Design Brief 4: Designing for Human Presence -

In Season 1, Episode 1 of the AI for Educators Design Lab podcast, we looked at how AI is exposing vulnerabilities in our assignments. In Episode two, we stepped back and examined whether our learning goals still hold up when AI can handle so many of the tasks those goals were originally built around.

And in Episode three, we dug into AI literacy, and I made the case that students need more than tool proficiency. They need the judgment to evaluate AI output critically, and we need to deliberately design for that.

Episode 4 marks a shift from what we design to how learning relationships are shaped when AI enters the environment. We now make the case that in an AI-integrated environment, learning is shaped not just by how students interact with technology, but by the people who design, guide, and participate in those interactions.

🎙️ Podcast Focus

In Episode 4, we shift from questions about assignment design and learning aims in the age of AI to a question about the role of human interactions: as AI is integrated into learning experiences, where is human connection essential? This episode begins by arguing that we’ve asked versions of this question before. Decades of distance learning research have examined the implications when technology mediates the relationship between teachers and learners. However, the current AI conversation is largely proceeding as if none of that research exists. It’s an amnesia we often see when educational technology changes.

For example, the Community of Inquiry framework, transactional distance theory, and the teacher immediacy literature all point to findings related to the impacts of human connection on learning. Whether it be to support learning, persistence, or satisfaction, human interaction has been widely studied in technology-mediated instruction and we can borrow from that research base and practice knowledge to contemplate how to design learning experiences in AI-integrated learning.

🤔 Learning Experience Design Challenge

Given this learning experience design challenge, this episode explores what it looks like to make deliberate design decisions about human presence. Where in the learning process is human interaction most essential, which tasks are worth delegating to AI, and how can we ensure that human connection is available to students when they need it? Building off the design considerations contemplated in the podcast, the Human Presence Design Map below is offered as a diagnostic tool to help you work through those design questions in a real-world learning experience of your own.

📋 Your Design Decisions

This episode posed five design considerations in the form of questions to help you examine the role of human interaction and connection in your AI-integrated learning experience. This isn’t an exhaustive list of design considerations, but it will get you started thinking about several core issues related to this challenge as they relate to your learners, your discipline, and your context.

🤔 Design Considerations

Where in your learning experience does human presence most support student learning? Research on technology-supported instruction suggests that students benefit from human presence, whether to boost persistence or to support learning. If we use our existing research base as a guide, it could mean that human interaction is beneficial in an AI-integrated learning experience to scaffold and mentor learners through times of struggle by offering feedback and emotional support. Mapping those moments helps you see when, where, and how to incorporate human interaction into your learners’ learning experience.
How are you allocating tasks between AI and humans? How can you use AI to automate tasks in ways that serve the learner and free up more time for the kinds of support humans can best provide? In examining this question, think about the distinction between backstage tasks (routine, rule-based, and scalable) and frontstage tasks (relational, contextual, and requiring knowledge of the individual). Tied to the first design consideration, how might you use AI to automate and augment while freeing up time for the essential human interactions you want to preserve?
What might teacher presence look like in an AI-supported environment? Teaching presence has long been studied in educational technology research, including the necessary type, intensity, and timing. Most educators feel it’s the binding element that holds a learning experience together, which is why AI scares so many in the field. As AI tools take on more of the content delivery and facilitation, the fear is the instructor’s presence will quietly recede, and students will lose the connection to a person who is paying attention to their experience. Will students perceive they have an active guide supporting their learning, or an invisible person who set things up and is now absent? A central aim of this design consideration is to reflect on what visible teaching presence means in an AI-supported environment.
Who is most affected by changes to human connection? How are you ensuring AI use by learners is inclusive and supportive for all learners? Research suggests students who feel seen, valued, and recognized are more likely to persist. A key design implication is that AI integration might widen gaps for students who most depend on human relationships to persist and succeed. As we’ll expand on in future episodes, inclusive design asks you to consider how AI impacts inclusion and whether it protects or erodes the connection and support students need.
Does AI introduce a new kind of presence in the learning environment? Historically, edtech research focused on how technology mediates learners’ interactions with content, instructors, and peers. AI is different. It can generate content, simulate teaching behaviors, and respond in ways that feel personal and warm, all without a human on the other end. For students who are used to feeling invisible in large courses, that responsiveness can feel like connection. But is it the same as the connection among real people who have genuine stakes in your growth? The design question isn’t just whether AI presence feels like human presence. It’s whether and how that presence matters for learning, and how you will design so that it supports rather than substitutes for the moments of genuine belonging that only happen between people.

📋 Human Presence Design Map

In this episode, we reflected on how human presence and interaction matter in AI-integrated learning experiences. Our existing educational research base tells us that connection matters, but questions remain about the nature and structure of that connection when AI is in the mix. The Human Presence Design Map worksheet is designed to help you identify what you feel are the non-negotiable human moments in one of your learning experiences, sort which tasks are worth delegating to AI, and develop early ideas for how AI might free time for what you deem the essential elements of human connection.

👉 Access the Human Presence Design Map Worksheet
🖥️ Save a copy of this document to complete on your own.
- If working in Google Docs: Go to File → Make a copy
- If working in another program: Go to File → Download and choose your preferred format (e.g., Word or PDF)
🧑‍💻 Select a learning experience where you want to examine how human connection is currently designed, and work through each of the design considerations.
⏰ Plan for about 15–20 minutes to complete the map.

🎙️ Looking Ahead

In Episode 5 of the AI for Educators Design Lab Podcast, we take up a question that comes up in nearly every conversation I have with educators about AI: privacy and data ethics. When students use AI tools, they’re sharing data and often a lot of it. However, many educators aren’t sure what they’re asking students to expose, or what their responsibilities are in that space. That’s where we’re headed in our next episode.

Thank you for being here. I look forward to engaging with you in this conversation!

Jennifer Maddrell, PhD
Next Path Design

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