What AI is used for

What students want to learn

Where people get stuck

How people learn

What worries you about using AI

• Becoming too dependent on AI
• Believing an incorrect answer without noticing
• Academic integrity and where the boundaries are
• Losing confidence in doing tasks on my own

What you asked me to address

A How I Work note is a few lines about how you think and what helps you. You write it once, and AI uses it every time.

If you'd like to design your own AI study assistant, this note is the first step.

Include:

• How you like information to look
• What helps you start
• What overwhelms you
• What AI should never do for you

1. Open voice mode on your phone or laptop. Walking is fine, and messy is fine.
2. Say everything: deadlines, classes, work shifts, family, what you're worried about.
3. Include the rest of your life: meals, sleep, exercise, friends, rest.
4. Ask AI not to organise anything until you say you're finished.

Many people in the survey said they think better out loud. This is the easiest place to start.

A good plan needs information you might not think to mention. Ask AI to interview you first, one question at a time.

One student wrote: "I wish AI could help me create a realistic study plan that adapts when I fall behind."

1. Name the chat, for example "Week of 12 October", and pin it.
2. Come back to it when something changes, and tell it what's finished.
3. Ask it to re-plan only the work that's left, and to tell you honestly if it doesn't fit.

Keep rough notes during the week: what you did, how long it took, how you felt. Voice notes are fine.

On Friday or Sunday, give AI the notes and ask for patterns you might not see yourself.

You decide whether a pattern is true. Try one change next week.

1. Attach the assignment instructions and the marking rubric.
2. Ask AI to explain each criterion in plain language.
3. Ask it to turn each criterion into small steps, with a time estimate for each.
4. Ask for the first step only, then add the rest to your weekly plan.

The rubric tells you what the marker is looking for. Most people read it once and never look at it again.

Many people find it hard to start tasks, even when they know how to do them. A full plan can make this worse, because it's more to take in before you begin.

Ask for one action that takes about two minutes. Do it, say "done", and get the next one.

If the action still feels too big, say "smaller".

Body doubling means working while someone else is present. Many people with ADHD find it makes starting and keeping going much easier.

• A friend on a video call, both working with microphones off
• "Study With Me" videos on YouTube: someone recorded studying in real time, often for hours, sometimes with a timer on screen. You work alongside them.
• Voice mode: "Stay with me while I do this. Check in every ten minutes and ask what I've done."
• Alongside, a quiet study companion I built, which works while you work

AI can help with the things that pull you out

• Not knowing what's next: a checklist beside the task
• Stray thoughts: type them into a "parking" chat and come back later
• Dull material: "Connect this topic to football / music / Minecraft, something I care about"
• Losing your place: a stopping note before every break
• Long sessions: plan short sessions with movement breaks

What it can't do

AI can't make your phone less interesting, and a chat window can be one more distraction. Keep AI to one tab with one purpose, and close it when you don't need it.

Spoon theory: imagine you start each day with a set number of spoons, and every task uses some. Some days you have fewer. When they're gone, they're gone.

Tell AI which tasks cost you the most, and ask it to spread them out.

Rest isn't time taken away from study. It's what makes the study sessions work.

Give AI the chapter, article or lecture slides and ask for a study guide with:

• A one-paragraph overview
• The key terms, each with a plain explanation and an example
• A simple diagram of the main process
• 10 flashcards
• Practice questions, with the answers kept separate
• Page or section numbers for each point, so you can check the original

1. Ask AI: "Which five sentences carry the main argument? Give the page for each."
2. Read those five sentences in the original.
3. Now read the article around them. You know what you're looking for, so the dense parts make more sense.
4. Afterwards, write the argument in three sentences yourself and ask AI what you missed.

NotebookLM (free from Google) answers questions using only the sources you put in it, and shows you where each answer comes from.

• Make one notebook per course. Add readings, lecture slides and transcripts all semester.
• Ask questions and click the citation to see the exact passage.
• Make an audio overview (a podcast-style discussion of your readings) for the walk or bus.
• Make a mind map, flashcards or a quiz from the whole course.

1. Open voice mode.
2. Explain the idea out loud as if to a curious friend, without looking at your notes.
3. Ask AI only to listen, and at the end to tell you what was correct and what you missed or got wrong.
4. What it says you missed is what you study next.

This uses two things from the learning slide: you're recalling, and you're producing the explanation yourself.

Give AI a lecture transcript, slides or a reading, and ask for a mix of question types:

Answer before you look at the answers. Getting it wrong first still helps you remember.

1. Take a photo of your handwritten working.
2. Ask AI to read it back first, so you know it has read your handwriting correctly.
3. Ask it to point to the first line that goes wrong, without fixing it.
4. Ask for a hint only if you're still stuck.
5. Then ask for two more problems with the same trap.

At AUB, each instructor sets the rules on AI for their course. What's allowed in one course may not be allowed in another.

If the syllabus doesn't say, ask the exact question:

Ask for a reader's response before any rewriting:

• What do you think this paragraph is saying?
• Where did you have to guess what I meant?
• Does it answer the assignment question?
• Don't rewrite anything.

If AI's summary of your paragraph isn't what you meant, a human reader may have misread it too.

1. Give AI two or three pieces of your writing that sound like you.
2. Ask it to describe your voice: sentence length, tone, words you like, habits.
3. Correct anything it gets wrong.
4. Add the description to your How I Work note.
5. From then on: "Give feedback that keeps my voice. Don't make it sound more formal than I am."

Once you know what you want to say, it can help to see a few different approaches side by side: a different order, more evidence, or a stronger opening.

Use them to compare and decide. Then close them and write your paragraph in your own words.

Check your course rules first. Reworking AI sentences into your own doesn't make them yours to submit.

• Open every source yourself. AI can invent references that look real, or say a source claims something it doesn't.
• Check numbers and quotes against the original.
• Acknowledge AI use the way your course requires.
• Keep your drafts. They show how your work developed.

AI can be a low-pressure first step: working out what your question actually is, or practising how to ask it. After that, people can do things AI can't.

The third part of Rhythm, Insight, Play. The same tool that plans your week can be somewhere to think for pleasure, with no assignment attached.

• Mash up two stories you love into a new one
• Explore a subject you're curious about but not studying
• Make a song, a game or a strange idea

Rest and play aren't wasted study time. They help the rest of the week work.