About Alive & Teaching

Alive & Teaching is a public space for reflection on how artificial intelligence is reshaping education — not only in terms of tools, but in how we teach, assess, learn, and relate to knowledge within academic institutions.

Over recent years, AI has moved from the margins of educational debate to the center of everyday teaching practices, often faster than institutions, curricula, and educators can comfortably adapt. This acceleration has generated enthusiasm and experimentation, but also uncertainty, uneven practices, and a growing sense that deeper questions are being addressed too quickly — or not at all.

Alive & Teaching emerged from a need to slow things down intellectually. The project seeks to create space for careful thinking about what AI changes in pedagogy, assessment, academic authority, and learning relationships — without either resisting technological change reflexively or embracing it uncritically. Through podcast conversations, short reflections, and public engagement, the aim is to foster dialogue rather than deliver ready-made answers.

Why this project exists

I engage with these questions from multiple positions at once: as a university teacher, as someone undertaking formal training in artificial intelligence, and as a participant in institutional discussions around AI and education, including the coordination of an AI-focused committee at Saint Louis University.

Working across these contexts has made clear that the challenges raised by AI are not merely technical, but deeply pedagogical and institutional. They touch on how knowledge is evaluated, how authority is exercised in the classroom, and how educational institutions adapt — or struggle to adapt — to accelerated technological change.

Alive & Teaching is therefore not conceived as a platform of expertise or prescriptions, but as a space of inquiry — where teaching experience, academic reflection, and emerging technological realities can be examined together, openly and rigorously.

About me

My name is Barah Mikail. I have worked in academia since 2002, combining teaching and research across different disciplines and international contexts. I am currently based in Madrid and work within international academic environments, with a sustained interest in how technological change intersects with pedagogy, assessment, and institutional life.

This project reflects an ongoing engagement with these questions, rather than a definitive position on them.

You can find more about my academic background and work on LinkedIn.