Looking Back and Looking Forward — Prompts Are the New Thesis Sentence

(Looking Back and Looking Forward takes a look at the articles and posts I found interesting from the previous week, along with reflections about how the trends they point to might shape my thinking about education, technology, and culture.)

In a post-ASU+GSV post, Michael Feldstein shared his reflection on the impact generative AI will have on education. This is a definitely-worth-reading item with some keen insights into how educators can will use tools like ChatGPT. On a similar note, Bryan Alexander provides this take on how the notion of instruction with change with the advent of AI tools.

Those of you who really are playing along at home (as in experimenting with ChatGPT), have likely already discovered that a big key to using these tools is the ability to write good prompts. If you’re still struggling to get the results you need, take a look at this prompt recipe (not a prompt doesn’t necessarily need to have all these ingredients).

Instruction: A specific task to be performed by the model.
Context: Additional information so that the model can respond better.
Input: A question that we ask the model.
Output Indicator: Specifies the type of output.

In a weird way, we may be going back to teaching students how to write the equivalent of good thesis sentences. You remember those, right? The main point of your composition? A sentence that should express both the “what” and the “why” of your paper? Prompts are much the same. You’ll find that the more context you provide the better the results you’ll receive.

Interestingly, “12%” appeared in a number of items over the past week, although I doubt these are related. Higher Education enrollments in the U.S. have dropped 12% over the last decade. Analysts are also predicting a 12% decline in smartphone shipments this year. Sticking with percentage statistics, Phil Hill reviewed the comments on the Department of Education’s expanded guidance for Third Party Servicers and found less than 1% of the commenters supported the guidance (out of 1,100 public comments).

Looking through a lengthy set of bookmarked articles this week, I also noticed these continuing trends (feel free to glance through the Further Reading section to discover your own emerging patterns).

A combination of trends/events continues to reshape workforce demand
The shift in labor trends continues to have a variety of impacts on higher education
The notion of “meaningful credentials” continues to evolve and alternative credentials are continuing to gain traction
We’re all scrambling to understand how new AI technologies are going to change the landscape

Have a great week, everybody!

Looking Back and Looking Forward — Prompts Are the New Thesis Sentence

Further Reading

Higher Education

K-!2 Education

Workforce

Online Learning, Learning Design, and Education Technology

Technology and Culture