Hi, it's Ivo. When you ask AI to explain something, you read and nod. When you have to explain it yourself, you find out fast which parts you really understand. This prompt turns the AI into a confused student, so you're the one who teaches.
1. The confused-student prompt
Play a confused student. I'm going to explain [topic] to you. Don't explain anything to me and don't give me the answers. After each thing I say, ask me one short question a real beginner would ask, like "why?" or "what does that word mean?". If I skip a step or use a word I didn't explain, say you're lost. After 6 questions, stop and give me a short list: what I explained clearly, where I got stuck, and what I should learn again.
How to use it:
- Open a new chat in ChatGPT or Claude and paste the prompt.
- Replace [topic] with what you're learning. Examples: how a VPN works, what a pivot table does, the chapter I just read.
- Explain it in your own words, like you'd explain it to a friend. Short messages are fine.
- When a question stops you, don't look it up yet. Write "I'm not sure" and keep going. That question is your gap.
2. Pick a harder student
The first student is a beginner. When the questions get easy, change who you're teaching.
Keep playing the student, but now you're [a 12-year-old / a new colleague on day one / a client who doesn't trust the idea]. Ask the questions that person would ask about [topic]. One question at a time.
A 12-year-old asks for simple words. A new colleague asks how it works in practice. A doubtful client asks why it matters. Each one finds a different gap.
3. Turn your gaps into a plan
Use it right after the list at the end.
From the list of where I got stuck, make me a short plan to fix each gap. For each one, tell me what to read or watch in 10 minutes or less, and one question I should be able to answer afterwards. Then wait. When I come back, play the confused student again on those parts only.
Three tips
- Explain before you look anything up. Getting stuck is the point.
- Type it the way you'd say it. Long, perfect messages hide the gaps.
- The AI can be wrong too. Check the facts that matter, especially numbers and dates.
Why teaching works
In a 2014 study by John Nestojko, Dung Bui, Nate Kornell and Elizabeth Bjork, people studied a text either to take a test or to teach it to another student. In reality, everyone took the test and nobody taught. The people who expected to teach remembered more of the text and recalled it in better order. Their words: "Instilling an expectation to teach thus seems to be a simple, inexpensive intervention with the potential to increase learning efficiency."
The prompt adds the student, so you don't only expect to teach. You do it.
Source: Nestojko, Bui, Kornell and Bjork, "Expecting to teach enhances learning and organization of knowledge in free recall of text passages", Memory & Cognition, 2014. doi.org/10.3758/s13421-014-0416-z