Phase 2: Thinking & Reasoning Techniques · 30 min · ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini (any)
Chain-of-Thought: Show Your Work
Asking AI to think out loud used to be the biggest trick in the book. Now it depends on which model you're using.
Real-world application: What changes when you use this: you know when 'think step by step' helps and when it's redundant or counterproductive — which means you stop wasting tokens on a technique that modern models don't need.
What you will learn
- Understand what chain-of-thought means in plain English
- Know when 'think step by step' improves output and when it doesn't
- Understand why reasoning models make chain-of-thought redundant or counterproductive
- Apply chain-of-thought selectively based on the model and task
Introduction
Chain-of-Thought: Show Your Work
Objective
Test chain-of-thought on a standard model vs a reasoning model to build intuition for when it helps and when it's redundant.
Asking AI to think out loud used to be the biggest trick in the book. Now it depends on which model you're using.
Unlock the full lesson
You've read the first 2 sections. The rest of this lesson covers The Problem, The Concept, Build, Check Yourself, Key Terms & Next — plus a hands-on lab, quiz, and project artifact.
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