Think First

Inspiration

Almost every student I know uses AI now, and in the US, 84% of high schoolers use it for schoolwork. But the way most students use it is that AI usually just hands over the answer, so students copy it instead of thinking it through. I wanted to look at how AI is affecting the way students think, and how it could help them think better instead. I chose Micya AI, a company that builds AI learning tools for kids, because free chatbots already give students answers, so the real value is AI that makes students think more, not less.

What it does

My project shows the difference between AI that thinks for students and AI that thinks with them. Instead of an answer machine, I imagine AI as a thinking partner: someone who asks you questions, discusses ideas with you, and helps you think deeply. It helps students understand things intuitively and visualise concepts, so the idea becomes theirs instead of something they copied.

To show this, I built an interactive dashboard called The Thinking Gap. It explains the problem, shows real research, and lets you explore it yourself. In the copying vs. thinking simulator, sliders for how much a student copies and how many hours they use AI change their test score, homework boost and a "thinking muscle" meter, with a graph that shows how scores change over 12 weeks. A chat demo shows the same question answered by an answer bot and by a thinking partner, so you can see how one just gives the answer while the other helps the student work it out. There is also a panel that shows whether the idea works for Micya AI, with costs shown as everyday comparisons like a snack or a meal.

How I built it

I started by researching statistics about students and AI using ChatGPT, then checked them against the original studies. The most important one was a 2025 study of about 1,000 high-school maths students: those who practised with a normal chatbot scored 17% lower once the AI was taken away, while students using an AI that guided them with hints and questions had no significant drop. I then planned the panels I wanted, with sliders that change the numbers and graphs, and built the dashboard with help from Claude. I chose what the dashboard should focus on and how it should look, and kept changing it until it focused on students and thinking.

Challenges I ran into

My first idea was that AI use reduces intelligence. When I looked at the research, I found that the studies measure learning and test scores, not IQ, so I changed my claim to something I could actually prove: AI is doing students' thinking for them. Another challenge was checking the numbers. One statistic I first found said about 60% of high schoolers use AI for schoolwork, but the real figure from the College Board is 84%, so I learned to check every number against its source.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm most proud of the idea itself: AI as a thinking partner that helps students think, understand and picture ideas instead of just giving answers. This is something that would actually help me and students like me, because we use AI for learning every day and want it to make us smarter, not lazier. I'm also proud that I turned the idea into a working dashboard where every slider changes the results live, and that I did the whole project on my own.

What I learned

I learned that the way students use AI matters more than whether they use it. Copying answers can make homework look better while learning gets worse, but AI that asks questions can help students learn more. I also learned how to read research carefully and tell the difference between something that is proven and something that is only linked.

What's next

I want more students to see AI as a partner for thinking, not a shortcut. Next, I'd like to see how a thinking partner works with real students and whether it helps them understand and remember more. I'd also like to build a simple weekly timeline: design the questions and hints first, then build the partner, test it with a small group of students, and then open it to more students.

Built With

• claude