{"id":345,"date":"2026-07-14T12:16:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T19:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru314\/?p=345"},"modified":"2026-07-14T14:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T21:24:07","slug":"where-has-the-work-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru314\/where-has-the-work-gone\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Has the Work Gone?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\"><em>A reflection on teaching, learning, <\/em><em>and what counts as thinking<\/em> <em>in the age of AI<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-post-featured-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1152\" data-src=\"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru314\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/296\/2026\/07\/ai-iteration-and-learning-2.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image lazyload\" alt=\"AI, iteration and learning\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 2048px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 2048\/1152;object-fit:cover;\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru314\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/296\/2026\/07\/ai-iteration-and-learning-2.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru314\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/296\/2026\/07\/ai-iteration-and-learning-2-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru314\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/296\/2026\/07\/ai-iteration-and-learning-2-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru314\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/296\/2026\/07\/ai-iteration-and-learning-2-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru314\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/296\/2026\/07\/ai-iteration-and-learning-2-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Like many graduate students, I\u2019ve been grappling with my use of AI in academic writing. Every assignment seems to raise the same question: How much AI is too much?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ve come to realize that\u2019s the wrong question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AI isn\u2019t a shortcut for me. I don\u2019t scrimp on effort or productive struggle. If anything, I spend more time wrestling with ideas than I did before. The final paper is still recognizably mine, yet it doesn\u2019t feel like authorship in quite the same way it once did. <strong>AI isn\u2019t making me think less; it\u2019s forcing me to redefine what thinking is.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I also have to acknowledge something uncomfortable: the papers I produce with AI are probably better than the ones I would have written on my own. AI exposes me to perspectives I hadn\u2019t considered, challenges weak arguments, and helps me articulate ideas more clearly. That raises legitimate questions about academic integrity, particularly when not every student has the same relationship with these tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But this isn\u2019t another reflection on whether using AI is \u201ccheating.\u201d I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the most interesting question anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The question I\u2019m interested in is this: <strong>What counts as <em>the work<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For a long time, I thought writing was <em>the work<\/em>. Read. Think. Draft. Edit. The effort was visible in crossed-out paragraphs, messy notes, and multiple revisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AI has disrupted that relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of its most deceptive qualities is that it produces work that looks finished. Designers have long understood that fidelity communicates progress. A rough sketch invites critique; a polished prototype suggests the important decisions have already been made. AI breaks that relationship. It can generate  elegant prose in seconds, creating the illusion that an idea is far more developed than it really is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The surface is polished long before the thinking has matured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That realization has fundamentally changed how I write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ve stopped treating AI\u2019s first response as a prototype and started seeing it as a possibility\u2014a provocation rather than a conclusion. Something to push against. Something to interrogate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I question it. I argue with it. I ask it to defend its reasoning. I throw whole sections away because they don\u2019t sound like me. I rewrite until the ideas reflect what I actually believe and understand, not simply what sounds plausible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ve come to believe that <strong>ownership comes through iteration<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not through writing the first sentence, but through deciding which ideas deserve to survive. Not through accepting suggestions, but through disagreeing with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact, I increasingly think <strong>your voice emerges by disagreeing with AI<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps that\u2019s why working with AI feels surprisingly familiar. It resembles the design process far more than the writing process I learned in school. Designers know that the first concept is rarely the right one. Good work emerges through false starts, critique, experimentation, and countless small decisions. The creative act isn\u2019t producing the first idea\u2014it\u2019s staying with it long enough to test it and make it your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The work hasn\u2019t disappeared. It\u2019s moved.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From production to judgement. From drafting to directing. From writing to iterating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That shift has led me to a more unsettling question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Am I developing a deeper understanding of my subject, or am I simply becoming exceptionally good at collaborating with a machine? Could I still synthesize  journal articles without AI? Could I write a coherent argument entirely on my own?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m honestly not sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But perhaps we should question the purpose of those skills before we mourn their disappearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We teach students to synthesize literature, construct arguments, and write clearly\u2014but those skills have never been the goal. They\u2019re a means to an end. We value them because they help us build understanding and communicate it to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So if AI genuinely helps someone reach a deeper understanding of a complex topic, does it matter that they arrived there differently?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, that\u2019s only true if understanding actually happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The danger isn\u2019t that AI writes for us. The danger is that it can create the <em>appearance<\/em> of understanding. It can produce convincing arguments without genuine comprehension. The challenge, then, isn\u2019t deciding whether AI was involved. It\u2019s determining whether the learner wrestled with the ideas, but<strong> that kind of wrestling doesn&#8217;t leave bruises. It isn\u2019t always visible.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps that\u2019s why AI feels so intertwined with our broader obsession with productivity. We live in a culture that celebrates efficiency and equates faster with better. AI promises more output, more quickly, with less effort. Universities often reward the same things: more assignments completed, more publications, more measurable achievements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But learning has never been an efficient process. Neither has design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some of the most important moments happen while sitting with uncertainty. While abandoning a promising direction. While changing your mind. While allowing an idea to remain unfinished long enough to mature. <strong>Reflection, incubation, and productive struggle all look remarkably unproductive from the outside. Yet they are often where the real thinking happens.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AI doesn\u2019t remove those moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe that\u2019s the work we need to protect, make visible and reward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not handwriting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not first drafts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not the performance of doing everything alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The effort to wrestle with ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The willingness to change our minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The courage to reject elegant answers that don\u2019t quite ring true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If AI has made the work of thinking less visible, then perhaps <strong>the challenge for educators isn\u2019t to police the use of AI, but to redesign learning so that the thinking becomes visible again<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe that means asking students to show us their iterations rather than just their final submission. Maybe it means assessing judgment alongside writing, critique alongside composition, and reflection alongside results. Maybe it means creating learning experiences where the value lies not in producing an answer, but in defending it, questioning it, and changing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If we continue to assess only the polished artifact, AI will continue to blur the line between genuine understanding and its appearance. If, instead, we begin to value the invisible work\u2014the false starts, the critique, the decisions, the moments of doubt\u2014we may discover that AI hasn\u2019t made education obsolete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>It has simply reminded us what learning was supposed to be about all along.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Disclaimer: <\/strong>This reflection was written with the help of my favourite thinking partner: the one who edits my grammar, does suspiciously efficient literature searches, but still needs me to tell it when it\u2019s wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A personal reflection on teaching and learning, and what counts as thinking in the age of 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