#216 AI in Education with Barbara Oakley

A long-awaited conversation with Barbara Oakley, distinguished professor of engineering, bestselling author, and creator of the world's most popular online course "Learning How to Learn." Barbara shares her remarkable journey from hating maths in school to becoming a champion of cognitive science-based teaching, and brings her expertise in memory and learning to bear on the rapidly evolving world of AI in education. Across four key areas—personalised tutoring, assessment, lesson planning, and teacher professional development—Barbara offers a refreshingly optimistic yet pragmatic take on how generative AI can support learning, while issuing strong warnings about the dangers of constructivist approaches in an AI-enabled world. She makes a passionate case for testing more (not less), for cognitive realist teaching over student-centred approaches, and for bringing the scientific method into education the way it transformed medicine. The conversation ranges from how AI helps her generate metaphors and surprises in her own teaching, to a fascinating insight into how large language models "grok" patterns in ways that mirror human learning. View the show notes here: podcast.mrbartonmaths.com/216-ai-in-education-with-barbara-oakley

You can listen to #216 AI in Education with Barbara Oakley online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

#216 AI in Education with Barbara Oakley is an episode from Mr Barton Maths Podcast by Craig Barton.

This episode is 01:06:41 long.

This episode was published on Mar 18, 2026.

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