Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers podcast, where we help new and beginning teachers
navigate through those crazy first years of teaching so you can maintain your sanity and
personal life. Here's your host, him Lapree. Welcome to the Teachers Need
Teachers Podcasts, the podcast for teachers who don't want to just survive teaching but
actually thrive. So you've heard all this buzz about chat shept, but after
fumbling around, maybe you're wondering, what's the big deal. It just feels
like Google, and out of frustration, you might have even given up on
it all together and just think that it's all a fad that's going to pass.
Here's the thing. Chat shept and AI in general are way better than
Google and can do amazing things, but chances are you're probably using it wrong.
So in today's episode, we'll explore how to get the most out of
chat shebt in fact, get exactly what you want out of chat shebt or
AI in general, and cover five key considerations for correcting effective prompts. I'll
even give you examples of effective and ineffective prompts so that you can get a
better idea of how to do this. In the future. Now, I
could just give you a list of two one hundred prompts that you could use
in your classroom like some other people are doing, but at some point you
want to know how to write them yourself, so that the possibilities will be
endless. I mean, without knowing, practicing and mastering how to write a
good prompt than chat shept as well, just about as good as Google.
So chat GBT has just an unthinkable amount of knowledge, and it's been trained
on a huge amount of text from books, websites, and other sources.
It learns patterns and information from all of those sources, and then it uses
that information to answer questions and actually have conversations with you. So it actually
knows natural language patterns and it feels like someone is talking with you via chat.
It's really interesting. But to get the most out of it, you
have to be really precise in terms of how you ask it questions, in
terms of what you ask from it. You know how you might ask Siri
or some other AI a question, and it just takes you to a website,
and that can get pretty frustrating because all you want is just an answer.
I don't want to ask Siri for what the weather is and have her
say, here's what I found on the web. I want her to tell
me what the weather is. Luckily she can do that now. But what
chat GPT does is it actually answers the question by pulling from the entire database
that it has been trained on. So instead of standing you somewhere to go
figure out the answer yourself, it just gives you the answer. So it's
pretty awesome that way. But in the same way that you can't just ask
your students write me an essay. Who knows what you're going to get from
that. The same thing goes with chat GPT or other AI. You have
to be very specific and you have to feed it what it wants so that
you can get the answer that you want. So the first consideration when writing
an AI prompt is clarity and specificity. So as teachers, we totally understand
clarity and specificity. So we have to be really specific when we ask our
students to do something for us. If you think about the beginning of the
school year, we can't just tell students to lineup and have it be exactly
how we had envisioned. A lot of times we have to tell them lineup
in this direction, lineup silently, line up against the wall, lineup outside.
We just have to be really specific because they aren't mind readers. And
then the same way, chat GBT and other AI also not mind readers.
So, for example, we can tell chat GBT to write an essay on
pride and prejudice. Well, it may produce something that is appropriate for a
twelfth grade class, but maybe not appropriate for an eighth or ninth grade class.
So instead we want to be really specific and say something like, write
a persuasive essay on to kill a mockingbird and how it's a significant piece of
literature, provides specific examples from the text, and use MLA format. Now,
if you're that specific, then chat GPT will definitely give you something more
robust if we're, say in a more advanced class. By providing clear instructions
to the AI and clear expectations, we are more likely to receive a product
that we are satisfied with and that we're actually looking for. Here's another example.
We can tell chat GPT to write a lesson about plants. So if
we're not specific in terms of the grade level or in terms of what about
the plants, what concepts that we want the students to learn about plants,
it's going to spit out something that might not even be relevant to what we're
teaching. But if we say something like write a lesson for fifth graders about
photosynthesis and its importance in terms of the growth of plants, then that's going
to be something that will help us and will be more specific to our needs
in terms of lesson plans. So just remember you need to really clarify and
specif fy what it is that you want and what you're asking for when you're
putting in a prompt for chat, GPT or any other AI. The next
consideration, and what I consider be a really important one, is context and
background. So context and background give the AI important information so that the AI
will understand the nuances of the conversation that we're trying to have. It's similar
to when you go to a new doctor. Before the doctor can give you
any kind of diagnosis or a treatment plant, they're going to want to know
your medical history. So you're going to talk about things that have happened to
you, any surgeries or medication, or any other family members that happen to
have certain illnesses that you may have inherited. It's really important for the doctor
to know that before they can accurately figure out what's going on with your body.
