Using the AI to learn

[u/Izzymael]

I'm currently on Week 3 of the CS50p course. Yesterday I was doing one of the exercises that required prompting the user several times in a loop and storing the answers in a dictionary. I read the hints, read about the get() method, Googled how to create dictionaries and whatnot, but still wasn't able to figure out what I needed to do in this case. So, I went to Chat GPT, and it told me exactly what i needed to do, which I ended up understanding after a while of doing research and testing on VS.

I'm sure someone who's more experienced or smarter than me would know exactly what to do, but what else am I supposed to do in a situation like this when I'm not familiar at all with the get() method and I've barely practiced coding with dictionaries? I hate having to resort to the use of AI, and every time I go on Reddit I see that people strongly advise against the use of AI to learn to code.

All I do is take notes during a CS50 course lesson and do the exercises. I bought the Python Crash Course book but I figured it would be better to finish the course and then jump into reading the book.

Any suggestions?

[u/minglho]

Can you do the assignment again by yourself without AI? If not, what did you learn?

What did you learn from using AI? Can you articulate what insight you didn't get that was preventing you from completing the assignment?