AI for Understanding and Skills Building
By Traci Eshelman, PhD
For years now I’ve enjoyed AI’s affordances, even when no one knew we were using AI. I even had the first Androids (Éclair & Donut) that had a built in text-to-speech engine. I started to integrate technology for teaching foreign languages in the early 2000’s. When gen AI took America by storm, I was ALL-IN, marveling at how it revolutionized completing tedious compliance tasks, outlining lessons, reviewing feedback, refining language, verifying my translations in multiple languages instantly… The affordances are endless. Systems like Grammarly improved my writing and my confidence immensely.
Despite embracing technology for years, over the last nine months I’ve noticed my brain degrading. I started to experience confusion and short-term memory loss, and I’ve had difficulty retrieving longer-term memories. It started to take longer to grasp complex concepts that before, perhaps I’d struggle with, but now they seemed impossible without my Copilot crutch. At first, I thought maybe this was early onset dementia; it does run in my family.
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To remedy this degradation, I decided to stop scrolling, stop blindly using gen AI for all tasks, and I returned to how I used technology before all these affordances and tech luxuries. It’s been six months since I returned to intentional and selective interactions with gen AI tools, and my clarity has returned to pre-genAI state. Tasks take longer, but I am methodically using the tools to improve and build on my skills rather than hurriedly using them to push out mindless work that may check all the boxes but produce nothing of value. After reading this article provided by SlowAI and Dr. Sam Ellingworth, I realized these findings he cited explained why I’ve always been such a huge proponent of AI and technology, but the results also exposed how destructive my use of these affordances became.
In the article, Shen and Tamkin (2026) defined exactly how educators and learners should harness AI’s power to build their skills and promote deeper learning (at best, buzz words in education circles). AI users must engage with the AI's outputs through conceptual inquiries, demand hybrid explanations, and what I believe is most critical, users must generate content and acquire comprehension. In other words, don't abandon the discussion with AI after it generates the desired content. Continue to engage with it until you reach complete understanding to the point that you yourself are able to explain the concept in your own words.
As an adult, I have had the luxury of obtaining and refining these foundational skills with a hybrid classical liberal arts education. In today's practice, I do not know if it is possible for students who do not yet have the foundational skills that would enable them to use AI effectively and in a way that won’t destroy their capacity to learn. In total transparency, I believe in instituting classical education throughout the K-12 space, but that would be another post. Classical education, however, does highlight a glaring absence of critical thinking in today's education system.​
Relating this phenomenon to K-8 learning, I am leaning toward removing all technology, including calculators, in the classroom. I fear without foundations, learners will not be able to fulfill the three patterns that the authors of the study highlighted as maximizing learning while using AI. Using AI properly can increase learning outcomes, but like every double-edged sword, not wielding the power properly will result in the AI decreasing learning and will potentially damage how learners acquire knowledge for a lifetime. AI can increase learning outcomes when learners intentionally and consciously apply AI in conceptional inquiries, hybrid explanations, and generation before comprehension (Shen & Tamkin, 2026). Each of these practices require the learner to engage with the content and activate their cognition.
The Shen and Tamkin (2026) study was a snapshot of how AI is working throughout our thought processes. More research is needed and will be endless due to the rapid revolution of tech advances. In the meantime, educators and learners should be intentional about using all technology and remain in and part of its process and progress rather than being a bystander.
Disclaimer: I, Traci Eshelman, wrote this entire post without the advent of any gen AI assistance. Please excuse my imperfections. I did use a basic spell-checker, because spelling is one skill I’ve given up on.
References
Ellingworth, S. (March 25, 2025). There are Three Ways to Learn with AI. Most People Use None of Them. Slow AI. Substack. https://substack.com/@samillingworth/note/c-233471787?r=1p1h9z&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
Shen, J. H., & Tamkin, A. (2026). How AI impacts skill formation. arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.20245.