11 ways ChatGPT can save you time

Are you leveraging the power of AI, like ChatGPT, in teaching? E.g. have you asked it to improve iLearn text readability, draft role plays or case studies, create support resources, or even fun explanations the style of Homer Simpson ? 

1. Write engaging titles and descriptions  

Titles and descriptions aren’t just words; they’re your first impression.  

In academia, we often lean towards a formal tone, inadvertently missing chances to engage our students.  

Since not all of us are sufficiently practiced at catchy writing, ChatGPT can sometimes act as our a personal ‘marketing’ assistant, especially for critical topics.  

Here’s how. 

Prompt wording:   Create 20 engaging titles and 1 paragraph blurbs for an undergraduate lecture on ___.       Example: https://chat.openai.com/share/e639b7ec-8c12-402e-8d53-f19cbc0a64d2

TRY IT OUT:   Think of a session (e.g., lecture, tutorial, etc.) with some ‘dry’ or ‘dense’ content. Generate 10-20 engaging titles and blurbs and pick 1-2.

2. Concise and easy to read text (especially for iLearn)

How concise and easy to read is your iLearn content?  

Chances are, there is room for trimming it down to aid processing, especially if students are reading it on mobile devices.  

ChatGPT is good at condensing content. Try pasting your text for a ‘tighter’ version.  

Prompt wording:   Make this text concise and easy to read: PASTE TEXT.    https://chat.openai.com/share/edf190ca-15f5-4fbc-a252-7647e0687153

TRY IT OUT:   Choose some of your own iLearn text and get ChatGPT to make it more concise, clear and easy-to-read’.

3. Hooks 

Hooks help prepare the ground for important information, and, ultimately, help students process and retain more. If you are stuck for ‘hooks’ ideas, see if AI can suggest some!  

Prompt wording:   Suggest 30 interesting yet easy to prepare ways to introduce a topic of __ in an undergraduate lecture on ___. Provide thought-provoking questions, misconceptions and other hooks that might intrigue the audience and get them pay attention to the explanation to come.     Example:   https://chat.openai.com/share/5446a45c-b481-4d1d-aba1-fd66a29753d7

TRY IT OUT:     Choose a dry or dense topic and generate some potential ‘hooks’ to get students interested/primed for receiving information.

4. Easy ways to explain complex concepts (with everyday examples/metaphors)  

Simplifying and finding everyday examples can be tough for experts. Yet, that’s exactly what students need.  

Let ChatGPT help. For a range, request 10 or 20 different takes and pick the one that appeals to you most.  

Prompt wording:   Explain __ in an easy way as if you were explaining it to a 10-year-old. After the easy explanation, provide 10 everyday examples to help illustrate and 10 everyday analogies to help grasp the concept.        Example  https://chat.openai.com/share/40e9529c-7bf3-4d7a-aa24-3bea96fd2bfc

TRY IT OUT:     Choose a complex/challenging concept to explain and generate some everyday examples or metaphors to explain it.

5. Support resources for students

More than half of Macquarie’s students are 1st generation. While they especially benefit from clear tips and resources, the truth is, all students thrive with the right guidance on tasks and assignments.  

However, sourcing or creating these resources isn’t always straightforward.  

I’ve found that ChatGPT can be a good start at drafting practical tips when given a clear task description. For even better results, ask it to identify task challenges first, then provide practical solutions and examples.  

Real-life example: 

Prompt wording:   I teach__ and my students need to do___. This is a description of their task[PASTE] Create a list of practical tips and suggestions for my students.       Examples:   Peer mentoring   I described a task and asked ChatGPT to provide tips AND some useful phrases     https://chat.openai.com/share/4333c73c-6a39-4556-ad08-b8e14a6a8e76    Reflective task    I copied a task description and asked ChatGPT to create ‘support resources’ for students https://chat.openai.com/share/093cde7b-12ae-4eec-b387-7cc076266b07

TRY IT OUT:     Think of a task where students can benefit from additional tips.   Describe the task to ChatGPT (hint: you can copy the description from your instructions to students) and ask it to provide tips. Feel free to add a prompt “Make the tips practical and easy and refer to the task and description below”

6. Lecture transcripts 

More and more of us are turning to videos in teaching. Whether we produce them ourselves as a part of a flipped classroom, or source existing ones (for example, from YouTube) to recommend to our students, video is a common medium.  

Yet, quite frequently, we find ourselves without transcripts for these ‘content’ videos. We understand the value of transcripts (e.g. for neurodiverse or ESL students), but with our packed schedules, creating transcripts to accompany our ‘content’ videos often gets sidelined. 

This is where AI can really help. It has the capacity to generate polished transcripts in no time. For instance, if you’ve recorded a welcome video for students via Zoom (see this article for details) , an auto-transcript is automatically produced, but it’s so messy that we often do not use it, as tidying it up seems overwhelming.  

I was pleasantly surprised when I took one such auto-transcript, fed it into ChatGPT, and requested a neater version. Impressively, I had a polished version ready in just 10 seconds. 

