#3 Proper Prompts for Generative AI for Educators and Learners
An article series in Times Higher Education
When using generative AI like ChatGPT, the quality of the results depend on the input. Garbage in, garbage out. Part of that input is the data the model was trained on and has access to, which we users have no control over—apart from handing specific information to the AI directly. What we actively control which hugely influences the output are the instructions. Our questions, our prompts, our examples we provide to the model.
To help with this, Seb Dianati and Suman Laudari from Charles Darwin University in Australia created an article series about prompting generative AI specifically aimed at teachers and students.
Basics of prompting
Their first article sets the stage and introduces key ideas about prompting. For example:
Provide context
Give the AI a role (“Act like a …”)
Be specific about the response format you wish (a 200-word summary, a list of 10 things, a table with the columns ‘key word’, ‘example’, ‘definition’, a table in CSV format)
They also remind us that it’s not all over after you send your prompt and receive one response. We can rerun the same prompt or edit it and then rerun it. Or, we can ask follow-up questions, refine the results by chatting with the AI and so on.
Prompts for Teaching and Assessment
The second article shares 25 applications in teaching and assessment. Among them are ideas about how to ask ChatGPT to create a grading rubric for a specific assessment (oral presentation), creating exam question, or to get support to create a video lesson.
Prompts for Administrative Tasks
In the third article we find 25 suggestions to use ChatGPT to help with administrative tasks teachers can face in their daily work. Among others there are prompts about getting help with giving feedback, proofreading, generating ideas for student activities, creating a weekly plan for courses.
Prompts for Student Engagement
The fourth article deals with ideas to support student engagement. Ideas include help with creating content for presentation slides, summarizing YouTube lecture videos, and support for decision-making based on algorithms.
I liked the idea to bundle prompt suggestions for different use cases like this article series did. Unfortunately, the individual prompt suggestions were often not that innovative and not crafted as carefully as the first article made me hope. Some ideas were very similar.
It feels that the authors lost track of their own basic suggestions about prompt writing during the later parts of the article series. Some used little context or gave no clear role. Here’s one example:
Develop learning outcomes or learning objectives: List these learning objectives as learning outcomes.
[wait for response]
Now apply Bloom’s taxonomy to develop higher-order learning outcomes.
Here’s a rewrite of the prompt adding some of the ideas that were suggested in the first article:
Act like an instructional designer / lecturer / teacher / educator for a course on introductory psychology for first semester university students. Develop specific learning objectives as learning outcomes and use Bloom’s taxonomy (classification of educational learning objectives) to develop higher-order learning outcomes. Please return a well-formatted table.
In this example I gave a role, provided context and the topic of the course the teacher is interested in creating learning outcomes for, and suggested an output format.
🔨Tools & Resources
Recent finds of education-related AI tools and resources about them.
Khanmigo, the AI tutor of Khan Academy
Artificial Intelligence Teaching Guide from Stanford University
References
AI use Statement: No AI was used in drafting or editing of this post.