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For decades, formative assessment has been a silent engine for learningpowering insights about student progress and worker readiness. But lets be honest, in a world where technology is evolving faster than human skills, its time to ask questions about traditional teaching and learning models, and in many cases, modernize them. So, lets talk about formative assessment in the age of AI. Formative assessment is the ongoing process educators and workplace trainers use to understand where students are in their learning and how to adjust instruction accordingly, through homework, essays, quizzes, and short writing assignments. Eighty percent of educators rate formative assessment as extremely or very important. Unfortunately, but understandably, the arrival of generative AI has made it difficult for instructors to determine what students genuinely understand, as AI tools can produce polished work instantly. THE FUTURE OF ASSESSMENT DESIGN While administrative policy can help address improper AI use, the real potential for progress comes from evolving assessment design itself. When assessments are built to prioritize the thought process rather than just the product, AI becomes far less disruptive and far more beneficial. Asking students to make their thinking visiblethrough reflections, revisions, or short explanations of how they approached a taskrestores the instructional signal that AI might otherwise obscure. For educators, this means being able to spot misconceptions earlier, tailor feedback more precisely, and differentiate support without increasing workload. This shift isnt about adding complexity. If anything, its about adding clarity. And its an opportunity to modernize assessment in ways that mirror the world students are entering. In most professional environments, AI assistance is not only allowed; it is expected. Success comes from knowing how to use these tools responsibly: checking sources, critiquing the quality of generated outputs, and adapting insights to novel contexts. Assessments that emphasize reasoning, analysis, and the ability to apply knowledge to new situations better reflect these real-world demands. They prepare students not just to complete tasks, but to think with AI in ways that enhance their learning and judgment. TEACHER BENEFITS For instructors, thoughtfully integrating GenAI within formative assessment can also reduce friction. Welldesigned tools can automate repetitive tasks such as generating varied practice items, suggesting targeted feedback language, or providing examples at different proficiency levels. This allows educators to spend more time on the highvalue interactions that deepen learning and provide individualized support. In an era of rising expectations and constrained capacity, that shift matters. There is another often overlooked benefit: insight. When AI helps surface patterns in student work, it gives educators a clearer starting point for instruction. With better visibility, teaching becomes more adaptive, and learning becomes more personalized. This is especially powerful in large classes, hybrid formats, or virtual learning environments where realtime insight can be harder to access. Recent Pearson research reveals strategies for schoolteachers and higher education instructors to evolve their formative assessments in a GenAI era. Of course, none of this happens automatically. Bold, collaborative action is required across school and highereducation leadership, administrators, and policymakers to ensure formative assessment evolves in meaningful and sustainable ways. Together, these groups play a critical role in providing a clear AI strategy, supporting educator training, and shaping an ecosystem that aligns curriculum, instruction, and assessment with responsible GenAI use. This transition also requires assessments that reward thoughtfulness over polish, reasoning over rote, and application over replication. And it requires a shared understanding that AI is not a shortcut to learning but a catalyst for insightone that can elevate the quality of teaching when used intentionally. A LOOK AHEAD The future of formative assessment isnt about outsmarting AI or pretending it doesnt exist. Formative assessment must remain fundamental to good teaching and effective learning. Ensuring AI strengthens reflection, feedback, and understanding will allow it to become a partner, rather than a substitute for learning. With thoughtful action, the integration of AI into teaching and learning can move us closer to what education has always aspired to deliver: deeper learning, clearer understanding, and better outcomes for every learner. Tom ap Simon is the president of higher education and virtual learning at Pearson.
