Beyond ChatGPT: How to Use Generative AI to Foster Critical Thinking in Middle School Students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21712609Keywords:
Generative Artificial Intelligence, Critical Thinking, Middle Basic Education, Cognitive Audit, Formative Assessment, Didactic Transposition, Digital Citizenship.Abstract
The accelerated arrival of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) models in the educational field has brought about profound transformations in teaching and learning processes. In the Middle Basic Education sublevel (students aged 9 to 12), children undergo a crucial neurocognitive transition from concrete reasoning to abstract operations and metacognitive judgment. In this context, the uncritical adoption of automated text and image generation tools poses the risk of automating intellectual effort, encouraging cognitive passivity and the uncritical consumption of information.
This research paper proposes an instructional and methodological framework to transform GAI from a "static response oracle" into a "dialogic and socio-cognitive copilot." Through the Triadic Knowledge Audit (TKA) instructional model, three practical pedagogical strategies applicable to the Middle Basic Education classroom are articulated: the Bias and Hallucination Detective, the Synthetic Socratic, and the Multimodal Concept Translation. Furthermore, a procedural formative assessment matrix is presented, and the ethical and institutional safeguards required to ensure the protection of minors' personal data are analyzed. It is concluded that the formative value of technology does not reside in the synthetic inputs it generates, but in the complexity of critical processing, truth evaluation, and argumentation that students must deploy to validate, correct, and restructure said content.
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