Back to Prep Prep: Josh Conversation — Dr. Shariffa Al Said Collaboration

Prep: Josh Conversation — Dr. Shariffa Al Said Collaboration

Date: Feb 8, 2026 With: Josh Weiss About: Potential collaboration with Dr. Shariffa Khalid Qais Al Said (Oman) Goal: Align on whether/how to pursue this, and what to bring to a joint meeting with her

Who Is Dr. Shariffa?

  • EdD, Columbia University (Teachers College)
  • 30-year career at Oman’s Ministry of Education as an Educational Expert
  • Visually impaired since birth — not theorizing about learning differences, she’s lived it
  • Organized the Gulf Collaboration Symposium for the Advancement of Special Education (Muscat 2014, Dubai 2016)
  • Published researcher: “Modes of ordering disability” (Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research), “Multiple Literacies for the Blind/VI” (with Columbia/Pittsburgh faculty)
  • Presented at AERA and AHEAD conferences
  • Talk: https://youtu.be/IQNMA6whUrI

Key insight: She brings the rare combination of policy-level influence (30 years in the Ministry), academic rigor (EdD, published research), and lived experience (personal stake in getting this right).

The Opportunity

Dr. Shariffa is interested in designing curriculum from the ground up centered on children with learning differences.

This connects directly to what we just delivered in Oman — the hackathon was literally titled “Reimagining Learning Differences with AI.” We ran it. She saw it. Now she wants to go deeper.

Why This Is a Good Fit for Us

Maps to Annual Goals

Goal Connection
Goal 2: Strategic Influence in AI+Education International partnership, extends Oman relationship beyond one-off event
Goal 3: Scalable Educator Capacity Potential to develop Flash Lab variant specifically for inclusive ed / special education
ISTE Partnership Train-the-trainer materials for inclusive ed could inform ISTE work

Extends Our Oman Investment

  • We already built the hackathon materials (“Reimagining Learning Differences with AI”)
  • We have the case cards, scaffolding, and tick-tock schedule
  • Dr. Shariffa adds the deep domain expertise we’d need to go from workshop to curriculum
  • This turns a one-time delivery into an ongoing partnership

The “Effort Tax” Connection

From the Oman session notes (Feb 4): “Effort is a tax on change.” When effort rises, practice falls. This framing is directly relevant:

  • Curriculum for learning differences must reduce effort for both teachers and students
  • AI tools can lower the effort tax (text-to-speech, adaptive pacing, multimodal I/O, real-time translation)
  • Flash Lab format lets us prototype what “low effort tax” actually looks like in practice

What We Could Offer

Option A: Flash Lab → Curriculum Pipeline (Lightweight)

  • Run a focused Flash Lab session specifically on assistive/inclusive ed AI tools
  • Dr. Shariffa brings the use cases and domain expertise
  • We bring the facilitation framework and tech landscape
  • Output: a curated set of AI affordances mapped to specific learning differences
  • Effort level: One workshop + documentation

Option B: Co-Design Partnership (Medium)

  • Series of 3-4 co-design sessions over Q1-Q2
  • Map AI affordances to specific learning differences (visual, cognitive, motor, etc.)
  • Build a “toolkit” or module that could plug into existing curriculum frameworks
  • Could involve students/teachers with learning differences as co-designers
  • Effort level: Ongoing but bounded

Option C: Seed Grant / Research Collaboration (Heavy)

  • More formal engagement, possibly involving a seed grant application
  • Research component on AI tools’ effectiveness for students with learning differences
  • Partner with a GSE faculty member (Victor Lee? someone in special ed?)
  • Effort level: Significant, would need to be a named project

Questions for Josh

  1. Appetite check: Is this something we want to pursue, or is Q1 already too full? (Oman delivery is done, but ISTE + Health Coach Bot + Build-a-Bot scaling are all active)

  2. Scope: Which option feels right — lightweight Flash Lab variant, co-design series, or something bigger?

  3. Funding/support: Does this fit under the existing Oman relationship, or would it need its own track? Could it connect to a seed grant?

  4. Faculty connection: Should we loop in someone from GSE with special ed expertise? Victor Lee? Someone else?

  5. Timeline: What’s realistic? She’s in Oman — do we do this async/virtual, or wait for another in-person opportunity?

  6. Your read on her: You talked with her — what’s her energy level on this? Is she thinking small (one workshop) or big (ongoing program)?

For the Joint Meeting with Dr. Shariffa

Once aligned with Josh, here’s what I’d want to bring:

  • Show the hackathon materials — she saw the event, now show her the scaffolding behind it
  • Map of AI affordances for learning differences — quick landscape of what’s possible in 2026 (screen readers + AI, adaptive interfaces, multimodal generation, real-time captioning, personalized pacing)
  • The question: “If you could design the ideal learning experience for a student with [X], and you had access to all of today’s AI tools, what would it look like?” — then build toward that
  • Effort tax framing — use the language from the Oman sessions to show we’re thinking about teacher adoption, not just student outcomes

Notes from Feb 8 Meeting (Josh, Shariffa, Maryam, Reuben)

New participant: Maryam Alkhzami — PhD in autism (US university), connected through Shariffa.

Key outcomes:

  • The ask is for guidelines (not curriculum) and teacher training — Shariffa has been asked to find someone who can provide training
  • Oman is only in year 2 of addressing autistic kids in schools; blind students still go to a dedicated institute
  • Current model: full inclusion for capable students, self-contained classrooms for multiple disabilities
  • Private schools have no mechanism to receive students with disabilities
  • Josh noted we lacked support for different special ed cases during the hackathon; research shows inclusion classrooms are superior
  • Maryam’s dissertation angle: “You don’t need to write or read to be literate” — modality of receiving information
  • Part 1 is a whitepaper — they want examples of AI supporting interventions
  • Shared designkit.stanford.edu with them
  • Created a Google Doc during the call: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RnvQ7TL3lK90zbfh7yABGXsYcckZATSx8XncJmTFWSo/edit?usp=sharing

Open questions from the conversation:

  • Scope: training for whom? General ed teachers, special ed teachers, administrators?
  • What does “fully trained” mean in Oman — is there a certification framework?
  • Funding/support model still unclear
  • Timeline: exploratory or is there ministry pressure?

Decisions still needed:

  • Which option (A/B/C from prep doc) are we pursuing?
  • Faculty connection — need someone with special ed expertise at Stanford?
Source: prep/2026-02-08-shariffa-al-said-meeting.md