Table of Contents
Introduction 03
Chapter 1:
What are Prompts and Prompt Engineering? 04
Chapter 2:
Why is Prompt Engineering Important? 08
Chapter 3:
How Prompt Engineering Improves eLearning Design 12
and Development?
Chapter 4:
It’s Time to Craft Effective Prompts! 17
Conclusion 20
Introduction
In the innovative world of Artificial Intelligence, where
machines interact with vast amounts of data to produce
outcomes, prompt engineering emerges as a critical catalyst for
shaping AI behavior. At its core, prompt engineering involves
crafting precise cues and instructions that guide AI models
toward desired outputs.
In this eBook, we take a closer look at the exciting,
quickly-changing world of prompt engineering. You get to
know how carefully constructed prompts serve as the basis of
effective AI interaction. From guiding content generation to
designing images straight out of one's imagination, prompt
engineering sets the stage for various new possibilities! It is the
key to exploring innovations in the AI-powered world.
Read and explore!
Chapter 1
Understanding Prompts and
Prompt Engineering
Have you ever wished you could tell a sophisticated AI tool to create exactly
what you have in mind? Yes, me too! But if only gaining the exact “right”
response from generative AI was that easy. Because behind the scenes, we’re
dealing with large language models (LLMs). These large language models are
capable of producing a variety of responses. From being creative to sarcastic,
all it takes is a PROMPT! With that said, the importance of a prompt in the
world of artificial intelligence (AI) cannot be emphasized enough.
Prompts play an integral role in facilitating effective communication between
human users and AI models. From facilitating personalized experiences to
improving efficiency to providing scalable solutions, there’s nothing the
combination of AI and prompts can’t achieve. This makes the two an absolute
favorite of the L&D professionals. It’s impossible to talk about AI and prompts
and not pay attention to prompt engineering. After all, it is an inevitable force
that helps L&D architects to achieve desirable training results.
Prompts, prompt engineering, large language models. That might seem like a
lot of jargon. But hey! In this chapter, we’ll cover it all to help you get the basics
of prompt engineering right.
Are you ready to make the most of your AI tools? Let’s begin.
First things first…
What is a Prompt?
A prompt is a cue or set of instructions added to an AI tool to generate the
desired response from the large language model (LLM).
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It helps the AI tool to understand the intent of a user and to generate the most
meaningful response. The intent of the prompt can vary from writing a poem or
story to solving mathematical equations or providing reasons. A prompt can be
anything, from a single word to a sentence or even a full paragraph. The basic idea
is that the better you craft your prompt, the better response you get. This very
idea forms the basis of prompt engineering.
Now that you know what prompts are, here’s a look at the different types of
prompts.
Types of Prompts, Their Explanations, and Examples!
Prompt Type Explanation Examples
These prompts are the simplest ones as “Create a list of
Instructional they directly instruct the AI tool on the popular eLearning
Prompts or specific task to be performed. They are authoring tools.”
Zero-shot
clear and concise, outlining what the AI
Prompting
should generate or answer.
Prompting with These prompts are more relevant for “Enlist the use
Examples or complex tasks. The examples provided cases of rapid
Few-shot offer a starting point or theme but leave eLearning in
Prompting room for the AI's creativity to flourish. corporate training.
You can use this prompting method to
encourage the AI to generate new and Examples: Sales
original ideas based on the examples training
provided. Onboarding
Technical training”
Reasoning These prompts challenge the AI to “Microlearning is
Prompts or analyze information, solve problems, or suitable for training
Chain-of- draw logical conclusions. They require the modern
Thought (CoT) the AI to go beyond simple data workforce. Explain
retrieval and engage in critical thinking. the reasons.”
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Prompt Type Explanation Examples
Zero-shot CoT Zero-shot Chain-of-Thought “Analyze the pros and cons
(CoT) prompting is a recent of Virtual Instructor-led
advancement in prompt Training and explain your
engineering that allows large reasoning.”
language models (LLMs) to
reason through problems in a
step-by-step manner, even
without any specific training
examples.
