Ask the Student to Improve the Question

A polished answer can hide a poorly defined problem. ‘Tell me about leadership’ may produce fluent paragraphs, but it leaves the purpose, audience and context unspecified. An educational exercise can begin one step earlier: ask learners to improve the question itself.

Make the missing decisions visible

Give a class a broad prompt such as ‘How can a community use technology?’ Ask learners what they need to know before answering. Which community? What problem? What resources are available? Who might be excluded? What would a useful outcome look like?

These are not decorations added to a prompt. They determine what evidence belongs in the answer and which proposals could be relevant. Students can then rewrite the question around a concrete scenario.

Compare questions before comparing answers

For example, a revised version might ask: ‘How could a small community centre help adults book classes when some visitors cannot use an online form?’ This creates a clearer design problem while leaving room for several approaches.

If AI is used, compare responses to the broad and revised questions. Ask students to identify which differences came from the additional context and which assumptions the system still introduced. Do not reward the longest response by default.

Assess the reasoning behind the revision

A simple proposed rubric can consider clarity of purpose, identification of missing information, attention to affected people and explanation of the revision. This is an activity design, not a validated assessment instrument.

Learners should be allowed to conclude that the next step is asking a person for information. Good question design does not mean squeezing an answer from a machine when the facts needed to answer are absent.

UNESCO’s guidance on generative AI in education and research advocates a human-centred approach and the development of human capacity. This exercise is an original classroom application of that broad concern, not a UNESCO-prescribed lesson. Read UNESCO’s guidance.

The MaryChuks perspective: education should help people recognise what needs to be understood before accepting an answer. A learner who improves a question is doing intellectual work before the first paragraph appears.