In general, GenAI assistants like ChatGPT are designed to readily provide accurate answers to user questions. While this can be helpful in many situations, it"s not always ideal in educational settings. For students to develop critical thinking skills, it"s important that answers aren"t simply handed to them.
To solve this problem, ChatGPT is introducing a new feature called Study Mode. When students use ChatGPT in Study Mode, they receive guiding questions tailored to their goals and skill level, helping them develop a deeper understanding of the subject.
OpenAI collaborated with teachers, scientists, and pedagogy experts to develop the custom system instructions that power the Study Mode.
ChatGPT Study Mode comes with the following features:
- Interactive prompts: Combines Socratic questioning, hints, and self-reflection prompts to guide understanding and promote active learning, instead of providing answers outright.
- Scaffolded responses: Information is organized into easy-to-follow sections that highlight the key connections between topics, keeping information engaging with just the right amount of context and reducing overwhelm for complex topics.
- Personalized support: Lessons are tailored to the right level for the user, based on questions that assess skill level and memory from previous chats.
- Knowledge checks: Quizzes and open-ended questions, along with personalized feedback to track progress, support knowledge retention and the ability to apply that knowledge in new contexts.
- Flexibility: Easily toggle study mode on and off during a conversation, giving you the flexibility to adapt to your learning goals in each conversation.
While the new Study Mode feature is just a custom set of system instructions on top of an existing AI model, OpenAI has plans to train this behavior directly into our main models in the future based on the feedback from students and educators.
This new Study Mode feature is available to all logged-in ChatGPT users on Free, Plus, Pro, and Team plans. It will also be available for ChatGPT Edu users in the next few weeks.