And similarly, if you go to a therapist, they're going to be
trying to find out information about your past, particularly your childhood, so that
they can help support you moving forward. I mean imagine asking AI or chat
GPT right a lesson plan for a math What kind of math, what grade
level? What concept are you trying to teach? Is it trigonometry, algebra,
calculus? Do you see how that's really really vague? But if you
give it some context and some background information, then it's going to produce a
better lesson plan. But instead, if you are great specifics, if I
say, write a lesson teaching fourth graders how to write an introduction to a
persuasive essay, that's going to be a lot different than asking the AI to
write a lesson the same lesson but for eighth graders. For eighth graders,
it'll be more of a review and it's going to have more complex concepts in
there to refine an introduction, whereas maybe for a third or fourth grader it'll
be more of an introduction for them because maybe at that point they don't really
know how to write one yet, so it's something that is really important in
terms of giving it contexts, giving a grade level, subject level, even
a particular concept that you really want the AI to hone in on. Let's
say that you wrote in chat GBT, how can I support a student with
special needs? It's the same thing if somebody had asked you that as a
teacher, you would want more contexts and background. You'd want to know more
about the student's diagnosis, any challenges, strengths and weaknesses, and that way
you can better give suggestions in terms of how to support that student. And
the same thing goes for chat GPT. You can also weave a story if
it helps you in terms of writing the prompt, so you can put something
light. You are a high school physics teacher. You are a high school
physics teacher. Your students have taken algebra, trigonometry, and some of them
have taken pre calculus, although not all, but nobody has taken formal calculus
yet, teach them about about fifty percent of your students struggle with math in
general. Create a differentiated lesson teaching students how to solve the following problem,
and then you can input the problem. So do you see how specific I
was on that one. For a lot of people, it really helps to
paint that picture and to tell chat GPT or AI who they are so that
as they answer and give you the response that you're looking for, they're doing
it as that persona. And then after you get the answer, if it's
still not specific enough, or if you want additional supports, you can say
that you can just add to the conversation and say something like give supporting scaffolds
for students with IEPs, or give supporting scaffolds for students who are English learners.
So you can keep adding more to the prompt even after it's already given
you an answer, so that it can get more and more specific, and
that'll end up giving you something that you can really use and that's relevant for
your classs. Similarly, the next consideration for writing AI prompts is the desired
outcome. So stating the expectation and the desired outcome is really important. And
I've actually experienced this when I've been playing a chat GPT. So I can
copy and paste a paragraph from a student and say how can the student improve
their writing, and it'll give me an answer that's pretty generic. But if
I don't tell them exactly what I'm looking for or which areas of improvement that
I want it to grade it on, kind of like giving a rubric that
I just get a really generic answer. So instead of saying, how can
the student improve this paragraph? I can say, out of these five areas,
assess the student's writing, or which five areas of improvement could this student
improve upon? So you could ask for it to give you five criteria,
or you could give it five criteria. But you want to be really specific
about what it is that you want to get out of it. What kind
of information are you looking for? And again, if you add some clarity
and some specificity, then it'll be even better. So if you say,
this is a seventh grade student with a fifth grade reading level, how can
the student improve this paragraph? Or you can say this is a seventh grade
student that is reading at a tenth grade level, how can the student improve
this paragraph so that it's writing more at a tenth grade level. You might
have heard that chat SPT can level texts for you so that they're written at
the reading level for a specific student. So instead of saying, make this
text easier to read, you can say, rewrite this tech so that it
is at a fifth grade level. So being really specific in terms of the
desired outcome will make it so that you're not frustrated with GPT. Remember it's
not a mind reader. It wants to work with you and give you what
you want, but you have to be really clear about what you want.
So for another example, you would give it context. You are a sixth
grade teacher, all of your students have chromebooks. Create a lesson that teaches
students how to use Google Docs, and then you would say so that they
can do this, this, and this, or they know how to use
this tool, or create a lesson that teaches students how to use add ons
or other things like that. So you want to give it context, and
then you want to tell them what the desired outcome is. The next consideration
for writing a PROMPTS is structure and formatting. So again we're trying to make
it so that the AI can give us exactly what we're looking for. So
you want to tell it how you want the information to be structured and in
what format it can give you lists, step by step instructions or other organized
responses, and some of the AI It can even give you pictures, which
is pretty cool. So instead of saying, what are some strategies for differentiating
this lesson, you could instead improve the prompts by saying, provide me with
ree research based strategies to differentiate these lessons, so the model will be able
to generate an answer that aligns better with the requests and it's not so generic
and we won't be so frustrated with it. Similarly, instead of asking the
AI, how does photosynthesis work, you could say, provide a step by
step explanation on how photosynthesis works for a fifth grade class. So again we're
giving it context, but we're also being specific about the structure and formatting that
we want from the AI. Maybe want it so that it's not just step
by step instructions, but it actually gives you a paragraph for each step.
