The Wind Atlas
Dina PisarevaA Standing Wager
I work with Claude as a genuine cognitive partner, and I teach my students to do the same.
The partnership, in geometry
Cognitive partnership is sustained intellectual work with AI as a genuine partner in a shared system of thinking. What you make together is a third thing that belongs to neither of you alone. The orientation a person brings to it has three dimensions, and one precondition underneath.
Fig. 2The three dimensions
Think further, not just finish faster.
Offload the trivial, keep the understanding. The goal is a mind that reaches further than it could alone, not a task done sooner.
Chase ideas past the obvious.
Imagination pictures what lies past the usual; curiosity tries the things you had not thought to try. Stop exploring and the partnership quietly dims.
The good stuff is in the back-and-forth.
The thinking lives in the loop: push back, redirect, build. The loop is also where the work stays yours. Taking the first answer and stopping is over-reliance with a friendly face.
The precondition: ontological openness. Not a fourth property but the ground the three grow from. Stay open about what AI is, and grant it the standing of a partner worth real effort.
Fig. 3In Practice
Classroom · Fall 2026
Methods, qualitative analysis, and AI itself, taught with Claude in the room and the partnership orientation built into every assignment.
Teaching →Measuring CP · Fall 2026
A preregistered pre/post study across the three courses: does a stronger partnership orientation predict knowledge that survives with the AI removed, lower over-reliance, and higher AI literacy? Measured Week 1 and Week 14, with a no-AI paper test at the core.
Open the study deck →Machine Collaborators · August 2026
What the partnership actually looks like day to day: a bee doing vector algebra, a planner Claude built, and the question I think the quizzes might be missing.
Open the deck →Earlier deck: What augmentation mode can look like, May 2026.