15+ Powerful ChatGPT prompts to create interactive lesson activities in no time

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has been transforming various industries for some time, but the launch of ChatGPT for the general public in late 2022 has made the possibilities of this technology more tangible. It’s now evident that AI is here to stay and will impact numerous sectors, including education.

Initially, educators expressed concerns about how students would engage with ChatGPT and other AI tools, but as time passed, more and more educators recognize its potential benefits for both students and teachers.

In this blog post, we’ll examine the prompts that teachers can use in ChatGPT to create questions faster and more efficiently in BookWidgets’ quizzes and worksheets, as well as other widget types.

Before diving into the prompts, we’ll provide an overview of ChatGPT, Prompts, and BookWidgets. You can read this blog post from top to bottom, or use the table of contents to jump to a specific section.

• What is ChatGPT?
• What is BookWidgets?
• What is a prompt?
• Which parts of a BookWidgets-activity can be created by ChatGPT?
• 16 prompts to use in ChatGPT when creating a BookWidgets activity
• Bonus: Use BookWidgets’ PDF importer to easily import questions from ChatGPT
• Disclaimer

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a free online conversational chatbot based on AI-technology that you can try out for free at https://chat.openai.com/.

Instead of writing a more detailed description ourselves, we asked ChatGPT “Can you explain in 100 words what ChatGPT is? The answer will be used in a blog post for teachers.”

This is the answer generated by the AI:

ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI that can understand and generate human-like text. It is trained on a massive dataset of diverse texts, including books, articles, and websites. ChatGPT can engage in conversations on a wide range of topics, answer questions, and generate text in various formats, such as essays, stories, and poetry. It has the potential to revolutionize education by providing personalized learning experiences, automating tedious tasks, and expanding access to educational resources. Teachers can use ChatGPT to create interactive learning environments and enhance their students’ language skills.

What is BookWidgets?

If you stumbled upon this blog post and don’t know BookWidgets yet, in short, it’s a content creation and evaluation tool for teachers. We could write a longer description, but, instead of doing that ourselves, we asked ChatGPT and got the following answer:

BookWidgets is an online platform that provides teachers with an extensive library of interactive and customizable educational widgets. These widgets are designed to engage students and enhance their learning experience across various subjects and grade levels. With BookWidgets, teachers can create interactive exercises, quizzes, games, and multimedia-rich content that can be easily integrated into their lessons. The platform is user-friendly and offers a wide range of customization options, allowing teachers to tailor their content to their students’ needs. BookWidgets has the potential to transform traditional teaching methods, making learning more fun and engaging for students and simplifying lesson planning for teachers.

We would love to add the possibilities for efficient personalized feedback and integrations into LMSs such as Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams, but otherwise, this explanation is very accurate…. Not bad, that AI!

What is a prompt?

With the rise of AI, a lot has been written about the importance of writing good prompts. But what is a (good) prompt? Once again, instead of writing this section ourselves, we asked ChatGPT and got a very clear and understandable answer:

In the context of AI-tools like ChatGPT, a prompt is a starting point or input that a user provides to the AI to generate a response. The prompt can be a phrase, sentence, or paragraph, and it serves as a guide for the AI to understand the context and generate a coherent and relevant response. The quality and specificity of the prompt can significantly impact the quality of the AI-generated output. Therefore, it’s essential to provide clear and concise prompts to get the desired results from AI-tools like ChatGPT.

We continued the conversation, asking, “Can you give examples of good prompts teachers could enter in ChatGPT?”

• Example 1: “Can you suggest some strategies to help students with test anxiety?”
• Example 2: “I need ideas for a fun and educational activity for my third-grade science class. What can you recommend?”
• Example 3: “What are some best practices for teaching online?”

We didn’t stop the conversation there: “Can you explain how to properly formulate a prompt?”

To properly formulate a prompt in ChatGPT, here are some tips to keep in mind:

• Be clear and concise: Write a prompt that is specific and straightforward. Avoid using overly complex language or unnecessary information.
• Use proper grammar: Ensure that your prompt uses correct grammar and punctuation. The AI will have a better chance of understanding your request if it is well-written.
• Be specific: Provide as much detail as possible in your prompt. The more specific your request is, the better the AI-generated output will be.
• Avoid bias: Be mindful of any personal biases you may have when formulating your prompt. Try to keep your request neutral and objective to ensure the AI-generated output is unbiased.
• Ask a question: Frame your prompt as a question. This will help the AI understand the context and provide a more relevant response.

