Update the TritonAI Tutor's System Prompt

When you set up the TritonAI Tutor in your Canvas course, you can choose from a set of preset behaviors that range from fully Socratic (the tutor guides students toward answers through questions and hints) to fully direct (the tutor provides explanations and answers outright).

These presets are a convenient starting point, but they are only that. You can customize the tutor's system prompt as much as you like, and we encourage you to do so.

What a System Prompt Is

A system prompt is a set of written instructions the tutor reads before every conversation with a student. Students never see it, but it shapes everything the tutor does. Think of it as the briefing you would give a teaching assistant before their first office hours: who the students are, what the course is trying to accomplish, how you want questions handled, and what's off limits.

Because the tutor follows these instructions in every exchange, even small changes to the system prompt can have a large effect on its behavior. Through the system prompt, you can shape:

• Teaching approach: how much to scaffold, when to give hints versus answers, and how to respond when a student is stuck or frustrated.
• How it uses your materials: which course readings, lectures, or documents to prioritize, how to interpret course-specific terminology, and whether to stay within your materials or draw on general knowledge.
• What to avoid: for example, completing graded assignments, giving away exam answers, or using methods or notation that differ from how you teach the subject.
• Tone and level: how formal or conversational to be, and how to pitch explanations for your students' background.

The preset you choose gives the tutor a reasonable default, but no preset knows your course the way you do. Taking a few minutes to tailor the system prompt is the single most effective way to make the tutor behave like an extension of your teaching. If you need some tips, see Write an Effective System Prompt.

Steps to Take

You can take these steps when creating your tutor for the first time, or when editing the tutor. Here we assume that you're editing an existing tutor.

1. Within your Canvas course, click TritonAI Tutor in the course navigation on the left side of the page.
2. Next to the tutor whose system prompt you want to edit, click the pencil icon (tooltip: “Edit tutor”).
3. Optional: In the screen that appears, scroll down to the “Teaching Style” section and select a preset teaching style. This will give you a good starting point for your tutor's overall behavior.

   Selecting a teaching style overwrites the existing system prompt. If you've already made changes to the system prompt, copy the existing prompt and save it elsewhere so you don't lose any work.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Advanced. This will reveal the text box where you can edit the tutor's instructions.
5. Enter your custom system prompt.
6. When you're done, be sure to scroll to the top of the page and click Save.

• ← Update the Knowledge Base
• Write an Effective System Prompt →