Event Information
1. (5 Minutes) Welcome & Introduction to Gems:
Activity: Quick poll (e.g., raise hands, digital poll) – "How familiar are you with AI in education?"
Content:
Brief overview of Gemini as a powerful AI.
Introduce "Gems" – custom, specialized versions of Gemini.
Analogy: Gems are like personal AI assistants within Gemini, tailored for specific tasks, personalities, or knowledge domains, essentially functioning as powerful, pre-configured mini-prompts.
Highlight the potential for personalization and targeted support in education.
2. (10 Minutes) Best Practices for Using AI with Students & Ethical Prompting:
Content: Discussion on key considerations:
Transparency and Honesty: Be upfront with students about AI use.
Academic Integrity: Establish clear guidelines on AI usage for assignments.
Critical Thinking & Verification: Emphasize that AI output needs to be reviewed and validated.
Bias Awareness: Discuss potential biases in AI data and how to mitigate them through careful prompting.
Data Privacy & Security: Important considerations when using any online tools.
Focus on Learning, Not Just Answers: How can AI facilitate learning rather than simply providing answers?
Activity: "Think-Pair-Share" – Participants discuss one ethical consideration they find most important when using AI with students, specifically regarding prompting strategies.
3. (15 Minutes) Crafting Good to Great Prompts:
Content: Explore the elements of effective prompts:
Clarity and Specificity: The more precise your prompt, the better the output.
Role-Playing: Asking Gemini to act as a specific persona (e.g., "Act as a historian...").
Constraints and Formatting: Specifying length, format, or style.
Examples: Providing good and bad examples for Gemini to follow.
Iterative Prompting: How to refine prompts based on initial responses.
Understanding "Gems as Mini-Prompts": Explain how a Gem essentially encapsulates many of these prompt elements into a reusable configuration.
Hands-on Activity:
"Prompt Makeover" (Individual/Small Group): Participants receive a handout with several "basic" prompts.
Prompt: "Work to transform these basic prompts into 'great' prompts by adding clarity, role, constraints, or examples."
Participants will revise prompts like:
Basic: "Tell me about climate change."
Great: "Act as an environmental scientist explaining the causes and effects of climate change to a 5th grader. Provide 3 specific, actionable steps they can take to help, formatted as bullet points."
4. (15 Minutes) Building Gem Ideas: Designing Your Mini-Prompts:
Content:
Identify a Need: What specific student need or learning gap could a Gem address? (e.g., struggling with specific subject, need for personalized feedback, creative brainstorming).
Define the Gem's Persona (Implicit Prompting): What "personality" or tone should the Gem have? (e.g., patient tutor, critical thinking challenger, creative muse). This defines the initial prompt for the Gem.
Specify Knowledge Domain (Contextual Prompting): What information should the Gem have access to or specialize in? (e.g., historical facts, scientific principles, literary analysis).
Outline Key Functions/Example Prompts: What will the Gem do? What kind of prompts will students use within the Gem?
Hands-on Activity:
"Gem Design Challenge" (Individual/Small Group): Participants receive a "Gem Design Template" handout.
Prompt: "Imagine a specific scenario in your classroom where a customized AI could significantly help students. Design a 'Gem' for that purpose, thinking of the Gem itself as a complex, pre-configured mini-prompt."
Participants sketch out:
Gem Name
Target /Subject
Gem Persona (and the implicit prompt that creates it)
Knowledge Base (and how it's integrated)
3-5 example prompts an educator/ student would use with this specific Gem.
5. (10 Minutes) Sharing & Next Steps:
Content:
Group Share: Briefly share one compelling Gem idea or example of a "great" prompt from the hands-on activities.
Reflection: How can this concept be integrated into their own teaching context?
Limitations & Future: Acknowledge current limitations of AI and the ongoing evolution of these tools. Emphasize the importance of continued professional development in prompt engineering.
Resources: Provide links to additional resources for exploring Gemini, AI in education best practices, and advanced prompt engineering techniques.
Activity: "One-Sentence Takeaway" – Each participant shares one key takeaway or action step they will implement regarding Gems or prompt writing.
ttendees will leave this hands-on session with a tangible, ready-to-use AI artifact and an accompanying action plan. The core artifact is their own personalized, configured Gemini AI assistant (a "Gem"), which they will build using prompt engineering to address a specific, authentic need in their role. Their takeaway action plan will detail a strategy for immediate deployment, how to share their custom "Gem" configuration with colleagues, and a path for future iteration. Furthermore, all attendees will receive a link to a collaborative spreadsheet of shared Gems, immediately providing a communal resource pool built by the participants.
AI with Intention: Principles and Action Steps for Teachers and School Leaders - Author Tony Frontier
How to Teach AI - Author Rachelle Dene Poth
AI for School Leaders - AuthorVickie F. Echols
AI for Educators: Learning Strategies, Teacher Efficiencies, and a Vision for an Artificial Intelligence Future - Author Matt Miller
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