The Myth of Automated Learning

The real threat AI poses to education isn’t that it encourages cheating. It’s that it discourages learning.

The result of writing is a proxy for the process of learning.

the pedagogical value of a writing assignment doesn’t lie in the tangible product of the work — the paper that gets handed in at the assignment’s end. It lies in the work itself: the critical reading of source materials, the synthesis of evidence and ideas, the formulation of a thesis and an argument, and the expression of thought in a coherent piece of writing. The paper is a proxy that the instructor uses to evaluate the success of the work the student has done — the work of learning. Once graded and returned to the student, the paper can be thrown away.

Generative AI enables students to produce the product without doing the work.

The output is not the product.

While the output of any given course is student assignments — papers, exams, research projects, and so on — the product of that course is student experience.

The utility of written assignments relies on two assumptions: The first is that to write about something, the student has to understand the subject and organize their thoughts. The second is that grading student writing amounts to assessing the effort and thought that went into it.

The work of learning is hard by design — unchallenged, the mind learns nothing

Armed with generative AI, a B student can produce A work while turning into a C student

We’ve been focused on how students use AI to cheat. What we should be more concerned about is how AI cheats students.

This comment from a student:

“I literally can’t even go 10 seconds without using Chat when I am doing my assignments. I hate what I have become because I know I am learning NOTHING, but I am too far behind now to get by without using it . . . my motivation is gone.”