Prompt-Based Pedagogy: A New Way to Learn in the Age of AI

What Is Prompt Pedagogy?

We propose prompt-based pedagogy as a new way of teaching and learning that puts questions (prompts) at the centre of education—especially in classrooms that use AI tools like ChatGPT (other AI tools will be available).

Instead of just giving students facts or lectures, teachers guide learning by helping students ask better questions.

These questions are called prompts, and they help students explore ideas, solve problems, and think more deeply—with AI acting as a partner.

Prompt-based pedagogy and the well-established inquiry-based learning are similar in that both encourage students to explore, ask questions, and think deeply—but they differ in structure and focus.

• Inquiry-based learning is a broad approach where students lead the learning by asking their own questions and investigating topics that interest them. It’s often open-ended and driven by curiosity.
• Prompt-based pedagogy, on the other hand, uses carefully designed prompts—questions or tasks created by the teacher, student, or even AI—to guide learning in a more focused way.

Well designed prompts help students think step-by-step, build understanding, and often involve AI tools to explore ideas, solve problems, or get feedback.

So while inquiry-based learning starts with student questions, prompt-based pedagogy often starts with a well-crafted prompt that leads students into deeper inquiry.

Why Prompts Matter Now

In the past, a teacher might ask a question like:

“Summarize the causes of World War I in three bullet points.”

That’s a good starting point. But as students grow, their thinking should too. Later, they might be ready for a much deeper question:

“Compare the geopolitical strategies of pre-WWI alliances with post-Cold War NATO expansions. What patterns emerge?”

The difference between these two questions shows how prompts can grow with the learner—step by step.

From Basic Recall to Advanced Analysis: A Prompt Pedagogy Progression

Let’s break the above progression in learning into five key stages, each representing a layer of cognitive depth and prompting sophistication.

Each step builds on the last, guided by constructivist learning principles (Bruner, 1960; Vygotsky, 1978), Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956), and instructional scaffolding theory.

Stage 1: Factual Recall

Prompt: “Summarize the causes of World War I in three bullet points.”

• Goal: Identify and recall key historical facts (e.g., militarism, alliances, assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand).
• Cognitive level: Remember/Understand (Bloom).
• Prompt Design Principle: Closed scope, simple structure, clear constraint (three points).
• Role of AI: Assist in information retrieval and summarization.

Stage 2: Causal Explanation

Prompt: “Explain how the alliance system contributed to the outbreak of World War I.”

• Goal: Move from listing facts to explaining relationships between them.
• Cognitive level: Understand/Apply.
• Prompt Design Principle: Narrow focus, cause-effect logic, invites elaboration.
• AI Use: Helps model basic argumentation and causality.

Stage 3: Comparative Thinking

Prompt: “Compare the causes of World War I with the causes of World War II. What similarities and differences do you see?”

• Goal: Develop comparative reasoning across contexts.
• Cognitive level: Analyze.
• Prompt Design Principle: Dual-frame analysis, identify patterns.
• AI Use: Helps learners construct comparison charts or contrastive explanations.

Stage 4: Contextual Transfer

Prompt: “How might the alliance dynamics before World War I be similar to tensions among major powers today (e.g., NATO, China, Russia)? What can we learn from history?”

• Goal: Apply historical concepts to contemporary geopolitical issues.
• Cognitive level: Analyze/Evaluate.
• Prompt Design Principle: Analogical reasoning, present-past bridging, invites opinion supported by evidence.
• AI Use: Suggests frameworks for comparison and offers diverse geopolitical data.

Stage 5: Integrated Synthesis & Abstraction

Prompt: “Compare the geopolitical strategies of pre-WWI alliances with post-Cold War NATO expansions. What patterns emerge?”

• Goal: Integrate multiple disciplines (history, political science, international relations), identify structural patterns.
• Cognitive level: Evaluate/Create.
• Prompt Design Principle: High abstraction, interdisciplinary scope, hypothesis generation.
• AI Use: Serves as co-researcher—generates models, comparative histories, strategic implications.

