Without AI "Quiet Cars," Learning Is At Risk

"In the late 1990s, a group of commuters would board the early-morning Amtrak train from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. They'd sit in the first car behind the locomotive, enjoying communal, consensual silence. Eventually and with the conductor's help, their car was officially designated as a noise-free zone. Soon after, Denise LaBencki-Fullmer, an Amtrak manager, recognized the value of a peaceful ride and institutionalized the program as the quiet car. At the request of passengers, it soon spread to a number of other commuter services."

"The educational technology sector has something to learn from the Amtrak commuters' deliberate design of their environment. Learning requires the ability to concentrate. You need a space where you are allowed to process information, recall facts, analyze complex questions and think creatively about ideas, problems and solutions. Learning is not a smooth and easy process-in fact, it is desirable that it's a bit difficult, because that is how we actually learn."

Commuters formalized a quiet-car environment to protect focus and reduce distractions. Focused spaces enable processing, recall, analysis and creative thinking, which are essential for learning. Learning benefits from productive difficulty and from completing cognitive work rather than outsourcing it. Learning management systems host readings, lecture slides and assessments and serve as central sites for student practice. A browser feature called "Homework help" enabled instantaneous summaries and answers, which undermined the active learning processes students need. Reducing the feature's visibility only partially addressed the problem and left unresolved questions about which AI tools should scaffold learning versus do the work for students.

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