You can also specify that. And this is also where you can get into
asking it to write to a ten question multiple choice quiz for a ten question
true and false quiz. Things like that. You want to give it enough
information so it can make sure that the output is exactly what you're looking for.
Something that's also really cool is that it can turn something like a script
or can turn something in one format and change it to another. So I've
actually taken the script from a YouTube video and I don't know if you've ever
seen the script with timestamps, and it has all of the us and ums,
and it's more conversational, but it doesn't actually read very well, and
it'll actually rewrite it into a blog post. It's actually really cool because it
says me so much time in terms of having to go over the script and
then try to summarize it and rewrite it myself. And then you can also
change the formats as you go. So let's say that you're asking it to
create an outline for a lesson or create an outline for again a script.
Then you can have it actually flesh out each point on there so that it
gives you what to say, or it gives you resources, or gives you
differentiation for each different point, so you just kind of have to play with
it and then just really drill down in terms of what else you wanted to
do after it has produced something for you. So the last consideration for writing
an AI prompt is open endedness. It's kind of the opposite of what I
said before in terms of specificity. And the desired outcome and structure and formatting,
and this allows the AI to actually give you more than you thought that
you wanted to know. So instead of saying, what are three main causes
of climate change, you can actually ask it to discuss potential factors contributing to
climate change and their potential impact. So you can play with it both ways.
If it gives you something specific, but you want more ideas, then
just ask it to discuss, or you can say, give me more ideas
or give me five more points to consider. You can make it so that
it's not so specific, and that way chat GPT has an opportunity to just
see if there's anything else that you hadn't thought of. It's really good also
for brainstorming in that way. Another example would be maybe you put in what
is the significance of the Gettysburg Address? Now you can a more rich conversation
if you ask how has the Gettysburg Address influenced American society and its values?
Do you see how you would get different answers based on each question. I
mean you can actually ask it both. But I'm just suggesting that not only
do you give us something super specific, but you also given an opportunity with
an open ended question maybe falling up after that. Now I have to tell
you I have had to really try and retry and iterate and reiterate constantly to
get better results from chat GBT, and I started probably where you are,
where you're just asking questions like you would in Google. But remember, even
when you're using Google, you might have learned about like bullyan language and things
that you can add to your query to get better results, such as if
you want a specific word to show up, then you can use like quotation
marks. So it kind of works that way too with chat GBT and other
AI where you want to be really really specific. You're not going to use
necessarily any of that boolean language, but you are going to be specific with
your words in the same way that you're specific with your students. If you
want them to do something, if you want them to behave in a certain
way or line up in a certain way, or if you want them to
put their name in a certain corner in a certain way, then you have
to be specific. And the same thing goes with chat GPT in AI.
It does take some getting used to, but the thing is you just want
to play with it, and like I said in my previous video about chat
GPT, one of the ways that you can play with it if you're not
comfortable or if you don't really want to think about school right now, is
to use it for your personal life and just ask it questions. You can
say something like, I'm a busy mom with three kids, and I have
one hundred dollars grocery budget right a five dinner meal plan, including a list
of groceries that I need to buy from the grocery store, so it'll do
that. Or you can say, I have this, this, and this
and my refrigerator. Give me five examples of recipes that I could use with
these ingredients, that I can make with these ingredients. So it's just something
that I think it's more fun to play with it first in your personal life
with things that are going to be useful for you, and then when you're
ready to think about school again, or when you are ready to apply it
towards your teaching, then you can start playing around with it, and by
then you would have practiced prompts using something a little more fun and practical before
you apply it to school. So I hope that this really gave you more
clarity in terms of how to use chat GBT in an effective way instead of
just using it to replace school, because remember, it can do so much
more than that. If you've been getting a lot of value from any of
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minutes to do that. Thanks for hanging out with me today, you guys,
and I will see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Teachers
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