, is probably the

most powerful single technology that's available to us, that if we were to use it for the betterment of our societies, for the betterment of humanity, it would be a very, very powerful tool. But instead, we are looking at it as something that again is damaging our environment in some aspects. Again, as much as it's true, there is the beef consumption or altogether our consumption as we look at it, our

industries as we have them, the wars that happen, things that are kind of like polluting our atmosphere, our waters, our land 24-7, and we don't quite approach them from the environmental perspective. So why all of a sudden AI gets so much heat? I don't know, but apparently it has some traction. It's just that the way I look at it is really uncalled for and unnecessary considering what else is happening on our planet.

J.D. Mosley-Matchett, PhD (18:29)
Thank

Does the rise of AI signal the end of fact-driven curricula? And if so, what kinds of skills and competencies should replace them as the primary outcomes of higher education?

Jarek Janio, PhD (19:02)
Sooner or later, it's not going to matter what the school has built for us as much as what it is that students need to lead their productive lives in the future. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own actions. And if it's not necessary for me to go to school to get a diploma to get a job, I may as well go to Google

to their, AI programming ⁓ school that's going to take me without the high school diploma where I can spend days on end doing what I absolutely love to do. And I think that's the part that we are, well, let's just say we evolved that way. So I don't want to say that we are completely missing the student need. It's just that

the higher education or educational together as a system is a really very, very broad concept. Open the gate, students will come and let's cross our fingers, you know, wish for the best. AI is much more immediate. It's right in your face. It's right in your brain. And it will tell you everything that you need to know about you.

Just to give you an example, I asked ChatGPT what would it take for me to get a PhD in astrophysics? And astrophysics is not a field I'm necessarily familiar with. And it told me.

It said, okay, you need to have a BA in physics or math. Then you're going to get a master's degree in physics or math with certain orientation. And then you're going to embark on a PhD program. And it even gave me seven ideas of dissertation that will probably be relevant a few years from now. Now with that, I was obviously stunned that it's just a matter of fact that this is what you do and you're done.

But ChatGPT was not done there. It still gave me a number of ⁓ classes that are offered free at Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton, so all those Ivy Leagues, higher level math, higher level physics, higher level chemistry, all for the taking, let alone the fact that ChatGPT alone is like a perfect teacher, right? If I get stuck anywhere, I don't know, you know, if I have a ⁓ flat

tire then I'm going to ask ChatGPT how I'm going to address it. I can send a picture to it and it will tell me, don't worry, your tire is just fine. It's just the rock that's stuck there. So you go and fix it yourself kind of a thing. So, it's really amazing as to how many of those daily and at the same time, very, very highly cognitively demanding tasks ⁓ that ChatGPT is addressing for us. This is the norm. ⁓ So again,

our focus is on students who are able and willing to take ownership of their own learning. And I think that's the realization that's going to be probably the most groundbreaking and most important for our students in the

J.D. Mosley-Matchett, PhD (22:00)
This conversation has been the perfect way to kick off the new year, Jarek. Thank you for being our first AI Update guest in 2026.

Jarek Janio, PhD (22:11)
My pleasure, certainly. Thank you very much. I truly enjoyed it. Thank you for the honor.

J.D. Mosley-Matchett, PhD (22:17)
For more information about AI news and trends that are directly impacting administrators in higher education, please follow InformAven on LinkedIn and visit our website at informaven.ai. ⁓