Underlying Pedagogical Principles at Work

1. Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): Each stage nudges the learner slightly beyond their current ability, supported by AI feedback and teacher facilitation (Vygotsky, 1978).
2. Scaffolding Through Prompt Complexity: Prompts increase in openness, contextuality, and abstraction over time. This aligns with Bruner’s spiral curriculum—revisiting content at increasing levels of complexity.
3. Prompt-as-Curriculum: Each prompt acts as a micro-unit of curriculum design, embedding learning goals, expected thinking processes, and assessment criteria.
4. AI-Mediated Differentiation: The AI adjusts its responses and follow-up suggestions based on learner input, enabling personalized learning trajectories.

Prompt Pedagogy in Action

Hence, what begins as a simple factual prompt can, through careful design and incremental depth, become a gateway to higher-order thinking, cross-domain synthesis, and critical engagement.

Prompt pedagogy thus functions not only as a teaching method but as a curriculum architecture for progressive intellectual development in AI-supported environments.

This is further summarised below:

This step-by-step approach helps students build confidence, go deeper, and become independent thinkers.

What Makes Prompt Pedagogy Different

It Puts Students in the Driver’s Seat

Students learn to:

• Ask better questions
• Guide their own learning
• Think critically about what AI tells them

This turns students into active learners, not just passive receivers of information. They are also encouraged to engage with the AI tool to dig deeper and more creatively.

It Changes the Role of Teachers

Teachers become:

• Prompt designers: creating questions that challenge and inspire
• Coaches: helping students refine prompts and think deeper
• Guides: making sure learning stays ethical and fair

AI becomes the assistant—the teacher is still in charge. The teacher provides not only the desired outcomes but also the prompt designs and experience, as well as guardrails.

It Works with AI, Not Against It

With tools like ChatGPT, students can:

• Explore complex ideas
• Get quick feedback
• Learn at their own pace
• Work together more effectively

But they also learn to ask: Is this answer good? Is it biased? What’s missing? These are critical thinking skills. When we learn to use a tool like a hammer, we learn about safety first then the various uses, techniques, and so on.

The learning has a certain physicality and practically that adapts well to active learning principles, strengthening retention and utility.

What Good Learning Looks Like with Prompt Pedagogy

• Student → AI: The student asks a prompt. AI responds.
• Student → Content: The student uses that answer to explore the topic.
• Student → Peers: They compare prompts or solve problems together.
• Student → Self: They reflect: “What did I learn? What should I ask next?”

This reflects real-world learning that is open-ended. The prompt design dictates its own desired outcomes, however, the student can explore further and even "game" the system by proposing surprising answers. This encourages different framing and perspectives, weightage of dimensions or factors in the reasoning used, which is fundamental, or at least, a prompt or gateway to critical thinking.

How to Design a Good Prompt

Here’s a simple rule:

Start with something clear and focused, then grow toward something deeper and more open-ended.

For example:

1. Clear & simple: “Define climate change.”
2. Explain: “What causes climate change?”
3. Apply: “How could your city reduce emissions?”
4. Compare: “How do two cities handle climate policy differently?”
5. Create: “Design a plan for a carbon-neutral neighbourhood.”

Each of these prompts builds on the one before.

They guide students from basic understanding to complex thinking—helping them connect facts, apply knowledge, and generate new ideas.

This is how prompt-based pedagogy supports deeper learning: by gradually increasing challenge and encouraging students to think for themselves, rather than just repeat information.

What We’re Really Teaching

Prompt pedagogy isn’t just about AI or fast learning. It’s about helping students become:

• Curious questioners
• Clear thinkers
• Ethical users of technology
• Independent learners who can solve real-world problems

This approach fits the needs of today’s world—where information is everywhere, but the ability to ask great questions is what sets people apart.

How do we then encourage the student to explore further rather than follow these rails laid by the teacher, to create their own prompts.

This is a vital question—and it touches the heart of authentic learning and learner agency in prompt pedagogy. While structured prompts help students build confidence and understanding, the real power of prompt pedagogy comes when students begin to generate their own prompts—asking their own questions, framing their own inquiries, and guiding their own learning.

Here's how we scaffold the move from teacher-led to student-generated prompts:

Encouraging Students to Create Their Own Prompts

1. Model the Process

At first, the teacher thinks aloud while creating a prompt.

