Intro to Prompt Engineering
Learn to talk to AI
Coding Without Borders, 2025
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SOWCoders
Dedicated to battling gender-based digital inequality in low and middle-income countries.
Global Impact
Impacted over 40,000 girls across 57 countries since 2018.
Empowering Through Support
Providing training, mentorship, and culture-specific infrastructure support.
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Course Overview
Here's a quick look at what you can expect from the program:
4 Classes
Dive deep into prompt engineering with a series of comprehensive lessons.
9 AM New York Time Every Saturday
Live sessions designed to fit your schedule.
1 Project
Apply your skills to a real-world project and build your portfolio.
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🌟 What is AI?
Making computers intelligent
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🤖 Examples of AI
YouTube recommendations
AI studies what you watch to suggest new shows
ChatGPT
AI that can read, write, and talk like a person
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⚠️ The Bad Parts of AI
Very high energy consumption
AI encouraging harmful behaviors
Misinformation and bias
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🌈 The Good Parts of AI
Intelligence at your disposal
Education
Creativity
Entrepreneurship
Day-to-Day Activities
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🧰 AI Tools
ChatGPT, Cursor, Gemini, Claude
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💬 What is a Prompt?
A prompt is the instruction you give to an AI tool to tell it what to do.
It's how you communicate with AI.
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🎯 What is Prompt Engineering?
It is the skill of designing and refining instructions, or "prompts", to guide an AI model toward generating the desired output.
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🎯 Why Learn Prompt Engineering?
AI tools are everywhere — school, homework, future jobs
It's becoming a fundamental skill
Use AI in a way that helps people, not harms them
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📝 Your First Prompt
(Activity slide)
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🧩 Prompt Framework
Task → Context → Expectation
Task
What do you want the AI to do?
Context
Background the AI should know
Expectation
Format, tone, or output style
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🔄 Iterate
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Revisit the prompt framework
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Break it down into multiple shorter prompts
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Phrase it differently
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Use constraints
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🖼️ Creating an Image
Use the prompting framework but for images.
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🎙️ Multi-Modal Prompt
Include text, audio, documents, and images in your prompt for rich context.
Text
Audio
Documents
Images
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📚 Process Large Documents
Use AI to summarize, extract, and organize long text.
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🌀 Hallucinations
AI sometimes makes things up — and it can happen anytime.
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📊 Build Tables
Use AI to turn information into clean tables.
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🔗 Prompt Chaining
For bigger tasks, you can use an AI’s output as input for the next prompt. Linking prompts this way forms a chain—called prompt chaining.
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💭 Chain-of-Thought Prompting
Enhance AI performance and transparency by guiding it through a logical reasoning process.
Request Step-by-Step Reasoning
Understand the AI's Logic
Spot Mistakes and Refine
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Homework Submission and Reflection
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🛡️ What are some ways you can keep yourself safe from trusting AI answers that might be wrong or made-up (hallucinated)?
To mitigate the risks of AI hallucinations and ensure accuracy, follow these essential steps:
Ask an expert (teacher, parent, mentor)
Do a web search
Ask the AI tool for sources and verify them
Cross-check across multiple AI tools
Proofread and use your own judgement
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Meta-Prompting
Use AI to generate prompts
Direct Request
Simply ask the AI to generate a prompt for a specific goal or output.
Template
Provide a structured template for the AI to fill in or expand upon, guiding its prompt creation.
Image
Use an image as input and instruct the AI to generate a descriptive prompt for that image.
Prompt Reversal
Reverse engineer the conversation to produce a prompt
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Simulations Agents
Simulations agents enable a dynamic learning environment, allowing for iterative improvement and skill development through practical engagement.
Simulate Scenarios
Practice
Get Feedback
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The Red Team Technique
A powerful technique to generating the desired output by having the AI generate content, and then challenging it from a critical perspective.
Generate using AI
Flip to Critique
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Incremental Requirement Gathering
Use AI to gradually collect context for a task; especially when you don’t know what all should be given as context.
Ask AI to question you
Answer the questions
Review the context summary
Proceed with the task
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Appendix
Additional slides from the prompt engineering journey.
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Congratulations and Thank You!
Our classroom had students proudly representing:
- Colombia
- Egypt
- Haiti
- India
- Kazakhstan
- Nigeria
- Ghana
- Puerto Rico
- Cameroon
- Kenya
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Homework: Image Generation
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Your Questions
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Can AI help us create apps or websites?
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How can we use AI to make videos?
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Do prompts need to be long?
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What can we do when AI misunderstands our prompt?
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How can someone create their own AI in the future?
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Why do some AI images look unrealistic or “weird”?
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How can AI images be used to help people or solve real problems?
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How can we use AI to learn in a fun and efficient way?
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How do we use AI without becoming too dependent on it?
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How is AI affecting the environment?
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Can AI track my conversations even if I don't have an account with it?
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Your Questions
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Can AI ask us questions to reduce mistakes and hallucinations?
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What long-term effects can AI have on humans?
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How can we design an article with a creative anchor chart using AI?
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What makes a good prompt better than a normal one?
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How can I write better prompts for complex tasks?
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Which prompting techniques give the most accurate results?
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How can I learn more about using simulation in AI?
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How can I tell when it is okay to use prompt engineering in a school project?
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What are the benefits of using prompt engineering?
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Can you explain again what we did in Class 3?
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Will there be a test or quiz on what we have learned so far?
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What AI tools can I use to create videos?
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What AI tools can I use to create an app, presentation, or website?
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How can we use prompt engineering ethically in school projects without depending on AI too much?
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How can we design or improve a game using AI?
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Your Questions
Thank you for submitting your insightful questions. Let's explore them together:
Safety & References
- Is it safe to upload our photos to AI tools?
- Do you have to add references in the prompt?
Hallucinations & Learning
- How do you determine whether an answer is correct or a hallucination?
- How to use AI in a way that helps us learn without becoming dependent or less intelligent?
- Can you explain more about AI hallucinations?
AI Creation & Application
- How can I tell if a piece of writing was created by AI or by a human?
- How can I share an app prototype made on Google AI Studio?
- How to use a prompt generated using AI?
- How can we use AI to build apps?
- How can I create AI? What tools can I use?
Ethical Considerations
- How can using AI harm other people? E.g., How does a silly picture like a jumping cat be harmful?
- How can prompt engineering help in reducing hallucinations?
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