Michigan State backs three AI-Ready Spartans education grants

Michigan State University’s College of Education announced on July 15, 2026, that three of its projects were selected in the university’s inaugural AI-Ready Spartans: Education Innovation Grants Challenge. The grants fund new AI-focused courses and training programs for future teachers, health sciences students and workforce learners, with the winning projects set to design and build their courses during the 2026-27 academic year for a launch as soon as fall 2027. Michigan State announced the AI-Ready Spartans challenge in April 2026, inviting the university community to submit AI-centered academic project proposals; the College of Education’s three selections were announced in July.

What the AI-Ready Spartans grants fund

The first project, led by Aman Yadav, a Lappan-Phillips Professor of Computing Education and associate director of the CREATE for STEM Institute, will build a 3-credit course to prepare future teachers, educational technologists and school administrators to think critically about AI’s role in education. The course covers how AI systems work, how bias and error enter them, and when AI use supports pedagogical and assessment goals responsibly. “Schools are adopting AI tools faster than the research can keep up. We have very little rigorous evidence about how these tools affect student learning, which means educators cannot afford to be passive consumers of AI,” Yadav said. He added that the course “prepares them to ask hard questions about how these systems work, where they fail, and whether they serve their students, so that decisions about AI in classrooms are driven by evidence and judgment rather than hype.”

The second project, led by Matt Harkey, an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology and co-director of the Athletic Injury and Rehabilitation (AIR) Labs, is also a 3-credit course. It teaches undergraduates to apply AI tools across the health sciences evidence pipeline, from framing a clinical question to delivering an evidence-based recommendation, while learning to spot fabricated citations, check AI outputs against published research, and recognize bias in clinical-decision tools. The course connects to MSU’s One Team, One Health initiative. “Every job in health care is becoming a digital job, and our students are going to enter a workforce where AI is already in the room,” Harkey said.

The third project, led by MSU alum Sarah Gretter, managing director of the Apple Developer Academy and Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit, is a non-credit learning program delivered through the Apple Developer Academy. It combines applied, challenge-based learning with AI tools and industry engagement to build technical, creative and professional AI literacy skills for the workforce. “Artificial intelligence is transforming every industry, making AI literacy an essential workforce skill rather than a technical specialty,” Gretter said.

The three MSU College of Education projects selected for the AI-Ready Spartans: Education Innovation Grants Challenge. Source: Michigan State University College of Education, July 15, 2026.

Timeline for the AI-Ready Spartans challenge

Part of a wider push on AI literacy in education

The MSU grants add to a growing set of institutional responses to AI in classrooms. Winss Solutions has covered related efforts, including California’s AI-Ready California literacy pilot and the persistent gaps identified in the report on alarming gaps in faculty AI training at universities. Yadav’s emphasis on evidence over hype echoes concerns raised in Winss Solutions’ coverage of teacher shortages and integrating AI in education.

About Michigan State University’s College of Education

Michigan State University, founded in 1855 in East Lansing, Michigan, is a public land-grant research university. Its College of Education has long-standing programs in teacher preparation, educational psychology, and kinesiology, including the CREATE for STEM Institute, which supports research and course development in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, and the Athletic Injury and Rehabilitation (AIR) Labs within the Department of Kinesiology. The College of Education also maintains ties to MSU alumni-led initiatives such as the Apple Developer Academy in Detroit, led by College of Education graduate Sarah Gretter. The three AI-Ready Spartans grants announced on July 15, 2026, extend this base of teacher preparation, health sciences and workforce-training programs into AI-focused coursework for the first time.

Sources: Michigan State University College of Education; Michigan State University

Featured image: photo by Yan Krukau on Pexels (free Pexels license).

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Figen Sekin

I specialize in sustainability education, curriculum co-creation, and early-stage project strategy. At WINSS, I craft articles on sustainability, transformative AI, and related topics. When I’m not writing, you’ll find me chasing the perfect sushi roll, exploring cities around the globe, or unwinding with my dog Puffy — the world’s most loyal sidekick.