Design a Classroom AI Prompt
Understand how AI can act as a More Knowledgeable Other, then design a prompt you could actually hand your own students.
Learn it your way
Use a hobby or interest of your own to make the ideas stick, the same way you'd want a student to connect new material to something they already care about.
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1.1
Explain the handout AI+
Open your AI tool, upload the "AI as a More Knowledgeable Other" handout, and ask it to explain the ideas using your hobby.
Explain this document to me like I'm in 9th grade, using [my hobby or interest] to help it make sense.
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1.2
Explain the reflection tool AI+
In the same conversation, ask AI to explain the five reflection-tool criteria the same way.
Now explain the five criteria in the reflection tool the same way, using my hobby analogy.
Design a prompt together
Work through the four stages below with your partner, in order. Open one stage at a time.
Write and revise your prompt in a blank document, not in an AI chat window. You'll copy and paste it in to test once it's done.
Stage 2.4 is a worked example. Don't open it until you've revised your own prompt.
2.1 Draft together AIx1–2 minutes
With your partner, write one prompt you'd give students to use with AI in your course. Type it into a blank document, not into an AI chat window. Work quickly and don't worry about getting it right. This first attempt is meant to show you where you're starting from.
2.2 Self-diagnose AIxScore your draft honestly
Using the reflection tool below, decide together whether your draft shows limited or stronger evidence of each move. Gaps here are expected. That's the point of diagnosing before you revise.
| Criterion | Limited evidence | Stronger evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnoses before helping | Answers immediately, with no attempt to learn what the student knows or has tried. | Asks what the student has tried or already understands before offering support. |
| Contingent support | Gives the same kind of help regardless of how the student is doing, often a full solution. | Adjusts help to the student's performance: more specific after an error, less after success. |
| Fading | Help stays at the same level across tasks. | Support is deliberately reduced across a sequence of similar tasks. |
| Learner reasoning | The AI does the thinking or writing; the student reads. | The student attempts, predicts, or explains before the next step is revealed. |
| Path to independent performance | No connection to unaided work. | Paired with a task completed without AI support. |
2.3 Revise with hints AIxUse stems for your weakest rows
Look back at where your draft showed limited evidence. Pick the matching sentence stems below and use them to revise your prompt together. You likely won't need all five.
- If you were weak on: Diagnoses before helping"Before offering any help, ask the student…"
- If you were weak on: Contingent support"Don't write full sentences or paragraphs. Instead, offer…"
- If you were weak on: Fading"Once the student succeeds at a step, ask them to…"
- If you were weak on: Learner reasoning"Act as a Socratic tutor who…"
- If you were weak on: Path to independent performance"When the task is complete, ask the student to…"
Optional: ask AI to check your work AI+
Once you've revised by hand, you can hand your draft to AI and ask it to press further using the same criteria.
Here is a prompt my colleague and I wrote for students: [paste your prompt]. Using these criteria: diagnosing before helping, contingent support, fading, requiring the learner's reasoning, and a path to independent performance, review it and suggest specific revisions to strengthen it.
2.4 The revealWait for your facilitator
Here's one fine-tuned example. Compare it to what you wrote. What's similar? What did you add that this version didn't?
You are a writing tutor helping a student revise a paragraph or essay. Before offering any help, ask the student what they've written so far and what they're trying to improve. Never write full sentences or paragraphs for the student. Offer guidance only as a short bulleted list of questions, hints, or sentence stems the student can complete themselves. Start with the smallest, most general hint, and only give a more specific one if the student says they're still stuck. Once the student revises a section successfully, ask them to try the next section with less guidance from you. When the whole piece is revised, ask the student to read it back without any more help and tell you what they changed and why.
The Flipped Prompt: Build a Review Game
Most instructors never think to let AI ask them questions before it builds something. Try the move yourself, on something fun, before you ask it of your students. Watch the badges below, this task climbs from no AI to full AI! co-creation in three steps.
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3.1
Start a new chat AIx
Open a separate conversation and upload the ZPD Research Brief, the original document, not today's companion handout.
If you're using ChatGPT, turn on Canvas mode first. If you're using Gemini, its Canvas view works the same way. Either one opens the game in a panel beside the chat so you can watch it take shape.
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3.2
Interview me first AI+
Paste this prompt, then answer whatever AI asks before it builds anything.
I want to build a game for a high schooler to play that helps review the key concepts of this document. We want to use an old arcade-style game. Before you build the game, ask me questions so we can fine-tune it together.
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3.3
Answer, then let it build AI!
Once you've answered its questions, let AI build the game and see what you end up with.
Notice what just happened: AI diagnosed what you wanted before building anything, the same move you just asked your own students' AI prompts to make.
Turn Your Prompt Into a Shareable Assistant
Right now, students would need to copy and paste your prompt into AI every time they use it. Most won't bother. Both Gemini and Microsoft Copilot let you save a prompt as a small custom assistant with a link, so students click once and the guardrails are already built in.
Google's version is a Gem. Give it a name and your instructions once, and it becomes a saved, reusable version of Gemini. Gems are free on every Gemini plan, and you share one with a link the same way you'd share a Google Doc, letting others use it or edit it.
Microsoft's version is a Copilot Agent, built through Copilot's Agent Builder. Describe what you want in plain language, and it becomes a saved agent your colleagues or students can add to their own Copilot. Whether your students can reach it depends on the Copilot license your institution provides, so check with your IT department first.
Either way, you don't need to memorize the steps. Just ask AI to walk you through it.
I have a prompt I want to turn into a reusable AI assistant for my students, so they can use it with a link instead of copying and pasting it every time. I'm using [name your platform: Gemini, Copilot, or another tool]. Walk me through how to save this as a custom Gem, Agent, or GPT in that tool, step by step, including how to get a shareable link. Here is my prompt: [paste your revised prompt].