Interactionalism: Re-Designing Higher Learning for the Large Language Agent Era

We introduce Interactionalism as a new set of guiding principles and heuristics for the design and architecture of learning now available due to Generative AI (GenAI) platrforms. Specifically, we articulate interactional intelligence as a net new skill set that is increasingly important when core cognitive tasks are automatable and augmentable by GenAI functions. We break down these skills into core sets of meta-cognitive and meta-emotional components and show how working with Large Language Model (LLM)-based agents can be proactively used to help develop learners. Interactionalism is not advanced as a theory of learning; but as a blueprint for the practice of learning - in coordination with GenAI. This approach is focused on explicit pedagogical moves, gestures and maneuvers that focus on the dialogical and dynamics of learning together with GenAI agents. The value of this approach is in anticipation of growing reliance on, and integration with, AI as a co-agent with humans, and an important factor in the production function of'skills' and'knowledge' across many domains.