EdTech Fellow, Instructional Designer
and Educational Consultant
at ProLehre | Media and Didactics

December 5, 2025

Introducing In the Spotlight

The TUM Center for Education Technologies launches In the Spotlight, a new podcast series. Each episodes features concise, insightful conversations with our distinguished fellow members, offering listeners a closer look into their work and involvement in the field.

First Episode: Dr. Leah Sharp

In this opening episode, Dr. Leah Sharp picks on her experiences as trainer and consultant for educational technologies and shares her insights on the integration of AI into teaching and learning practices. Listeners can enjoy the podcast directly here below or on our Spotify page.

Interview

1. Can you briefly introduce yourself and your current role at the TUM? 

My name is Leah Sharp, and I work for ProLehre | Medien und Didaktik, which is a central scientific institute that bundles diverse competencies in media and higher education pedagogy. My specific role is as a trainer and consultant on the Ed-Tech Team.

2. What is your primary area of work, and what initially drew you to this field?

My background is physics. I completed a PhD here at TUM with the intention of returning to my native California to teach physics at the college level. I was well on my way to tenure when my personal situation changed and I found myself back in Munich. Unfortunately, my german isn’t good enough to teach physics, but I can help other teachers improve, and that is my primary goal working with ProLehre. With my experience teaching online and blended courses, the Ed-Tech Team was a natural fit.

3. What are key challenges that arise from the integration of AI into teaching and learning practices? And what are promising opportunities for both teachers and students?

The biggest challenge is time. Most, if not all, instructors are hard-pressed to find time to even make small improvements to their courses, let alone completely revise them to account for new developments in AI. And let’s be clear, knowledge work is already starting to change and will continue to do so in the coming years – in ways that are hard to fathom. As Richard Riley is credited with saying, “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist… using technologies that haven’t been invented… in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” Instructors need to reevaluate the knowledge and skills that will be valuable to the future workforce and potentially completely revise their courses to address this new world bravely.

That said, one of the greatest opportunities that LLMs provide is personalized learning. Of course, this must be supplemented with oversight from a qualified instructor, but AI-chat-bots have so much potential to create real personalized learning opportunities for students.

4. How does your work contribute to fostering teachers’ ability to understand, critically evaluate, and safely use AI applications?

I offer courses and work on several projects aimed to train instructors on how and why to use AI. One project is the AI Guide Academy, wherein we train teaching assistants, tutors, how to use AI for a project designed by the instructor. In this way, we are directly addressing the time crunch that instructors have.

5. Is there a person or experience that has significantly shaped your career?

My high school physics teacher inspired my lifelong fascination with physics. He was so cool, riding his skateboard down the halls on his hand. But it wasn’t only his rapport with the students, it was his infectious excitement for physics. In retrospect, I realize that he not only influenced my path to pursue studies in the natural sciences, but he also inspired me to strive toward great teaching.

Website

https://www.prolehre.tum.de/en/prolehre/about-us/people/leah-sharp/