Abstract
This paper explores the potentials and pitfalls of Generative AI as a tool for thought in design, emphasizing its ability to scaffold meta cognition, i.e. the ability to reflect on, monitor, and regulate one's own thinking. While GenAI tools streamline creative tasks, they also risk encouraging passive use, over-reliance, and shallow engagement. The core challenge is to design these systems in ways that strengthen, rather than weaken, users’ reflective capacities. Drawing on research in meta cognition and cognitive scaffolding, as well as principles from design thinking that emphasize iterative sensemaking and reflective practice, the paper outlines strategies that foster active engagement. These include developing creative GenAI literacy, maintaining human agency in semi-automated workflows, prompting reflection through deliberate disruption and slowness, enhancing transparency, and tailoring support to user expertise. Rather than treating AI as a shortcut, the paper argues for a shift toward collaborative systems that reinforce judgment, critical thinking, and creative control, ensuring that GenAI tools serve as instruments for deeper cognitive work, not replacements for it.
Keywords
Design; Design Thinking; Metacognition; Generative Artificial Intelligence; Human- Computer Interaction; Creativity
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.426
Citation
Dalsgaard, P.(2025) Scaffolding Metacognition in Design with Generative AI, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.426
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 5 - Design Thinking
Scaffolding Metacognition in Design with Generative AI
This paper explores the potentials and pitfalls of Generative AI as a tool for thought in design, emphasizing its ability to scaffold meta cognition, i.e. the ability to reflect on, monitor, and regulate one's own thinking. While GenAI tools streamline creative tasks, they also risk encouraging passive use, over-reliance, and shallow engagement. The core challenge is to design these systems in ways that strengthen, rather than weaken, users’ reflective capacities. Drawing on research in meta cognition and cognitive scaffolding, as well as principles from design thinking that emphasize iterative sensemaking and reflective practice, the paper outlines strategies that foster active engagement. These include developing creative GenAI literacy, maintaining human agency in semi-automated workflows, prompting reflection through deliberate disruption and slowness, enhancing transparency, and tailoring support to user expertise. Rather than treating AI as a shortcut, the paper argues for a shift toward collaborative systems that reinforce judgment, critical thinking, and creative control, ensuring that GenAI tools serve as instruments for deeper cognitive work, not replacements for it.