Course Introduction
This course trains students to become the best communicators with AI by teaching them the art and science of Prompt Engineering. Not requiring coding, it focuses on leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) to achieve specific ends, increase productivity, and drive creative problem-solving.
Crucially, every course module is enhanced with hands-on, collaborative Group Activity Labs designed to provide practical experience, encourage peer-to-peer learning, and allow students to analyze and refine prompt outputs in a team setting.
Course Aims
This course is designed to help students:
Master Effective Communication: Structure prompts to elicit precise and high-quality outputs from LLMs.
Understand and Apply Prompt Patterns: Apply Role-Prompting and Chain-of-Thought techniques to perform complex tasks in a practical, group lab environment.
Reducing Hallucination: Learn how to reduce hallucination while creating the prompts.
Debug and Secure Prompts: Learn to troubleshoot poor outputs and understand ethical/security implications (e.g., Prompt Injection).
Boost Productivity: Apply prompt engineering across academic, creative, and professional disciplines.
Course Modules
The course is divided into 14 key modules, each including a dedicated Group Activity Lab for practical application:
Introduction to LLMs and Prompt Engineering
What is Prompt Engineering? (Core components)
Deepening Interaction with Prompts - Advanced Communication - Final Project
Learning from Prompt Mistakes - HW1
Mastering Prompts: Prompt Patterns I (Structured frameworks)
Mastering Prompts - Prompt Patterns II (Advanced patterns such as AoT, CoT)- HW2
Prompt Engineering for Academic and Creative Writing
Midterm Exam and Practical Assessment
Reducing Hallucination & Debugging Prompts: Why Didn't It Work? (Collaborative troubleshooting)
Model Comparison of LLMs: From Prompts to Insights - HW3
Ethical Considerations in Prompt Engineering & Prompt Engineering Across Disciplines
Next Frontiers in Prompt Engineering & AI Agents
Understanding Prompt Security (Prompt Injection and defense)
Project Presentations and Evaluation