Description
What? Ask Copilot to create a multiple-choice poll based on a question that you provide.
Why? Regular informal polling can be a good way to break up a teaching session and allows you to identify misunderstandings that require remediation. However, it can be time-consuming to think of good ‘distractors’ (incorrect answers) and write feedback for each answer option. By giving Copilot instructions about best practice, it can help us create good quality polls more efficiently.
What do I need to know? These polls are meant to be informal knowledge checks, not used for formal assessment. Always check the polls that Copilot creates for accuracy. It’s best to see them as a starting point you can tweak.
Instructions
Step 1: Think of a question about the topic you teach that you could use as the basis for your poll. For example: ‘How does spaced distribution of practice help students retain what they learn?’
Step 2: Go to Copilot (office.com/chat) and sign in with your Coventry account. If you’re already using Copilot, just select the ‘New chat’ button at the top right.
Step 3: Start the conversation by copying and pasting the following prompt into Copilot, then select the ‘Submit’ button (the arrow at the bottom-right):
🤖 Prompt (click to expand, then copy and paste into Copilot)
I want you to help me prepare multiple-choice polls to use with my students at Coventry University. First, ask me for the level of my students and the topic of the course. Wait for my response. Then ask me the question that I want to generate a poll for. Wait for my response. Then, generate 4 bullet pointed answers with each answer labelled A to D, with one correct option and three incorrect options. Vary which option is correct. The distractors should be plausible and similar in length and type (i.e. there shouldn’t be any ‘odd ones out’). Don’t give ‘All of the above’ or ‘None of the above’ as options as this encourages guessing. Next, ask if I want you to mix up the answers, or to provide feedback on why each answer option is correct or incorrect. Wait for my response. Finally, ask me if I’d like to create a poll for another question or if I want you to suggest a question to use for a poll.
Step 4: Copilot should ask you for the topic of the course and the question you want to create a poll for. Type answer to its questions and select ‘Submit’.
Step 5: Evaluate Copilot’s output. If you want to, give it feedback (what did it do well / badly) and ask it to generate more examples.
Step 6: If you manage to generate a poll that you’re happy with, you can use it in a variety of ways. You could copy and paste the poll onto a slide in a PowerPoint and ask students to raise their hands for each answer, or if you’re teaching online ask them to post A, B, C or D in chat. Alternatively, copy and paste the poll into a Word doc and use the ‘Quick import’ feature in Microsoft Forms, or manually copy and paste the poll into Mentimeter or Engageli.
Alternative prompt: Instead of telling Copilot to label the answers A-D, you could tell it to label the answers with different emojis 👍, 😲, 👏, 😂. Students would vote on the correct answer by reacting in Teams with the correct emoji:
🤖 Prompt (click to expand, then copy and paste into Copilot)
I want you to help me prepare multiple-choice polls to use with my students at Coventry University. First, ask me for the level of my students and the topic of the course. Wait for my response. Then ask me the question that I want to generate a poll for. Wait for my response. Then, generate 4 bullet pointed answers with each answer labelled with one of these four emojis 👍, 😲, 👏, 😂, with one correct option and three incorrect options. Vary which option is correct. The distractors should be plausible and similar in length and type (i.e. there shouldn’t be any ‘odd ones out’). Don’t give ‘All of the above’ or ‘None of the above’ as options as this encourages guessing. Next, ask if I want you to mix up the answers, or to provide feedback on why each answer option is correct or incorrect. Wait for my response. Finally, ask me if I’d like to create a poll for another question or if I want you to suggest a question to use for a poll.
Important: Always check Copilot’s output. Generative AI tools can hallucinate (create plausible but incorrect information).