Punya Mishra is Director of Innovative Learning Futures at the Learning Engineering Institute (LEI) and Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University (with an affiliate appointment in the Design School).
He is internationally recognized for his work in educational technology; the role of creativity and aesthetics in learning; and the application of collaborative, design-based approaches to educational innovation. He has received over $11 million in grants; published over 200 articles and edited 5 books. With over 60,000 citations of his research, he is ranked among the top 2% of scientists worldwide and the top 50 scholars (top 10 in psychology) who have the biggest influence on educational practice and policy in the United States.
Punya has extensive leadership experience in higher education, having previously served as Associate Dean of Scholarship & Innovation (at MLFTC), where he led a range of initiatives that provided a future-forward, equity driven, approach to inter/trans-disciplinary educational research. He has also served as director of doctoral programs (at MLFTC) and the award-winning Master of Arts in Educational Technology program (at Michigan State). He currently is a member of the steering committee of ASU’s Leadership Academy, AACTE’s Technology and Innovation Committee, and editor-in-residence for the Journal of Teacher Education.
An AERA Fellow (2024), TED-Ed educator (2023), he co-hosts the award-winning Silver Lining for Learning webinar as well as the Learning Futures podcast. He is an award-winning instructor, an engaging public speaker, and an accomplished visual artist and poet.
Must reads
Webinars & Podcasts:
Value Laden (archived)
Apple | Spotify | Simplecast
Blog Posts
Beavers, Brains & Chat Bots: Cognitive Illusions in the Age of AI
Imagine a world where tape recorders fool beavers, triangles tell stories, and AI convinces us it's sentient. Welcome to reality—where our cognitive biases are colliding with technology in ways we're only beginning to understand. In this post, I focus on our tendency...
creAItive teaching: Announcing a new course
I have been working for a while (with some amazing colleagues) on course on creative teaching with AI. This was publicly announced in a story in today’s MLFTC newsletter titled: GenAI as a creative K–12 learning partner For those who haven't had a chance to read the...
Education in the AI Era: Responses to a call for help
Recently, I had the privilege of participating in a panel discussion on "Advancing Education in the AI Era: Promises, Pitfalls, and Policy Strategies" hosted by the Center for AI Policy in Washington, D.C. The event, held in the hallowed (not a word I use lightly)...
S’more Problems: Generative AI, Marshmallows, and the Flattening of Culture
A few days ago, The Washington Post published a story that caught my eye. Titled: The Marshmallow Test and other predictors of success have bias built in, researchers say, the article discusses the famous Marshmallow Test, long heralded as a predictor of future...
Why ChatGPT Isn’t Your Next Teacher
There is a great deal of buzz about how generative AI (GenAI) can transform education—something I have been thinking about a lot as well. That said, I not so sure we're asking the right questions. Let's back up a second. Back in the early 90's I was a grad student at...
Teachers and genAI: Insights from an OECD Webinar
I recently had the privilege of participating in a webinar hosted by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) on the topic of "How teachers can use AI effectively." The session was described as follows Supporters of AI argue it has the...
ChatGPT for Teachers: Insights from Online Discussions
In our ongoing exploration of creativity, learning, and technology for the journal TechTrends, my co-authors and I have turned our attention to the fascinating intersection of generative AI and education. Our past interviews have featured innovators such as Chris...
Cybernetics or AI? What’s in a Name?
What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet—William Shakespeare We propose that a 2 month, 10 man (sic) study of artificial intelligence be carried out during the summer of 1956 at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New...
Pencil Literacy: A framework
I have been thinking of pencils lately. Pencils in the context of AI. What if pencils were the latest technological change to hit our world? How would we as educators respond? Would we worry about children using them ethically? What about cheating: erasing answers and...
… or check out some random blog posts
Academic novels
I have been reading Moo by Jane Smiley, off and on for a while now. It is a satire of academia set in a fictional Mid-western university called Moo U. It has been suggested that Moo U is a stand in for Iowa State, an university I know well since Smita went to school...
Paradoxes, illusions & visual wordplay
Figure 1: Eye-llusion Over the past few months I have been somewhat obsessed with visual illusions, ambiguous images, impossible figures and other such fun stuff. This led to the design of a brand new optical illusion, combining an ambiguous image with an...
Virtual speed bump
Optical illusions are usually seen as being cool visual tricks, an intriguing way of peeking into how our brain works. They have rarely been considered to be functionally useful. Here is an exception: an optical illusion seen as a virtual speed bump! Check it out...
Solving the rubik cube, blindfolded
A YouTube video of Soham solving the rubic cube blindfolded! [youtube width="425" height="355"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymi-iG8uhR4[/youtube] [Thanks for Michael Gondry for the idea.]
Killing with a thought
I had recently posted a note (It's only a game...) building on some thoughts in an article by William Saletan. In this article Saletan describes how weapons are increasingly becoming like games. His recent post takes that whole thing one level further. He describes...
Goodbye MSU!
I started working at Michigan State University on the 15th of August, 1998. Today exactly 18 years later I bid MSU farewell to take up a new position as Associate Dean of Scholarship at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. These last 18...
Good Evil Ambigram
Brad Honeycutt, a fellow Spartan (he graduated 1996 a couple of years before I started here at Michigan State) is fascinated by optical illusions. He has completed a couple of books on optical illusions the first of which will be coming out in July. Scott Kim, one of...
Wordplay
Just some visual wordplay that I have indulged in, just for the heck of it. Nothing really special, though I am partial to the "Explore, Create, Share" design. That was the motto of the MAET program at MSU that I directed for years. Innovate 2 on Creativity...
Undo & the the progress of technology
I have wondered what it would be like if life had an undo button, and what we would do without all this cool technology we have? I guess this is what happens when we use technology for too many hours a day. I was reminded of this when I Stumbled-Upon this online comic...