A Guided, Collaborative Experience for Designing AI-Supported Learning
The AIMON Learning Design Studio is a hands-on professional learning experience for faculty, instructional designers, trainers, faculty developers, and others who want to develop thoughtful AI-supported learning around an authentic learner need.
The Studio is designed as a synchronous, collaborative experience. Participants bring a real course, assignment, workshop, module, or other learning context and work through the AIMON design process with support from the facilitator, peers, structured design resources, and optional AI-based design support.
The emphasis is on moving from a meaningful learner-support challenge to a practical, reasoned design—not on simply adding AI to an existing course.
What Happens in the Studio?
The Studio typically includes two 90-minute live online sessions, brief work between sessions, peer feedback, and an optional individual one-on-one consultation with the workshop facilitator scheduled within a few weeks after the live studio sessions.
Session 1 — Find the Right Moment
Participants examine an authentic learning experience and look for places where learners may need support that is not always available at the right time.
During the session, participants:
- Examine learner needs across different moments of the learning process
- Identify existing support and possible support gaps
- Distinguish unnecessary barriers from productive struggle
- Select one meaningful learner-support opportunity
- Begin an AIMON Opportunity Scan
The goal is to leave Session 1 with a focused design opportunity rather than an AI solution.
Between Sessions — Clarify the Opportunity
Between the two live sessions, participants spend approximately one hour or less refining the opportunity they identified.
They complete or strengthen their Opportunity Scan and develop an initial AIMON Opportunity Statement describing:
- What learners are trying to accomplish
- When the need arises
- Why the moment is difficult or important
- What effective support should help learners do
- What learning work should remain with the learner
Participants may also share their Opportunity Statements with others in the Studio discussion space.
Session 2 — Design the Support
The second session moves from identifying the need to evaluating and designing possible support. Participants consider whether AI is appropriate and compare it with human, peer, and non-AI alternatives.
During the session, participants:
- Examine several “AI, Maybe, or Not AI?” cases
- Evaluate possible support approaches
- Begin or refine an AIMON Design Sketch
- Define learner, AI, instructor, peer, and resource roles
- Establish boundaries for AI use
- Consider learner thinking, agency, access, transparency, and human connection
- Receive feedback through small-group design conversations
The goal is not to leave with a finished tool. It is to leave with a defensible support concept and clear next steps.
What Participants Develop
By the end of the Studio, participants should have:
- A clearly identified learner-support opportunity
- An AIMON Opportunity Statement
- A completed or substantially developed Opportunity Scan
- A reasoned decision about whether and how AI belongs in the support strategy
- A draft AIMON Design Sketch
- Clear learner, AI, and human roles
- Defined boundaries that protect important learning work
- A practical next step for testing, refining, or implementing the design
Participants may develop an AI-supported approach, a combined human-and-AI support strategy, a limited or optional AI pathway, or a non-AI solution. All are appropriate outcomes when the design reasoning is clear.
Studio Activities
The Studio combines several forms of learning and design work:
- Short facilitator introductions and examples
- Individual analysis and design work
- Worked AIMON examples for review
- Quick design cases to explore and discuss
- Small-group discussion and feedback in live sessions
- Shared participant forum activities between and after live sessions
- Opportunity Scan and Design Sketch activities
- Optional use of the AIMON Design Partner custom GPT
- Continuing access to AIMON design resources post-studio
The live sessions are intentionally interactive. Most of the time is spent applying the framework, discussing authentic situations, and developing participant designs rather than listening to extended presentations.
Optional Individual Design Consultation
Participants may also schedule an optional 30-minute individual consultation after the second live session.
The consultation can be used to:
- Refine an AIMON Design Sketch
- Examine a proposed AI support
- Review a prompt or custom GPT concept
- Clarify roles and boundaries
- Develop learner-facing instructions
- Consider access, privacy, or alternative pathways
- Plan a small implementation test
- Decide what evidence might help evaluate the support
Participants are encouraged to bring one or more meaningful design questions to the consultation.
AIMON Design Partner
Studio participants also receive optional access to the AIMON Design Partner, a custom GPT designed to support the AIMON design-thinking process.
It can help participants:
- Clarify a learner-support need
- Refine an Opportunity Statement
- Evaluate whether AI is appropriate
- Compare support alternatives
- Review an emerging Design Sketch
- Define AI boundaries
- Plan a small implementation test
The AIMON Design Partner is intended to support professional thinking, not replace peer discussion, facilitator guidance, or participant judgment.
Who Should Participate?
No advanced AI expertise is required. The Studio is designed for:
- Teachers and faculty at any level
- Instructional designers
- Faculty developers
- Trainers
- Educational technologists
- Others responsible for designing or supporting learning
Participants should bring:
- One authentic learning context (one of their own, most usefully)
- Curiosity about AI-supported learning
- A willingness to examine learner needs before selecting tools
- Openness to the possibility that AI may or may not be the best support
The approach can be applied to face-to-face, hybrid, HyFlex, online synchronous, online asynchronous, and professional learning environments.
By the End of the Studio, Participants Will:
- Identify a meaningful moment of learner need and describe what effective support should help learners accomplish.
- Evaluate whether AI is an appropriate form of support and compare AI with human, peer, and non-AI alternatives.
- Develop a practical learning-support design with clear roles, boundaries, and protections for learner thinking, agency, access, and human connection.
- Identify a manageable next step for testing, refining, or implementing the design in an authentic setting.
Upcoming Studios
Upcoming dates:
October 12-14, 2026
November 30 – December 2, 2026
Format: Live online (we currently use Zoom, Google docs, and the HLC forums)
Registration: (Shopify)
October Session
November/December Session
Custom Studio dates and facilitated group offerings are also available. Contact us with the Contact form or email: hyflexlearning@gmail.com
Continue Exploring AIMON
The AIMON Learning Design Studio is one way to learn and apply the AIMON framework. For the broader framework, publications, presentations, design resources, and other professional learning opportunities:
Explore AIMON →
AIMON: AI in the Moment of Learning Need (HyFlex Learning Community)
