NEW PROTAGONISTS: THE IMPACT OF NON-HUMAN COGNITION ON STUDENT-INSTRUCTOR RELATIONS

Abstract

As students enter new cognitive and imaginative circuits with Large Language Models (LLMs), the relationship between student and instructor is being reconceived. This text investigates the perceived promise of a newly-emerging instructional relationship built on human/non-human synergies. It examines this through a university design workshop, in which participants ideate new product concepts through student–LLM assemblages. The validity of their exchanges is gauged using a mixed-methods research approach, combining paired T-Tests to examine shifts in pre- and post-workshop perceptions with Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) to uncover key research themes. Findings show students associate non-human cognition with imaginative and autonomous possibilities unavailable through conventional instruction. A rising preference for machine-generated guidance sees students successfully outsourcing design tasks to LLMs, challenging anthropocentric standards of competence rooted in self-reliance. Although students suspect LLMs erode abilities, they remain drawn to them, incrementally entrusting them with greater instructional authority. These findings suggest an instructional dynamic where student intellectual growth is distributed across student, machine, and instructor. In this new technological reality, instructors ascend to an-even-more critical role. In enabling students to exploit LLMs as an intellectual extension of themselves, instructors potentially advance a new phase of shared inquiry. This signals a profound transformation in student–instructor relations, with instructors compelled to relinquish long-held instructional practices as LLMs shift their relevance toward a higher-order integration of student–LLM cognition.