Which parts of a BookWidgets-activity can be created by ChatGPT?

Have a look at the widget below. It was one of the ready-to-use lesson activities our team made for Women’s history month.

Does anything strike you in the above widget?

No?

What if we told you that ChatGPT generated certain parts of this widget? Take another look at the widget. Could you guess which parts were made by AI?

ChatGPT generated both the directions for the assignment and the self-assessment rubrics table. We provided the randomness spinner with names of women who marked History ourselves, but in fact, ChatGPT could also generate such a list perfectly.

In other words, when you know how to use ChatGPT skillfully, with the right prompts, it is a handy assistant that can help teachers save a lot of time. Below we provide 16 very specific examples of prompts teachers can use in ChatGPT to create interactive lesson content in BookWidgets.

16 prompts to use in ChatGPT when creating a BookWidgets activity

Below are 16 examples of prompts you can use to create interactive exercises faster and more efficiently. As shown in the examples, it is important to include very specific guidelines in your prompt to get the most accurate results possible. Some of the elements that you could include in the prompt are:

• the lesson topic;
• the level of your students;
• the output format your expecting (with an example);
• a text on which the questions should be based (e.g. when creating true or false questions);
• the tools and devices at your disposal during the lesson (e.g. Chromebooks, BookWidgets, …);
• …

💡Tip: copy the prompts you find useful and save them (e.g. in a notepad application), so you can easily use them in ChatGPT with some minor modifications.

For each example, we created a Split Worksheet activity, where you see the prompt on the left and the result we obtained by processing ChatGPT’s response in BookWidgets on the right.

1. Directions for oral presentations

Example prompt: “For my ESL course with B1/B2 level students, I want each student to present a woman that marked history. I want them to present for at least 3 minutes and pay attention to pronunciation, grammar, and body language. Could you write the directions for this oral presentation?”

2. Directions for writing assignments

Example prompt: “For my ESL course with B1/B2 level students, I want each student to present a woman that marked history. I want them to write a text with at least 300 words and pay attention to grammar and spelling. Could you write the directions for this assignment?”

3. Rubric tables for assignments

Example prompt: “Generate a rubrics table for the assignment I described in the previous prompt. The rubrics table should have at least four levels (from “excellent” to “unsatisfactory”) and 5 evaluation criteria.”

4. True or false questions

Example prompt: “Create 5 true or false questions about “the sun” and give me the answer after the statement using this format: statement##true or statement##false Then, give me the explanation for each statement.

💡 Tip: You could provide a text, add it to the prompt, and ask ChatGPT to base the true/false statements on this text.

5. Fill-in-the-blank and Drag words in sentence exercises

Example prompt: “Can you generate a fill-in-the-blank text with 200-300 words about the Civil War, putting the words the students need to complete between <<>> ?”

💡 Tip: You could provide a text and add it to the prompt, instead of having ChatGPT invent it.

6. Fill-in-the-blank activities with verb conjugation exercises

Example prompt: “Can you generate a fill-in-the-blank text with 200-300 words about “daily life,” putting only the past simple verbs the students need to complete between <<>>? Just after the gap, add the infinitive of the verb students need to fill out. It should be shown like this: The man <<walked>> (walk) into the bar.”

7. Word or Sentence ordering questions

Example prompt: “Can you write a text about the advantages and disadvantages of AI? The text should have 5 paragraphs (don’t add titles or numbers for the different paragraphs) and should be well structured with transition words.”

8. Fill-in-the-table questions

Example prompt: “Create an empty balance table for practicing my students’ accounting skills. Provide me with the completed table. Provide the correct information my students need to be able to fill out the table.”

💡 Tip: You could provide a text and add it to the prompt, instead of having ChatGPT invent it.

