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The Future of Learning in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) - The Effects of AI on an Environment of Teaching and Learning

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The Future of Learning in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) - The Effects of AI on an Environment of Teaching and Learning

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Journal article

July 28th, 2025

De Gruyter

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Evaluating the effects of Generative AI on student learning outcomes: Insights from a meta-analysis

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Evaluating the effects of Generative AI on student learning outcomes: Insights from a meta-analysis

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Journal article

July 2025

Educational Technology & Society

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Enhancing programming education: The impact of AI-based pedagogical agents on students self-efficacy, engagement, and learning outcomes

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Enhancing programming education: The impact of AI-based pedagogical agents on students self-efficacy, engagement, and learning outcomes

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Journal article

April 2025

Educational Technology & Society

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Website

2025

StratX

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The Negative Effects of Artificial Intelligence in Education

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Exploring AI’s negative impact on education, from cheating to privacy issues, and the importance of balancing technology with human engagement for effective learning.

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Website

Oct 24, 2024

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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Generative AI has opened up a whole new world to administrators, educators, and students. The power of AI is undeniable, and understanding the pros and cons of artificial intelligence in education is essential for making informed decisions. To best use AI in schools, teachers and administrators need to know AI’s advantages and challenges.

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Website

May 15th, 2024

Pew Research Center

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As some teachers start to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools in their work, a majority are uncertain about or see downsides to the general use of AI tools in K-12 education, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in fall 2023.

A quarter of public K-12 teachers say using AI tools in K-12 education does more harm than good. About a third (32%) say there is about an equal mix of benefit and harm, while only 6% say it does more good than harm. Another 35% say they aren't sure.

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to better understand public K-12 teachers' views on the use of artificial intelligence tools in K-12 education. To do this, we surveyed 2,531 U.S. public K-12 teachers from Oct. 17 to Nov. 14, 2023. The teachers are members of RAND's American Teacher Panel, a nationally representative panel of public school K-12 teachers recruited through MDR Education. Survey data is weighted to state and national teacher characteristics to ensure they are representative of the target population.

We also used data from a separate survey of 1,453 U.S. teens conducted from Sept. 26 to Oct. 23, 2023. Ipsos recruited the teens via their parents, who were part of its KnowledgePanel. The survey was weighted to be representative of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 who live with their parents by age, gender, race and ethnicity, household income, and other categories.

The survey on teens was reviewed and approved by an external institutional review board (IRB), Advarra, an independent committee of experts specializing in helping to protect the rights of research participants. Find more details about the survey of teens here.

Here are the questions we asked teachers and teens, along with responses, and the methodology for the survey of teachers and for the survey of teens.

How teachers' views differ by school level

High school teachers are more likely than elementary and middle school teachers to hold negative views about AI tools in education.

About a third of high school teachers (35%) say these tools do more harm than good. Roughly a quarter of middle school teachers (24%) and 19% of elementary school teachers say the same.

Fewer than one-in-ten teachers at all levels say these tools do more good than harm.

Some 47% of elementary school teachers say they aren't sure about the impact of AI tools in K-12 education. That is much larger than the shares of middle and high school teachers who say this.

Teens' experiences with and views of ChatGPT

In a separate survey, we asked U.S. teens about their experience with and views of ChatGPT, a generative AI tool, in their schoolwork.

Among teens who have heard of ChatGPT, 19% say they have used it to help them with schoolwork. This is more common among teens in higher grades. About a quarter of 11th and 12th graders who have heard of ChatGPT (24%) say they have used it in their schoolwork, compared with 17% of 9th and 10th graders and 12% of 7th and 8th graders.

Teens' views on whether using ChatGPT is acceptable depend on what it's being used for. Among teens who have heard of ChatGPT:

69% say it's acceptable to use it to research new topics.

39% say it's acceptable to use it to solve math problems.

20% say it's acceptable to use it to write essays.

Shares ranging from 18% to 24% aren't sure whether it is acceptable to use ChatGPT in each of these situations.

