How does GenAI impact student writing and learning?
We routinely outsource tasks to technology, from dishwashers to Google Maps, without much concern. When learning isn’t a core goal, the act of outsourcing isn’t inherently problematic. But the case of GenAI is much trickier: there’s mounting evidence that using GenAI can support or detract from learning depending on the choices made by the user. So, how should you approach questions about GenAI outsourcing in your courses?
GenAI, Learning, & Cognitive Offloading
Educators know that encouraging deep understanding and long-term learning sometimes requires doing things “the hard way” before utilizing shortcuts: students use manipulatives to practice math before picking up calculators to ensure they fully understand fundamentals. Similarly, significant concerns have emerged about the impact of unfettered GenAI tool access for student learning.
Consider one large-scale, widely-reported study of over 20,000 Chinese schoolchildren: students who used GenAI on homework completed it more quickly and scored higher than those who didn’t, but ultimately earned significantly lower exam scores (Strömberg et al., 2026), suggesting the tools ultimately undermined learning. Concerns about GenAI tools’ impact on learning are compounded by the risks of hallucinations, which novices are ill-positioned to identify.
Like homework problems in a math course, writing is an opportunity for thinking and reflection—a crucial site for the cognitive effort essential to learning (Bazerman & Tinberg, 2015). Unlike most published writing, most student writing tasks focus on the writing process and the learning it supports, not merely the product such effort produces. The point isn’t to produce a stellar paper; it’s to learn something about the content and improve one’s writing abilities.
At the same time, although “AI use” is sometimes discussed monolithically, the degree and risk of cognitive offloading varies significantly depending on when and how a user employs a GenAI tool. The table below provides examples of uses of GenAI at various writing process stages, distinguishing between uses that don’t cognitively offload the task and those that do. Limiting students to low cognitive offloading uses of GenAI tools, and even discussing examples like these with students, can help encourage them to opt for uses of GenAI that support their learning.
| Writing Process Stage | Low Cognitive Offloading Use of GenAI | High Cognitive Offloading Use of GenAI |
|---|---|---|
| Brainstorming | The student freewrites or concept maps, then prompts GenAI to coach: Read my initial freewrite and ask me three open-ended questions to prompt further thinking. | AI prompt: Suggest ten possible topics for this assignment. |
| Research | The student creates a list of research questions, then prompts the GenAI with a specific question: Suggest keywords I should use in academic database searches to find research in genomics related to these research questions. | GenAI prompt: Create a research question for a first-year writing paper on [topic]. GenAI prompt: Suggest six sources related to my topic. |
| Reading | The student reads and summarizes an article, then generates a GenAI summary to check their work. | GenAI prompt: Summarize this article and suggest two discussion questions about it. |
| Data Collection | The student writes a survey draft, then prompts the GenAI: Review this survey draft and suggest plain language edits that would make it more accessible to an audience of first-year, traditional-age college students. | GenAI prompt: Create a survey for first-year students about their experiences living in dorms. |
| Data Analysis | The student organizes their data and identifies an appropriate statistical test, but asks GenAI to generate R code to run that test: Suggest the steps and R code to run a MANCOVA on the attached data. Independent variable: test_condition, dependent variable: test_score, covariates: student_gpa, hours_studied The student selects an appropriate data visualization type and prompts GenAI for directions to use the software: Tell me the steps to create a stacked bar chart in Excel, change the colors, and add data labels. | AI prompt: Identify trends in these data. AI prompt: Create a visualization that best represents the attached data. |
| Drafting | The student prompts the GenAI to respond as a tutor: You are a tutor who helps students with college writing. Engage me in a conversation with lots of non-leading questions that will (1) help me assess whether this outline is clear, (2) help me revise my outline as needed, and (3) get me motivated to start writing. | AI prompt: Outline this essay. AI prompt: Write a draft of this essay. |
| Revision | The student prompts the GenAI to respond as a reader: You are a patient newly diagnosed with diabetes. You have only a high school education. Read this draft pamphlet, and tell me about your experience reading it. What is clear and what is unclear? How would you respond to it? The student assesses the response and makes revisions based on their intended impact on their audience. | AI prompt: Tell me three ways I should change my draft to improve my grade. AI prompt: You are a first-year college student. Revise this draft of a SOAP note for a dental hygiene course to meet expectations in the discipline. |
| Editing | The student prompts GenAI to help them improve their editing skills: The student uses GenAI to generate practice opportunities: Create a sample text with common grammatical errors. I’ll correct it and ask you to check my work. | GenAI prompt: Correct the grammar errors in this text. GenAI prompt: I’m studying for a test in my journalism course. What grammar errors might I see on my quiz? |
| Citation | The student writes citations and prompts GenAI to check for consistency with a style guide. (Better option: use a citation generator, which also saves work without introducing the risks of GenAI tools in a very specific process.) | GenAI prompt: Create citations for the attached articles. |
| Translating | The student generates a translation of a section of their text—Provide a translation of this paragraph while maintaining meaning and tone as closely as possible—and manually checks it for accuracy. | GenAI prompt: Translate this paper from English to Spanish. |
| Coding | Students in an advanced course outsource simple steps they can already perform confidently, but complete high-level tasks themselves. | Students in an introductory course have GenAI generate the kinds of code they are learning to complete problem sets. |
Ultimately, decisions about where students can use GenAI tools in your courses should be grounded in an understanding of the capacities of GenAI tools, the potential impacts of GenAI use on students’ cognition and learning, and your course learning outcomes. The WAC team is always happy to discuss these considerations in a consultation. And we hope you’ll share in the comments below: (how) do you allow students to use GenAI tools in your courses, and how did you decide your approach?
Image 1 source: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Image 2 source: Graphic credit: The Economist based on data from Strömberg et al.
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