Prompt wording:     Improve the formatting of this auto-transcript. Remove time stamps and filler words like ‘um’ and ‘uh’. It will be included along with the video, so make the formatting easy-to-read. If the transcript is too long, break it into segments and do them one by one. Do not use the speaker’s name.     See an example here   https://chat.openai.com/share/25857500-23cb-4737-b711-2d7359f68479

TRY IT OUT:     Find an auto-transcript of your Zoom recording (See Echo360 OR Zoom)    Ask ChatGPT to create a clean version using the prompt on the left.

7. Rubrics 

Rubrics are assignment roadmaps. When clear, they support and guide students.  

However, crafting clear rubrics can be hard and time-consuming. You can save time if you get ChatGPT to be your ‘rubric assistant’. 

Starting from scratch?  

Define the ‘ideal’ student output (HD level) and let ChatGPT draft the rest. 

Improving an existing rubric? 

Get ChatGPT make the wording clearer and more concise.  

Prompt wording:   This is the descriptor for a high distinction. Create descriptors for distinction, pass and credit: The post is well organized, presenting a logical flow of ideas which enables an easy and comfortable reading experience.        Example:   https://chat.openai.com/share/80fa3675-f21d-48fd-8c6c-c4e865cd3b17

TRY IT OUT:     Make a bullet point of what an HD work will look like and get ChatGPT to generate the full rubric.

8.  Feedback from bullet points  

Marking if often a race against time. Many of us are casual staff members and only paid for a limited time per work. Still, we aim to give students feedback that’s both comprehensive and easy to digest. 

Why not leverage ChatGPT? 

Try instructing it to act like an experienced university teacher aware of the latest research on effective feedback, and create clear, constructive, warm and easy-to-understand feedback text.  

Prompt wording:   You are an experienced university teacher aware of the latest research on effective feedback. Write feedback on this work. Make it clear, constructive, warm and easy-to-understand.   Grade: Credit   Pros: clear interest in the topic; mostly easy to read.   Key issues: excessive breadth and insufficient depth. Confusing-  No clear position.     Example:   https://chat.openai.com/share/7fa30629-583f-4e1e-a2b3-a94c4b7f7385

TRY IT OUT:   List some common assignment issues as bullet points and ask ChatGPT to create an ‘overall comment’.

9. Quizzes and polls 

Quizzes and polls can help identify gaps and improve engagement, crucial for student success.  

Want a quick way to create quizzes and polls?  

Ask ChatGPT to write them along with feedback for each option. 

A tip: Upload your word file to Office Forms to auto-generate most of your quiz. While you might need minor tweaks, it’s a faster method that adding questions manually. 

For live presentations, add the Office Forms QR code to your SlideDeck. Or embed the URL in your iLearn module. 

Prompt wording:   You are an experienced university professor. You teach anatomy to 1st year undergraduate students. Create a quiz with some key misconceptions about anatomy at the end of the 1st year course. Provide 20 questions each with 3 options and provide feedback for each of the options. Do it in the format that can be uploaded to Office Forms.     Example:    https://chat.openai.com/share/3d14ec33-e7be-4be6-a775-6097f940fb3c

TRY IT OUT:   Create a 1-question quiz for the students that can be used as a ‘hook’ to introduce an important topic in your discipline.

10. Role-plays, scenarios and case-studies

Practical activities such as scenarios, case studies, and role-plays have always been educational gems. However, their main drawback? They’re time-consuming to create. Enter ChatGPT: it can swiftly craft role-plays, case studies, and scenarios for you. Now, you can provide diverse and relevant materials for your students to dive into almost every lecture or tutorial!  

Tip: you can copy-paste an existing scenario, e.g. Harvard business scenario or a freely available case study (I used this one) and ask ChatGPT to use a similar format and level of detail. You can also instruct it to change particular variables. 

Prompt wording:   This is a sample case study for undergraduate students. Create 10 more case studies covering the same topic but use contemporary topics and numbers.      Follow-up :   What key points should students get from discussing each case study? Provide as bullet points.    See example here  https://chat.openai.com/share/213f4750-9636-4581-a00f-a8c71e7bd859

TRY IT OUT:   Find a case study from your discipline.  Copy and paste it into ChatGPT and ask it to create similar case studies.

11. Fun (e.g. explain in the style of..)

Introducing complex topics like sampling distribution can be daunting.  

Why not get ChatGPT to explain it in the style of Homer Simpson or Winnie-the-Pooh , or your favorite pop culture character! 

ChatGPT usually does well at mimicking different styles, so why not inject some fun in our explanations?  

Prompt wording:     Explain [ADD YOUR CONCEPT, e.g. Sampling Distribution] in the style of Homer Simpson, James Bond, Winnie-the-Pooh, Willy Wonka, Shrek, Bridget Jones, and Cat in the Hat.    Example   https://chat.openai.com/share/f6a6de2b-8c51-4266-8f3b-a4d1340c86b0

TRY IT OUT:     Get ChatGPT to explain a challenging concept from your discipline in a style of a pop character, as a rap song or any other fun way.

How are YOU using ChatGPT and other AI tools in your teaching?  

Share your ideas with our community by posting a comment below OR email me. I’d LOVE to hear from you. Happy teaching!  

Image credits: Image generated with MidJourney AI tool by Dr. Olga Kozar