Shape how your assistant teaches
An assistant is only as good as the teaching you put into it. The Behavior tab is where you decide how yours acts with your students: the role it plays, what the lesson is trying to achieve, the guidelines it follows, how it greets the class, and the grade level it pitches to. Get this right and the assistant feels like an extension of how you teach, not a generic chatbot.
You stay in charge of the teaching. The assistant just carries out the approach you describe here, the same way for every student.
Before you start
You need an assistant to work on. If you have not built one yet, create your first assistant, then come back to the Behavior tab to shape it. It also helps to have a clear idea of the lesson activity: what you want students to practice, and what good work looks like for it.
Build your assistant's teaching behavior
The Behavior tab reads top to bottom, and that order is deliberate: set who the assistant is and what the lesson is for first, then the detailed instructions, then how the conversation opens. Work through the fields in order.
1. Open the Behavior tab
In the assistant editor, open the Behavior tab. Each field below is one part of how the assistant will act. You can change any of them later and your students see the updated behavior the next time they start a session.
2. Set the grade level
Grade Level adapts the reading and difficulty level to match your class. Pick the level that fits your students, for example a US grade level or a UK year. The assistant uses this to judge how much to explain and which words to reach for.
3. Give the assistant a role
Role is who the assistant is in the activity. A specific role gives it character and focus, for example "an experienced climate-diagram detective who turns weather data into puzzles". Define the role in a sentence or two; it sets the tone for everything else.
4. Define the objectives
Objectives are what students should be able to do by the end of the activity, for example "students can read and interpret a climate diagram". Clear objectives keep the assistant pointed at the learning, not just the conversation.
5. Write the guidelines
Guidelines are the step-by-step instructions the assistant follows: how it speaks, how it teaches, how it responds to right and wrong answers, what to focus on, and how to adapt to different learners. Write them as specific, action-oriented rules, and use Add guideline to keep each rule separate. The clearer and more concrete the guideline, the more reliably the assistant follows it.
6. Write the greeting
Greeting message is the first thing students see when they open the assistant. Keep it short and warm, and point them at what to do first. A good greeting lowers the hesitation of a blank screen.
7. Add suggested answers (optional)
Suggested answers are starter replies shown to students right after the greeting, for example "How do I read a climate diagram?". They give hesitant students a way in. Use Add suggestion to add a few, or leave them out if you would rather students open in their own words.
Data & safety
The Behavior tab shapes teaching, it does not hold any student information. Nothing you write here needs a student's name or private details. The assistant follows your role, objectives, and guidelines, but generated replies can still be imperfect, so treat the assistant as a teaching aid you supervise, not a substitute for your judgement. You can adjust the behavior at any time.
Tips
- Start with Role and Objectives. They anchor everything else, and the guidelines get easier to write once you know who the assistant is and what the lesson is for.
- Write guidelines the way you would brief a student teacher: specific, step by step, one instruction at a time. The assistant follows clear, concrete rules best.
- Keep the greeting short and add one or two suggested answers. Most students just need a nudge to begin.
Troubleshooting
The assistant ignores one of my guidelines. Make the guideline more specific and action-oriented, and split any rule that bundles several ideas into separate guidelines. Vague or compound rules are the usual cause.
The assistant talks above or below my class. Check the Grade Level, and reflect the reading level in the Role and Guidelines as well, for example by asking it to introduce technical terms before using them.
Students do not know how to start. Add a clear Greeting message and a couple of Suggested answers so the first move is obvious.