Pathfinder Guidebook · FYE 100 Module 2 · Building Your Support System
10 Essential Skills in this module
  • 1Communication
  • 4Interpersonal Relations
  • 9Knowledge Application
Trail Tip

What's Actually Happening in That AI Chat?

Pull back the curtain on how the course AI Chats work.

About 6 minutes 7 of 9 in this module

Pull back the curtain. Knowing how it works makes you better at using it.

Before you open your first AI Chat in this course, it helps to see something most people never do. It isn't a secret, but nobody usually takes the time to explain it: the AI Chats in this course aren't a generic chatbot pointed at you. Each one was set up inside Blackboard for a specific moment in your learning, with a specific purpose.

What is a large language model?

Tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and the AI Chats in this course are all powered by a large language model: an AI system trained on enormous amounts of text, so it can predict and generate language that sounds clear and relevant.

On its own, it's a very capable generalist. It has read more text than any person ever could, and it can discuss almost any topic. But it doesn't know who you are, what class you're in, or what you're supposed to be thinking about today. Until someone gives it direction, it's just potential.

An AI is only as useful as the directions it's been given.
Look back at

Lesson 1.3: What's AI, Really?

The part nobody shows you: the setup

Before you type your first message, the AI has already read a set of instructions you don't see. Those instructions tell it how to behave in this specific chat.

For the AI Chats in this course, the instructions come from the setup in Blackboard: the type of chat, the topic, the coach's name and personality, how it should respond, and how complex its answers should be. Blackboard turns those choices into instructions the AI reads first, and they shape everything that happens next.

Key term

System prompt: the hidden instructions an AI reads before a conversation starts. Almost every AI tool has one.

Below is a simplified example of what those instructions might say for one of the chats in this course. It isn't the exact setup, but it's close.

Simplified example: how Coach Pathfinder gets set up
  • Role: You are Coach Pathfinder, a warm, direct coach for first-year college students at OCTC.
  • Purpose: Help this student think through their support network and what it means to ask for help. Ask questions that help them find their own answers.
  • Tone: Encouraging but honest. Treat the student as capable. Don't be generic or vague.
  • Opening: Welcome the student and ask: "When things get hard in college, what's your instinct: push through alone, or reach out? Tell me about that."
  • Rule: "Do not write the student's answers for them. Your job is to help them find what they already know."
  • Guardrails: Stay on the topic. If the student asks you to do their homework, guide them back to reflecting.

The same AI that could draft a legal brief or explain quantum physics has been given one specific job, and it does that job every time a student opens that chat.

Same AI, completely different behavior

The engine underneath is the same kind of AI used all over the world. What it does depends on what it's been told to do. Look at the same message, typed into two setups:

"I'm struggling to ask for help."

  • Without course instructionsFive generic tips, a suggested app, a reminder that everyone struggles, and an encouraging emoji. Helpful in a general way, but not very useful for you, right now.
    With the course setup"Tell me more. Is it that you don't know who to ask, or that asking feels uncomfortable? What's underneath it?" It doesn't answer for you. It pushes you to figure out what you think.

Two kinds of AI Chats in this course

Socratic

Coach Pathfinder asks you questions, one at a time, to help you think something through. It won't hand you answers.

Modules 2, 8, and 9

Role-play

You work through a scenario with the AI playing a part. You do the thinking and the evaluating as the scenario unfolds.

Module 4

What this means for you

  1. It has a job to do

    The AI Chats aren't here to answer every question you have. Each one has a purpose, usually to help you think, not to think for you. If it keeps asking you questions instead of giving answers, it's doing what it was set up to do.

  2. Your instructor can see the conversation

    After you submit, your instructor can review the whole chat. That's how you get credit, and how your instructor learns whether the activity is working. Have an honest conversation.

  3. It can still be wrong

    Even with good instructions, the AI can misunderstand you, wander off track, or say something that doesn't land. Each chat ends with a reflection question where you can say what worked and point out anything that seemed wrong or biased.

  4. Have a concern? Talk with your instructor

    If you have a concern about using the AI Chats, talk with your instructor before the chat is due. That might be an accommodation, a privacy worry, or just not feeling comfortable with AI. Your instructor can work out another way for you to complete it.

AI Literacy BE Safe BE Critical

The AI Chats use Blackboard's AI Conversation tool, which runs on Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service. According to Blackboard, your conversation isn't used to retrain the AI. It's saved with your assignment, where your instructor can review it.

The same rule applies here as with any AI tool: don't share other people's personal information, passwords, or anything private in the chat.

Next time you use any AI tool, ask yourself: what was this told to do before I showed up? The answer shapes everything you're about to experience. That question is the beginning of AI literacy.

Behind every AI Chat are instructions, context, and a very capable language engine pointed in a specific direction by a person with a goal. In this course, the goal is your learning. Now go have an honest conversation.