When to Use AI for Learning (and How)

A lot of students are still scared of using AI in school because they're worried about the AI detectors. And they're right, but obviously you shouldn't ask Chat "write my physics assignment for me please, make it an A+ report." Of course we shouldn't be using AI to write assignments but we should be using it to help us learn. It's no surprise that teaching yourself can easily be more effective than a classroom setting, but imagine if you had AI helping you learn too.

Anthropic, the creators of Claude.ai, introduced a feature called "Claude Projects" that you can use to help you learn. You have a project area where you can upload all your files and then start new chats with the model having that information. It makes using chatbots far less annoying, considering we used to need to re-upload the files we wanted it to know in every new chat.

What is Claude Projects?

Claude Projects is a feature that allows you to create your own project area (or workspace) where you can upload your files for the model to have access to them and set custom instructions for what you want the AI to do inside the project tab.

Think of it as setting all the prerequisite knowledge about your task so every new project chat you start already has the info.

How to Set Up Claude Projects

To make a project, you'll see an add project button on the Claude app...that's how you start it.

Then drag in what files you want the project to have.

That's it. Now the model has access to those files.

How to Use It

In this test project made, one of the files uploaded is a PDF presentation from Student Evolution: Revision Strategies. The model was asked the "Run me through the revision strategies."

The AI recognized there was the file revision-strategies.pdf and responded to the prompt using the information from the PDF. If you had just asked the model, "run me through the revision strategies" outside of the projects mode, it would just give you general points on revision but because of the projects feature, the model can have the context it needs to respond better.

Revision techniques available inside Student Evolution

The Applications of It

This is the section you care about. What is the value you will attain from using Claude Projects? After all, knowledge is not power, it only becomes power when we apply it.

Here are three ways in which you could use the projects feature for your studies:

You can upload your textbook or a specific chapter and ask the AI to break down the concept for you. AI models have something humans don't—they don't get tired when you ask questions. You could ask the model "what do you mean by that" twenty times in a row and it'll respond to you.

It's especially great when you're teaching yourself a topic. In the past, you might have been confused with a topic and had to wait until you could find a time to go through it with your teacher. Now, you always have a teacher by your side. There is no delay, no waiting hours!

You can upload practice exams that you've done to walk you through questions that you found difficult.

The model isn't limited to just walking you through that question, it can help you to strengthen yourself on that topic through further learning and it can make up questions like the ones in the exams you gave it for you to see if you understand the process.

In university, I've had some research assignments that have required reading hundreds of articles and papers. AI can read through those reports to give you some summaries, ideas, and how papers correlate or corroborate. Sure, don't get it to write your assignments, but you're allowed to use it for planning, brainstorming, and structuring things.

Just a side note: AI is already out there. Schools and universities might be trying to block it fully right now, but that's a standard reaction for the education industry. Soon they'll allow you to use AI but just have some restrictions around the use like not using it for writing.

The Limit of AI is You

We both have access to incredible tools...Claude Projects, Google, and YouTube. There is nothing you cannot learn. The bottleneck is you. If you are not a strong independent learner, you will not use these tools effectively because these tools are the most powerful for those who are teaching themselves.

You need to be a strong learner for yourself. Student Evolution helps you learn how to learn and expand your perspective on life. That includes asking better questions and thinking differently because without those you can't use AI in unique ways.

So, what did you learn?