Innovation through prompting: Democratizing educational technology

Ethan Mollick and Lilach Mollick, Instructors as Innovators: A future-focused approach to new AI learning opportunities, with prompts, Social Science Research Network, April 21, 2024:

Abstract: This paper explores how instructors can leverage generative AI to create personalized learning experiences for students that transform teaching and learning. We present a range of AI-based exercises that enable novel forms of practice and application including simulations, mentoring, coaching, and co-creation. For each type of exercise, we provide prompts that instructors can customize, along with guidance on classroom implementation, assessment, and risks to consider. We also provide blueprints, prompts that help instructors create their own original prompts. Instructors can leverage their content and pedagogical expertise to design these experiences, putting them in the role of builders and innovators. We argue that this instructor-driven approach has the potential to democratize the development of educational technology by enabling individual instructors to create AI exercises and tools tailored to their students' needs. While the exercises in this paper are a starting point, not a definitive solutions, they demonstrate AI's potential to expand what is possible in teaching and learning.

Here's a substack column by Ethan Mollick that is based on that paper: Innovation through prompting: Democratizing educational technology, April 22, 2024.