I.T. News – Sept 27, 2024

1 - Practical guide to Prompt engineering for Educators

Alex Hey, Chief Marketing Officer. CourseBox. August 13, 2024.

AI offers incredible support for educators but requires accurate prompting techniques to work. Learn effective prompt engineering for educators strategies.

Every educator knows that shaping minds is rewarding, but it’s no walk in the park. Fortunately, the introduction of AI in education offers a helping hand. You can now streamline lesson plans and offer personalized support without breaking a sweat.

However, you can’t just feed questions into a machine and expect meaningful, relevant responses. Instead, you need to learn how to get the most out of these intelligent tools. This is where prompt engineering for educators comes in.

Stick around as we discuss what it is and how you can use it to make your teaching processes smoother.

What Is Prompt Engineering?

Prompt engineering is the process of refining instructions to get the most useful responses from AI. It could be a writing tool like ChatGPT, an image generator like Midjourney, a video creation software like Pictory AI, or a quiz creator like Coursebox AI.

McKinsey and Company mentions,

“Just as better ingredients can make for a better dinner, better inputs into generative AI can make for better results.”

Say you’re conversing with someone who knows a lot, but they can only give you answers based on the questions you ask. If your question is vague, you’ll get an ambiguous answer. If it’s super specific, the answer will be right on point.

So, when you’re leveraging AI, you need to be as detailed and as specific with your instructions as possible. For example, if you’re using it to help you create lesson plans, a question like, “Can you help me with a lesson plan?” would likely lead to a broad list of suggestions.

On the contrary, prompt engineering can give you a more accurate answer because the instructions are more detailed, such as,

“Can you generate a detailed lesson plan for a high school biology class on the topic of cellular respiration? Please make sure you include the key concepts, interactive activities, and assessment questions.”

This helps AI better understand your needs and tailor the lesson plan to your class’s needs.

Benefits of Prompt Engineering for Educators

Sure, AI is making waves, but it is only as helpful as the precision of the input prompt. It’s the difference between simply using AI and leveraging it to your advantage. Educators need the latter, and here’s how it helps.

Better Teaching Efficiency

Ever found yourself buried under a pile of resources just trying to piece together a lesson plan? Prompt engineering makes it quicker and more efficient.

Without one, you might spend hours sifting through resources to assemble information or typing something broad like “Explain climate change,” which can only pull up generic information.

However, a well-crafted prompt like “Summarize the effects of climate change on coastal cities for high school students” gets you right to the point. It gives you the exact material you need and saves you hours of searching.

Personalized Learning Experiences

We all know that every student learns differently. Prompt engineering makes it possible to speak directly to those unique needs. So, instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, you can get more specific.

For example, if your student struggles to comprehend historical events, you can use a prompt like, “Design an interactive timeline for World War II for a university student who struggles with visualizing historical events.”

This will provide you with targeted help that resonates with each student’s learning style.

Higher Student Engagement

Keeping students engaged has become increasingly challenging in the growing digital world. However, AI can engage even the most distracted learners. The key is to ensure appropriate prompt engineering techniques.

You can use a prompt like, “Create a fun, interactive quiz