In this episode, Meryl is joined once again by Critical Thinking in the Digital Age instructor Stephanie Simoes to explore how AI is impacting students’ ability to think deeply and critically. The two discuss an MIT study that sparked widespread concern, the concept of cognitive offloading, and how parents can teach their teens to use AI responsibly without losing their own reasoning skills.

• What the “Your Brain on ChatGPT” study actually found—and why it’s been misunderstood

• What cognitive offloading means and when it’s useful vs. harmful

•  The critical thinking and fact-checking skills students need before using AI tools

• How expertise and intellectual humility affect our ability to evaluate AI responses

•  Recognizing bias—both in AI training data and in our own prompts

•  Strategies to overcome confirmation bias when using ChatGPT

• How to use AI to strengthen critical thinking through debate and challenge-based prompts

• Stephanie’s blog post on AI & Critical Thinking 

• Her interview with an AI expert on bias in training data

• Dr. Kiran Garimella’s article: Is AI Creating Incompetent Experts?

• MagicSchool.AI – a tool for supervised AI learning environments

• FundaFunda Academy’s AI and Critical Thinking courses

  • Self-paced AI Unit Study (Grades 6–12)

  • Semester-long AI Class for High School Credit

  • Critical Thinking in the Digital Age (self-paced, ½ credit)

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• TikTok

Take a look at show sponsor, FundaFunda Academy to see what they offer for online classes and web-based unit studies.

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