Punya Mishra is Director of Innovative Learning Futures at the Learning Engineering Institute (LEI) and Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching & Learning Innovation 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. A recipient of AECT’s David H. Jonassen Excellence in Research Award, with over 75,000 citations of his research, he is ranked among the top 2% of scientists worldwide (#91 in social science) and ranked #44 (#5 in psychology) among educational scholars with the biggest influence on educational practice and policy.
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
A Transatlantic Keynote (No Travel Required)
Earlier this year, the University of Glasgow held its first International Symposium on AI in Education, organized by the School of Education and the Centre for Teaching Excellence. I was invited to give the keynote. The catch: I was in Arizona. Mark Peart, Gabriella...
Three Questions on Questions: On Asking, Knowing and Noticing
Note: This post is a followup to a piece I had written earlier. You can find that post Why Sal Khan’t: On Learning by Making but Teaching by Telling. This post was also cross-posted on the Civics of Technology blog. "Students aren't great at asking questions well."...
From Spectator to Specimen: When Parasocial Media Becomes Parasocial AI
Facebook!!! How it has changed over the years. I remember the time when it was a space to connect with friends and family, get their updates and more. It was a bit performative, for sure, but it still felt like a space worth visiting once in a while, to check in. All...
This View of Life: A Letter to Richard Dawkins
Note: Richard Dawkins made the news recently with an essay describing his two-day conversation with Claude, the AI chatbot from Anthropic, ending in the conclusion that Claude must be conscious. There have been many responses; this is mine — partly about that...
Banning what won’t go away: A new AIR|GPT episode
Tech bans, and calls for more of them, are in the air. The Los Angeles Unified School District just banned screens. Australia banned social media for everybody under 16 years of age. Other districts and states are following, or weighing whether to do so or not. That...
27 Windows on the Universe (05): The Internal Landscape
This is the fifth in a series about the human side of science, drawn from interviews with 27 cosmologists. Earlier posts explored the origin of the project, the method, wonder and beauty, and craft. This one is about something that surprised me in the data: these...
John Dewey, Mrs. Sehgal & R.K. Joshi: Two Brainwaves videos on AI and Teaching
I recently was a guest on Bob Greenberg's Brainwaves Video Anthology, a remarkable project that since 2014 has grown into an archive of over 2,500 conversations with some of the most interesting thinkers of our time. Bob's mission of making the "best and brightest"...
27 Windows on the Universe (04): The Craft of Work
This is the fourth in a series about the human side of science, drawn from interviews with 27 cosmologists. The first post told the origin story. The second described the method. The third explored wonder and beauty—the spark that draws people into science. This one...
From blog post to AERA paper: Kant, Borges & AI go to Bollywood
Last summer, digging around in an old Dropbox folder, I stumbled across a Kant quote I had used in a comprehensive exam back when I was a graduate student, almost three decades ago: “Concepts without percepts are empty; percepts without concepts are blind.” That...
… or check out some random blog posts
The many (type)faces of politicis
Leigh Graves Wolf forwarded to me a link to an NPR story about fonts and the presidential campaign. As the USA network slogan goes, "Characters welcome." You can follow the story here: Character matters. Following a few more links led me to some more sites: (1)...
Reflecting on reflections (TE150)
The entire TE150 team joined together to make a presentation to the College today as a part of the Online Teaching and Learning Colloquia. These sessions are sponsored by the MA-APPC, Center for Teaching and Technology, and the Center for the Scholarship of Teaching....
Flawed Jade
I had three conversations this week. One with a colleague, one with a furniture repairer, and one with a physicist who’s been dead for decades. They fit together somehow… and this blog post is the result. Story 1 Lydia Cao is a friend, and colleague (faculty at the...
Representing $$, two different ways
The power of serendipity... A few minutes ago I received a note via Facebook / Ken Dirkin providing a link to Where are your taxes going for 2010?. A few minutes later, via StumbleUpon, I came across this: The MasterCard Commercial I’d Like To See. Now each of these...
Happy Diwali
Diwali is one of the most important of Indian/Hindu festivals. The best part of Diwali (at least for the children) are the fireworks. Click here to enjoy a pollution-free Diwali Card. Enjoy (and don't forget to click on the night sky!)
Hello Taiwan
Arrived at Taipei airport and got through immigration and customs quite quickly. I was received at the airport by Waiway Lin, a doctoral student at the Graduate School of Curriculum and Instruction at the National Taipei University of Education. It appears that she...
Taare Zameen Par
Taare Zameen Par (loosely translated as "Stars on the earth") is a new movie produced and directed by Aamir Khan, one of Bollywood's biggest stars. He also acts in it. What is unique about this movie is that despite its Bollywood trappings, it is a somewhat serious...
Rethinking 7/8 curriculum at Miami/Globe
One of the most exciting parts of my job are the cool people I get to meet. Glen Lineberry is one of them. Glen is Principal at Miami Junior-Senior High School. He describes his school as a “small rural school on the move.” The first thing that strikes you when you...
Learning Games & TPACK @ Drexel: Video now online
Back in January I was invited to speak at the Drexel Learning Games Network (DGLN) seminar series. As I had written in my original post (TPACK & Games @ Drexel), DLGN is the brainchild of Aroutis Foster, former graduate student, now rising star academic and...