The journal version of record, expanded from the CISSE 2025 proceeding.
Abstract
This paper addresses a critical challenge facing cybersecurity educators: preparing students for AI-enhanced practice environments where effective action emerges from human-AI collaboration rather than individual expertise. Traditional instructional design frameworks assume human-centered learning processes that inadequately address distributed agency realities in contemporary cybersecurity operations. Drawing on Adams and Thompson’s posthuman inquiry methodology, this analysis develops a comprehensive pedagogical framework consisting of four principles: (1) Design for the Assemblage, Not the Individual, (2) Cultivate Relationality and Response-ability, (3) Embrace Emergence, Messiness, and Indeterminacy, and (4) Posthuman Assessment Approaches. The framework provides concrete instructional design implications, including strategies for configuring human-AI learning relations, integrating AI literacies across cognitive, civic, creative, and critical dimensions, and developing assemblage-aware cybersecurity case studies. These design implications bridge theoretical posthuman concepts with practical curriculum implementation through the lens of curriculum-as-lived rather than curriculum-as-plan. Preliminary implementation observations from an undergraduate cybersecurity ethics course demonstrate how posthuman-designed scenarios enable students to develop comfort with complexity and distributed analysis. Student reflections reveal progression from seeking singular solutions to embracing multiple valid perspectives, suggesting effective cultivation of human-AI collaborative competencies. The framework equips cybersecurity educators with both theoretical foundations and actionable design strategies for preparing students for distributed agency practice environments.
Published in the Journal of the Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education, Vol 13, No 1. https://doi.org/10.53735/cisse.v13i1.229
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Citation
@article{straight2026,
author = {Straight, Ryan and Straight and Joshua Herron, Ryan},
publisher = {CISSE},
title = {Distributed {Agency} in {AI-Enhanced} {Cybersecurity}
{Education}},
journal = {Journal of the Colloquium for Information Systems Security
Education},
volume = {13},
number = {1},
date = {2026},
url = {https://cisse.info/journal/index.php/cisse/article/view/229},
doi = {10.53735/cisse.v13i1.229},
langid = {en}
}