AI-SS1
AI Summer School 2026: AI Prompting and Thinking in the AI Era
Learn to get high-quality, trustworthy work out of any modern AI assistant. Through hands-on practice, students build a real prompt vocabulary and a clear mental model for thinking in the AI age.
Mode
Live Online Classes
AI tutor for this course
This course will be supported by TutorClaw, Panaversity's AI tutor for WhatsApp. It will answer from The Agent Factory book, help you review lessons, prepare for quizzes, and keep track of your progress between live classes.
Learn MoreDetails
AI is now part of school, research, and creative work. The difference between a weak result and a strong one is a handful of habits, not cleverness. This course teaches those habits. Students open a free AI account and learn what is really happening behind the screen: the model has no memory of its own and answers only from what is in front of it. From there, they practice giving AI clear context, choosing the right mode, removing bias, and checking facts against named sources. The course ends with a capstone. Each student uses AI to build a short mini textbook chapter on one school topic, then submits proof of how they thought, prompted, and verified their work, not just a copied answer. The course runs as one cohort, on-site, with hands-on practice throughout. No prior AI experience is needed.
What You'll Learn
Module 1How AI Actually Works
Orientation and first accounts: what AI and Agentic AI are, and why the model has no memory of its own. Brief AI like a smart new colleague with context, constraints, and a clear ask. Understand pretrained knowledge — strong on common topics, weak on rare or private ones, where confidence is not proof — and the three retrieval modes: pretrained vs. web search vs. deep research, and when to use each.
Module 2Talking to AI Well
Context is the whole game: the pre-send checklist, "context rot," and starting fresh chats. Switch on reasoning ("think hard") for multi-step problems, and know when not to. Neutralise sycophancy with neutral framing and rubric scoring to turn flattery into honest feedback.
Module 3Multimodality and Interactive Apps
Turn photos, voice memos, and recordings into useful output, and make clean diagrams. Build small apps with one prompt using Goal / Input / Output to build a timer, game, or tool inside the chat.
Module 4How to Think in the AI Era
Why thinking is the human job: trustworthy work shows the evidence of how you got there. The brainstorm-iterate loop: demand 3 to 5 options, give feedback, then expand the winner.
Module 5Capstone: AI Mini Textbook
Use AI to create, improve, source-check, and verify a short learning chapter on one school topic. Submit two parts: the finished chapter (Part A) and an AI Process Notebook proving responsible use (Part B).
Course Outcomes
Explain how AI works: it is "stateless" and learns from text, not experience.
Judge when an AI answer can be trusted, and when it needs web search or human checking.
Steer AI between its three modes: pretrained, live web search, and deep research.
Assemble strong context before prompting, and keep chats clean.
Switch on reasoning mode for hard problems, and turn off flattery for honest feedback.
Use AI for images, audio, and building small apps inside a chat.
Form their own position first, then run the brainstorm-iterate loop so AI sharpens their thinking.
Use AI responsibly to create, source-check, and verify a real learning resource.
Prerequisites
There are no pre-requisites for this course.