Digital Culture and Learning

                                                                             Picture:   Steve Johnson          Is generative AI helping students learn or just helping them finish assignments faster? That question gained national attention after MIT researchers released a study nicknamed “Your Brain on ChatGPT,” which found lower neural connectivity among students who used ChatGPT while writing essays. As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s article The Student Brain on AI , the findings sparked fears that AI might be damaging students’ thinking. But the researchers themselves cautioned against that conclusion. Their study does not show that AI makes us less intelligent. It shows that our brains operate differently when ...

                                                                                                Photo: Vitaly Gariev   This week’s materials challenged two of my ideas that were shaped by the internet. It's the belief in “digital natives” and the belief in fixed “learning styles.” After I watched  Visitors & Residents: A Challenge to Digital Natives , it made me realize how persuasive and limiting these labels can be. In  Digital natives in the scientific literature , I was especially struck by how intuitive both myths feel. The “digital native” idea, which was first popularized by Marc Prensky , suggests that people born into the digital age naturally think differently and are automatic...