The Learning Curve is a podcast from Vocareum featuring conversations with leaders across education, technology, and industry about the future of learning, work, and AI. From higher education and workforce readiness to the practical application of emerging technology, each episode explores how institutions and organizations can adapt, support learners, and prepare for what comes next.
#01: Designing Better Learning | Sanjay Srivastava with Sesh Murthy of UC San Diego
In the first episode of The Learning Curve, Sanjay Srivastava speaks with Sesh Murthy of UC San Diego about what it takes to design AI support that actually helps learning. Their conversation explores productive struggle, scaffolding, instant feedback, and how thoughtful design can help learners build confidence, practice more, and improve outcomes.
#02: The New Grand Bargain | Sanjay Srivastava with Kemi Jona of University of Virginia
In the second episode of The Learning Curve, Sanjay Srivastava speaks with Kemi Jona, Vice Provost for Online Education at the University of Virginia, about a growing contradiction in higher education: employers consistently rank real work experience above everything else, yet internship opportunities keep shrinking. Their conversation explores what that gap means for students, how UVA is responding with career academies and the AI4VA initiative, and what a new grand bargain between universities and employers could look like.
#03: Rethinking Disruption | Sanjay Srivastava with Michael Horn, co-author of Disrupting Class
In the third episode of The Learning Curve, Sanjay Srivastava speaks with Michael Horn, co-author of “Disrupting Class” and co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute, about a theory he helped build nearly two decades ago and what still holds up. Their conversation explores why disruption stalled in K-12, why AI is now forcing higher ed to face the same reckoning past technologies did, and why Vocareum’s own research at UC San Diego found that practice, not AI itself, cut developmental math failure rates by two-thirds.
#04: Training for a Moving Target | Sanjay Srivastava with Rochana Golani, VP of Learning and Enablement at Databricks
In the fourth episode of The Learning Curve, Sanjay Srivastava speaks with Rochana Golani, VP of Learning and Enablement at Databricks, about how you train people for roles nobody can name yet. Their conversation explores why she expects AI fluency in every job but calls assessing who is at its cutting edge a myth, how Databricks infers employees’ skills from the work they are already doing, and why she considers the ability to learn fast the single most important skill.
