Recipe: AI Tutoring
Purpose
The objective of this assignment is to deepen your understanding of the fundamental economic concepts of supply and demand through an interactive conversation with ChatGPT. By engaging in a conversation, you will explore various scenarios, ask questions, and provide at least 10 substantial responses related to supply and demand concepts.
AI in this Assignment
A generative AI account like ChatGPT will be used to converse throughout this assignment. Other generative AI accounts are welcome, but you must be able to share the conversation that took place.
Please note that the output of generative AI is not guaranteed to be accurate! It is your responsibility to verify the statements made by the AI in this activity.
Tasks (estimated time: 1 hour)
In the next section is a “prompt” that you will use with ChatGPT to complete this conversational tutor activity. A prompt in generative AI systems, like ChatGPT, is the message you send that gives the AI instructions on how it should respond.
Copy the prompt in the box in its entirety. Start a new conversation in ChatGPT and paste the prompt into the textbox. After submitting the message, ChatGPT will then be “prompted” to act as a conversational tutor on the topic provided.
Engage in a meaningful conversation with the tutor. Answer its questions in a thoughtful manner, and pose your own questions related to the topic.
Use this activity to help you prepare for a quiz or discussion about this topic. Ensure your participation in the conversation includes at least 10 substantial responses. A substantial response could include follow-up questions, answers to the tutor’s questions, examples to reinforce your point, reflections on the topic, and more.
Simple “yes”, “no”, “I’m unsure” or similar responses do not count as substantial. Each response in the conversation should pertain to the topic.
If you want to play with the conversational tutor, feel free to copy and paste the starting prompt in a new conversation of your own.
AI Recipe: AI Tutoring
You are a personalized tutor that will help a university student understand a specific topic. You will help students understand the concepts and explore their ideas in the topic area. To begin with, introduce yourself and explain that you will help them with the following topic. Begin by asking what they already know. Ask only one question to start. Using their response, help students understand the topic by thinking step-by-step and using clear explanations, examples, and analogies appropriate for a university student. You should guide students using an open-ended Socratic approach that does not provide immediate answers, but instead ask students leading questions to help them develop their understanding. Take a deep breath before explaining difficult concepts. Encourage students to search online for relevant graphs or images if it would help with their understanding.
Students should demonstrate their thinking through answers to the questions that you ask. If a student is struggling, try to provide more scaffolding by leading them through smaller steps or asking them to complete only part of the question. Always be encouraging and supportive. Before moving on to the next concept, require that students accurately explain the current idea in their own words. Once a student can explain the topic, repeat the process with an explanation of any math, case studies, or anecdotes as appropriate to help them deepen their understanding. You might also generate quiz questions for students to practice. Do not provide suggestions for possible answers to the questions.
Recipe Substitutions:
Change the highlighted portions of the assignment to suit your course.
Recipe Variations:
Revise the prompt to suit your needs. For example, you might remove the part that has the AI ask about the students’ current understanding to begin the conversation.
Consider making the activity just a participation grade without trying to measure “significant” responses in the conversation.
This activity can be designed as a discussion post so that other students can see how the conversations went and potentially assisted students.
Consider including a reflection piece in the assignment where students share their perceptions of the activity and grade the accuracy of the chatbot’s responses.
Note: This recipe was intended for a microeconomics class, but this activity can be easily adapted to many courses.
Resources
Include resources that will help students successfully complete the tasks above (e.g., texts, tools, glossary)
Submission Guidelines
Once you have participated in the conversation to your satisfaction and have provided at least 10 substantial responses, do the following to complete the assignment:
- Click on the “Share” button in the ChatGPT conversation interface.
- Click the “Copy Link” button.
- Return to this Canvas page and click on the submission area.
- Paste the copied URL.
- Submit the URL for grading.
If your chosen AI tool does not have the ability to share the conversation through a link, you are permitted to screenshot the entirety of the activity and embed those screenshots within a Word document that you submit.
Criteria for Success
You will be graded on having a meaningful conversation through your responses that are:
- on-topic and attempt to answer the tutor’s questions
- pose your own on-topic questions, meant to develop your understanding of the topic
- or are relevant to meeting the goals of the activity.
I will be generous in evaluating whether or not a response is “meaningful” so long as you expand beyond simple “yes”, “no”, or “maybe” answers.
NOTE: FOR INSTRUCTORS (DO NOT INCLUDE THIS SECTION IN YOUR ASSIGNMENT):
General AI tools such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot excel at general knowledge. If your course is advanced or covers niche topics, then this tutoring activity may not be as readily adaptable to your content.
Caution: The output of AI is not guaranteed to be accurate. Students should be made aware that information provided by large language models should be verified.
