Robots in the Classroom: A parent’s guide for giving your kids AI superpowers at school.

Ah, Autumn! That time when many of us North of the equator will straighten up, buckle down, and lean into greater industriousness. It's also the time when we parents will guide our children through the Back-to-School transition, following in the footsteps of our parents and their parents. Good times. ?

But this year something is different. This is the first school season during which students around the world will have almost universal access to Large Language Models (LLMs) both at home, and--in some cases--at school.?

So how should you, a parent concerned with 1) ensuring your kid doesn't fall behind ?2) ensuring your kid doesn't outsource their brain and 3) maintaining intellectual honesty in school deal with this new development?

There’s a lot to be said on the topic, but for now, here are three quick moves you can make:?

Move #1: Use your LLM to create a private Tutor

Private tutors used to be only for the rich, but no longer! Anyone can show their kids how to create their very own (and very well read) personal AI tutor. How? To get you started, here are two prompt sequences my 14 year old used this summer to create a Tutor for Geometry and Earth Science. (Note the "fun" inside).

Prompt 1: From now on act like a cranky high school teacher. While doing that teach [10th grade geometry] to me. Are you ready?

You can enter any topic you would like in the [brackets]. Of note, my son is entering into 9th grade, but he chose to stretch himself (hence the “10th grade” designation). You can also choose a learning style or tone that suits you. For example, when my son found he didn't like "crabby" part of the conversation--ah, to be a Teen again--he changed to Prompt 2 below).

Prompt 2: Please regenerate your responses. But from now on act like [a retired stand-up comedian who decided to change careers] and become a high school teacher.

As you can imagine, the second conversation was much more “fun” than with the 'crabby' teacher, but that was for him to figure out for himself. From there, he (and your kid, too) can have a conversation with the "tutor" in natural language. This helped him not only learn more about the topic, but also about crafting good questions, skeptical inquiry, and "going deeper" on topics.

Move #2: Use LLMs to create a test partner

I think you can see where this one is going, so let me jump right to the prompt:?

Prompt: Give me test questions about [biology for tenth grade]. You will ask one question at a time, and you will wait for my response. If I get it right, we will continue. If not, please explain what I got wrong. Are you ready?

You can imagine where this goes. Fill in the [brackets] with any topic you like, and you're off to the races.

Move #3: Use LLMs to test my knowledge of written content

I think you can see where this one is going, too. It’s often the case that your kids will be expected to absorb content through reading. Lots of reading. If that’s the case, this prompt is for you. Again, I think the prompt speaks for itself (I use this one with clients, too*).?

Prompt: Please summarize the [following text] in a bullet point outline. Make a markdown table of study questions and answers.

To make this one work, you will need to upload and/or copy/paste the text into the model. Depending on which LLM you use you may need to upgrade your model to use plugins (e.g.: ChatGPT "Pro") or use a LLM with a huge context window (E.g.: Claude 2). But either way, this is a nice way for your kid to create their own "test" from whatever written content they have to study.

A cautionary Note ?

You still must verify the answers and the text produced by the AI due to "hallucinations," but you needn’t let that stand between your kids and a superpowered AI tutor/companion. Instead, take this opportunity to teach your kids how to query and verify any content the AI produces (which, by the way, is a good life skill for interactions with humans, too). Also, you should make sure that LLM's aren't used as a substitute for study groups or peer to peer interactions. AI should be used to augment their experience, but not replace human contact.

Let Autumn begin!

That’s it. What you'll notice (hopefully) is that this can be a fun, effective use of LLMs that does not diminish your kid's ability to think, nor violate any ethical boundaries. What it does do is help your kids study and learn, on their own, as well as develop their own question skills (and even their sense of humor).

The Robots are here, and--used correctly--they are ready to give your kids even greater superpowers at school.

Go gettum!

PS: Why is an obtuse triangle always cranky? Because it's never right.

*Alumni of our BTS Course AI for Non Technical Leaders, hello! You might recognize this as tool #30 in your takeaway guide (Page 31). Yes, it works well for your kids, too!