9. Mark sentence questions

Example prompt: “Write a text about ‘the house’ and mark all the adjectives and verbs between <<>>. It should be shown like this: The bathroom <<verb:has>> a <<adjective:tiny>> toilet. This is just an example, don’t use the text. The text should have about 300 words.”

💡 Tip: You could provide a text and add it to the prompt, instead of having ChatGPT invent it.

10. Word match questions

Example prompt: “Here’s a list with words. Create 5 matching question types so my students can practice the meaning and translation to Dutch.

• Kitchen
• Stairs
• Bedroom
• Attic
• Bathroom
• Basement
• Living room
• Garage
• Dining room
• Garden”

11. Multiple choice quizzes

Example prompt: “Create a multiple choice quiz with 5 questions about the Greek gods. Indicate the correct answers.”

💡 Tip: You could provide a text, add it to the prompt and ask ChatGPT to base the questions on this text.

12. Multiple question types

Example prompt: “Here’s a list with new vocabulary words. Create 10 different types of questions (fill-in-the blanks, matching questions, multiple choice, open answer, etc.) so my students can study the meaning and translations to Dutch.

• Kitchen
• Stairs
• Bedroom
• Attic
• Bathroom
• Basement
• Living room
• Garage
• Dining room
• Garden”

13. Checklists for assignments

Example prompt: “Can you generate a general checklist that my ESL students (B1/B2 level) can use for their writing assignments?”

💡 Tip: You could include the directions of the assignment in the prompt to get a more specific checklist.

14. Vocabulary lists for the Snowman/Hangman widget

Example prompt: “I’ll be playing the snowman/hangman game in BookWidgets with my ESL students. Can you generate a list of words? The topic is ‘parts of the house’.”

15. Flashcards

Example prompt: “I want my students to practice the European countries and their capitals using the Flashcards in BookWidgets. Can you generate the table that is suitable for the import? The table should have this format:

• First column: Name of the country
• Second column - Leave empty
• Third column - Leave empty
• Fourth column - Name of the capital”

16. Randomness

Example prompt: “I want my ESL-students (B1-level) to invent a story and provide them with a random character, place and object that they should include in this story. Can you provide a list for each of these three elements? (each list should have at least 10 words)”

Bonus: Use BookWidgets’ PDF importer to easily import questions from ChatGPT

We have to admit, although ChatGPT can clearly be a handy assistant when setting up BookWidgets activities, it’s not so convenient that you have to copy-paste its answers to your prompts into the widget editor all the time…. but there’s a solution to that! Remember: BookWidgets has a Word/PDF import feature!

To import the content generated by ChatGPT into BookWidgets, follow these steps (click here to see a video tutorial):

1. Send your prompt and wait for ChatGPT to generate the response;
2. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+P (on a Windows device) or Cmd+P (on a Macbook);
3. In the dropwon menu where you can select a printer, choose the “Save as PDF” option;
4. Create a new quiz or worksheet in BookWidgets. In the widget editor, click on the cogwheel at the top right and then “Import from document.”
5. Select the PDF file and select the elements you want to import, as explained in this video.
6. Finally, click “Import” in the upper right corner…. that’s it!

Disclaimer

The use of AI as a tool to generate lesson content is intended to enhance and supplement traditional teaching methods. While AI-generated content can provide personalized and engaging learning experiences, it should not replace the role of a teacher in the classroom. It’s essential to review and revise AI-generated content to ensure that it aligns with the curriculum and meets the educational standards. Additionally, AI-generated content should not be solely relied upon for assessment and evaluation purposes. Teachers should always exercise their professional judgment and discretion when using AI tools to create lesson content.

Yes, we admit, ChatGPT also generated this disclaimer 🤷‍ We find the last sentence especially important. There are numerous examples where AI tools give wrong information, and they also do so in a very convincing way. So you can use AI as an assistant but don’t rely on it blindly.

Wrap up

Wow, I myself am still impressed with the capabilities of Chat GPT…. and this is just the beginning!

Are you already using ChatGPT for preparing your classes? Do you have any other good prompts you can share? Let us know on Twitter! - @ibookwidgets

Or share your ChatGPT best practices in the Teaching with BookWidgets Facebook group so that, in turn, you can inspire others!

Have fun exploring the possibilities of AI!