How to Use a Chatbot to Create Engaging Do Now Activities

There has been so much buzz about artificial intelligence (AI) this school year. Although generative AI is certainly far from perfect, it can act as an assistant and collaborator for educators. Like any device you might use in the classroom, however, AI-powered tools require your skills, experience, and expertise to allow you to truly make the most of them. You can leverage this technology to plan for all parts of the school day, including a “Do Now” activity.

You’re likely familiar with Do Now activities, quick activities that students can work on when they enter the classroom. These activities can kick off a new lesson when the bell rings or be used to transition between one part of the day and the next. In a secondary classroom, this activity could start as soon as the class period begins. In an elementary classroom, a Do Now can help bridge the gap between the end of a math lesson and the transition to a science lesson. 

While these activities can have numerous purposes, they’re typically designed to pique the students’ interest in a topic, help them focus on the new part of the day, activate prior knowledge, or gather information on what they already know about the topic.

Here’s where chatbots like ChatGPT can help teachers save time by acting as a quick assistant and collaborator to help you create engaging Do Now activities. Although I tend to use ChatGPT as the default example of a chatbot, there are plenty to choose from. You might want to explore Claude, Perplexity, or Gemini. I recently featured tips for using Gemini (formerly Bard) on my March 19, 2024, Easy EdTech podcast. 

Using AI to Create Do Now Activities

When using a chatbot like ChatGPT, you can start with a simple prompt that you refine with follow-up instructions, or you can begin with a prompt that includes a lot of information. For example, you might use: “Make a list of Do Now activities I can use to kick off a lesson on persuasive writing for eighth graders.”

But if you add a bit more information to your prompt at the start, the responses will typically be of better quality. For example, you might try: “I am an eighth-grade teacher known for my engaging, relevant lessons. I want to kick off a new lesson with a Do Now activity that will help my students better understand how a hook can strengthen their persuasive writing. Make a list of activities that will take under five minutes to complete, introduce this concept, and help me gather some information on where students are at. Also, my students are excited about the Summer Olympics.”

Although it might take more time to type out the lengthy prompt, your results will usually be better. In this longer prompt, I included the following:

• My role, or the role that I want the chatbot to take on: “an eighth-grade teacher known for my engaging, relevant lessons.”
• The goal: “to kick off a new lesson with a Do Now activity that will help my students better understand how a hook can strengthen their persuasive writing.”
• The task, including specific elements: “Make a list of activities that will take under five minutes to complete, introduce this concept, and help me gather some information on where students are at.”
• Extra information: “students are excited about the Summer Olympics.”

Or in an elementary classroom, you might use: “I am a first-grade teacher known for doing a great job connecting literacy skills to instruction in other areas like social studies. I want to kick off a new lesson with a Do Now activity that will help my students better understand roles in our community. Make a list of activities that will take about five minutes to complete and activate the students’ prior knowledge. Also, my students know some vocabulary words for this unit like volunteer, firefighter, and doctor.”

Again, taking the extra time to enter a longer, more detailed prompt can give you better results. In the longer prompt, I added these:

• My role, or the role that I want the chatbot to take on: “a first-grade teacher known for doing a great job connecting literacy skills to instruction in other areas like social studies.”
• The goal: “to kick off a new lesson with a Do Now activity that will help my students better understand roles in our community.”
• The task, including specific elements: “Make a list of activities that will take about five minutes to complete and activate the students’ prior knowledge.”
• Extra information: “students know some vocabulary words for this unit like volunteer, firefighter, and doctor.”

The extra information could include a note about student interests, language from state or local standards, vocabulary words that students are learning, examples of what has worked in the past (or counterexamples), or what you don’t want as a result. For example, if you don’t want a full lesson plan, you might use, “Give me a list of 10 ideas for a Do Now activity, do not give me a lesson plan.” All of this information can strengthen your output. But if you don’t include it in your initial prompt, you can always reply to the initial response with the clarifying information. 

Since interacting with a chatbot is sort of like having a conversation, you can “talk” back and forth until you get the strongest response. There are ways to use chatbots to create content to support English language arts, social studies instruction, math, science, and more. 

As with any response that is generated by a chatbot, you’ll want to review the results carefully. Make sure that the information is factually accurate and relevant to your goals. Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT can also produce results influenced by the bias of their large language model (training data).

In the second edition of my book EdTech Essentials: 12 Strategies for Every Classroom in the Age of AI, the “Assess” chapter includes suggestions for how to leverage generative AI tools to help teachers save time as they gather actionable formative assessment data. Although it’s important to have a healthy hesitation when using new, rapidly changing technology, chatbots like ChatGPT can certainly save educators time as they plan instruction and personalize learning experiences for students.