Orientation – some recent personal anecdotes and thoughts about AI In May our reunion of H-Star academic collaboration between Stanford and Denmark prompted me to reflect upon AI in research collaboration [Link]. A new white paper from Stanford’s Accelerator for Learning — Responsible Assessment in the AI Era — prompted me to comment that we…
Tamara Carleton
Larry Leifer
Larry Leifer, extraordinary pioneer in design practice and design research, passed away yesterday August 29. Larry was a key figure in what I had hoped Stanford might stand for when I arrived in 1999. He welcomed me into The Learning Lab, Stanford Center for Innovation in Learning, Center for Design Research (CDR), and the Hasso…
Creative Pragmatics for active learning — implications of AI in assessment
Assessment in the AI era: a moment we have been preparing for since the 1980s A comment on the Stanford Accelerator for Learning white paper “Responsible Assessment in the AI Era” (2026) Quick summary — AI is revealing the flaws of traditional pedagogy based on standardized testing of final course deliverables. I am not alone…
Newsletter — Stanford Archaeology Center
Prospective reflections on 2025-26 Acting with nature — prehistory My new book Archaeologies of Nature: Activating the Archive, written with Gabriella Giannachi, University of Exeter and Turin, is now complete and in production. Open Access — it will be available as PDF in June 2026. We use an archaeology of artworks to probe human relationships…
Andrew Pickering — acting with the world
In a complex world of uncertainty, precarity, risk, and trouble, how do we conceive and teach science? I got to read Andrew Pickering’s new book today — Acting with the World [Link]. I have long admired his philosophically-informed studies of scientific practice. With such elegant and compelling clarity he makes the case for a sustainable…
Applied Archaeology — Applied Humanities
Studio Michael Shanks Stanford University Newsletter 2024 Stanford Archaeology Center Archaeological mission and vision? Ivory tower as lighthouse? In a recent newsletter for Stanford Archaeology Center [Link] I talked of slow archaeology, of the benefits of long-running projects that afford time for unfolding reflection. Three interrelated projects remain ongoing. A kind of archaeological triptych. —…