“We’ve just learned how plants use sunlight. I’m wondering... what if there were no sun? That could be a good question to explore—let’s turn it into a prompt.”

This shows students that prompts come from curiosity, not just curriculum.

2. Teach Prompt Structures

Give students simple prompt “formulas” they can remix:

• “What if…?”
• “How does X compare to Y?”
• “Why does ___ happen?”
• “What would happen if…?”
• “How could we solve…?”

Students can fill in the blanks with their own ideas and topics.

3. Use Prompt-Building Templates

Provide sentence starters or a prompt design checklist:

• Is the question clear?
• Is it open-ended?
• Does it connect to something we’ve learned or care about?
• Could it lead to different answers?

Students start by tweaking existing prompts, then creating their own from scratch.

4. Practice Iteration

Show students that prompts can be improved:

• Student Prompt: “What is climate change?”
• Teacher Response: “That’s a good start. Can you make it more specific or apply it to a real-world problem?”
• Student Rewrites: “How does climate change affect farming in our region?”

This develops metacognition: students think about the quality and purpose of their questions.

5. Use AI to Co-Design Prompts

Students can ask the AI to help them improve their questions:

“Help me turn this into a deeper question: Why do leaves fall off trees?”

The AI offers options, and students choose or revise—becoming active prompt designers.

6. Celebrate Student Questions

Set aside class time for a “prompt wall” or “question showcase” where students share their best prompts.

Let peers try to answer each other’s questions—with or without AI.

7. Shift the Learning Frame

Transition from "Here’s what you need to know" to "What do you want to explore?"

Example: At the end of a unit, instead of a test, ask:

“What’s one thing you’d like to explore further? Can you create a prompt for it and see what you discover?”

This transforms the student from responder to researcher, from task-follower to curious investigator.

In Practice: Photosynthesis Again

Earlier, students followed prompts about photosynthesis. Now, we flip it:

“Now that you understand photosynthesis, what’s one question you still have about plants, energy, or life processes? Can you turn that into a prompt to explore with your group or AI?”

The Goal: From Structured to Self-Directed

Prompt pedagogy begins with guidance—but its real aim is to hand over the tools of learning to students.

We’re not just teaching them to answer questions. We’re teaching them to ask better ones, again and again.

Potential Downsides of Prompt Pedagogy — and How to Address Them

1. Superficial Prompting

The Issue: Students may create vague or shallow prompts that don’t lead to meaningful learning.

Example: “Tell me about history.” → Too broad to explore deeply.

Solution: Teach prompt design explicitly. Use scaffolded templates and examples of strong vs. weak prompts. Encourage peer feedback to revise and refine prompts. Include mini-lessons on how to add focus, purpose, and curiosity to questions.

2. Over-Reliance on AI

The Issue: Students may depend on AI to do the thinking for them, becoming passive users rather than critical learners.

Solution: Make AI use a tool for reflection, not replacement. Have students explain why they agree or disagree with AI responses. Give them permission to, more, require them to justify choices, compare sources, or add a “human judgment” step after every AI interaction.

3. Equity and Access

The Issue: Not all students or schools have equal access to devices, connectivity, or high-quality AI tools.

Solution: Ensure multiple entry points and low-tech options. Provide paper-based prompt pathways, group work, or use open-source AI tools. Design “AI-optional” activities where learning can continue with or without technology. Advocate for digital equity in school planning.

4. Prompt Fatigue

The Issue: If students are constantly asked to generate prompts without variation, it can feel repetitive or overwhelming.

Solution: Mix prompt types and formats. Use visual prompts (upload pictures), role-play prompts (describe an event or interaction, etc.), AI-generated “mystery prompts,” or collaborative group prompts. Alternate between teacher-led, student-led, and peer-generated questions to keep it fresh and fun.

5. Ethical Blind Spots

The Issue: Students may trust AI answers too easily, without questioning accuracy, bias, or whose voices are missing.

Solution: Build ethical prompting into every project. Encourage questions like:

• “Whose perspective is missing?”
• “Is this information neutral or biased?”
• “What would a different culture say about this topic?”

