In this lesson, you will learn how to use LLMs to quickly create student handouts from your lesson materials. This is a common task for educators, but it can be time-consuming to organize key points, define important terms, and present information in a clear way. LLMs can help you draft a handout in just a few steps, saving you time and giving you a strong starting point to edit and personalize for your students.

You have already learned how to use LLMs to generate different versions of assessments. Now, we will focus on a new use case: turning a lesson into a student-friendly handout. This lesson will show you how to break this task into smaller steps and use LLMs effectively.

Before we start, let’s talk about a key concept: iterative prompting. This means you don’t have to ask the LLM to do everything at once. Instead, you guide the model step by step, using the output from one prompt as the input for the next. This approach helps you get more accurate and useful results.

For example, if you want to create a handout from a lesson, you might first ask the LLM to summarize the lesson. Then, you use that summary to ask for a handout with specific features, like key terms and tables.

This step-by-step process is called iterative prompting because you are iterating — moving from one step to the next, refining the output as you go.

Let’s start with the first step: getting a summary of your lesson. Instead of asking the LLM to create a handout right away, it’s better to begin with a summary. This helps the model focus on the main ideas and makes the next step easier.

Suppose you have a lesson saved as a PDF file. You want the LLM to read it and give you a short summary. Here’s how you might write your prompt:

This prompt is clear and direct. You tell the LLM where the lesson is (in the PDF) and what you want (a short summary). By starting with a summary, you help the model focus on the most important points, which will be useful for the next step.

Now that you have a summary, you can use it to create a handout for your students. This is where iterative prompting really helps. You take the summary from the first step and ask the LLM to organize it into a handout with specific sections.

Here’s an example prompt you might use:

By giving these instructions, you help the LLM organize the information in a way that is useful for students.

You can also adjust the prompt to fit your needs. For example:

Or, if you want a more visual handout:

The key is to be specific about what you want in the handout. The more details you give, the better the LLM can organize the material for your students.

In this lesson, you learned how to use iterative prompting to create a student handout from your lesson materials. First, you asked the LLM to summarize the lesson. Then, you used that summary to create a handout with key terms, tables, and main conclusions. This step-by-step approach helps you get better results and saves you time.

Next, you will get a chance to practice these steps yourself. You’ll try writing your own prompts and see how the LLM responds. Remember, you can always adjust your prompts to get the output you want. Good luck, and enjoy experimenting with your own lesson materials!