Contextual These prompts provide some “You are leading a team
Prompt background information or meeting to discuss a project
context before the main task. It deadline. The team seems
helps the language models to overwhelmed. Develop a
understand the situation better strategy to improve their
and generate more relevant morale and focus.”
responses.
Iterative Prompt These prompts refine the Prompt 1: Write an email to
prompt output based on the manager requesting
previous outputs leave for a week.
*Response from the AI tool*
Prompt 2: Write the email in
a more professional manner.
What is a Prompt?
Prompt engineering is the practice of crafting specific instructions that guide
AI tools to generate the desired outputs.
Simple, right? However, this seemingly simple definition involves a complex
working mechanism. Let’s take a look.
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Key Elements of Prompt Engineering
Here's a breakdown of key elements involved in prompt engineering:
Prompt Structuring: The phrasing and structure of the prompt
significantly impact the AI's response. So make sure your prompts
are clear, concise, and relevant to the specific task.
Instruction Specificity: Providing detailed instructions
regarding the desired outcome steers the AI toward a more
relevant response. This can include specifying the format of the
outcome, length of the output, etc.
Contextualization: Incorporating relevant background
information or data into the prompt allows the AI to ground its
response within a specific context, enhancing accuracy and focus.
Style and Tone Control: Clearly specifying the style and tone
of the desired response in the prompt guides the AI language
model to generate results that adhere to the parameters. You can
enlist factors like choice of words, writing style, and more.
Exemplification: Providing examples or templates of effective
prompts can help guide prompt engineering efforts. These
examples serve as reference points for crafting new prompts and
understanding what works well in specific contexts.
You must be wondering, taking care of all these elements for just one prompt?
Well, yes! And that takes us to our next question… why all this fuss?
Let’s find out!
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Chapter 2
Importance of Prompt
Engineering in eLearning
The answer is pretty straight forward. Prompt engineering is important because
it enables users to put together effective, relevant prompts which in turn help
them achieve the maximum potential of AI tools. This way, prompt engineering
contributes to enhancing the efficiency and productivity of the tasks. But that’s
not all.
Here's a closer look at other reasons that highlight the importance of
prompt engineering:
Helps Gain Targeted Outputs
Large language models possess vast knowledge and
capabilities, but they require clear direction. This is where
prompt engineering acts as a bridge between the human user
and AI tools. It offers you the know-how to provide specific
instructions to the AI tools and get useful outcomes that align
with your specific needs. So whether you need a creative story
in a particular genre, a factual summary of a complex topic, or a
scenario tailored to a target audience, through a well-crafted
prompt, you can have it all.
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Boosts Efficiency
Let’s face it! Crafting content for training materials from
scratch can be nerve-wracking and time-consuming. Even if
you’re leveraging an AI tool, not knowing the right prompt can
take up more time than saving it. This is where prompt
engineering comes in handy and boosts efficiency. It enables
you to provide clear and specific instructions to the AI tools.
Well-crafted prompts act like targeted searches, ensuring the
AI focuses its processing power on delivering the most
relevant results right from the start. This significantly reduces
the need for multiple attempts of trial and error with unclear
instructions, saving both time and effort.
Expands Creative Horizons
The moment of truth… not everybody is a creative
genius. And, even for creative geniuses, it’s not possible
to always think out of the box. For such moments, AI
tools are your go-to thing. They can help you explore and
unlock new dimensions of creativity. In order to achieve
that, you need the right prompt and prompt engineering,
again! Prompts can push you beyond your typical
thought patterns. By crafting prompts that explore
unusual styles, techniques, or subject matters, you can
spark ideas and concepts that might not have occurred
to you on your own. In fact, it allows you to break free
from creative ruts and delve into something new, paving
the way for some thought-provoking discussions and
brainstorming sessions, too!
