Where does critical thinking fit into The Age of AI? How can we encourage our students to slow down and reflect, when they are surrounded by a world that increasingly demands speed and efficiency? These questions will be front and center in this session. We’ll begin by covering what critical thinking is. In The Age of AI, critical thinking feels almost counter-cultural. In involves dedicating our time to slowing down, to think about how something works. It means resisting the temptation to move on and to, instead, linger and think about a topic from multiple sides.

For the rest of the session, we will focus on specific, concrete ways that we can use AI to encourage critical thinking. We can use Generative AI to boost what has been called “desirable difficulty,” creating scenarios and learning experiences where students work through a difficult, but important and relevant, idea. The goal is to move us towards a model of AI that recognizes the ongoing importance of desirable difficulty and tension in the modern learning experience. In the process, we will think about the value proposition of Higher Education in this new era.