AI IN LEARNING SERIES
Study Strategies
with AI
Chris Shaltry, Ph.D.
Education, Technology and Innovation Specialist
College of Osteopathic Medicine / College of Human Medicine
shaltryc@msu.edu
https://bit.ly/ai-4-study
Michigan State University
ROADMAP
What We'll Cover Today
Welcome + Interactive Checks Why we're here — plus quiz questions sprinkled throughout, so stay sharp.
~2 min
Part I — AI Tools at MSU Licensed tools, data protections, and what you can — and can't — put in.
~6 min
Part II — Learning Strategies That Work Evidence-based study strategies — and the offloading trap that undoes them.
~8 min
Part III — Applying It in NotebookLM: tools + strategies in one study workflow.
~7 min
Do This Tonight A 15-minute first step to make it a habit.
~2 min
PART I
AI Tools at MSU
What's licensed, what's protected, and what never goes in.
YOUR TOOLKIT
AI Tools at MSU — Use the Licensed Versions
Copilot Free · MSU-licensed
Gemini Free · MSU-licensed
NotebookLM Free · MSU-licensed — today's focus
ChatGPT MSU licenses for faculty / paid
Why it matters: signing in with your MSU account adds enterprise data protection. Personal accounts don't have it.
MSU AI data standards — which tools are approved for which data: tech.msu.edu/technology/ai/security
BEFORE YOU UPLOAD ANYTHING
Consider Data Privacy
Never upload
Safe to upload (in MSU AI)
Residents & clinical students: clinical documentation stays in clinical systems. No MSU AI tool is approved for HIPAA data — check the MSU AI data standards before uploading anything you're unsure about.
PART II
Learning Strategies That Work
What the learning science says — and how AI can strengthen or short-circuit your learning.
THE EVIDENCE BASE
Four Strategies Worth Your Time
Active recall
Pull it from memory before you look it up. Testing yourself beats re-reading — every time.
Spaced repetition
Short reviews spread across days beat one long cram. Forgetting a little between sessions is part of the design.
Interleaving
Mix related topics within one session. It feels harder than blocking — that difficulty is why it sticks.
Metacognition
Plan, monitor, and continually check your own understanding. The skill of knowing what you don't know.
PITFALL — COGNITIVE OFFLOADING
The Exoskeleton Effect
Watch: an exoskeleton assisting human movement.
Goal: walk a longer distance?
Turn the assist all the way up. The machine does most of the walking — your muscles barely fire, and little to no strength is built.
Goal: improve your health?
Turn the assist most of the way down. The machine supports just enough that your muscles do most of the work, building strength and health.
AI is a cognitive exoskeleton — consider the assistance carefully. �The more it does your thinking, the less your learning benefits. In studying, the effort is the point.
PITFALL — FLUENT ≠ LEARNED
Avoid Illusions of Knowing
When AI makes you think you know more than you do.
The illusion
The trap
Leaning on AI for answers or content creation — without active engagement — bypasses the cognitive effort that retention is built from.
You saved time, but lost the learning.
The counter-move: critique AI outputs, question them, and treat them as a starting point for active engagement and investigation — never a final answer or destination. Always engage and verify.
PART III
Learning Strategies with AI in NotebookLM
WATCH — A MED STUDENT'S WORKFLOW
See It in Action
We'll watch: a full study workflow in 6 minutes.
For later: a deeper 19-minute feature walkthrough.
The takeaway — straight from a Stanford med student (Konsker)
Memorization alone is limited — facts fade fast. Deep understanding of mechanisms and connections is what transfers to exams and wards. Use these tools to interrogate your materials until you can explain them, not to memorize AI summaries. His full free toolkit is at the link.
THE CASE FOR IT
Why NotebookLM for Studying?
Source-grounded
It answers only from what you upload — your lectures, notes, and readings — not the open internet.
Cited by default
Every response links back to the exact passage in your sources, so verification is one click.
Free with your MSU account
MSU-licensed, with enterprise data protection — sign in with your MSU Google account.
From your sources, it can generate:
Grounding reduces hallucinations — it doesn't eliminate them. Principle: don't trust, verify. It supports spaced repetition and interleaving workflows — links explain both.
ORIENTATION
One Screen, Three Panels
Sources: Upload PDFs, slides, notes, websites, YouTube links, audio.
Chat: Ask questions; every answer cites your sources.
Studio: Generate guides, quizzes, flashcards, mind maps, audio.
PUTTING IT TOGETHER
A Complete Exam-Prep Workflow
Example: two weeks out from your renal exam.
1
Create one notebook per course block e.g., “Renal — Spring 2026.” Keep scope tight; quality of sources drives quality of output.
2
Upload lectures, notes, and objectives Lecture PDFs, notes, and the learning objectives from the syllabus.
3
Generate a study guide — then audit it Check it against the objectives. Gaps you find may be gaps in your sources.
4
Quiz yourself before you re-read Open-ended questions first, feedback on your answers — retrieval before review.
5
Reinforce on the go Audio Overview for the commute; export key facts into Anki for spaced repetition.
FROM SESSION TO HABIT
Do This Tonight — 15 Minutes
1
Go to notebooklm.google.com and sign in with your MSU Google account
2
Create one notebook for a current course One course. Resist the mega-notebook.
3
Upload this week's lecture PDFs and your notes
4
Ask three open-ended questions and answer them from memory first Then check the cited answers.
5
Generate a short quiz — whatever you miss is tomorrow's study list
If you do only one thing: quiz yourself before you re-read. Everything else is optimization.
THANK YOU
Questions?
Chris Shaltry, Ph.D.
shaltryc@msu.edu
College of Osteopathic Medicine / College of Human Medicine
https://bit.ly/ai-4-study