Ridian TechnologiesAvailable through a Coastal account
Copilot Chat
- Ask questions and research current information
- Draft, revise, summarize, and brainstorm
- Work with selected uploaded or referenced material
- Copy useful results into Microsoft 365 applications
Faculty resource
Microsoft Copilot Starter Kit for Faculty
Start with one real teaching task—not the technology.
Use this resource to build stronger prompts, explore practical faculty workflows, and begin using Microsoft Copilot with confidence.
Open Microsoft Copilot (opens in a new tab) View the 5-Slide Presentation (opens in a new tab) Open the Copilot Faculty Guide for Coastal Alabama employees (opens in a new tab)
Coastal Alabama employees only. Sign in with your Alabama.edu organizational account.
Start here
Understand your Copilot access
Two experiences share the Copilot name. Knowing which one you have makes everything on this page easier to use.
Coastal Alabama faculty currently have access to Copilot Chat. The integrated Microsoft 365 features shown here require additional licensing and have not been institutionally rolled out.
Additional institutional license required
Licensed Microsoft Copilot
- Works directly within supported Microsoft 365 applications
- Can use authorized organizational content and context
- Provides integrated experiences in Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, Excel, and SharePoint
- Availability depends on institutional licensing and approval
Overview
Microsoft Copilot for Faculty: Presentation
Explore this brief visual overview of Copilot Chat, effective prompting, practical faculty workflows, and responsible use.
The formula
The four-part prompt formula
Strong prompts answer four questions. Each one gives Copilot something concrete to work with.
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Goal
What should Copilot accomplish?
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Context
What course, students, topic, or situation matters?
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Source
What information or material should Copilot use?
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Format
How should the response be organized?
Source Using the attached primary-source excerpt, Goal create three discussion questions Context for a community-college history class. Format Include one comprehension question, one interpretation question, and one connection to the present. Do not answer the questions.
The plain version: “Using the attached primary-source excerpt, create three discussion questions for a community-college history class. Include one comprehension question, one interpretation question, and one connection to the present. Do not answer the questions.”
Ready to use
Copy-ready faculty prompts
Copy a prompt, paste it into Copilot, and replace anything in [brackets] with your own course details.
Primary-Source Discussion
“Using the attached primary-source excerpt, create three discussion questions for a community-college history class: one comprehension question, one interpretation question, and one connection to the present. Do not answer the questions.”
Accessible Explanation
“Rewrite the following explanation for a first-year community-college student. Preserve the important academic vocabulary, define unfamiliar terms in context, and organize the response with a short introduction and bullets. Do not remove important nuance.”
Cross-Disciplinary Comparison
“Create a comparison table showing how a historian, political scientist, and geographer might examine this topic differently. Include the questions each discipline might ask, the evidence it might use, and one possible classroom activity.”
Classroom Activity Builder
“I teach [course] and I am covering [topic] with [student audience]. Help me create one useful classroom activity. Ask me two focused questions before developing the activity.”
Formative Assessment
“Using the material I provide, create five formative-assessment questions that measure understanding rather than simple recall. Include the purpose of each question, but do not create an answer key until I request one.”
Professional Communication
“Help me draft a concise, supportive message to students about [situation]. The message should clearly explain what students need to do, when they need to do it, and where they can get help.”
Good practice
Responsible use
A short checklist to run before anything Copilot drafts reaches students.
- Protect student and employee information
- Verify facts, dates, quotations, and citations
- Check materials for bias and accessibility
- Review course policies before using AI-generated material
- Revise every result using professional expertise
- Treat Copilot’s response as a starting point rather than an authority
One input, many outputs
One source, several possibilities
A single reading, lecture outline, or set of notes you already have can become several useful materials.
Your source
A primary-source excerpt, article, lecture outline, or set of notes
- A lesson outline
- Discussion questions
- An accessible student summary
- A comparison table
- Formative-assessment ideas
- A draft announcement or email
Copilot provides a starting point. Faculty provide the expertise, judgment, and final review.
Guided help
Not Sure What to Ask? Let the Copilot Faculty Guide Help.
Tell the guide what you teach and what you need to accomplish. It will ask one question at a time, help you construct a strong prompt, and give you a finished prompt to use in Microsoft Copilot.
This guided agent is available only to authorized Coastal Alabama employees signed in with their Alabama.edu organizational account.
Open the Copilot Faculty Guide for Coastal Alabama employees (opens in a new tab)
Coastal Alabama employees only. Sign in with your Alabama.edu organizational account.
Begin with One Real Task This Week
Choose something already on your to-do list. Let Copilot help you think, organize, draft, or revise—and then apply your own expertise.
Open Microsoft Copilot (opens in a new tab) Open the Copilot Faculty Guide for Coastal Alabama employees (opens in a new tab)
Coastal Alabama employees only. Sign in with your Alabama.edu organizational account.