The strategy, as published
Willingham: memory is the residue of thought. Offload the thinking to AI and nothing is learned. Have students use it to check and challenge their reasoning, not to do it for them.
Find this under Use technology with greater purpose
Part of Digital Cognition in 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation, where it sits alongside its neighbouring strategies, the infographic and the thinking for the whole area.
Why you might use it
Willingham's line is the whole argument: memory is the residue of thought. A pupil who offloads the thinking to AI has done no thinking, so there is no residue; nothing is learned, however polished the work looks.
The distinction the card draws is between AI producing the reasoning and AI challenging reasoning the pupil has already done. The first is substitution and hollows out the very capacity this strand is trying to build. The second can work like an external check, provided the judging of the critique stays with the pupil.
What it might look like
A pupil finishes a written argument, then asks the approved AI tool to find the weakest step in their reasoning. The tool points at a paragraph. The pupil now has a decision to make: is the critique right, and if so, what changes? They revise, or they reject the critique with a reason. Either way, the reasoning, both rounds of it, was theirs.
Try it
Trial it on work that is already finished, so the only thing the tool can touch is the checking. The order, thinking first and tool second, is the whole safeguard.
What to notice
Things to think about
Technology second
Used within the card's framing, as a critic of work the pupil has already produced, an approved AI tool in your setting can supply the external challenge that self-monitoring needs. The moment it drafts, plans or fixes on the pupil's behalf, it is doing the regulating, and a guide that hands you the answer makes you dependent on the guide. Scaffold the regulation, then fade the scaffold; the goal here, as everywhere in this strand, is a learner who no longer needs the tool.
The wider thinking
Willingham's memory-as-residue-of-thought principle does the heavy lifting: whatever the pupil does not think about, the pupil does not learn, whoever or whatever did the thinking instead. The card’s attribution stands as published: Willingham.
The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Metacognition & Self-Regulation.
Keep exploring
Back to this strategy in 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation, across to what you're trying to improve, or into all 144 at once.
Want to take this further?
Pedagogy First gives you a starting point. If you want support exploring how approaches like this can work across your school, trust or professional learning programme, that work is available.