Teach students how to evaluate sources and use AI critically, not blindly.

Benefits of Prompt Pedagogy

• Promotes Curiosity Students become questioners and explorers—not just memorizers.
• Builds Deeper Understanding Prompts help move learning from surface facts to analysis, creativity, and real-world thinking.
• Supports Self-Directed Learning Students learn how to guide their own inquiry and reflect on their process, not just complete tasks.
• Works Across Subjects Whether in science, literature, history, or design—prompting helps make thinking visible and active.
• Makes AI a Learning Partner Students learn how to collaborate with AI in meaningful ways—not just consume its answers.
• Encourages Ethical Reflection When taught well, prompt pedagogy helps students question sources, assumptions, and systems.

What Needs to Be in Place for This to Work

1. Learning Philosophy: We believe learning is built by asking, not just receiving.
2. Student Role: Students learn how to guide their own learning through prompting.
3. Teacher Role: Teachers help design prompts, guide thinking, and support ethical use.
4. Tools: AI tools are used to help students explore, not to give all the answers.
5. Assessment: We evaluate how students ask, think, and reflect—not just what they memorize.
6. Ethics: Students learn to ask where AI info comes from and who it might leave out.
7. Curriculum: Lessons are designed around a series of prompts that grow in complexity.

Adopting prompt pedagogy—especially in AI-enabled classrooms—offers exciting potential, but there are real obstacles that must be addressed for it to succeed systemically.

Here are the key barriers, grouped for clarity:

System-Level Obstacles

1. Curriculum Constraints

• Obstacle: Most national and local curricula are still content-heavy and exam-driven. There's little room for open-ended inquiry or prompt-based learning progression.
• Impact: Teachers feel pressure to "cover content," not explore or experiment.
• Implication: Prompt pedagogy may be viewed as a luxury or extra, not essential. This perception is reflected in the historically lower adoption rates of alternative approaches such as inquiry-based learning and problem-based learning, both of which similarly prioritize student-led exploration, critical thinking, and real-world application.

In systems that are heavily driven by standardized testing, rigid curricula, and time-bound content coverage, methods that encourage open-ended inquiry are often sidelined in favour of approaches that appear more measurable or efficient.

However, in an age of AI, where information is abundant and automation is accelerating, the ability to ask meaningful questions, frame problems, and guide one's own learning is no longer optional—it is foundational.

Prompt pedagogy offers a structured, scalable way to cultivate these essential skills, equipping students not just to pass exams, but to thrive in a world where curiousity, adaptability, and self-direction are key to lifelong learning and success.

2. Assessment Misalignment

• Obstacle: Standardized testing rewards right answers, not deep questioning or critical thinking.
• Impact: Students (and schools) may be penalized for taking time to explore, reflect, or diverge from a fixed syllabus.
• Implication: Prompt-based activities may feel “off-track” or unassessable.

3. Lack of Policy or Framework Support

• Obstacle: There is little policy guidance for how to integrate AI or prompt-led inquiry into mainstream education systems.
• Impact: Schools lack both permission and structure to experiment with it meaningfully.
• Implication: Adoption depends on individual teacher champions, not systemic change.

Teacher-Centered Obstacles

4. Lack of Professional Development

• Obstacle: Teachers aren’t trained in designing effective prompts or in using AI critically.
• Impact: They may feel unprepared or skeptical.
• Implication: Adoption is uneven and often superficial.

5. Time and Workload Pressures

• Obstacle: Prompt-based teaching requires preparation, reflection, and adjustment—more than a scripted lesson or textbook.
• Impact: Teachers, already overloaded, may default to traditional methods.
• Implication: Innovation is limited to those with extra time or institutional support.

6. Fear of AI or Misuse

• Obstacle: Some educators (and parents) distrust AI or fear it will replace human teaching or misinform students.
• Impact: Resistance to using AI as a co-participant in learning.
• Implication: Misunderstanding leads to avoidance or misuse, rather than meaningful integration.

