What should kids study? How should AI help? Khan Academy's learning chief on productive struggle

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Mar 24, 2026

Kristen DiCerbo, Chief Learning Officer at Khan Academy and AI-in-education expert, discusses what kids should study now: fundamentals plus AI literacy and critical thinking. She explores when AI should prompt reflection versus give answers. Topics include productive struggle, personalized learning with Khanmigo, low edtech adoption, scenario planning for AI in schools, and practical questions parents should ask.

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ADVICE

Pilot AI To Solve Specific Problems

Do pilot AI tools to solve a specific classroom problem and plan clear evaluation metrics before wide rollout.
Kristen says schools that define targeted goals (e.g., math fluency) get clearer usage and better outcomes.

ADVICE

Prevent Cognitive Offloading With Culture And Instruction

Do teach why learning matters and build students' AI literacy so they don't simply offload cognition to AI outside class.
Kristen warns cognitive offloading is an existential threat and recommends culture and instruction that explain the importance of friction in learning.

ADVICE

Ask Schools For An AI Policy And Evaluation Plan

Ask your child's school for its AI policy, the reasoning behind it, and how the school evaluates technology effectiveness.
Kristen recommends parents probe what tools are used, what they accomplish, and how the school knows they're working.

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So what the heck should kids be studying today!?

That's my opening question to Khan Academy's Chief Learning Officer, Kristen DiCerbo, a learning and AI expert who is back for her second appearance on the show.

We discuss:

Kristen's advice for what to study today: fundamentals, AI literacy, and critical thinking
How helpful should AI be?
Why the productive struggle is critical to learning, but also why we shouldn't "fetishize" struggle
When should AI be Socratic — "and why do you think that?" — and when should it just give you the answer?
The "5% problem" — why edtech that's proven to work still barely gets used
How Khan Academy overhauled its classroom platform and evolved Khanmigo from a standalone chatbot into something woven into the whole learning experience
Personalization that actually works
How Khan Academy uses LLMs as judges to evaluate 20,000 student interactions a day
The scenario planning report that imagines deepfakes of school principals and AI going underground in schools
What parents should be asking their kids' schools about AI right now
What it looks like when a school implements AI well — and what it looks like when they don't

Chapters:

(01:44) - What the heck should kids be studying right now?
(03:55) - Teaching critical thinking in the age of AI
(06:37) - What successful schools are doing differently
(08:37) - The real risk: not that kids use AI too much, but that they don't use it enough
(10:52) - My 13-year-old has to check five apps just to find his homework
(11:52) - "Beyond the AI inflection point" — three scenarios, none of them great
(16:30) - Should we just make every school a trade school?
(19:41) - What should parents be asking their kids' schools?
(22:27) - Khan Academy's Winchester Mystery House problem
(26:28) - Personalized learning — what works and what surprisingly doesn't
(29:32) - Kids are bad at asking questions and that's actually the point
(32:01) - "I DON'T KNOW" in all capital letters — the Socratic method's breaking point
(34:26) - Should an AI tutor give tough love?
(37:01) - Why Khanmigo is fundamentally different from ChatGPT
(40:11) - Don't fetishize struggle — but your kid still needs it
(42:39) - Khan Academy's productive struggle: building evals from scratch
(45:41) - What gives Kristen optimism

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Music by Jonathan Zalben