On the Sensibility of Cognitive Outsourcing

You may have seen a headline or two about that new MIT Media Lab study "Your Brain on ChatGPT." This is the study in which more than 50 participants wrote SAT essays either with ChatGPT or with Google search (but no AI assistance) or with just their brains. The researchers took electroencephalography (EEG) measures of the participants and concluded that the ChatGPT cohort didn't have the same brain connectivity seen in the other two groups. The resulting headlines were predictably dire: “ChatGPT May Be Eroding Critical Thinking Skills” and “Study: Using AI Could Cost You Brainpower” and “Your Reliance on ChatGPT Might Be Really Bad for Your Brain.”

I am not a neuroscientist and don't have anything to say about that part of the study, but I do know a thing or two about teaching and learning and I had a lot to say about this SAT essay writing task. I spent a morning putting those thoughts down on (virtual) paper the other week, and the result is a piece that came out this week in Inside Higher Ed titled "On the Sensibility of Cognitive Outsourcing." I invite you to read the entire article, but here's the punchline:

And here's my real thesis:

I've received some very kind words about the piece, and perhaps my favorite response came from Michelle D. Miller, who is also not a neuroscientist but is a psychologist and has written about cognitive outsourcing. Here's what Michelle posted on LinkedIn about my op-ed:

If you have thoughts about cognitive offloading (which I now realize I called "outsourcing" because that's how AI use is often framed) or the kinds of educational research we should be doing about AI or about robot vacuum cleaners (a running example in my essay), please share!

Teaching Effectively with ChatGPT

This week also brought a new episode of the Intentional Teaching podcast featuring an interview with Dan Levy and Angela Pérez Albertos, authors of the book Teaching Effectively with ChatGPT. I ran a reading group for faculty and other instructors at the University of Virginia this spring using their book, and I found the book and the conversations it generated incredibly useful for exploring potential roles of generative AI in teaching and learning.

I was very excited to talk to Dan and Angela about the book, and I'm equally excited to share that conversation with my podcast audience this week. We talk about how to help our students avoid lazy uses of AI, that is, ways that shortcut instead of enhance learning. We talk about the challenge of writing a book about such a rapidly evolving topic. And we talk about why it's important for higher education faculty (collectively, if not individually) to prepare our students to navigate this new AI world as it evolves.

What we don't talk about--because I didn't learn about it until after we recorded the interview--is that Dan and Angela have a second edition of Teaching Effectively with ChatGPT out this month! It's now available on Amazon (kindle | paperback), and I look forward to leading a reading group again this fall with the new edition.

​You can listen to my conversation with Dan Levy and Angela Pérez Albertos here, or search for "Intentional Teaching" in your favorite podcast app.

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