Don’t Outsource Learning to AI: Helping Students Retain Independent Thinking

A Lianhe Zaobao feature examined how children growing up with generative AI can benefit from unprecedented access to educational support, while also facing the risk of becoming overly dependent on technology.

Assistant Professor Alwyn Lee from the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, explained that the key question is “who is doing the cognitive work?” While using AI to organise information or improve writing can be useful, students may lose important learning opportunities if they rely on AI before developing foundational skills themselves.

Ast/P Lee highlighted the importance of “productive struggle”, the effort involved in working through a difficult problem, developing an argument or figuring out how to structure a piece of writing. Such experiences help students build the mental frameworks needed for independent learning and problem-solving.

He added that metacognition, or the ability to monitor and understand one’s own thinking, will become increasingly important in the AI era. Students need to judge when AI can support their learning, which parts of a task can appropriately be delegated, and when they need to stop and think independently.

The article also featured EmoSense, a system co-developed by Ast/P Lee that combines student feedback with AI analysis to help teachers identify learning emotions such as confusion, frustration, boredom and curiosity, allowing them to adjust their teaching accordingly.

The broader message is that AI should support rather than replace the cognitive effort required for learning. Students need opportunities to demonstrate that they can still perform independently without AI, while parents and educators can help by asking not only whether AI produced a better answer, but also what the student actually learned in the process.

Read the original article here. 

Source: Lianhe Zaobao © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.