Pair Prompting
Instructor: the room controls for this activity, and the room display for the projector.
Friday, September 4. In pairs today.
Two Jobs: Prompting and Observing
Wednesday you started your website on your own. Today you keep going, but not alone. You’ll sit with a partner. One of you is prompting: you work on your website in Codex, exactly as you did Wednesday. The other is observing: you watch how your partner asks the agent for things, not whether the site is any good, and you say what you see. Then you swap.
Watching someone else do this is the fastest way to see your own habits, as long as you’re doing something while you watch. Most people in the room are doing this for the first time, and the person watching you is figuring it out too.
Pair Up
Open the pair page. It shows you a code. Give it to your partner, or type theirs. Three is fine if the numbers don’t work out; so is pairing with me. If you came in late, do the same thing whenever you arrive; the page plans around the time that’s left.
Whoever’s code was used prompts first; the other one observes.
If You’re Prompting
Build. Keep the pair page open in a tab: it shows who you’re with, how long the round has, and when to hand off. Talk to your partner while you work; say what you’re asking for and why. When the page says it’s time, ask your observer what they noticed, then press the button and swap.
If You’re Observing
Your screen shows your partner’s conversation as it happens, a few seconds behind, so look at their screen too. Your notes come in three shapes:
- I notice: something that happened, in their words where you can. “You wrote ‘fix it’ and the agent changed three files.”
- I wonder: a question you’d ask them. “Did you look at the page before you said next?”
- What if: one thing to try. “What if you told it what you expected to see?”
Say them out loud as you go; that’s the point. Write down the ones worth keeping. Your notes go to your partner after class, not during, so write them for your partner to read later.
Things worth watching for. When something went wrong, did they say what they saw or what they concluded? Did they ask for an outcome or dictate the steps? When the agent said it was done, did they look? When it went a different way than they wanted, did they say so? Did they ask the agent what it needs from them?
There’s a companion on the page that can see the same feed. Ask it what just happened, or ask it to help you turn something into a note. It won’t build anything, and it will keep handing you questions to ask your partner. Prefer the partner.
Switching
Your page shows what we’re doing right now and roughly how long it has. When I move the room on, everyone moves: on a round, that means everyone switches seats at the same time, and your page will say so. You can also switch sooner between yourselves—press the button. In a pair everyone talks twice; in a trio, once.
The Last Few Minutes
I’ll read a few notes from around the room, without names, and ask what you noticed about your own prompting. Then I close the session, and the notes about you appear on your pair page.
Last thing, every session from now on: tell the course how it went. It’s a short conversation rather than a form, two or three minutes. It isn’t anonymous—I see who said what, and the page says so before you start—and it’s the main way this class changes while you’re still in it. If something today was bad, that’s the useful thing to say.
If you’d rather see it than read it, there’s a walkthrough: the whole activity recorded end to end, both students’ screens and mine side by side.
Your partner following your conversation is what the syllabus means by observing on your own screen. The pair page says exactly what they can see and for how long, and either of you can leave a pair. Nothing is handed in.
If You Missed It
We worked in pairs. One of you built your website in Codex while the other watched how you asked for things—not whether the site was any good—and said what they saw out loud, in three shapes: I notice, I wonder, what if. Then you swapped, so everyone did both jobs. At the end I read a few notes from around the room, without names, and we talked about what people caught themselves doing.
The notes your partner kept are on your pair page once the session is closed.
On Your Own
The half you can't do by yourself is being watched, and that's the half that does the work. So get watched: fifteen minutes with a roommate, a friend, anyone who will sit there while you build something. Ask them to say what they notice about how you ask, not about the site. They don't need to know anything about websites.
Failing that, watch yourself after the fact. Open one of your conversations on your agent page and read it back the way an observer would. Where did you tell the agent what you concluded instead of what you saw? Where did you say next without looking at what it made? Where did it go a different way than you wanted and you let it? One of those is worth bringing to the next class.
Running It Yourself
For anyone teaching. The page above is written to students; this is the plan the room played, what to do without our site, and what running it taught us. Borrow freely.
The Plan
| Section | Minutes | What students are told |
|---|---|---|
| Get Paired | 5 | Find a partner and swap codes. Whoever's code gets used prompts first; the other one observes. Three is fine if the numbers don't work out; so is pairing with me. |
| Roundrun it, then everyone switches and run it again | 6 + 6 | Prompting: build, and say out loud what you're asking for and why. Observing: watch how they ask, not whether the site is any good. Say what you notice; write down the ones worth keeping. |
| Notes and Traderun it as many times as it needs | 3 | Stop building. Whoever was observing goes first: tell them what you noticed about how they prompted. Then swap, and write down the ones worth keeping. |
| What We Saw | 5 | Together now. I'll read a few notes from around the room, without names, and ask what you noticed about your own prompting. |
| Feedback | 5 | Last thing: tell the course how that went. It's a short conversation, not a form, and it's the main way this class gets better while you're still in it. |
About 30 minutes as written. Nothing advances on its own: the instructor moves the room from one section to the next, runs one again, or skips one.
Without Our Site
The pair page pairs people by a code, shows the observer the prompter's conversation as it happens, a few seconds behind, and keeps the observer's notes until the session closes. It also offers the observer a companion that can see the same feed. All of that can be a chair: the observer sits beside the prompter and reads their screen, since the conversation is text. That is what our feed shows, and we tell observers to look at the screen anyway. The projector showed the section we were on with the time left, the pairs, and the music: a queue anyone in the room adds to by pasting a YouTube link, played in turns by who added what. A whiteboard with the section and a clock does the first part; a speaker and any shared playlist do the rest.
Six minutes prompting, then three for the observer to say what they noticed, then swap; in a trio everyone prompts once instead of twice. Call each switch from the front so everyone moves together. The three shapes, I notice, I wonder, what if, go on an index card and are handed over after class, not during: the person who just finished prompting shouldn't be reading about themselves while they're supposed to be observing. Close by reading a few notes aloud without names and asking what people noticed about their own prompting. Then a few minutes for students to tell you how it went. A form works; a conversation works better, because the useful thing is usually the second thing they say.
What We Learned Running It
Nothing in the room should run on a timer. Our first version computed a schedule from a start time and a round length, and it was thrown out the morning of the class: a class that's going well wants another round, one that's running late wants to skip one, and a computed schedule can't be argued with. The plan above is a list of sections, and the instructor moves the room through it.
Rounds start when a pair forms, not when the class does, because people come in late and the room never starts on time. And the observer's notes are worth more than the observer's companion: the companion's job is to hand back questions to ask the partner, and we watch every session for whether it pulls people into their laptops instead.