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Mitigates Bias
While AI models themselves can be susceptible to biases
based on their training data, prompt engineering comes across
as an effective solution for mitigating these biases. By carefully
crafting prompts, you can guide the AI to deliver responses
that focus away from biased patterns. You can do so by
furnishing the prompts with balanced examples, avoiding
stereotypes in prompts, and phrasing instructions in a neutral
way. This helps the AI generate outputs that are more
balanced and fair.
Offers Better User Experience
Prompt engineering helps you design effective prompts
that ensure a well-structured interaction between users and
AI. With the help of prompt engineering, you can tailor
prompts according to your needs and goals, and rest
assured that the AI delivers precisely what you are looking
for. This leads to a smoother and more satisfying user
experience, eliminating negative factors like frustration,
time waste, monotony, and others. Instead, interacting with
AI models becomes an engaging and enjoyable process.
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Facilitates Customization
A one-size-fits-all training program can be ineffective
for a diverse set of learners. However, prompt
engineering facilitates customization in corporate
training by allowing for tailored learning experiences. All
you need to do is frame a prompt in the right manner and
voila, you can get personalized responses from the AI
model. You can incorporate specific details about your
target audience, preferred tone and style of writing,
content length, format, and other elements. The more
specific and clear your prompt is, the better the chances
of more customized results that resonate with the
learners!
Having explored the importance of prompt engineering
in eLearning, it’s time to delve deeper and see how
prompt engineering can be leveraged specifically for
eLearning design and development.
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Chapter 3
Prompt Engineering in eLearning
Design and Development
The world of eLearning design and development has observed a significant shift
with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. These tools have transformed
the way instructional designers (IDs) develop engaging and effective learning
experiences. In fact, AI tools have become a part of almost every phase of
eLearning design and development. But it’s no secret that the interaction of
instructional designers with AI tools is through PROMPTS!
And any interaction that involves prompts certainly calls for knowledge about
prompt engineering, thus establishing the relevance between eLearning design
and development and prompt engineering. In this chapter, we’ll explore the
areas where instructional designers can leverage AI tools and understand how
prompt engineering maintains its relevance.
Where Can Instructional Designers Leverage AI Tools in eLearning
Design and Development?
Generate Content
To ensure high-impact training programs, creating engaging, effective training
courses becomes a priority. But if only creating such high-quality training
material was this easy. Added to this are the tight deadlines for course delivery.
In such situations, AI tools offer a ray of hope. Instructional designers can
leverage them to create a variety of content as per their course requirements. It
boosts their productivity and efficiency along with ensuring the top-notch
quality of the training courses. If the results generated by the AI tools don’t
exactly match the expectations of instructional designers, they at least offer a
starting point to help instructional designers overcome writer's block and
ensure their tasks stay on track with the timeline.
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Ready for a PROMPT?
Here’s a prompt for building a scenario.
Build a scenario Build a scenario using the content _____ and based
on the following parameters:
• Main character(s) in this scenario = _____
• The setting where this scenario takes place = ____
• Mention a problem using this scenario, provide ___
• possible options to resolve it, and provide feedback
for the best option.
Prompt Engineering @ Play: Prompt engineering takes the “results
don’t match the expectations” element out of the picture. It enables you to
enter the specific prompts into the AI tool so you can gain the relevant,
desired response from the large language model. For example, you need to
summarize a lengthy text, so you enter a prompt “Give me a summary of
the text”. Whereas, with prompt engineering, you can get a more useful
response by curating the prompt as, “Give me a summary of the following
text in bullet form”. This approach brings you a step closer to your desired
response from the AI model.
