LILTalks Presents: Learning First: A Framework and Practice to Protect Learning in the Age of AI with Dr. Nicholas Rabb

As AI has dramatically shifted the educational landscape, instructors have been left to adapt to AI. Emerging research suggests that AI use presents many challenges to learning. But largely, educational institutions have not supported training instructors and students in how to ensure strong learning given this radical shift in information access, rather focusing on “AI literacy” as how to skillfully prompt AI, encouraging its use.

In this talk, we re-center learning and criticality as the main skills students need in this emerging age of AI. While these skills have always been crucial, the crisis created by AI presents new challenges, as well as an opportunity to motivate students to learn deeply and critically the as technology is poised to manipulate and deskill them. Our emerging work presents a framework for learning in the age of AI, built on three pillars: (1) prioritizing critical thinking skills and student motivation to learn, (2) adopting correct mental models of AI, and (3) making principled decisions regarding when AI should and should not be used. We will additionally share our plans to operationalize this framework through institutional change efforts aimed at creating cultures and practices of criticality in the age of AI.