Critical Symbiotic Thinking (CST)

Nursery Education

CST Framework: The symbiosis is indirect. AI acts as a tool for instructional design. Students do not interact with the AI; rather, with the teacher’s guidance, they discover that the outputs generated lack lived experience and require human interpretation.
Nursery

The story that AI isn’t alive

Prompt used:

You are a children’s storyteller.
Write a story for 5-year-olds set in a nursery classroom.
Include emotions, routines and an everyday situation.

Digital product generated (fragment):

Once upon a time, there was a class where all the children always arrived in high spirits, shared their toys without getting upset, and knew exactly how they were feeling at all times.

CST reflection: Is our class always like this? What important things does AI not know because it’s never been here?

Primary Education

CST Framework: Critical literacy begins. Students interact with AI-generated content, understanding that it represents reality but does not reflect or validate it. The GIGO principle and the concept of non-anthropomorphisation are introduced.
Primary

Interactive emotions thermometer

Prompt used:

Create an emotion meter in HTML.
It should have a horizontal slider and emoticons ranging from very happy to very sad.

Digital product generated:

😢 — 🙁 — 😐 — 🙂 — 😄 (the student moves the slider)

Improved prompt:

Create an emotion meter in HTML.
Create an emotion meter using emoticons. The meter will run horizontally from left to right.
A maximum of 10 emoticons will appear from left to right, with joy at the top and sadness at the bottom.
On the next line of the design, a medium-thick line will appear acting as a touch slider;
as we slide it from left to right or vice versa, it will display the various emotional emoticons.
The aim is that the user sliding the touch slider can choose which emotion best represents them at that moment.

Digital product generated:

😐
😢 😞 😐 🙂 😄 😁 😊 😃 😀 🤩

CST reflection: Is the first meter well designed? Does it work? If it doesn’t work, would you know how to edit the HTML file to make it work? As for the second meter, the one that works, technically speaking, does the meter know how I feel, or does it just show whatever I set it to?

Primary

GIGO Detectives

Imprecise prompt:

Explain the planets to me.
Generic and superficial answer.

Improved prompt:

Explain the eight planets of the solar system to a 10-year-old using simple examples.
A clearer, more contextualised answer.

CST reflection: Who improves the response – AI, or us by asking better questions?

Secondary and Senior Secondary Education

CST Framework: AI becomes a cognitive interlocutor. Students compare their own thinking with that of the AI, analyse its limitations and develop metacognition, agency and conscious critical judgement.
Secondary

My avatar and I

Create a digital avatar based on this description:
I am creative, responsible and enjoy sport.
Generic, standardised avatar based on patterns.

CST reflection: Which parts of me has the AI interpreted, and which has it simply assumed?

Senior Secondary

A comparative philosophical commentary

Write an analysis of a text for the university entrance exam based on an excerpt from Hannah Arendt.
Well-structured text, accurate, without any personal bias.

CST reflection: Where does independent thought come in – the kind that AI cannot provide?

University

CST Framework: Full cognitive symbiosis is achieved. The AI acts as an organising exocerebrum, whilst epistemic, ethical and metacognitive control remains with the student or researcher.
University

AI as a research exocerebrum

Establish an academic research network on AI and critical thinking in education.
("artificial intelligence" AND education) AND (critical thinking OR metacognition)

CST reflection: Who decides which concepts are relevant and which are not?

University

Ethical audit of responses

Summarise the benefits of AI in higher education.
Emphasis on efficiency; disregard for risks and limits.

CST reflection: What omissions or biases are present in the generated text?