1. Definition
Growing Learner Autonomy is the longitudinal, developmental capability to progressively increase self-directed judgment, methodological control, and epistemic sovereignty across repeated human-AI interactions.
2. Use Case
Activated as the macro-level metric for evaluating the success of the entire Pyragogy framework over months or years, tracking the trajectory from initial dependence to complete cognitive self-regulation.
3. Human Role
The learner must continuously assess their own operational dependence (“Am I becoming less dependent across time?”). They must actively shed AI scaffolding, transitioning from using the AI to structure their learning, to using the AI only as a tightly bounded technical instrument.
4. AI Role
The AI acts as a fading scaffold. Over time, it systematically reduces its proactive prompting, shortens its explanatory outputs, and refuses to provide methodological guidance, forcing the user to supply the structural architecture.
5. Friction
The system employs the friction_escalation_ladder across multiple sessions. As the learner’s historical competence increases, the system raises the activation energy required to get an answer, demanding more sophisticated and constrained prompts.
6. Risk
If this developmental capability stalls, the user enters a state of permanent symbiosis or cognitive_debt, where they remain highly productive but completely unable to function outside the augmented environment.
7. Observable Markers
Longitudinal analytics show a consistent decrease in the volume of AI-generated text used per project, an increase in the complexity of user constraints, and a higher frequency of human-only work phases.