Journal of Higher Education Research

In the era of global digital transformation, the traditional higher education paradigm centered on knowledge transmission is facing an unprecedented paradigm shift, with the symbiosis between humans and artificial intelligence (Human-AI Symbiosis) becoming a new core orientation of educational development. This paper takes global higher education as the research context, constructs a theoretical framework centered on curriculum restructuring, proximity dynamics, and the rebirth of educational research, and systematically explores how curriculum restructuring in higher education breaks the constraints of the traditional knowledge transmission model, and how multi-dimensional proximity dynamics promotes the formation of Human-AI Symbiosis and drives the innovation of educational research paradigms. It analyzes the interactive mechanism of physical proximity, social proximity, cognitive proximity, and digital proximity in the process of higher education curriculum restructuring, and discusses the practical paths of educational research rebirth from five dimensions: AI integration in higher education, learner development and personalization, curriculum and educational content optimization, teacher role transformation, and educational governance and regulation. The research finds that curriculum restructuring is the core carrier of realizing the shift from knowledge transmission to Human-AI Symbiosis in global higher education; proximity dynamics provides a key driving force for the deep integration of AI and higher education, as well as the collaborative innovation of educational research; the organic combination of the two promotes educational research to move towards a new paradigm that is interdisciplinary, practice-oriented, intelligent, and humanistic. This study enriches the theoretical system of global higher education curriculum reform and educational research paradigm innovation, and provides a theoretical reference and practical guidance for the transformation and upgrading of higher education and educational research in the context of Human-AI Symbiosis.