Learning With GenAI - How Much is Too Much?

Reflection is an essential part of learning with GenAI. It helps you pause and examine how and why you use these tools, not just what they can do for you. By taking time to reflect, you strengthen self-awareness, identify patterns in your learning habits, and make more intentional choices about when GenAI supports genuine understanding and when it might hold you back.

Before you begin, take a moment to reflect.

Imagine you have unlimited access to a tool that can answer any question, write any essay, and solve any problem for you. Would you use it for all your university assignments? What might you gain—or lose—by doing so?

If you use GenAI to support your schoolwork, think about your experiences so far. 

1. Do you feel you learn more, less, or about the same as when you work independently? Why?
2. Have you used GenAI to make a task easier, but then realized you didn’t fully understand the material afterward?
3. In what situations do you think it’s appropriate to use GenAI as a learning tool? When might it become unhelpful or even harmful to your learning?
4. What habits could help ensure GenAI supports, rather than replaces, your own thinking and problem-solving?
5. How might reliance on GenAI affect your confidence in your own abilities? Have you noticed any changes in how you approach challenging tasks since using GenAI?

This interactive video is about Cognitive Offloading in the Age of AI. It will help you begin to think about how GenAI affects your ability to think critically Critical thinking is the intentional, reflective process of analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing information to make reasoned judgments or solve problems. It involves more than just recalling facts or accepting answers—it means asking questions like:

• Is this information accurate, biased, or incomplete?
• What are the assumptions behind this argument?
• What evidence supports or contradicts this idea?
• How do I apply this concept in a new context?

In a learning context, critical thinking means going beyond surface-level answers to engage deeply with ideas, challenge your own assumptions, and make connections between concepts. It’s the opposite of passively accepting AI-generated content at face value and what it means to use AI as a support tool rather than a substitute for learning independently.

The video can easily be watched at 1.5 times the speed  and will prompt you to skip ahead in places. Follow along closely and answer the questions embedded within. You cannot fast foward but you can rewind in ten-second intervals .

Cognitive Offloading in the Age of AI | Paris de L´Etraz | TEDxIEMadrid