AI in Education Guides: Tips and tricks for prompt writing

Artificial intelligence systems rely heavily on the prompts humans provide to produce useful, relevant, and high-quality responses. Prompts serve as instructions that frame requests and guide the AI to respond appropriately to fulfill a given need or query. However, not all prompts are created equal. Crafting clear, well-structured prompts is an acquired skill that allows prompt authors to get the most value out of their AI assistant.

This page is equipped with both a Masterclass video for you to watch and also an instructional guide that provides tips & tricks for prompt writing.

• The Masterclass video will walk you through the what a prompt is, 8 tips for prompt writing to get you started, and examples of prompts and the responses given by generative AI systems.
• The instructional guide will walk you through what a prompt is and the tips to get you started.

A prompt is an instruction or cue that you give to a generative AI model assistant to help create the information you are looking for. By providing a prompt an AI model will use what it has learned through its training to generate the best response it can for you.
The key to prompt writing is trying to guide and set the context for what the AI model will generate. Similar to the first spark in a fire that will ignite the rest of the flame.

Prompt Structure

It is important to keep in mind that how you choose to structure your prompt will largely impact the type of response you will receive. The more specific your prompt is the more direction you are giving to the AI about what exactly you are looking for…

It is essential that you, the prompt writer, have a solid understanding of the topic that you are asking the model to prompt.  With no solid understanding of the topic, you may inadvertently prompt the AI model to create inaccurate information. If you have strong knowledge of a topic you can create a detailed prompt that can assist the model to create the exact information you are looking for.

1. Be specific
   • The more specific you are with what you want the generative AI tool to do the better your outcome will be.
2. Act as if...
   • Asking an AI tool to behave as a person, process, or object can be an easy eay to generate a better prompt.
3. Be specific with how you would like the output to be presented
   • Generative AI can produce many types of outputs: Stories, written code, reports, summaries, etc. By specifying the output you will get the results you're looking for quicker.
4. Use do and don't
   • Telling the AI model what you do and do not want in a response will save you a great deal of time. 
5. Use Examples
   • Provide the tool with an example sentence or paragraph can help guide the model in the direction you are trying to go.
6. Consider the audience and tone
   • Be specific with the tool on how you want it to write. Ex: write me a script that is professional in tone and aimed at freshman in college. 
7. Correct mistakes and give feedback
   • Tell the tool What it is doing wrong so that it will improve its response.
8. Have the tool create the prompt for you!
   • Not sure where to start? As the AI tool to create a prompt for you and go from there.

• AI for Education (n.d.). GenAI Chatbot Prompt Library for Educators. Retrieved December 13, 2023, from AI Prompt Generator Library
• The President and Fellows of Harvard College (n.d.). Getting started with prompts for text-based Generative AI tools. Harvard University Information Technology. Retrieved December 13, 2023, from Getting started with prompts for text-based Generative AI tools
• University of Michigan - Flint Professional Development (n.d.). Generative AI Prompt Literacy. Office of Online and Digital Education. Retrieved December 13, 2023, from
• University of Michigan Flint: Generative AI Prompt Literacy Course

• Columbia University, Teachers College. (n.d.). Artificial intelligence in education. Digital Futures Institute. Retrieved December 14, 2023, from DFI Ai in education website