Hands-On Practice
Apply techniques to real educational scenarios and your own work
Learning by Doing
Prompt engineering is a practical skill. You develop it through repeated practice, not by reading about it. This lesson provides structured exercises to build your capabilities through hands-on experience.
Each exercise is designed to practise a specific skill while producing something useful for your actual work. Don't just read these—do them.
Transform Vague Prompts
Take these weak prompts and rewrite them using the CRAFT framework (Context, Role, Action, Format, Tone).
Weak Prompt 1:
“Help me teach reading.”
Your Task:
Rewrite this prompt for your specific context. Include: your year group, your students' current reading levels, specific challenges they face, what outcome you're looking for, and any constraints you have.
Weak Prompt 2:
“Make a worksheet.”
Your Task:
Transform this into a specific request. Define: the topic, learning objective, student ability level, number and type of questions, any scaffolding needed, and formatting requirements.
Weak Prompt 3:
“Give me ideas for a project.”
Your Task:
Specify: subject area, curriculum links, duration, resources available, individual vs group work, assessment criteria, and any themes that would engage your specific students.
Shift from Automation to Augmentation
Transform these “do it for me” requests into “help me do it better” conversations.
Automation Request:
“Write feedback for this student essay.”
Augmentation Approach:
Instead, try: Share the essay and your initial observations, then ask AI to:
- Identify strengths you might have missed
- Spot patterns in the student's errors
- Suggest specific, actionable next steps
- Help you phrase feedback constructively
Automation Request:
“Create a behavior management plan.”
Augmentation Approach:
Instead, describe the specific behaviors you're seeing, what you've tried, and what you know about the students involved. Ask AI to:
- Suggest root causes you might explore
- Propose approaches you haven't considered
- Challenge your assumptions about the situation
- Help you think through potential unintended consequences
Evaluate AI Output
Use AI to generate content, then practise critical evaluation.
Step 1: Generate
Ask AI to create a 10-question quiz on a topic you know well.
Step 2: Evaluate with VERIFY
Go through each question and assess:
- Validate: Is the content factually correct?
- Examine: Is the logic sound? Are distractors plausible but clearly wrong?
- Review: Is there any bias or missing perspective?
- Inspect: Does it fit your curriculum and student level?
- Filter: Would you be happy using this with your class?
- Your expertise: What would you change based on your knowledge?
Step 3: Improve
Write specific feedback to AI about what needs to change. Note: Which questions need correction? Which should be replaced entirely? What's missing? What's the wrong level?
Leverage Your Expertise
Practise front-loading your professional knowledge into prompts.
The Task:
Choose a lesson you need to plan. Before asking AI for help, write out:
- Your learning objective and success criteria
- What students already know about this topic
- Common misconceptions you anticipate
- Specific students who might struggle and why
- Resources and time constraints
- What has worked well in similar lessons
- What hasn't worked and should be avoided
Then:
Include all of this context in your prompt. Compare the output you get with this rich context versus a simple “plan a lesson on [topic]” request. Notice the difference.
The Refinement Loop
Practise the iterative improvement process through multiple rounds.
Round 1: Initial Request
Ask AI to create discussion questions for a text or topic you're teaching.
Round 2: Level Adjustment
Request changes to make questions more/less challenging as needed.
Round 3: Add Scaffolding
Ask for hints or support prompts for students who might struggle.
Round 4: Extension
Request follow-up questions for students who finish quickly.
Round 5: Final Polish
Make final adjustments to wording, order, or content based on your review.
Build Your Prompt Library
As you practise, save prompts that work well. Start building a personal library organised by purpose:
Planning
Lesson planning, unit design, curriculum mapping
Assessment
Quiz creation, rubric development, feedback writing
Differentiation
Adapting materials, scaffolding, extension activities
Communication
Parent emails, reports, newsletters
Professional Learning
Research summaries, strategy exploration
Problem-Solving
Behavior strategies, differentiation ideas
Key Takeaways
- Prompt engineering is a skill developed through practice, not just reading
- Transform vague prompts into specific, contextual requests
- Always work through the full cycle: generate, evaluate, refine
- Build a personal library of effective prompts for reuse
- The goal is producing genuinely useful outputs for your actual work
Interactive Lab
Practice Tracker
Track your progress through the hands-on exercises
The prompt:
"Explain network security to me."
Your task:
Rewrite this for YOUR context. Include: your current course, what you already know, the specific topic you're struggling with, how this relates to an upcoming exam or assignment, and the level of detail you need.