Newsletters · Volume 3

The brain loves a shortcut

By Ken Montgomery · October 20, 2026

Student sitting in the grass writing with laptop and journal

Last week, The New York Times rounded up new research on how AI is changing how students learn. One preliminary study looked at a decade of data from millions of online math sessions. After ChatGPT became widely available, students often sped through questions a chatbot could easily answer, and their scores on those questions rose. But on proctored tests, without ChatGPT, the students did worse.

Another early study, from Middlebury College, adds a twist. Undergraduates who used AI to draft their essays then saw their test scores slip a week later once they had to work on their own. But students who used AI as a tutor to explain concepts and clarify ideas held onto their gains and wrote better essays.

So the question isn’t whether students use AI; it’s what they use it for.

Back in June, I wrote that we should stop judging AI by how much faster it makes us and start by asking better questions. Will it make us safer? Can it do something no human knows how to do yet? And the one I care most about as an educator: will it build human agency?

That last question is harder than it sounds. Handing a task to AI doesn’t automatically weaken you, but it requires real self-awareness, and our instincts work against us.

So, schools can’t leave agency to chance. Students build agency through real work with real stakes; at d.tech we do this explicitly through our d.lab course, our innovation diploma offering, and frequent internship opportunities (over 78% of our seniors complete at least one internship before they graduate).

If we want to judge AI by whether it builds human agency, we need a clear picture of what agency is. We believe it’s built around four dimensions: purposeful identity, adaptability, strategic efficacy, and relational intelligence. These dimensions give students a sharper question to ask every time they open a chatbot: is this helping me grow, or just helping me finish?

Schools are where students should learn to answer that question, and educators, who spend their days thinking about how people grow, are the right ones to lead that conversation.

Ken Montgomery
Executive Director, d.tech

Student Spotlight: Jackson Lawrence

Jackson grew up in San Mateo and started at d.tech as a freshman. Today he’s a software engineer at Oracle, where his team works on emerging AI capabilities and the company’s chatbots.

At d.tech, Jackson pitched and led a student broadcasting studio that the school funded and still uses today. When COVID sent everyone home, he and a friend built KoiStream, a live-streaming platform that kept their community connected. He presented prototypes at Oracle’s annual conference twice. Following d.tech, he earned a combined computer science and business degree from Northeastern, interned at Oracle Health, and joined Oracle’s AI team. These days he volunteers as a coach for d.tech students in a game design class. Jackson was recently featured on Oracle’s blog about his full-circle journey.

Jackson Lawrence, d.tech alum

“As a high school student, being allowed to fail and try again like that was instrumental.”

- Jackson Lawrence

What We're Reading

Will A.I. make your brain lazy?: The New York Times walks through the three new studies behind this month’s letter, with interactive charts that show where students’ learning held up and where it fell off.
MIT says AI is forcing a rethink of college itself: Forbes breaks down MIT’s new report on what AI means for how students learn, including the four questions every school should be asking. The number that stuck with us: more than two-thirds of MIT students said AI will matter in their careers, but only 25% felt prepared to use it.
The growing importance of social skills in the labor market: A study from economist David Deming that has aged well. Since 1980, jobs that demand strong social skills have grown as a share of the workforce, while math-heavy jobs with little social interaction have shrunk.
80% of internship bosses don’t particularly want your actual “work”: Michael Goldstein’s best guess is that in four out of five internships, the boss isn’t counting on the intern’s output. The real payoff is what students learn about themselves along the way, which is how internships build agency.

Partner Spotlight: Middleton School District, Idaho

Middleton High School is a large comprehensive high school outside Boise that runs the d.tech Innovation Diploma for its own students. Middleton teachers trained with our team and teach the course using our design thinking curriculum. Over the year, students tackle an independent project built around a challenge they see in their community. They then present that work to d.tech staff in an oral defense, and students who meet the standard earn the Innovation Diploma.

“I highly recommend Design Tech High School to any district looking to elevate student learning and equip young people to thrive in an ever-changing world.”

- Dr. Marc Gee, Superintendent, Middleton School District

By the Numbers

9.4m

According to Inside Higher Ed, 9.4 million applications went through the Common App in 2026, up 2.1 million in four years. The stakes are real. Students and schools are navigating a crowded admissions landscape, and AI is changing the world of work. We give students real problems, real mentors, and a real standard to meet, and they come away with work that proves what they can do.

Connect with Us

If something in this issue resonated, we'd love to hear from you. You can follow along on LinkedIn or explore more at the Innovation Program blog.