Learner-Centered Obstacles

7. Low Student Prompt Literacy

• Obstacle: Most students aren’t used to asking good questions or creating structured prompts.
• Impact: They may feel lost or default to basic prompts ("Tell me about X").
• Implication: Without support, they don’t progress to deeper learning.

8. Disengagement Without Immediate Answers

• Obstacle: Some students may expect fast answers from AI and struggle when asked to explore, revise, or reflect.
• Impact: They may disengage from process-oriented learning.
• Implication: The value of inquiry has to be taught, not assumed.

Infrastructure and Access Barriers

9. Unequal Access to AI Tools

• Obstacle: Not all schools or students have reliable access to devices, internet, or responsible AI platforms.
• Impact: Creates a digital divide in who can benefit from prompt pedagogy.
• Implication: Innovation could increase inequality if not carefully supported.

10. Lack of Guardrails and Ethical Training

• Obstacle: AI systems can reinforce bias, deliver misinformation, or dominate classroom thinking.
• Impact: Without ethical training, students may trust AI blindly or misuse it.
• Implication: Ethical literacy must be built into the pedagogy itself.

What Happens When AI Is Used But Not Incorporated

As AI tools become more accessible, students are already using them—often outside the classroom, on their own terms. But when education systems fail to intentionally integrate AI into teaching and learning, they create a growing disconnect between what students are expected to do in school and how they actually learn outside it.

In this parallel system:

• Students quietly rely on AI to complete assignments, without discussing or reflecting on how it's shaping their thinking.
• Teachers remain unaware or uncertain about how AI is being used, leading to mistrust, inconsistent policies, or blanket bans.
• Learning becomes fragmented—with school focusing on memorization and standard tasks, while AI enables faster, broader exploration (often without guidance or context).
• Assessment becomes meaningless, as students can generate passable answers without understanding the content, making it harder to distinguish real learning from AI-assisted output.
• Ethical risks grow, since students aren’t taught how to question AI-generated information, recognize bias, or use it responsibly.

The result is a kind of educational dissonance—where the classroom experience feels increasingly disconnected from the way students actually think, research, and work in real life.

Over time, this erodes the credibility of formal education, widens equity gaps, and leaves students underprepared—not because they used AI, but because they were never taught how to.

What Happens When AI Is Intentionally Integrated Through Prompt Pedagogy

Remember when the Apple Macintosh machines invaded schools and were adopted, changing education from then on. Some of us will remember programming in Fortran and punching holes. Some of use will remember the punched hole printing sheets that dot-matrix printers churned out.

Just like that, when AI is not just used in parallel, but meaningfully incorporated into the design of learning, it becomes a powerful partner—enhancing education rather than undermining it.

Prompt pedagogy offers a clear framework for this integration by teaching students how to use AI critically, creatively, and reflectively.

In this integrated system:

• Students learn to ask better questions, not just get quicker answers. They see AI as a tool for exploration, brainstorming, and feedback—not as a shortcut to bypass thinking.
• Teachers use prompts to scaffold thinking, encourage iteration, and guide inquiry—helping students develop metacognitive skills and depth of understanding.
• Classrooms become more engaging and personalized, as students use AI to dive deeper into topics that interest them, while still meeting shared learning goals.
• Assessment evolves, focusing on the quality of questions asked, the thought process behind choices, and the ability to critique and refine ideas with AI—not just the final product.
• Ethics are embedded in the process, with students taught to identify bias, evaluate sources, and understand the limits of AI. They become informed, responsible digital citizens.
• Equity improves, because AI can offer real-time support, translation, scaffolding, or enrichment that adapts to each learner’s needs—if access and training are ensured.
• AI disintermediates traditional textbooks, which are already in decline, by offering direct access to primary sources, data sets, case studies, and global perspectives.
• Instead of filtered summaries, students engage with richer, more diverse content—and learn to interpret it for themselves.

This approach creates a more honest, future-facing model of education—one where students are not simply prepared to survive in an AI-shaped world, but equipped to shape it.

The Big Idea

Prompt pedagogy is more than just a new teaching trick. It’s a new way of thinking about learning.

In a world full of AI and fast-changing information, students don’t just need answers—they need to learn how to ask the right questions, reflect on the answers, and keep learning for life.