#1003: Paying Back the Cognitive Debt: Role of AI in Makerspace Learning

Generative AI has entered classrooms, raising urgent questions about learning in classrooms and other environments. While AI accelerates idea generation, it risks creating cognitive debt, which can be seen as borrowed knowledge that remains unintegrated into students' own understanding (Kosmyna et al., 2025). Building on cognitive offloading (Risko & Gilbert, 2016) and epistemic debt (Bereiter, 2002), this poster introduces the notion of using AI as a tool to foster cognitive debt during embedded learning, while examining how AI-borrowed ideas transform into embodied understanding through critical thinking and making. The goal is to help learners develop an embodied, culturally grounded understanding by transforming AI-borrowed ideas.