“We’ve seen this global shift in education towards personalised education and outcomes based education but there isn’t the infrastructure that’s necessary to provide teachers with the supports they need to make this kind of change in the workplace feasible.” – Dr Chris Byrne
“We’ve seen this global shift in education towards personalised education and outcomes based education but there isn’t the infrastructure that’s necessary to provide teachers with the supports they need to make this kind of change in the workplace feasible.”
– Dr Chris Byrne
ADAPT Radio’s latest episode examines one of education’s most pressing problems: teachers drowning in preparation work as systems push toward personalised, outcomes-based learning without giving schools the infrastructure to support it.
Dr. Chris Byrne, founder and CEO of MESO, backed by Enterprise Ireland and the ADAPT Centre at Trinity College Dublin, joins the episode to break down why workload is spiralling and how AI can realistically help. Citing a leaked UK government report showing a quarter of teachers considering leaving due to planning demands, Byrne points to a simple bottleneck: personalised learning requires knowledge of 30-40 students’ individual needs and all without providing additional time or infrastructure
He explains how outcomes-based education has replaced traditional topic-and-textbook teaching with broad learning statements anchored in active verbs like discuss and investigate, placing heavier cognitive and design demands on teachers. MESO aims to ease that load by generating unit plans, lesson plans, rubrics, and success criteria while leaving timing, task design, and classroom judgement to humans, where teachers outperform large language models by a long shot.
The episode also explores creative pedagogy, from role-playing activities using medieval character cards to crafting student-friendly learning intentions that map out both objectives and lesson “journey length.” Byrne argues that a research-driven, human-centred approach to AI is the only viable path: focus AI where it’s strong, keep teachers in control where nuance matters, and blend suggestions rather than automate blindly.
Hosted by Dr Claire O’Connell, ADAPT Radio is a monthly series designed to share ADAPT’s ground-breaking research with a broader audience. Through conversations with Principal Investigators, researchers, and collaborators, the podcast explores critical research questions and real-world impacts. Episodes in the series have covered deep fakes in elections, AI and mental health, and the role of AI in protecting minority languages.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Soundcloud or wherever you get your podcasts.
