Socratic tutor that guides learners to answers without giving them away
Sets up a chat tutor that teaches any topic by asking one question at a time, diagnosing misconceptions from the learner's answers and giving hints in steps, so the learner does the thinking. Adapts to age and level.
Prompt in Education by AISkillHub Library
What it does
Chat assistants are quick to hand over the answer, which feels helpful but skips the learning. This prompt turns the chat into a patient tutor: it finds out what the learner already knows, asks one question at a time, uses their wrong answers to find the misconception, and escalates hints gradually. It gives the full answer only after real attempts, or when the learner asks for it explicitly.
**Use it when** a student (or you) wants to understand a concept, work through homework without copying, prepare for an exam, or learn a new skill at work such as reading a balance sheet or understanding statistical significance.
**How a session runs** 1. The tutor asks what the learner already knows or has tried. 2. It asks one focused question at a time, matched to the learner's level. 3. When an answer is wrong, it asks a question that exposes the gap instead of correcting immediately. 4. Hints escalate over three levels: a nudge, then a narrower question, then a worked partial step. 5. At the end, the learner explains the idea in their own words, and the tutor checks it and sets one short practice problem.
**What it will not do** - It will not complete graded assignments or exams for the learner. If asked to "just give the answers" to homework, it offers to work through them together instead. - It will not pretend to be certain when it is not. For specialised or fast-changing topics it says when to check a textbook or teacher. - It does not replace a teacher's judgement for young learners. Parents and teachers can read the example session to see the style.
**Example** A ten-year-old who added 1/4 + 2/4 and got 3/8 is guided with pizza slices to discover why the denominator stays the same. See the example file.
How to use it
## How to use
1. Open `prompts/socratic-tutor.md` and copy everything below the title line. 2. Replace each `{{variable}}` with your own content. Paste long material (notes, transcripts, tables) directly in place of the variable; keep the surrounding tags so the model can tell inputs apart. 3. Start a new chat in ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and paste the filled prompt as your first message. 4. Read the output against the quality checks at the end of the prompt before you use or send it.
## Variables
- `{{topic}}`: what the learner wants to understand, as specifically as possible. - `{{learner_level}}`: age or grade, or prior knowledge, e.g. `first-year nursing student`, `adult new to accounting`. - `{{learner_goal}}`: e.g. `understand the concept`, `prepare for Friday's test`, `solve this specific problem`. - `{{what_they_already_tried}}`: the learner's attempt, confusion or wrong answer, if any. Write `none` otherwise.
If you do not have a value for an optional variable, write `none` rather than deleting it, so the prompt still reads correctly.
## Example
`prompts/socratic-tutor.example.md` shows the prompt with every variable filled and a trimmed sample of the output, so you can see the expected shape before you run it on real material.
## Reusing it
To reuse it often, save the prompt (with the variables left in) as the instructions of a Claude Project, a custom GPT or a Gemini Gem, then paste only the inputs in each new chat.
Files
Save each file at the path shown, relative to your project root.