Prof Sue Bennett, La Trobe University

This keynote explores how design-oriented approaches to teaching can respond to the critical challenges facing higher education in the age of generative AI. Drawing on more than three decades of research and experience in educational technology, I propose that the most significant enabler of educational change is not technology itself, but the everyday design work of teachers.

Framed as practice innovation, the presentation focuses on the iterative, situated and informed design changes that teachers make as they plan, enact and refine learning experiences. Research into teacher design practice shows that this work is ongoing, context-sensitive and deeply connected to teachers’ knowledge, values and judgements. From this perspective, meaningful innovation in higher education emerges not from adopting new tools, but from how teachers adapt and redesign their practice over time.

In the context of generative AI, this framing offers both continuity and provocation. While AI is often positioned as a transformative force, its impact ultimately depends on how it is taken up within teaching practice. Rather than replacing teachers, AI amplifies the complexity of their design work—raising new questions about what and how students should learn, how learning is evidenced, and how human and machine contributions are meaningfully integrated.

This leads to a broader consideration of academic work and leadership. If change in higher education is enacted through practice, then leadership must also be understood as a practice—one that involves developing ourselves and others as designers of learning. This includes building the capacity to make informed design decisions, to experiment and iterate, and to support colleagues in navigating uncertainty and change. I’ll explore some practical ways to approach this through scholarship, design-based inquiry and communities of practice.

At its core, this keynote offers a simple but critical provocation: teaching has meaning as a human, relational and purposeful activity oriented towards student learning. Technologies—including AI—may reshape how teaching is enacted, but they do not replace the fundamental purpose of higher education as a shared human endeavour. By centring teacher design practice, this presentation provides a research-informed and practice-oriented way forward for engaging with AI while keeping student learning, and the human experience of education, at the heart of our work.