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IBL News | New York
Learners are increasingly becoming instructional designers, identifying gaps in the learning experience and utilizing AI to address these gaps in pedagogical practices.
These instructional design gaps can be inadequate or inaccessible content, poor practice opportunities, deficient scaffolding, and missing emotional support, among others.
For example, one student said, “I use ChatGPT as a study guide to explain stuff that the course glosses over, which I then add to my notes. This helps me reinforce what I’m learning, and it’s been hella useful so far.”
Additionally, learners asking AI to “act as my professor and grade this draft” or “create a practice quiz, asking me each question one by one” reveal that instructional assessment and practice systems are failing to support learning.
Therefore, experts suggest that instructional designers should closely study how learners interact with AI and adapt their role accordingly, evolving from content creators to learning ecosystem architects.
OpenAI’s “Top 20 Chats for Finals” data reveal how learners worldwide actually engage with learning content.
In a May 2025 post, OpenAI disclosed how many learners are using AI to enhance their learning process.
These are some prompts:
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- “I want to learn by teaching. Ask me questions about [topic] so I can practice explaining the core concepts to you.”
- “Identify and share the most important 20% of learnings from this topic that will help me understand 80% of it.”
- “Create a practice quiz for me based on the material. Ask me each question one by one.”
- “I’m not feeling it today. Help me understand this lecture, knowing that’s how I feel.”
- “Motivate me.”
- “Can you take the following slides and help me learn the content in a faster and more interesting way?”
- “Decode this dense passage into language I can understand.”
- “Create a game to help me [learning goals]
- “Give me a step-by-step guide to help me finish [project]. Make the steps as small and achievable as possible.”
- “Look for any rules and requirements in this assignment and make a checklist that’s easy to understand.”
- “Act as my public speaking coach and give me feedback to help me improve.”
- “I want to pressure test my thesis before I keep writing. Suggest the existing opposing viewpoints and any flaws in my logic.”
- I want to consider multiple perspectives. Find three experts with different points of view and compare their opinions.
Dr. Philippa Hadman, an expert and researcher on education, wrote,
“The most successful instructional designers of 2025 and beyond won’t be those who resist AI or those who blindly embrace it. The winners will be those who study what learner AI behaviour teaches us about effective learning design and who use those insights to create more responsive, human-centered learning ecosystems.”
“The future of instructional design is about learning from what learners create when they have access to responsive, personalized, and emotionally intelligent learning support.”
