AI prompting is all about giving good directions. It’s not enough to simply ask AI for help—you need to be specific and strategic to get meaningful, useful results. Whether you’re creating a lesson plan, generating grading rubrics, or coming up with creative activities, how you phrase your prompt can drastically impact the outcome.

The Basics of Prompting 

1. Start with Clear Intentions: Before you begin typing, take a moment to clarify what you need. Are you looking for a complete lesson plan, a set of practice problems, or a creative activity? Be specific about your goals so that the AI knows exactly what to deliver.

2. Be Specific: The more specific your prompt, the better the AI’s response. For example, instead of typing, “Create a lesson plan,” try something like this: “Create a 45-minute lesson plan for about Present Perfect on the B1 level, including an engaging opening activity, practice tasks, and a formative assessment.” By giving details, you’re directing the AI to focus on exactly what you need, saving you from unnecessary revisions.

3. Experiment and Refine: AI is powerful, but it’s not perfect. Often, you’ll need to adjust your prompts to get the best results. Think of it as a conversation—you ask, the AI responds, and you tweak your request if needed. For example, if the lesson plan generated is too simple, you can refine your prompt to say, “Add a differentiated strategy for advanced learners.”

4.  Layered Prompts: One advanced technique is to layer your prompts, building on the AI’s previous answers. Start with a broad prompt like “Create a 45-minute lesson plan for about Present Perfect on the B1 level, including an engaging opening activity, practice tasks, and a formative assessment.” and then follow up with, “Expand on the opening activity with hands-on ideas,” or “Add differentiated instructions for struggling learners.” By layering prompts, you can guide the AI to refine and enhance its responses.

5. Give Examples: Include examples in the prompts. This helps AI tools better understand the expected output. For example, provide an example of a reading comprehension text you like and ask AI to create a similar text with similar questions but on a different topic.

Common Prompting Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Some common mistakes that many educators make when first using AI, and how to avoid these pitfalls. 

These tips will help you avoid frustration and make sure you’re using AI to its full potential.

1. Vague Language: Using general or vague prompts often leads to generic, unusable results. Instead of “Help me plan a lesson,” be sure to include specific details like subject matter, grade level, and time constraints. The more detail you provide, the more tailored and useful the response will be.

2. Overloading the AI: A frequent mistake is asking for too much in one prompt. For example, if you ask the AI to “create a lesson plan, write a rubric, and generate a parent letter,” you may overwhelm it. Instead, break down your requests into smaller tasks, like asking for a lesson plan first, and then moving on to the rubric and letter separately.

3. Not refining your prompts: AI works best when used interactively. If you’re not satisfied with the AI’s response, don’t give up—refine your prompt and give feedback.

Chatbots, such as Chat GPT, Claude and Gemini, require prompt engineering, but the other side of the same coin is that you can create very specific and varied things, according to the prompt you give them. Once you are skilled at prompt engineering, the options are almost endless.

If you use Apps designed for teachers, you do not need to give detailed prompts.

Here are two examples of these AI powered apps: