Not every reflection on pedagogical innovation begins with a technology, a method or an educational model. Fernando Remião, Vice-Rector of the University of Porto, began his address at the 2026 Internal Conference on Pedagogical Innovation with a piano and a personal experience that allowed him to place a simple question at the centre of the discussion: how can we help students find joy in learning?
His memories of studying piano provided the starting point for a reflection that brought learning, effort, high expectations and human connection together with one of the greatest challenges facing higher education institutions today: artificial intelligence. Fernando Remião recalled the pleasure he found in music and in learning. He drew on that experience to suggest that teaching also means sparking students' desire to engage with knowledge, experiment and keep going when what they are learning is still difficult.
This idea is particularly important at a time when students have almost immediate access to tools that can answer questions, summarise information, produce texts or solve problems. Artificial intelligence is already part of everyday life and will continue to feature in academic practice. Ignoring it or trying to keep it out is unlikely to be a sustainable response. For Fernando Remião, the task is instead to understand how to incorporate it without losing what gives the educational experience its depth.
Learning does not happen simply by gaining quick access to an answer. It also happens when someone spends time working through a difficulty, talks with others, tries a solution, fails, returns to the problem and gradually discovers how to do something they could not do before. In this space of connection, effort and discovery, education retains a profoundly human dimension, even as the tools available become increasingly sophisticated.
In this context, Fernando Remião drew attention to a particularly relevant recommendation in the international debate on artificial intelligence and education: the teaching and learning process should remain under human control. Technology can provide support, expand possibilities and make certain tasks more accessible. But decisions about what is learned, why it is learned and the role that learning plays in each student’s development continue to require human responsibility.
His experience with the piano allowed him to add a dimension that is sometimes missing from discussions of motivation. Finding joy in learning does not mean that learning is always easy. On the contrary, some of the most enduring educational experiences are precisely those that demand time, persistence and the ability to overcome difficulties. Fernando Remião recalled his final piano examination as one of the most demanding moments of his education, marked by hours of practice and the effort required to achieve a goal that did not come naturally to him.
That memory makes his reflections particularly relevant to higher education today. The value of learning does not always lie solely in the knowledge gained at the end. It can also lie in the abilities developed along the way, the discipline acquired, the persistence required and the confidence that comes when something that initially seemed difficult becomes possible. In his own case, Fernando Remião recognised that this experience helped him develop skills that would later shape the way he taught.
The growing presence of artificial intelligence makes this question more challenging still. It requires us to distinguish between what technology can make easier and what remains important for each student to experience and develop for themselves. If a tool can produce an answer in seconds, the pedagogical question becomes: what journey do we want students to take so that the answer becomes learning? And what skills might they fail to develop if we remove every difficulty along that journey?
Finding a balance between possibility and challenge is now one of the most complex tasks of pedagogical innovation. Tools can change, and certainly will. But education still involves people learning with other people, finding meaning in what they do and developing abilities precisely because they are challenged to go beyond what they can already do.
Fernando Remião's address thus brought to the centre of JIIP'26 an aspect that risks being lost when discussion focuses exclusively on what technology can do. Before asking everything artificial intelligence is capable of, it is worth asking what experiences we still want to offer students, what relationships we want to preserve and what kinds of learning should continue to demand time, attention and personal engagement.
Perhaps that is why the image of the piano remains so fitting. Learning a piece requires repetition, difficulty and attention, and often brings some frustration. Yet it is precisely through that process that the joy of finally doing something that once seemed out of reach can emerge. In an age of artificial intelligence, teaching may still mean, to a great extent, helping someone discover that joy of learning.