From Polished Essays to Lost Grit: How AI is Changing the Way We Learn (and What We Can Do About It)

This week, during a lecture at the University of Sharjah—where AIDEN has partnered to enhance student learning and AI literacy—I had a thought-provoking conversation with a professor of industrial engineering.

She shared an observation that resonated deeply with me: today, most student assignments and thesis submissions arrive perfectly polished. The reason? Almost all of her students use GPT or similar tools.

While these submissions are technically excellent, we realized that something crucial is missing: the process of self-discovery that comes through struggle. Writing essays, conducting research, or solving challenging problems has historically been about more than just getting the right answer—it’s a way for students to clarify their thinking, build resilience, and grow intellectually.

But when AI takes over the heavy lifting, are students losing the opportunity to develop grit and independence?

Are we at risk of raising a generation that skips the process and only celebrates the outcome?

The Lost Art of Struggle: Why It Matters

Education has always been about more than the final product. The process of learning—whether writing, problem-solving, or creating—teaches skills like perseverance, critical thinking, and adaptability. These are the very traits that help students thrive in both academic and professional settings.

But when students rely on AI tools like GPT to bypass that process, we risk producing individuals who excel in outcomes but lack the resilience and creativity honed through effort. Struggle plays a vital role in fostering a “growth mindset” and intrinsic motivation for learning. When struggle is removed, so too is a critical part of the learning journey.

So how can educators balance the use of AI tools with the need to teach grit and self-discovery?

Practical Solutions for Educators

Here are a few strategies educators can implement to address these challenges:

1. Shift Focus to Process, Not Just Outcomes Design assignments that require students to submit their drafts, research notes, or step-by-step problem-solving processes alongside the final product. This allows educators to evaluate how students arrived at their answers, encouraging reflective and iterative learning.
2. Integrate AI with Intentionality Instead of banning GPT, make it part of the learning process. For instance, ask students to use GPT for generating initial ideas or drafts, but then require them to critique, revise, and personalize the outputs. This not only preserves the creative process but also teaches students how to use AI responsibly.
3. Promote Collaborative and Experiential Learning Design group projects or hands-on activities where students must engage with peers or tackle real-world problems. These types of tasks go beyond what GPT can offer, emphasizing human collaboration and creativity.
4. Use Metacognitive Exercises Incorporate activities like Think-Pair-Share, where students individually reflect on a topic, discuss it with a peer, and then share their thoughts with the class. This encourages students to actively process their learning and articulate their understanding, skills that AI cannot replace.

Can AI Tools Detect AI-Generated Work?

Many educators are turning to AI-detection tools like OpenAI’s AI Text Classifier and GPTZero to identify AI-generated submissions. But how reliable are these tools?

A recent study by Stanford University found that AI-detection tools are far from perfect. They often misclassify human-written work as AI-generated, especially when the writing style is polished or formulaic. Conversely, these tools struggle to detect advanced AI outputs, particularly when students use “humanizers” to disguise AI-generated text.

What are humanizers? Tools like Quillbot or Undetectable AI rephrase AI-generated text to make it sound more “authentic” and human-like. This not only undermines detection efforts but also highlights the arms race between AI detection tools and AI generators. You can bet that students are fully aware of and using these tools, often, to

Given these limitations, it may be more effective to focus on assignments that emphasize process and critical engagement over final outputs, making it harder for students to rely solely on AI.

A Path Forward: Rethinking Learning for the AI Era

AI isn’t going away—and neither should it. Tools like GPT can be powerful allies in education, but only if we’re willing to rethink the foundations of how and what we teach.

Perhaps the answer isn’t just in tweaking our assignments, but in transforming the entire learning process.

What if education moved away from theoretical exercises and embraced real-world application?

Imagine an industrial engineering professor, for example, redesigning their curriculum to simulate real-time problem-solving. Instead of writing polished essays or theoretical reports, students could tackle open-ended projects like designing sustainable manufacturing processes for local industries, optimizing supply chains in real-world scenarios, or creating AI-enhanced solutions for industrial challenges.

Students could be tasked with presenting their solutions to actual stakeholders—learning through collaboration, iterative design, and the pressure of real-world expectations. These experiences wouldn’t just teach them engineering concepts; they’d develop the resilience, critical thinking, and creativity needed to navigate ambiguity and innovate in unpredictable situations.

This isn’t about abandoning traditional skills but evolving them.

In a world where AI is the ultimate assistant, we need education to focus on uniquely human abilities: adaptability, ingenuity, and the ability to connect ideas in meaningful ways.