CRADLE Seminar Series 2026 #2: Preparing graduates for an AI-evolving world (of work)

In this seminar, Deakin University's Dr Danni Hamilton and Associate Professor Lauren Hansen, and CRADLE's Professor Phillip Dawson, share six curriculum-wide recommendations to prepare graduates for the AI-evolving world (of work). AI is reshaping professional work, creating ethical, technical, and creative challenges that higher education must address or risk leaving graduates unprepared. Curricula need to go beyond safeguarding assessments to actively develop the capabilities students will need to succeed in the AI-evolving workplace. To address this challenge, the presenters propose six curriculum-wide recommendations, developed through a 16-month collaborative process involving seven disciplinary partnerships, engaging nine senior academics and 11 industry partners. The recursively structured recommendations prioritise cultivating the emerging professional self by enabling students to develop a personal, professional AI-evolved practice informed by their discipline and by scaffolded cross-disciplinary engagement. Relational and critical encounters with AI are embedded across programs, often implicitly, positioning technology as a changing professional context within which enduring capabilities are developed, rather than as an endpoint in itself. These recommendations respond pragmatically to sector and employer needs and offer a roadmap for curriculum transformation, ensuring higher education fulfils its core purpose while preparing graduates for an unknowable future world (of work). LEARN MORE To access the Recommendations, visit this link: https://doi.org/10.26187/deakin.26074075 To browse the FutureFocus program glossary, the FFlossary, visit this link: https://doi.org/10.26187/deakin.31831309 To learn more about the FutureFocus program, visit this link: https://dteach.deakin.edu.au/spotligh... To view the FutureFocus Magnum Opus video from the seminar's accompanying art installation, visit this link: https://vimeo.com/1174573089/44fee0681b