Final Post - Use of Ai to Enhance Learning

At the beginning of the semester, I was pretty skeptical about using AI. I thought it would give me wrong answers, & I was worried about whether I was "cheating" or using it wrong. I didn't really know what to ask for or how to get good results, so I rarely used it.

Then I started experimenting with it in small ways. I'd use it to explain confusing concepts, and I realized quickly that it was more like having a study buddy. The big lesson was learning that bad prompts give you bad results. Once I figured out how to ask better questions, everything clicked.

Now I'm more comfortable with it. I'll ask AI to help me brainstorm ideas or organize my thoughts when I'm working on assignments. I've learned when it's actually useful versus when I need to just do the work myself. And now I can spot when it's making stuff up or being too generic, which is a skill I didn't have at the start of the semester.

Before using AI, I'd spend a lot of time skimming through tons of articles trying to figure out which ones were relevant to my assignment. With AI, I could summarize articles in minutes & find necessary information. This alone saved me a few hours per assignment on just the initial research. For our blog posts this semester, AI helped me take all my quick notes & turn them into structured sentences. For the mock trials, it was super helpful for researching cases quickly & preparing arguments. 

I still had to read the actual sources because AI summaries could miss important parts. It's best for getting unstuck and moving forward, but not for replacing your own thinking. Realistically, I probably saved 3-4 hours per each assignment overall, which is pretty nice.

I learned that AI is a tool, not a replacement for your own thinking. The quality of what you get depends entirely on how you use it. And it's best for getting started on something, not for finishing it. 

I'll definitely keep using AI for brainstorming when I'm stuck, breaking down difficult topics, & checking my work to see if there are gaps or unclear arguments. It's become part of my education in a healthy way. But I also learned what to not use it for. I won't use it to actually write my assignments, because it doesn't help the process of actually learning material.