Calendar: PhD SPEF

Scienze Pedagogiche - Research on Inclusion, Well-being and Sustainability in Education

MODULO E - Learning, Design and technology (Academic Coordination: Marina de Rossi, Graziano Cecchinato, Corrado Petrucco) 

Beato Pellegrino - Sala Multimediale/Riunioni 

Abstract

This seminar offers doctoral students in Education Sciences a hands-on immersion into AI tools (ChatGPT, academic search engines, citation managers) with a critical lens on how such tools intersect with information literacy and cognitive offloading.
Learning objectives:
1. Acquire practical skills in using AI tools (LLMs, semantic search, citation systems) in research and pedagogy.
2. Critically evaluate when and how to offload tasks to AI without degrading cognitive engagement.
3. Design exploratory mini-tasks that integrate AI tools while safeguarding deep processing and reflection.
4. Reflect on ethical, epistemological, and pedagogical tensions generated by AI-mediated information environments.
Main topics covered:
The seminar will explore how AI is increasingly embedded in research workflows, from semantic search to prompt design and text summarization. We will also examine how citation management systems are being enhanced by AI, offering recommendations and automated organization. A central theme will be cognitive offloading—the tendency to delegate mental effort to machines—and its implications for scholarly work. Particular attention will be paid to the trade-offs between reducing effort and the potential erosion of critical thinking and deep learning. Finally, we will discuss how scaffolded metacognitive strategies can help balance the advantages of AI support with the need to sustain active intellectual engagement.
Activities:
• Tool labs: participants experiment with ChatGPT, Gemini, (or other LLMs) to assist in literature reviews, question formulation, and summarization.
• Prompt design workshop: optimizing prompts, critiquing AI outputs, “prompt audits.”
• Case analyses: analyze real or fictional usage scenarios to identify offloading risks and strategies.
• Reflective journaling / meta-cognitive checkpoint: participants document where they felt tempted to offload and how they resisted it.
Key references:
• Stadler, M., Bannert, M., & Sailer, M. (2024). Cognitive ease at a cost: LLMs reduce mental effort but compromise depth in student scientific inquiry. Computers in Human Behavior, 160, 108386.
• Gerlich, M. (2025). AI tools in society: Impacts on cognitive offloading and the future of critical thinking. Societies, 15(1), 6.

References

• Stadler, M., Bannert, M., & Sailer, M. (2024). Cognitive ease at a cost: LLMs reduce mental effort but compromise depth in student scientific inquiry. Computers in Human Behavior, 160, 108386.
• Gerlich, M. (2025). AI tools in society: Impacts on cognitive offloading and the future of critical thinking. Societies, 15(1), 6.
• Hong, H., Viriyavejakul, C., & Vate-U-Lan, P. (2025). Enhancing critical thinking skills: Exploring generative AI-enabled cognitive offload instruction in English essay writing. Journal of Ecohumanism, 4(1), 1–15.
• Goyal, R. (2025). AI as a cognitive partner: A systematic review of the influence of AI on metacognition and self-reflection in critical thinking. International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology, 25(3), 1427.