AI Blocks › Teach and train people
Self-explanation question writer
Give it a text, example or diagram. Get questions that make students explain the why behind each step.
Self-explanation question writer is a free AI skill for the job "Teach and train people". Give the instructions to an AI assistant that supports the required files and tools, then review its output.
Free · No account · CC BY SA 4.0 licence · Made by Gareth Manning · Level: beginner
Made by Gareth Manning. See the original on GitHub; we copied it as it is, with its licence.
What it does
Questions placed at the right points in your learning material so students stop to explain why each step is true, not just what it says. Research on worked examples shows that students who explain to themselves learn far more, and that prompting them works even for those who would not do it alone. Give it a text, a worked example or a diagram. It finds the steps where understanding is easiest to skip, then writes prompts that ask why, how and what principle, in place of "what happens here?". Each prompt is checked so it calls for reasoning instead of a restatement. It also drafts the follow-up feedback for a good or shallow answer.
You give it
- The text, worked example or diagram
- The subject and student level
- The learning goal (optional)
You get
- Why and how prompts at key points
- A note on where each prompt goes
- Feedback lines for strong and weak answers
- A check that questions need reasoning
Use it when
- You have a worked maths or science example and want students to engage with each step.
- Your lesson text is dense and learners skim it passively.
- You are building a tutoring chat and need good questions to ask mid-study.
- You want to replace shallow "what happened" questions with reasoning ones.
How to use it
- Add it to your AI once: download it and add the folder to Claude, ChatGPT or Codex as a skill.
- Ask for the job in your own words. Your AI opens the skill when it fits.