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Practical AI Strategies

How do we resist cognitive offload with AI?

Hi everyone,

Term 1 is wrapping up here in Victoria, and wherever you are in the world I hope a break is on the horizon, even a short one. If you do get some downtime, it might be a good chance to experiment with some of the GenAI applications you've been reading about in these emails. This week's two posts sit at opposite ends of the spectrum: one argues that sometimes the most important thing you can do is resist AI, and the other tries to blow open your assumptions about what AI can actually do.

Resistance as a Framework for Combating Cognitive Offload

There's a growing body of research suggesting that unstructured AI use can lead to cognitive offloading, where learners hand over the thinking to the tool and walk away having learned very little. In this post I introduce a framework built around the concept of resistance, drawing on the analogy of resistance training in the gym: deliberate friction designed to build strength, not just slow you down.

The framework covers five interconnected areas (expertise, evaluation, metacognition, stretch, and feedback) and draws on recent research from Lodge and Loble, Bearman, Dawson, and others. I'll be testing it with schools over the coming year.

Most people's mental model of GenAI was set the first time they used it, and the blank text box does nothing to update it. This post is about breaking through that ceiling. I walk through a series of examples, from the mundane (file conversion, data cleaning, image understanding) to the genuinely surprising (editing the XML inside PowerPoint files, commissioning native apps, encoding entire datasets into URLs).

The thread connecting them is a simple idea: GenAI is not a text-in-text-out chatbot; it's a general-purpose interface to computing. If nobody shows you what's possible, you'll never think to ask.

Practical AI for Curriculum Leaders

A few early bird spots are still available for the Term 2 cohort of Practical AI for Curriculum Leaders: a six-week, live and recorded intensive designed for Directors of Teaching and Learning, Assistant Principals of Curriculum, and Faculty Leaders in K-12 and Higher Education.

Sessions are capped at 25 people and the Term 2 cohort is filling up. Early bird pricing for the April-June cohort runs until April 18th or until places are gone. Details on the program, structure, and outcomes are on the website.

​Learn more about Practical AI for Curriculum Leaders​

Cheers,

Leon

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