We covered AI as early as the second episode of this show. It’s so central to the education landscape today and it's something that all of us are really interested in just personally and professionally. So we were very excited when our friend Rob Cobb reached out to us about the work he's doing and how he's thinking about AI and education these days.

We all worked professionally with Rob back at Flatiron school. Joe hired him as an instructor there, he was a member of my team of instructor trainers, and he was on Brian’s Curriculum Design team as well. We also know him as a great thinker and practitioner about education as well as a superstar programmer and a software developer. Plus Rob has worked for more than a decade in high tech education, including a stint at one of Brian's startups, Schoolhouse.

Rob thinks deeply about building software and building educational experiences, which is just awesome, and he recently co-founded Kibo School, an affordable online bachelor's degree in computer science for students in Africa.

We got to talk with Rob about his work at Kibo School, how the reality of AI influenced his curricular design, and how the educational landscape should adjust to the changes inherent in AI.

Contents:

• 02:27 Rob's Journey in Computer Science
• 06:12 Founding Kibo School
• 10:41 Challenges and Innovations
• 16:37 Exploring AI and Cognitive Science
• 26:24 Designing Curriculum with Surprising Situations
• 27:08 Creating Purposeful Surprises in Education
• 28:28 The Role of AI in Curriculum Content
• 30:41 AI as a Writing Assistant: Impacts on Thought
• 33:13 Empowering Students with AI Tools
• 39:16 Integrating AI into Program Design at Kibo
• 48:12 Balancing Accreditation and Affordability
• 51:10 Connecting Education with the Job Market

Links and further reading:

• Kibo School: https://kibo.school/
• Rob’s Blog: https://rob.co.bb/
• Play in Predictive Minds (summary) https://rob.co.bb/posts/2022-07-08-review-play-in-predictive-minds-a-cognitive-theory-of-play/