The ideal tool is one shaped around how you teach, but building one has traditionally required technical know-how, a development team, and careful project management.
Vibe coding transforms this process: simply describe what you want to create and get a working application back in minutes.
Join us to take the first step towards building your own teaching tools - simply bring your laptop and an idea to experiment with.
Event Summary
This lunchtime session introduced vibe coding: describing the tool you want in plain language and getting a working application back, without writing the code yourself. CTE explained how this helps instructors build tools shaped around how they teach, and showed how to get started with minimal setup. Examples of what instructors can build include scenarios and simulations, where students practise making decisions in negotiations or resource allocation, or work through abstract concepts and processes. They also include guided practice, such as an accountancy exercise where a financial statement updates as students fill it in, or quiz formats that vary when feedback is given.
Associate Professor Massimiliano Landi (School of Economics) then shared how he experimented with vibe coding for his students, from his early difficulties to an approach that worked. Participants practised hands-on in SMU's AI Studio Chat. The session also introduced a five-checkpoint prompt framework (Make, Objective, Discovery, Evolve, Limits) for planning a tool before building it. Instructors using ChatGPT or Claude can download the design-learning-app skill, which guides them through the framework step by step.
Quick links to get started
- AI Studio Chat (recommended models: ChatGPT 5.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.6)
- Download design-learning-app skill from Github
- AI Tools Guide on AI Compass (SMU login)