Biosciences Takeover Week: Generative AI for Study Skills in Biosciences

 By Dr Liz Alvey and Dr Emma Hughes

Have you ever felt the pressure to equip your students with the latest tools, but weren't quite sure how to integrate them effectively? In our case, the rise of generative AI tools like Gemini created a perfect storm. Employers were demanding graduates with these skills, students were eager to learn, but many academics, ourselves included, weren't entirely comfortable guiding students on how to use them best. This presented a challenge: how do we support students in developing these valuable skills in a way that complements our existing teaching methods and doesn’t undermine assessment practices?

Here's where the story of our website, "Biosciences GenAI for Study Skills" begins. We initially looked for existing resources, and found Google Gemini’s "Prompting Guide 101". However, there was a problem – it focused on Gemini for Workspace that isn't available at the University, so many of the use cases don’t work with a TUoS Google account. There were lots of aspects of the prompting guide that we liked and decided to adapt these for using Gemini for study skills.

Instead of a traditional lecture format, we brainstormed other ways to introduce Gemini to students. We wanted something engaging, accessible, and adaptable. Accessibility on mobile devices and the ability to link it to various lectures (and other types of teaching sessions) were key. The final piece of the puzzle was flexibility – we wanted a resource that could grow and evolve alongside tool developments, new use cases and our teaching needs. So we settled on making a website.

The website contains general advice for writing effective prompts, prompts for students, advice for levelling up your prompting and a page for FAQs (which at the moment mostly focuses on unfair means). Here’s an example from the ‘prompts for students’ page:

Refresh your knowledge 

You studied really hard for your A levels, but weirdly, you seem to have forgotten quite a lot of it already. You can use Gemini to generate a quick knowledge refresher. 

You are preparing for a first-year module on [molecular biology]. Generate a knowledge refresher on [gene expression] based on the content of the Biology A Level curriculum (UK). Use bullet points.

The website and accompanying screencast was shared with new Undergraduate and Postgraduate students via Blackboard in week 1. Customisable prompts are being introduced alongside other established skills workshops such as Using Feedback Effectively and Articulating your Skills. The intention is to add more prompts and use cases as we navigate through our first year of learning to learn about Generative AI together.

By week 5 students in other year groups were requesting access and we shared the site across the school. At this week’s staff-student committee meetings, students in their final year have requested workshops on Gemini and we’re looking forward to working with students to determine what they want and need, and developing resources to support them.

Dr Liz Alvey is a Senior University Teacher in the School of Biosciences. Dr Emma Hughes is a Teaching Associate (Ecology) in the School of Biosciences