Creativity, Community, and Classmate Care

The Intellectual Contribution Award recognizes graduating Ed.M. students (two from each master’s degree program) whose dedication to scholarship enhanced HGSE’s academic community and positively affected fellow students. All recipients were nominated by their classmates based on who inspired them, helped them gain a different perspective on education's challenges, and contributed to shared learning and intellectual growth, both inside and outside of the classroom. Each program's faculty directors, in consultation with other faculty and staff, selected the final honorees for their program based on the nominations and on demonstrated academic success.

Luis Gaitan and Tyler Hunt will be honored with the Intellectual Contribution Award for the Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology (LDIT) Program during HGSE Convocation exercises on May 28. We asked the winners about their time at HGSE, their future goals, and what drives them in education.

Luis Gaitan

Hometown: Houston, Texas/San Salvador, El Salvador
Concentration: Global International Comparative Education

For the past two years, Luis has been a phenomenal presence at HGSE. Part of this is his iconic look. As one student described in their nomination, “his signature hat and huge smile” make him instantaneously recognizable on campus. But it’s his intellectual generosity that truly defines his presence in LDIT and beyond. From co-founding organizations like the Games + Learning + AI club, to hosting a wide range of workshops for students and faculty, to offering guidance on colleagues’ projects, Luis shares his considerable expertise with remarkable generosity. In their nominations, students described Luis as “a futurist,” “a renaissance man” who “can do everything” while “always sharing his network and knowledge” with genuine enthusiasm. Luis embodies what intellectual contribution truly means — not just sharing ideas but creating opportunities for curiosity and creativity to flourish in community. What is so lovely is that his impact extends far beyond any single event or project. Luis has fostered connections that will continue to inspire long after graduation. – LDIT faculty

What were your goals when you came to the Ed School and how have those goals changed?  
My goal when I got to the Ed School was to figure out ways to bring technology education to Latin America, as the digital gap in the region exacerbates educational inequities. My goal has largely remained the same, but with a much more major focus on AI literacy.

I entered the Ed School right after ChatGPT had been released to the broader market. As my classmates and I struggled to make sense of the technology and adapt to it, there was a clear impact AI had on those that were using it and those who were not. This made it very clear to me that AI could accelerate further these educational inequities but also could present a unique opportunity. If harnessed correctly, we could see regions of the world leapfrog their educational systems, and students achieve upward mobility within a few generations. 

Is there any professor or class that significantly shaped your experience at the Ed School? 
This is such a hard question to answer... I feel like each of my classes and professors have shaped me in some way to do everything I'm doing now. 

Professor Fernando Reimers' passion and generosity of pushing his students to tackle real-world problems and giving them opportunities to go outside of the campus and make connections in conferences really impacted my journey significantly. I took his class my fall semester and all of those real-world, extracurricular opportunities really solidified to me that I could do this too — now! I didn't have to wait for post-HGSE to begin helping tackle big complex problems in the world.

Visiting Professor Seiji Isotani mentored me on how to bring AI policy ideas to life, and how to present them and build relationships with governments for the betterment of education.

Professor Paul Reville's wisdom on how to work with educational bureaucratic systems really helped me understand the day-to-day work required to bring policies to life and change educational systems. I remember I had a huge "aha!" moment in his class when discussing the conditions of system change, and how policies are only a portion and alone cannot change systems. As at the time I was struggling to think about how to make AI policies work and have lasting impact, and not just being "cool projects" that died after some time. 

Professor Carola Suarez-Orozco gave me the tools to think deeply about the affordances that immigrant students bring. Her class gave me the freedom to explore how games could be used as empathy-building instruments in educational contexts, and her generosity and spirit of supercharging her students with a mission to do good for those who may not be on the radars of educational systems will always stick with me, and the importance that it brings to the field to focus on the outliers.

Tina Grotzer’s T543 was the last class I took at HGSE and genuinely made everything else in my HGSE journey click. Applying cognitive science to learning and teaching brought me back to thinking about the impact a teacher can have in a classroom. Her energy and enthusiasm for each class left me energized even the days I was not really feeling it in life. … She kept pushing me to keep asking questions, and thinking critically about learning strategies with emerging technologies, for the betterment of all students.

What is something that you learned this year that you will take with you throughout your career in education?   
a.    Good instructional design is accordion-like;
b.    The strength of education is in its community; and
c.    Teachers are the builders of nations.

Tyler Hunt

Hometown: Aurora, Illinois
Concentration: Identity, Power, and Justice in Education 

Tyler has brought a rare blend of rigor, reflection, and engagement to LDIT. What her peers continue to admire is the care she brings to every learning space. One nominating student described “the depth of her reflection" and the way her work "sets a standard." Her work across the year demonstrated not just a hunger to learn, but a commitment to making space for others to grow alongside her. Faculty describe how profoundly Tyler holds her teacher identity in all her design work, noting her unwavering belief in the transformative power of schools, classrooms, and educators. Her learning design projects center STEM, self-discovery, and Black history — an intentional, joyful intersection that reflects her larger vision for justice through education. Those who’ve worked with her know: Tyler gives fully of herself, as a thinker, as a collaborator, and as a creative force. – LDIT faculty

What were your goals when you came to the Ed School and how have those goals changed?  
When I came to the Ed School, I wanted to treat it as the ultimate teacher professional development where I could chart my own path in creating liberatory and interdisciplinary STEM curriculum and learning experiences. As time went by, I held on to this goal while aggressively parking myself into the intersection of schools, workforce, Black history, and AI. I have developed a more constructivist approach to teaching and learning leveraged with AI; allowing students to ideate, iterate, and critique these "intelligent" tools.

Is there any professor or class that significantly shaped your experience at the Ed School? Who and why?   
[Lecturer Aaliyah] El-Amin’s Black Liberatory Education course was both personally and pedagogically transformative for me. As a teacher who is often "the one" or one of very few Black educators in a school setting, I took pride in studying the legacy of Black educators (formal and informal) who united to educate and liberate Black youth in deeply hostile contexts throughout U.S. history. This course affirmed my thought that schools should be spaces where students feel seen, valued, and cared for — not only as learners, but as whole human beings. Learning about both historical and contemporary efforts to create affirming liberatory learning environments has strengthened my belief that joy, dignity, and belonging are not optional — they are foundational. I'm leaving this course with a renewed commitment to creating classrooms where all students, especially those historically and systemically marginalized, can thrive.

Despite my busy schedule, I always made time for … homemade strawberry pecan pancakes and scrambled eggs on Sundays. You can't "Harvard" every day of the week.

Any advice for incoming HGSE students? 
My advice to incoming students is to embrace both the formal and informal learning opportunities that HGSE and the greater Harvard community offer. While I learned so much in my courses from my professors and classmates, I also learned through informal experiences like: Building gingerbread houses in Gutman Library, walking and kayaking along the Charles River, making a glass mosaic at the Harvard Art Museum, and visiting the Embrace statue on Boston Common. These deeply enriching moments helped shape me into a better student, designer, and person. When it's time to graduate, make sure you leave Harvard with more than just an Ed.M. — leave with memories, growth, and a broader perspective.