Designing AI Support for Learning at the Moment of Need
August 2026: A Pilot Learning and Design Experience for Faculty and Instructional Designers
Generative AI is increasingly available to learners, but simply making AI available does not necessarily improve learning. The more important design question is: When, where, and why might AI provide meaningful support for learners—and when should it not?
The AIMON Learning Design Studio is a small, collaborative professional learning experience for higher education faculty, instructional designers, and others who support learning. Participants will explore the AI in the Moment of Learning Need (AIMON) framework and apply it to a real course, assignment, professional development workshop, or other learning experience.
What is AIMON? (AI at the Moment of Learning Need) is explained in this keynote presentation delivered at the HyFlex Collaborative Conference on Jube 25, 2026. (Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Q6e1apDQQUo?t=964) A recent blog series onthe HyFlex Learning Community blog explains the AIMON framework indetial. Start here: https://www.hyflexlearning.org/2026/03/25/aimon_1/
Rather than starting with AI tools, our Studio experience begins with understanding our learners and their needs. Participants will identify moments when learners may experience uncertainty, need additional explanation or practice, struggle to apply what they know, get stuck, need to adapt to change, or want to deepen their learning. From there, we will explore whether and how AI might provide timely and appropriate support while preserving learner thinking, agency, and human connection.
For participants working in HyFlex and other flexible learning environments, the Studio will also explore a particularly important challenge: How can we provide effective learning support when students may participate across different times, places, modes, and pathways?
Purpose and Goals
The AIMON Learning Design Studio is designed to help participants:
- Understand the AIMON framework and its learning-first approach to AI integration.
- Examine a course, assignment, workshop, or other learning experience for potential moments of learning support need.
- Identify one meaningful moment where additional support could improve the learner experience.
- Explore existing or newly designed AI supports that could address that specific need.
- Consider how to preserve critical thinking, learner agency, human connection, and meaningful choice when incorporating AI.
- Develop an initial plan that can be tested and refined in an authentic learning environment.
Who Should Participate?
This pilot is designed for a small group of approximately 6–10 higher education faculty, instructional designers, faculty developers, and others who support the design of learning experiences.
No advanced AI expertise is required. Participants should bring curiosity about AI-supported learning and a willingness to examine one authentic learning context from their own work.
Participants with experience or interest in HyFlex learning are especially welcome, although the AIMON framework is applicable across face-to-face, hybrid, online synchronous, online asynchronous, and professional learning environments.
Studio Format
The pilot consists of two 90-minute collaborative online sessions followed by an optional individual consultation.
Session 1: Finding the Right Moment
Monday, August 3, 2026 | 90 minutes | Live online
Participants will explore the AIMON framework and use it to conduct a high-level scan of a course, assignment, workshop, or other learning experience. The goal is to identify potential moments where learners may benefit from additional support and select one meaningful moment of learning need for further exploration.
Between Sessions: AIMON Opportunity Scan
August 3–5 | Approximately 20–30 minutes
Participants will briefly examine their selected learning context and clarify one specific moment of learning need or opportunity to bring into Session 2.
Session 2: Designing AI Support for a Specific Need
Wednesday, August 5, 2026 | 90 minutes | Live online
Participants will explore examples of AI-supported learning, consider different approaches to finding or designing AI support, and work in small groups to discuss their own potential applications. Each participant will begin developing an initial AI support concept aligned with a specific learner need.
Optional Individual Design Consultation
30 minutes | Scheduled during the 2–3 weeks following Session 2
Participants may schedule an individual consultation to review and strengthen their plans for incorporating AI support into a course, professional learning experience, or other educational context.
What Participants Will Develop
By the end of the Studio, participants should have:
- A high-level scan of potential moments of learning support need within an authentic learning context.
- One clearly identified moment of need or opportunity for focused exploration.
- An initial concept for AI support aligned with that specific need.
- Early feedback from other faculty and instructional designers.
- A foundation for considering how AI support might be incorporated more broadly across a course or other learning experience.
A Learning-First Approach to AI
The AIMON framework is not about maximizing AI use or adding AI everywhere. It begins with a simpler question:
What does the learner need at this moment?
Only then do we ask whether AI can provide appropriate support.
In some situations, AI may offer timely explanation, practice, feedback, rehearsal, reflection, or help getting unstuck. In others, the best support may still come from an instructor, peer, existing course resource, or another non-AI approach.
The goal is not more AI. The goal is better learning support—provided at the right moment and in ways that preserve the thinking, agency, relationships, and human judgment that meaningful learning requires.
