How to Check Homework Explanations Without Doing the Work

Anyone helping a student can check homework explanations with AI without doing the work: the student writes the steps first, the model only flags gaps, and nobody asks for the answer. Run it in ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini after the explanation exists, not instead of it.

This is a review loop, not a solver. If you want the reusable pattern, read what a skill prompt actually is, then lock the student-first law below.

The student writes. The model points. You stop.

Do not paste a worksheet and say “help.” Help, in a blank chat, means do the work.

1. Collect the student’s explanation, untouched

The input is the question text plus the student’s steps in their words. Not a photo of a blank sheet. Not “they are stuck, can you start it.”

Instruct: “Do not solve this. Do not give the final answer. Do not replace a step with a better step. Repeat the student’s steps as a numbered list in their words. If a step is missing, write MISSING where the jump is, and stop.”

A mirror comes first. The same grounding idea as studying a PDF without fake quotes: if the student did not write it, the model cannot treat it as given.

If the question lives in a PDF, upload it only to quote the prompt. You still wait for the student’s steps.

2. Flag gaps, not mistakes with a key

After the mirror:

“For each step, mark CLEAR, GAP, or JUMP. CLEAR means I can follow it in the student’s words. GAP means a reason is missing. JUMP means a result appeared with no step. Do not supply the missing reason. Ask one question the student could answer.”

One question per GAP or JUMP. Not a lecture. Not a worked example.

ChatGPT will try to teach. Claude will try to be complete. Gemini will try to be fast. Teaching, here, often leaks the answer.

3. Ban the answer, the key, and the rewrite

Put this in the law and keep it visible:

“If I ask for the answer, refuse. If I ask you to ‘just check if it is right,’ refuse unless you can do it by pointing at a GAP or JUMP. Do not write a correct version next to theirs. Do not grade with a letter.”

Right/wrong without a pointed gap trains the student to fish for the key.

4. Send the questions back to the student

Copy the GAP and JUMP questions. The student answers in their words. Paste only those answers. Run the mirror again on the new sentences.

Two rounds. Then stop. A third round is how a check becomes a tutoring session that writes the last line for them.

If the student cannot fill the GAP, say you need a human teacher. That is success, not a failed skill.

Save the student-first law in the Promptcrates tools for reusable skills so the next assignment does not start from “can you help with this worksheet.”

5. Keep the assignment off the internet when it must stay off

Unpublished exams, paid homework portals, and other people’s answers do not go into a hosted chat.

If the material cannot leave the house, do not upload it. Talk through the student’s steps at the table, or use a local model with the same refuse rule. For the privacy pattern, see the Qwen 3.8 27B local coding-agent note and apply it to study files: local still does not get to solve.

Reuse the stop. Do not reuse a solved key.

Reusable skill card

Trigger: A student is stuck and someone is about to paste the worksheet into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.

Input: The question text, the student’s explanation in their words, the CLEAR/GAP/JUMP law, and a ban on answers and rewrites.

Output: A mirrored step list, GAP and JUMP tags, one question per tag, no final answer, no corrected version.

Stop: After two rounds of student-written repairs, or when a human teacher is named. No key. No letter grade. No “here is how I would do it.”

Takeaways

• Student writes first. No explanation, no check.
• Mirror, then GAP and JUMP. One question each. No leaked solution.
• Refuse the answer even if someone asks later in the thread.
• Two rounds, then a human. A third round writes the work.
• Private worksheets stay off hosted models.