Skip to content

AI and You

~4 min

In short

Most students now have an AI assistant open while they study. This section covers three things: how to use one as a tutor without losing the skill you came to build, what AI tools do and do not change in software work, and how to check their output before you trust it.

Read in this order

  1. Using AI to learn. A routine for explanations, your own attempts, and a weekly check that you can still do the work without the tool.
  2. What AI changes and what it does not. What the research shows so far, and where the evidence is thin.
  3. Verifying AI output. Tests, official documentation, and running code, with examples of wrong answers that look right.

How to use these pages

Read the first page before you open an assistant for a course topic. The other two can wait until you have written a few programs of your own, because the advice only makes sense once you know what your own code is supposed to do.

Nothing here tells you to avoid AI tools. The point is that you decide when the tool does the thinking and when you do, and you can tell the difference.

Try this

Pick one exercise from Part 1 of the Python course. Solve it with no assistant open. Then write down, in two sentences, which step was hardest. Keep the note. You will use it in the weekly check on the first page.

Sources