Drafting Learning Objectives
Crafting strong learning objectives is an integral part of any effective eLearning
course. Instructional designers can brainstorm on relevant topics and skills for
learners and leverage AI tools to draft well-structured, comprehensive learning
objectives that align with the learner's needs. This kickstarts the course design
process and saves time. If the instructional designers already have the learning
objectives in place, they can use AI tools to check the clarity of their wording and
ensure the learning objectives align with course content. Whether you’re drafting
learning objectives for compliance training or leadership courses, AI can help.
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Ready for a PROMPT?
Frame learning Write ___ learning objective(s) for a ___ course at
objective the _____ level of Bloom's Taxonomy using the
content from ___ to ___.
Prompt Engineering @ Play: You can provide a prompt stating the
intent of the training course or mentioning the board topic. The AI tool can
then generate a draft structure for the course, suggesting modules, topics,
and learning activities. Now prompt engineering will help you to know that
a prompt specifying the target audience for your learning objectives will
give you a completely different response from a prompt that seeks
learning objectives for a generalized audience.
Reviewing Courses
Putting together eLearning content can be smooth sailing, but ensuring it's polished
and error-free can be time-consuming. Here's where AI can come in handy as a
review partner. Instructional designers can use AI tools to scan their course content
for typos, grammatical errors, and unclear phrasing. This helps them catch mistakes
easily that might have slipped through the cracks during a manual review.
Ready for a PROMPT?
Check grammar Update the following bullet points to follow
parallelism and correct any grammatical errors:
Prompt Engineering @ Play: Prompt Engineering makes the review
process easier by minimizing the chances of any confusion or vagueness
during the review process. You can set prompts in a way that covers all the
necessary elements of effective review. This will save the time and effort of
having to run back and forth between multiple but non-desirable
responses generated by AI tools. Instead, you get polished, impactful
course content in a minimum number of attempts.
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Designing Assessments
Creating effective assessments can be a time-consuming venture. But with the
help of AI tools, instructional designers can create relevant assessments for the
training course. Based on their target audience, they can adjust the difficulty level
of questions, and at the same time, ensure that the assessment effectively
measures the concept understanding of the learners. Drafting the relevant
questions helps instructors gain insight into the understanding of learners and
identify the knowledge gaps, if any. Moreover, well-curated assessments also help
learners know about their strengths and weaknesses.
Ready for a PROMPT?
Generate Provide ___ single-select assessment questions to
single-select type reach the learning objective _____ of the
assessments content_____ following these parameters:
• Number of total options = ___
• Avoid 'All of the above' and 'None of the
Above' as options.
• Avoid using negative statements in question
and negative or obvious options.
• Provide feedback for the correct answer.
Prompt Engineering @ Play: Provide a prompt outlining the learning
objectives and key concepts. The AI tool can then generate a variety of
multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blanks, quiz questions, etc., saving
you the time and effort of crafting them from scratch.
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AI tools can also be used for (yes, prompt engineering is relevant here as well!)
• Creating Images
• Drafting video scripts
• Content research and curation
• Data insights
By striking the right chord with large language models through well-crafted
prompts, the possibilities for leveling up the eLearning design and
development process are endless. Instructional designers can make the most
of AI tools to streamline their workflow, focus on the strategic aspects of
learning design, and create more impactful eLearning experiences.
Eventually, it all boils down to the understanding and ability to craft the
perfect instructions for AI tools. Given the make-or-break nature of the
prompt, our next chapter focuses on how you can design effective prompts to
garner useful, relevant responses.
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Chapter 4
It’s Time to Craft Effective Prompts!
Prompt engineering is all about crafting effective prompts, right? Before that,
it’s important to know that prompts are used in various AI models that have
different input output functionality, such as text-to-text, text-to-image, and
text-to-video. While all these AI tools need a prompt to kickstart, there is no
hard and fast rule to design effective prompts. However, taking care of some
factors when curating the prompts can help you get a step closer to a response
that matches your expectations. So let’s take a look at how you can fine-tune
your prompts for desirable results:
Focus on Clarity and Precision: AI models rely on clear
and precise instructions to generate accurate responses.
