In your notebook or a blank doc, write for 2 minutes:
"What do you know about how AI is changing design and creative jobs?"
No AI allowed for this one. Just your current understanding.
Cherie, will you pray for us today?
"I describe what I want built, in plain English, and it just... appears. Not a rough draft I need to fix. The finished thing." — Matt Shumer, CEO of HyperWriteAI, Fortune (Feb 2026)
"For years, AI had been improving steadily. Then in 2025, new techniques unlocked a much faster pace of progress. This year, something clicked. Not like a light switch... more like the moment you realize the water has been rising around you and is now at your chest." — Matt Shumer
of entry-level white-collar jobs could be eliminated within 1-5 years
— Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic
"We essentially have Claude designing the next version of Claude itself... that loop starts to close very fast." — Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic
"GPT-5.3-Codex is our first model that was instrumental in creating itself." — OpenAI
This is not meant to scare you. This is meant to prepare you.
The students who thrive will be those who learn how to learn.
"The bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen." — Frédéric Bastiat, 1850
This 175-year-old insight is the key to understanding every AI doom headline you've ever read.
The jobs being disrupted. The writer watching AI produce in seconds what took hours. Visible, emotional, makes for viral headlines.
Fear is viral. Opportunity is not.
New industries that don't exist yet. Businesses possible when costs drop. Creative work unlocked when drudgery disappears. The entrepreneur who can now build alone what required a team.
Harder to see — that's the whole point.
500 years of being wrong.
Every. Single. Time.
Not "will AI replace me?"
But "what can I do WITH AI that I couldn't do before?"
In times of uncertainty, spiritual guidance is even more important.
God can help us:
Recall what President Oaks said about President Nelson's teaching regarding personal revelation.
If AI can do the work, what's left for humans?
Learning how to learn.
Why AI can be your best tool or your worst enemy
...or it can make learning nearly impossible.
It depends entirely on how you use it.
Delegating thinking tasks to external tools instead of engaging in them yourself.
The research:
You need to get better at using AI.
But using AI the wrong way makes you worse at everything.
The science most students don't know
There is no scientific evidence that people learn better when taught in their preferred "style" (visual, auditory, kinesthetic).
This has been debunked repeatedly. What does work is backed by decades of research.
Learning is about getting information OUT, not in.
Actively pulling information from memory strengthens learning far more than passively reviewing it.
Effect size: 0.50
What does that mean? If you'd get a B- by re-reading,
you'd get a B or B+ by testing yourself instead.
That's about half a letter grade — just from changing HOW you study. (Rowland, 2014)
The mental effort of trying to remember IS the mechanism by which learning occurs.
Conditions that feel harder produce stronger long-term retention.
Struggle is not a bug. It's the feature.
"I understood the explanation"
≠ "I learned it"
Students consistently rate strategies that feel fluent and easy (re-reading, highlighting) as more effective...
...when these strategies are actually among the least effective for long-term retention.
AI makes everything feel fluent. That's the danger.
...without attempting it yourself first. Passive reception creates fluency illusion.
Having AI summarize what you should read robs you of the processing that creates learning.
Using AI output as your own work. You hand in quality, but you learned nothing.
Confusion is a learning signal. Immediately resolving it short-circuits restructuring.
Taking In vs. Strengthening
Most students default to "explain this to me" (passive acquisition) and skip retrieval entirely.
The best learners do BOTH — and they know which phase they're in.
Use these when you're learning something new
Starting from zero? Ask AI to break down the topic into sub-topics. Get the map before the journey.
Before details, ask AI to explain why this matters and where it fits in the bigger picture.
Topic overwhelming? Ask AI to explain one piece at a time. Don't move on until you understand.
Explanation doesn't click? Ask AI to explain differently — simpler, with an analogy, with a concrete example.
AI gives you facts? Cross-check against another source. AI can be confident and wrong.
Use these when you have some knowledge to work with
After learning something new, explain it back to AI in your own words. Ask AI to check your understanding.
Ready to test yourself? Ask AI to quiz you. Answer BEFORE seeing feedback.
Stuck on a problem? Ask for the smallest possible hint — not the answer.
Confused about why? Ask AI to guide you with questions instead of explanations.
After any learning session, ask yourself:
This closes the learning loop. Without it, you may feel like you learned without actually encoding it to memory.
I do / We do / You do
Topic: Visual Hierarchy
"I want to learn how designers guide the eye. Watch how I use AI."
Notice: I'm actively directing the conversation, not just absorbing.
We'll continue learning about visual hierarchy together.
What practice should we use next?
Chunk It (learn another piece)
Translate (ask for examples)
Why First (understand importance)
Teach Back (explain what we learned)
Quiz Me (test ourselves)
You're practicing CHOOSING practices, not just watching.
Same topic: visual hierarchy
Try Chunk It or Translate — learn something new about visual hierarchy using AI.
Try Teach Back — explain what you've learned so far to AI and ask it to check your understanding.
Swap roles after 4 minutes.
Debrief: What felt different about taking in vs. strengthening?
Apply the two-phase framework to teach yourself typography
You just learned the concept. Now learn the craft.
Learn about typography and type hierarchy using the two-phase framework.
Topics to explore: type scales, the four-size rule, weight for hierarchy, line height
Key question: Am I taking in (new material) or strengthening (testing myself)?
If typography is new to you:
Once you have the basics:
As you work on C2, ask yourself:
At the end, write a reflection: What did I learn? What's still fuzzy? Which practices did I use?
Due: Feb 17 @ 5:15pm
Export as PDF
These styles will evolve — this is a starting point.
Due today @ 5:15pm:
C1 Persona Sheet + Product Details
Due Feb 17:
C2 Type Hierarchy
Before Day 11:
Rough wireframe sketches for PDP
Resources: