Reading Is Thinking

What makes an AI-generated study guide useful for learning—not just reviewing information?In this episode of the Black-Liberation.Tech Podcast, Dr. Renée Jordan returns to Ashley's General Chemistry I example in Module 3 of AI for Academic Success and begins reading through the study guide generated by Janiyah GPT.We explore how the guide organizes chemistry into connected ideas, moving from atomic structure and electron configurations to periodic trends, chemical bonding, reactions, and stoichiometry. The response also introduces mathematical reasoning, important vocabulary, common misconceptions, real-world applications, and contributions from scientists such as Marie Maynard Daly.As we examine the first half of the response, an important question emerges: Does organizing information help learners understand the relationships between concepts?This episode invites students, educators, families, and lifelong learners to think critically about AI-generated study materials and how they can support independent learning.AI can help organize information, but learners remain responsible for evaluating it and building their own understanding.This is the first part of our review of Ashley's AI-generated study guide.As you listen, think about this: Janiyah organized Ashley's chemistry study guide around the concepts she struggled to connect. But how can Ashley determine whether those explanations are accurate—and whether she truly understands them?

What if a better study guide could help you connect what you know instead of simply memorizing more information?In this episode of the Black-Liberation.Tech Podcast, Dr. Renée Jordan continues Module 3 of AI for Academic Success with Ashley, a first-year undergraduate studying General Chemistry I.We walk through Ashley's personalized STEM study guide prompt, designed to connect atomic structure, periodic trends, chemical bonding, and stoichiometry while strengthening scientific vocabulary, mathematical reasoning, and independent learning.The episode explores how identifying what you understand, where you're struggling, and what you want to learn can make an AI prompt more purposeful.We submit Ashley's prompt to Janiyah GPT, then pause before reviewing the generated study guide. That evaluation comes in the next episode.The goal is to use AI to support understanding—not replace the thinking required to learn chemistry.

From Scattered Notes to Study Guides: Learning with AIWhat if you already know more than you think—but need a better way to organize it?In this episode of the Black-Liberation.Tech Podcast, Dr. Renée Jordan introduces Module 3 of AI for Academic Success: Create a Study Guide.Through Zuri's story, we explore how organizing notes, identifying important concepts, and recognizing connections can help learners study with greater confidence.We also introduce STEM and non-STEM prompt templates that students can customize to create personalized study guides using AI. These prompts support vocabulary development, concept review, practice questions, and deeper understanding across subjects.The goal isn't to let AI do the learning for you. It's to use AI as a thinking partner while maintaining ownership of your knowledge, decisions, and academic growth.

What happens when we move beyond asking AI to explain something and begin creating and testing our own connections?In this episode of AI for Academic Success, Dr. Renée Jordan introduces the revised Module 2, Help Me Learn Through My Interests, which now emphasizes analogies instead of metaphors.We explore how learners can connect new academic concepts to their interests and prior knowledge, map relationships between ideas, identify where comparisons break down, and test their understanding without relying on AI-generated explanations.Through the Try It Like Dr. Ellen Ochoa activity, learners practice a five-step process: Choose → Build → Map → Test → Explain.The goal is not simply to make difficult concepts easier. It's to help learners become more confident, independent thinkers who can explain what they've learned in their own words.

AI for Academic Success: Create, Question & Explain with ConfidenceHow do you know whether you truly understand something you've learned?In Part 4 of the AI for Academic Success Module 2 walkthrough, Dr. Renée Jordan explores the Scholar Reflection, Learning Connection, and Try It Like Dr. Ellen Ochoa activity.Using the original metaphor-centered workbook, we examine how students can connect academic concepts to their interests, create their own comparisons, evaluate AI feedback, recognize misconceptions, and teach what they've learned to someone else.The goal isn't simply to receive an explanation from AI. It's to build, question, and communicate your own understanding while keeping academic vocabulary and human judgment at the center.

AI for Academic Success: Exploring Excellence, Creativity & Problem-SolvingWhat can we learn from how accomplished women think—not just what they accomplished?In Part 3 of the Module 2 walkthrough of AI for Academic Success, Dr. Renée Jordan explores Janiyah GPT's response to an Excellence Exploration featuring Dr. Ellen Ochoa, Katherine Johnson, Dr. Adriana Ocampo, Dr. Antonia Novello, Dr. Ainissa Ramirez, and Dr. Helen Rodríguez-Trías.Their stories reveal different approaches to learning and problem-solving: connecting disciplines, asking questions, recognizing patterns, communicating complex ideas, storytelling, and systems thinking.The episode invites learners to consider a new question:Are you naturally a question-asker, pattern-finder, storyteller, connector, teacher, or problem-solver?

AI for Academic SuccessCan a gaming metaphor make the chemistry of photosynthesis easier to understand—without simplifying away the science?In this episode of AI for Academic Success, Dr. Renée Jordan tests the Module 2 prompt with Janiyah GPT. Starting with a biology learner who understands the big idea of photosynthesis but struggles with the chemistry inside the chloroplast, the prompt asks AI to connect the concept to gaming.We examine how Janiyah uses game levels, energy meters, and crafting systems to explain light-dependent reactions, ATP, NADPH, the Calvin cycle, and carbon fixation—while preserving academic vocabulary.The larger question: Can AI connect what learners already know to what they are learning without replacing the learning itself?

AI for Academic SuccessWhat if something you already know could help you understand something completely new?In this episode of AI for Academic Success, Dr. Renée Jordan begins the Module 2 walkthrough with Amara, a creative learner struggling to understand atoms until she connects the science to something familiar: painting.From there, we explore how learners can use their interests, experiences, and prior knowledge as resources for learning. Dr. Jordan also walks through the original Module 2 prompt, designed to help students ask AI for explanations connected to their interests while preserving academic vocabulary and learner responsibility.We examine the prompt in this episode. Testing it with AI comes next.

AI Can Help You Read—But It Can't Do the Thinking for YouWhat happens after AI explains a difficult reading?In this episode of AI for Academic Success, Dr. Renée Jordan completes the Module 1 walkthrough by exploring Janiyah GPT's response to Ashley's Excellence Exploration, featuring Latinas, Afro-Latinas, and Black women whose reading, research, curiosity, scholarship, and lifelong learning contributed to discovery, leadership, and community change.Then, the focus shifts away from prompting AI and back to the learner.Through the Scholar Reflection, Learning Connection, and “Try It Like Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson” activity, we explore active reading, noticing confusion, creating a Reading Reflection Log, asking AI for targeted support, checking understanding, and reflecting on growth.The central lesson: AI can support the reading process, but reading is still thinking—and that thinking belongs to you.

What can the lives and work of accomplished women teach us about becoming stronger learners?In Part 5 of the AI for Academic Success Module 1 walkthrough, Dr. Renée Jordan continues the conversation with Jasmine and Janiyah GPT through an Excellence Exploration.This time, AI is prompted to identify Latinas, Afro-Latinas, and Black women whose reading, research, scholarship, scientific inquiry, writing, and lifelong learning contributed to discovery, innovation, leadership, education, and community change.The exploration introduces Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, Ellen Ochoa, Dr. María Elena Bottazzi, Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, Dr. Alexa Canady, and Dr. Mae Jemison and considers the learning habits that may have supported their work.But the purpose isn't simply to generate a list of accomplished women.It's to ask a more meaningful question:What can learners take from their approaches to curiosity, careful reading, research, questioning, critical thinking, and lifelong learning—and practice in their own lives today?This episode explores how AI can support culturally responsive learning by helping students make connections between the academic skills they are developing now and people who have used those skills to expand knowledge, challenge barriers, serve communities, and create new possibilities.