Educator
Background
A university professor teaching a graduate course on AI-augmented knowledge work. Students come from diverse backgrounds — computer science, biology, business, humanities. Needs a framework rigorous enough for CS students but accessible enough for humanities majors encountering structured systems for the first time.
Goals
- Teach knowledge architecture fundamentals alongside AI interaction skills
- Provide a structural framework students can apply regardless of domain
- Develop agentic literacy — the ability to work effectively with AI agents
- Use the course vault itself as both syllabus and subject (“the structure IS the lesson”)
Pain Points
- No standard curriculum for “how to work with AI agents” — everyone teaches prompting, no one teaches knowledge architecture
- Students learn AI interaction as a flat skill (better prompts) rather than a structural one (better context organization)
- Diverse technical backgrounds make it hard to find a single framework that works for everyone
- Cannot grade “AI collaboration skills” without structural criteria
How They Use aDNA
The course vault is both syllabus and subject matter — students learn aDNA by navigating an aDNA vault:
- Weeks 1-3: Students explore this vault (
aDNA.aDNA/) as a reference implementation, learning the triad, governance files, and the question test - Weeks 4-6: Students fork the base template and create their own project vaults with domain-specific ontology extensions
- Weeks 7-9: Students run mini-campaigns with 3 missions each, practicing the full execution hierarchy
- Assessment: The dual-audience principle becomes a grading rubric — can a non-expert navigate your vault and understand your domain?
Self-reference: This vault is the educator’s textbook. The 9 tutorials in what/tutorials/ provide the progressive learning path. The fact that the vault teaches aDNA by being aDNA is the pedagogical method itself.
Typical Ontology Extensions
| Entity | Triad | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
assignment | how/ | Assignment specifications with rubrics and deadlines |
student_project | what/ | Registry of student vault forks with progress tracking |
reading | what/ | Course readings with discussion prompts |
Related
- Teaching Kit — 3-week curriculum: 9 tutorials in pedagogical order, with week-by-week facilitation notes and assessment rubrics
- Educator Use Case — full narrative
- What is aDNA? — recommended first reading for students
- Agentic Literacy (concept) — the competency framework