Overall, two-thirds of U.S. teens say they have heard of ChatGPT. That includes 23% who have heard a lot about it and 44% who have heard a little about it. Roughly a third (32%) say they have heard nothing at all about ChatGPT.
Note: Here are the questions we asked teachers and teens, along with responses, and the methodology for the survey of teachers and for the survey of teens.

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A quarter of U.S. teachers say AI tools do more harm than good in K-12 education

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High school teachers are more likely than elementary and middle school teachers to hold negative views about AI tools in education.

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When artificial intelligence substitutes humans in higher education: the cost of loneliness, student success, and retention

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When artificial intelligence substitutes humans in higher education: the cost of loneliness, student success, and retention

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Academic Journal

March 1st, 2024

Routledge Taylor and Francis Group

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Ethical considerations in the use of artificial intelligence in counselling and psychotherapy training: A student stakeholder perspective - A pilot study

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Ethical considerations in the use of artificial intelligence in counselling and psychotherapy training: A student stakeholder perspective - A pilot study

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Academic Journal

April 30, 2024

Wiley

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Shortcut to Knowledge or Shortcut to Thinking? Investigating AI-Induced Metacognitive Laziness in Future Doctors

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Shortcut to Knowledge or Shortcut to Thinking? Investigating AI-Induced Metacognitive Laziness in Future Doctors

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Academic Journal

July 15 2025

Ann King Edw Med Univ

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Future of jobs 2023: These are the most in-demand skills now - and beyond

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Future of jobs 2023: These are the most in-demand skills now - and beyond

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website

May 1 2023

World Economic Forum

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Future of jobs: These are the most in-demand skills in 2023 - and beyond

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The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2023 finds analytical thinking, creative thinking, and AI and big data are among the core skills for 2027.

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Website

May 22 2025

PsychologyToday

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Key points

Research reveals significant negative correlation between AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities.

Cognitive offloading to AI may weaken analytical and evaluative thinking pathways.

Educational environments must balance technological efficiency with human cognitive autonomy.

Emma, a college sophomore, stares at her screen. Her professor just assigned an essay on Kafka's Metamorphosis and her fingers hover immediately over ChatGPT. ' Why struggle,' she thinks, ' when AI can analyze it for me?' This split-second decision mirrors a global cognitive shift:

We're trading mental effort for convenience, and our brains are adapting in alarming ways.

What happens to a muscle when it's not used? It weakens. It atrophies. It only recovers when its used again. So, what happens to a mind when thinking is outsourced? As you glance at ChatGPT, perhaps to write your next email or summarize your next work task, consider what cognitive muscles you might be allowing to weaken?

In a laboratory at Switzerland, participants stare at screens, making split-second decisions about whether to solve problems themselves or delegate them to artificial intelligence. Convenience is silently reshaping our intellectual architecture.

The Cognitive Cost of Convenience

"Cognitive offloading emerged as a mediating factor, particularly among younger participants who exhibited lower critical thinking skills due to habitual reliance on AI," writes Gerlich in his 2025 Swiss study examining a stratified sample of 666 participants across age groups.

His research reveals a significant negative correlation between frequent AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities. This was measured through validated instruments like the Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment.

These changes represents the evolution of what Sparrow and colleagues first identified in 2011 as the "Google effect"-our tendency to forget information we know is retrievable online. But Gerlich's findings suggest something more concerning. The 'Google effect' extends to critical thinking, where individuals may prioritize knowing where to find information over understanding or analyzing it deeply.

The smartphone in your pocket has become an extension of your cognitive system. Google Search required us to sift through results, evaluate sources, and synthesize information. This exercised our cognitive muscles of analysis and evaluation. But today's LLMs perform these intellectual tasks for us, delivering pre-packaged insights without asking for our mental participation at all.

The transition from search engines to generative AI demonstrates a shift from tools that required collaborative thinking to technologies that encourage passive consumption of machine-generated thought. This subtle but significant difference will change us from active participants in knowledge creation to mere recipients of machine output. What affects will this have on our neural pathways responsible for critical thinking, evaluation, and synthesis?