Ambiguity or vagueness in prompts can lead to
misunderstandings and produce undesired outputs. For
example, instead of a vague prompt like "write a story,"
provide details about the genre, characters, or plot points
you have in mind. The more specific you are, the better the
AI can tailor its response to your vision.
Provide Context: The prompt that you add should
provide sufficient information for the AI model to
understand the task or context. Especially for complex
tasks, giving the AI some background information is
essential. It can be a brief description of a situation, the
characters involved, or any prior interactions that
might be relevant.
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Incorporate Keywords and Examples: Include
relevant keywords or phrases to steer the AI in the right
direction. You can also provide examples of the desired
format or style (e.g., poem, email, microlearning,
storytelling). All these elements will help you give the AI a
better understanding of what you're looking for.
Check the Prompt Length: The length of a prompt is
critical for clarity, specificity, and efficiency. Make sure your
prompt is concise and provides clear instructions, guiding
the model toward relevant responses while avoiding
ambiguity. In case you opt for questions, keep them
focused. Longer prompts can provide necessary context but
it’s important that they balance thoroughness with
efficiency. At times, lengthy prompts can confuse the AI
language model and result in vague responses.
Mention Desired Format: If you have a preference for
the output format, specify it in your prompt. It can be a
bulleted list for key takeaways, a paragraph summarizing
an event, or a creative text format like a poem or code.
Maintain Consistency in Prompt Structure:
Maintaining consistency in prompt structure and format
can aid the model's understanding and streamline the
interaction process. Following established conventions can
help the model recognize patterns and anticipate the
required actions.
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Adjust the Prompts As Per the Task: Adapting
prompts to different tasks is a fundamental aspect of
crafting effective instructions or questions for interacting
with models. The diverse nature of tasks necessitates
tailoring prompts to align with specific objectives and
requirements. This customization ensures that prompts are
relevant and provide optimal guidance for the model to
generate desired responses.
Iterate the Prompts: Start with simple, clear, and
concise prompts. As you get comfortable with the process
and the AI model’s responses come closer to your
expectations, you can gradually add complexity to your
prompts. In fact, you can adjust your prompts based on the
AI's output. See what works well and what doesn't and use
that information to tailor your wording for better results in
the next prompt.
It’s time to give your creative genius the nod to craft
prompts with intention and experience the grandeur of
possibilities with AI’s potential like never before!
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The Way Forward...
The future of AI in L&D is promising! It’s not just in terms of efficiency,
but rather in terms of transforming the way we approach corporate
training. AI offers endless possibilities to design and deliver high-
quality, engaging learning experiences. It won’t be wrong to say that
for a curious mind and AI together, the sky is the limit. To soar and
explore beyond, prompts are your quantum cues in the right direction.
You can master these cues by being well-versed in prompt
engineering. It will help you refine and redefine the future of human-AI
interaction to take your training initiatives to the next level.
So whether you’re trying to craft personalized learning experiences or
design training courses in a manner that promotes retention, having a
thorough knowledge of curating prompts that yield accurate
responses comes in handy. There’s no second-guessing that prompt
engineering takes you a step closer to your desired goal of maximizing
the efficiency of AI tools in a hassle-free way!
If I were you, you’d find me trying new prompts already! As the famous
saying goes, “It has to start somewhere, it has to start sometime, what
better place than here? What better time than now?” Because this is an
opportunity you wouldn’t want to miss!
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About CommLab India
CommLab India has been serving 300+ delighted international customers in 37
countries, since 2000.
A pioneer in solving corporate training challenges with rapid eLearning solutions,
CommLab India has been ranked the #1 Provider of Rapid eLearning Solutions since
2020. It is also consistently ranked among the top 3 providers of Microlearning and
Blended Learning Solutions.
With its expertise in corporate training, instructional design, authoring tools, and
learning technologies, CommLab India offers digital solutions for corporate
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