Your Brain on ChatGPT→

Kosmyna and colleagues at MIT Media Lab, in a recent preprint:

"The use of LLM had a measurable impact on participants, and while the benefits were initially apparent, as we demonstrated over the course of 4 sessions, which took place over 4 months, the LLM group's participants performed worse than their counterparts in the Brain-only group at all levels: neural, linguistic, scoring."

The study gave 54 college students EEG headsets and had them write essays over four months. One group used only ChatGPT, another only Google, and a third used nothing but their own brains. The brain-only group showed 55% stronger neural connectivity in regions tied to memory encoding and executive function. The ChatGPT group? Weakest across the board.

Immediately after writing, 83% of ChatGPT users couldn't quote a single sentence from their own essay. Zero provided a correct quote. In the other groups, only 11% failed this test.

The researchers call this "cognitive debt":

"As the educational impact of LLM use only begins to settle with the general population, in this study we demonstrate the pressing matter of a likely decrease in learning skills."

When some ChatGPT users later wrote without the tool, their brains didn't bounce back. They even reused ChatGPT's vocabulary patterns. Meanwhile, brain-only students given ChatGPT for the first time showed increased neural activity. They had built something to integrate with.

The lesson: struggle first, then integrate. Not the reverse.

Prioritizing Change in Schools→

Doug Reeves and Robert Eaker writing for ASCD on what needs to change when leading change:

"Leaders must stop waiting for buy-in and giving resisters veto power over essential changes that will have lifetime impacts on students."

Acknowledging and addressing the concerns of those who resist change is crucial, but it's equally important to keep the bigger picture in mind. The primary goal of any school should be to provide the best possible education to students. Therefore, changes that can improve student learning should not be compromised because of resistance from a few individuals.

"Leaders need to take decisive action and say without equivocation, 'This is what we will accomplish in the next 100 days.'"

It’s easy to get bogged down in planning and discussions, but at some point, leaders need to take action. When it comes to implementing change in schools, this is especially important, as every day without making progress is a day when students are not receiving the education they deserve.

"Initiative fatigue, combined with poorly communicated changes, insufficient support, and unnecessary complexity, undermines even the most logically sound change efforts."

Implementing change in schools is no easy feat. It requires effort, resources, and a willingness to step outside one's comfort zone. However, when making particularly challenging changes, the difficulty level only increases. It can be tempting to focus on implementing easy changes first, but this approach can quickly lead to an overwhelming number of initiatives.

As leaders, we must prioritize changes and focus on those that will significantly impact student learning. This requires careful consideration and a deep understanding of our students' needs. We must be willing to tackle the hard stuff head-on, even if it means facing resistance or discomfort.