What started as outsourced memory has evolved into outsourced reasoning.

Your Brain Loves (and Fears) Cognitive Offloading

Why do we so readily surrender our cognitive autonomy? Perhaps because delegation feels like empowerment. Each time AI completes a task we once performed manually, we experience a momentary efficiency gain. The design of LLMs induce a dopamine-fueled reward that reinforces our dependence, similar to gamification.

Wahn et al. (2023) experimentally demonstrated that humans willingly offload attention-demanding tasks to algorithms when cognitively overloaded. In their study, participants performing a multiple-object tracking task offloaded some but not all targets to an AI partner, improving their individual tracking accuracy by 18% despite wide 'aversion' to algorithmic assistance. This suggests that cognitive load overrides initial reluctance to delegate when there is a perceived convenience to doing so. The authors conclude that "task load is a critical factor in offloading behavior" with implications for AI-assisted workflows in high-stakes fields like education and healthcare.

Beneath this convenience hides genuine anxiety. Gerlich's research uncovered substantial public concerns about AI that extend beyond technical risks to deeper psychological worries. In both studies, participants often downplayed these anxieties in public settings but expressed significant concerns anonymously. Gerlich suggested our society hasn't yet developed the vocabulary to articulate our anxiety with these technological changes.

Perhaps this anxiety is just a reflection of a recognized truth: AI tools are changing us.

Reclaiming Our Cognitive Future

What distinguishes Gerlich's work is its rejection of technological determinism. Rather than positioning AI as an unstoppable force reshaping cognition, his research highlights our agency in determining outcomes through intentional design and policy.

The path forward requires neither the embrace nor rejection of AI. Instead, we need thoughtful integration of these tools that preserves human cognitive autonomy. This means designing educational experiences that teach students not just how to use AI but when not to use it. It means that educational environments value human judgment alongside algorithmic analysis.

Four Strategies for AI-Resistant Thinking

How can we harness AI's efficiency while preserving the cognitive independence that drives creativity and innovation? The answer lies within human-centered learning. Recent research on integrating AI in education suggests four actionable approaches to balance AI efficiency with cognitive independence:

1. Implement "AI-free zones" for deep thinking: Designate specific classroom activities and assessments where AI tools are intentionally absent. Research shows that deliberate practice without technological assistance strengthens neural pathways responsible for critical analysis (Bhuman, 2024). These zones create essential opportunities for students to develop independent thinking without algorithmic shortcuts.

2. Teach comparative judgment between AI and human outputs: Design exercises where students evaluate both AI-generated and human-created analyses of the same material. This helps students identify the qualitative differences in reasoning processes and develop metacognitive awareness of when human judgment adds distinctive value beyond algorithmic processing.

3. Develop "AI-proof" assessments focusing on process over product: Shift evaluation metrics to emphasize students' ability to document their thinking journey, explain reasoning, and justify conclusions. Assessment designs should value the "why" behind answers rather than just output or correctness.

4. Foster collaborative human problem-solving communities: Create structured opportunities for student teams to tackle complex problems through dialogue, debate, and iterative refinement with each other and with AI. I have developed the Dialogic Learning Prompts for this purpose.

As our devices become more capable, the most valuable human cognitive skills may shift from information processing (knowing what) to meaning-making (knowing why). This represents an evolution in what we consider essential human intelligence in the algorithmic age.

When you next reach for AI to complete a cognitive task, pause to consider: What capacities are you developing, and which might you be surrendering?

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AI Weakens Critical Thinking. This Is How to Rebuild It

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AI does our thinking for us and our minds are paying the price. Here's how to reclaim cognitive independence.

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Website

January 23 2025

edutopia

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Proactively Limiting the Use of AI in the Classroom

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By modeling AI, teachers can demonstrate to students the benefits and shortcomings of the technology.

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Knowing the ABC's of Teaching in an Age of AI

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Knowing the ABC's of Teaching in an Age of AI

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Academic Journal

March/April2024

COMMENTARY

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