Marsio Presents, 8 October 2026: Learning Now in the age of AI

Welcome to the third Marsio Presents: Creative Teaching event, this time focusing on the theme “Learning Now”. The event brings together Aalto University teachers to discuss what learning is right now, today, right here: how do students actually learn today? How would students themselves define good learning right now? How can we design the student learning process to be visible from start to finish? How do we secure student agency and involvement in their own learning in our constantly changing learning environment?

The event will be opened by Vice President Petri Suomala. The programme features concise keynote-style talks from Aalto educators that highlight concrete examples, challenges, and solutions related to supporting learning. These presentations will be followed by emerging dialogues in small groups, where participants can reflect on the themes together.

A light breakfast with coffee and tea will be served at the beginning of the event. To help us plan the catering, we kindly ask you to register in advance.

For educators and colleagues

This event is aimed at teachers, educational developers, and other professionals in the field of education who want to have pedagogical dialogue, learn from their peers, and share experiences. Join us to hear concrete experiences, exchange ideas, and reflect together on teaching and learning. 

Gain ECTS credits for participation

Did you know, that you can gain 1 ECTS by participating in community events, such as this, and shorter trainings? Join in the A! Engage in the teaching community -pilot. 

Schedule

9.00–9.30 Coffee, tea and light morning snack such as fruit and biscuits
 

Main programme 9.30–10.40

9.30   Opening Words: Vice President Petri Suomala 

9.40    Presentations 

• Human memory and learning: implications for university teaching - Iiro Jääskeläinen, Professor, Dept. Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering
  Learning builds on the knowledge and experiences that students bring to the classroom. This talk examines selected concepts from cognitive neuroscience that may help university teachers understand how students interpret, organize, and retain new information. The findings presented offer a framework for reflecting on teaching, with attention to the distinction between evidence about brain mechanisms and evidence about effective educational practices.
• What are we learning when we build something? - Meri Kuikka, University Teacher, Design Factory and Ira Laihanen, teaching assistant, Design Factory
  What happens when students from different disciplines build something together? Through a teacher and student perspective, this talk explores how making helps students communicate, experiment, disagree, and learn from each other.  In the age of AI, university can be a place where knowledge becomes something we build together.
• Who's actually learning here, you or the AI? - Antti Lähtevänoja, University Lecturer, Dept. Management Studies
  This session isn't really about AI; it's about your learning, and what AI quietly changes about it. It's easy to use AI, feel like you've understood something, and realise only later that almost nothing stuck. We'll look at the difference between using AI to support your thinking and letting it do the thinking for you, and you'll leave with concrete tools: what to do, what to avoid, and how to use AI so that you actually learn, instead of just getting the task done.
• Learning now: A student’s perspective - Konsta Kiirikki, student of Mathematics and Operations Research
  Konsta is an Aalto University student who uses AI in his studies and experiments with building his own learning tools. For this talk, he has gathered perspectives from fellow students on how they study today. Drawing on their experiences and his own, he explores how AI is changing student learning.
• From Instruction to Student Agency - Tomi Lauri, University Lecturer, Dept. Film
  Presentation examines pedagogical choices in bachelor’s-level teaching at the Department of Film. It focuses on how teaching can support students in taking an active role in their own learning and in making their learning processes visible. Through concrete examples from the mandatory shared studies of the department’s nine majors, the presentation also considers the challenges and questions that the growing use of AI raises for film education. 

Emerging small group dialogues 10.45–11.30