Learning Opportunities

Target Audience: Gr 4-12 administrators, instructional leaders, pre-service teachers and teachers are encouraged to attend.

This session reframes a challenge of AI in education: the risk is not plagiarism during assessment, but the disappearance of human thinking inside student work. Drawing on recent research, this presentation introduces the Taxonomy of Cognitive Impact: cognitive weakening, offloading, and extension and shows how these modes provide a practical lens for evaluating learning rather than policing cheating. The session also presents the Designing for Cognitive Strength framework: Start Without AI, Use AI With Structure, Make Thinking Visible, Embed Reflection and Recall, and Balance Scaffolds and Challenge. This set of assessment design principles shifts the conversation constructively and keeps the focus on learning while ensuring the integrity and rigour of student work. Participants will explore how to sequence tasks, define AI’s role, require visible reasoning, and incorporate recall and reflection to safeguard cognitive development. This interactive session provides school-tested strategies for reframing the conversation around plagiarism as a collaborative one, so educators can verify learning, protect student relationships, maintain cognitive integrity, and ensure AI serves as a positive force rather than a negative one in the classroom.