Ask AI to create two versions of the same handout — one with more scaffolding, definitions, and guided prompts for beginners, and one with fewer guardrails and deeper application challenges for advanced participants.
One Handout Does Not Fit All
A beginner needs more structure. They need definitions of unfamiliar terms, step-by-step instructions written at a level that assumes no prior knowledge, and prompts that guide them toward an answer rather than expecting them to generate one from scratch. An advanced participant finds that same level of scaffolding condescending and disengaging — they want to be challenged, not hand-held.
Using one handout for both groups means you are either over-supporting your advanced participants or under-supporting your beginners. Either way, someone leaves the session without the experience they needed. Two versions solve this, and AI makes producing two versions only marginally more work than producing one.
How to Prompt for Two Versions
Start by generating your standard handout from the session content. Then ask your AI tool: “Now create a beginner version of this handout. Add brief definitions for any technical terms, break each step into smaller sub-steps, and replace open-ended prompts with fill-in-the-blank style prompts.” Then ask: “Create an advanced version that removes the definitions, condenses the steps, and replaces the fill-in prompts with open-ended application challenges and a stretch question at the end.”
Three prompts — standard, beginner, advanced — and you have a differentiated materials set. In a live session you can offer self-selection (“Choose the version that feels like a stretch, not a struggle”) or you can assign based on what you know about your group. Either way, participants get materials calibrated to where they actually are.
What This Means for Educators
As a trainer or coach, differentiated handouts are also a signal to your participants that you see them as individuals, not a homogeneous group. Beginners feel supported rather than lost. Advanced participants feel respected rather than bored. Both responses build the trust and loyalty that keep people coming back to your programs.
What to Do Next
Take the handout from your most recent workshop and paste it into your AI tool. Ask for a beginner version and an advanced version. Compare all three. You’ll immediately see how much the scaffolding differs — and you’ll start defaulting to two versions for every workshop you design from here on.