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E-Commerce
IBM stock was down 10% on Monday afternoon after Anthropic published a blog post about how its Claude Code tool can be used to modernize software written in the COBOL language, which handles large-scale batch transactions. Many of the software systems used by the federal government, banks, and airlines are written in COBOL (“Common Business-Oriented Language”), and most of those systems run on IBM mainframes. IBM also generates revenue from servicing, modernizing, and consulting on those mainframes. If COBOL code were converted to a more modern language, the systems would likely migrate to newer cloud servers. But modernizing COBOLwhich was developed 67 years agois a slow and expensive process, largely because the code can be difficult to understand and easy to break. It often reflects decades of institutional knowledge and workflows, and is frequently poorly documentedmeaning its true intent can only be uncovered through close analysis. These challenges are compounded by the shrinking pool of programmers who know COBOL. Most university computer science programs no longer teach it. Anthropic says this analysis phase is the most time-consuming and costly. Thats where Claude Code comes in. The tool can uncover and document workflows hidden within the code, identify dependencies across different parts of a code base, and give engineers insights into how to redesign systems. With AI, teams can modernize their COBOL code base in quarters instead of years, the company writes in the blog post. IBM says the analysis phase is not the hardest part. “Translating COBOL is the easy partthe real work is data architecture redesign, runtime replacement, transaction processing integrity, and hardware-accelerated performance built over decades of tight software and hardware coupling,” an IBM spokesperson said in an email. “That is the problem IBM has spent decades learning to solve, and AI is the most powerful tool we have ever had to do it.” COBOL was developed in 1959 via a public-private partnership that included the Pentagon and IBM, with the goal of creating a universal, English-like programming language for business applications. But private-sector companies have largely moved away from it. The code is difficult and costly to maintain and was designed for batch processing, making it poorly suited for modern cloud-based and real-time applications. (Anthropic and IBM did not immediately respond to requests for comment.) The U.S. government, despite repeated modernization efforts, continues to rely on COBOL-based mainframe systems to manage a wide range of financial transactions, including tax payments and refunds, Social Security benefits, and Medicare reimbursements. Anthropics blog post comes in the middle of a separate dispute between the company and the government. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is expected to meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to explain why the company has not removed all safety guardrails from its AI models for Pentagon use. Anthropic has drawn the line at providing AI for autonomous weapons or systems that mass-surveil American citizens. At the moment, Anthropics models are the only ones approved for government use with classified information. Anthropic says its blog post about COBOL modernization is unrelated to its friction with the government. “The timing here isn’t related to a new product or any events,” a company spokesperson said in an email. “This is part of an ongoing series of content we’ve been publishing around code modernization and Claude Code.” And Anthropic’s blog post may not be the only factor affecting IBMs stock. Investor concerns about the speed and breadth of AI deployment have depressed enterprise software stocks more broadly. The market may also be reacting to uncertainty surrounding new global tariff announcements, which could affect tech companies and their supply chains.
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E-Commerce
The Big Gulp might have some new competition in the realm of giant beverages from an unlikely dark horse: Dunkin‘. Over the weekend, Dunkin’ customers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts began posting head-turning images of giant coffee buckets on the menu at their local stores. While some commenters doubted the veracity of these reports, a Dunkin’ spokesperson confirmed in an email to Fast Company that the donut chain is indeed testing out a 48-ounce collectible bucket at select stores after noticing buzz around coffee buckets taking off on social media. A coffee bucket is exactly what it sounds like: a giant iced latte served in a plastic container that looks more like a garden tool than a cup. The novelty beverage took off this summer and appears to have been sparked by several different small businesses, including Noctua Coffee in Missouri, Dulce Vida in Oklahoma, and Wicked Southern Coffee in Connecticut, all of which attracted thousands of views on social media. Dunkin’ is no stranger to jumping on a trend, so it makes sense that the brand would arrive at this moment in the social media zeitgeist with a bucket in tow. In the past few years, Dunkin has experimented with wacky concepts like an alcoholic drink line, a donut deodorant, and a horny Halloween donut. Heres what to know about its latest launch: Where can I find the Dunkin bucket? Dunkin’ told Fast Company that the coffee bucket test is taking place at select stores in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, but the company did not provide an official list of locations. Internet sleuths and coffee fanatics have uncovered a few stores that reportedly carry the bucket, according to a cursory search of social media. We have requested the full list of participating stores from Dunkin’ and will update this story if we hear back. What comes in the bucket? According to the Dunkin’ spokesperson, guests can fill their coffee buckets with classics like iced coffee, iced lattes, or Dunkin’ refreshers. Also available are three featured drinks: the blueberry cobbler iced latte, caramel coco iced coffee, and strawberry dragonfruit lemonade refresher. (We shudder to imagine the nutritional contents of these creations.) Customers report paying between $7 and $10 for their buckets. How are customers reacting? So far, customers main complaint for this behemoth of a beverage appears to be the impossible prospect of transporting it. One Instagram Reel with almost 85,000 likes from creator Elijah Boivin shows Boivin cradling the bucket above the caption, Me holding my Dunkin bucket because I dont know where to put it because it doesnt fit in the cup holder. A modern conundrum, indeed.
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E-Commerce
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