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1. Ask an AI assistant for a lesson plan.

Yes, AI assistants like ChatGPT can write lesson plans! Of course, they're based on info published online and in books about lesson plans, so don't expect anything super innovative. But we're not coming to ChatGPT for innovative.

We're coming for a starting point. We're looking for a first draft.

Once we get that first draft, we're able to adjust it. Throw out the parts you don't like. Keep the ones you do. Adjust the whole thing based on what you know about your students, about your content, etc.

🏅 Suggested AI assistants: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude

2. Ask an AI image generator to create a lesson hook.

Artificial intelligence image creators like Bing Image Creator will make just about anything you ask for. Create a custom image related to the topic you're planning to teach. Make it provocative. Make it surprising. Ask it what a historical character you're studying would look like as a child. Ask it for a rendering of a scene in a book you're reading. Sometimes, a surprising image -- or one that makes students think -- is enough to hook students into a lesson. You can also use other image creators like Midjourney (midjourney.com) or DALL-E .

🏅 Suggested AI image generators: Microsoft Designer, Ideogram,  Adobe Firefly, Canva Text to Image, DALL-E (inside ChatGPT), Imagen (inside Google Gemini)

Learn more: AI image generators: 10 tools, 10 classroom uses

3. Ask an AI assistant for analogies.

Our brains love analogies. They connect something new -- the content or ideas students are learning about -- to something that's already established in our brains. When we do that, it helps us understand how new things work because we have an existing paradigm for it. AI assistants like ChatGPT can create analogies for us -- and explain the connection so it helps students understand.

🏅 Suggested AI assistants: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude

4. Ask Curipod for some interactive slides.

When you're introducing new material to students, sometimes it's helpful to have some slides with information, images, and even questions for discussion or to demonstrate comprehension. When we as humans create slides, we often use certain rules over and over -- or draw upon successful experiences from our past to create slides. Curipod (curipod.com) asks for a topic and your content standards. Then it creates a set of interactive slides, complete with details, images, discussion questions, comprehension questions, and more. These slides can engage students in learning about new ideas and help them to understand.

Learn more: 10 ways Curipod engages your students with AI

5. Ask an AI assistant for common misconceptions or struggles.

Sometimes, half the battle in teaching isn't knowing how to present new ideas. It's knowing how to respond when students struggle. We often don't know exactly what students are struggling with -- and when we ask them, sometimes they can't quite articulate it. Ask an AI assistant like ChatGPT about common misconceptions or struggles that people have when learning about or trying to understand what you're teaching. You can ask it for solutions and/or come up with your own.

🏅 Suggested AI assistants: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude

6. Ask Eduaide for questions and topics for discussions.

Once students have learned about something new, there's value in having them discuss it. They can talk about the content -- what they understand and what they don't. They can discuss their feelings -- what the like or don't like about what they've learned. They can discuss their learning journey -- what is easy, difficult, meaningful to them. Want some ideas on how to engage students in those discussions? Eduaide has a whole section dedicated to questions in their content generator. You can create discussion prompts, deep questions, scenario based questions and even questions targeting specific levels of Bloom's taxonomy.

Learn more: AI tools for the classroom

7. Ask Diffit to help you differentiate instruction.

Diffit allows you to get leveled resources for literally anything. You can adapt existing materials for any reader, generate “just right” resources for any topic and then edit and share resources with students. Go to web.diffit.me and enter search for a topic, term or question, enter a url or paste copied text. From there choose a reading level and language and click "generate resources". Diffit will automagically generate tons of resources based on the content you provided. They have an ever growing library of templates and gives teachers a few options for sharing the content with students.

Learn more: AI tools for the classroom

8. Get a YouTube video summary with MagicSchool

MagicSchool.ai has a YouTube summarizer tool that will generate a summary of a YouTube video in whatever length you choose. Note: Videos will not be able to be summarized if the author did not enable closed captions. Use this for yourself to get an overview of the content of a video. Or create a summary for your students for review purposes or to give them a preview of what they're about to watch.

Learn more: AI tools for the classroom

9. Ask MagicSchool.ai to help you create a rubric.

Lots of teachers struggle with creating rubrics. Often, they're intimidated by the format and getting all of the details right. Some just don't feel they can get the indicators, criteria, and rating scale quite right. Thankfully, AI assistants like MagicSchoolAI and even ChatGPT have lots of information about successful rubrics in their dataset -- and they've trained on it to identify patterns that can be helpful to you. Ask your AI assistant for a rubric -- and be sure to include specifics about what you're looking for when you make the request. Bonus for Chatbots: Ask it to format the rubric in a table for you.

Learn more: AI tools for the classroom

10. Ask an AI assistant for reflection topics.

When students reflect on learning, they place it in context with other things they've learned. They think metacognitively about how they learn. When all of this happens, students make the most of their learning. Often, it only takes a little time -- but the results are great. Asking AI for some reflection questions -- to help students reflect on content but also on themselves as learners -- can save us some time and help our students. 

🏅 Suggested AI assistants: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude

11. Ask an AI assistant to align your lesson to content standards

Most teachers I've talked to are not enthusiastic about providing documentation about content standard alignment! Most of us understand the need for standards, and we do the best we can to teach to them. But aligning lessons to standards -- and then showing how we've done it -- can take us away from other work that feels more directly connected to student success.

Tell your AI assistant about your lesson (or ask AI to write it!). Then, afterward, ask it to align it to a specific set of standards -- and justify its decisions. It'll provide specific standards and a rationale.

And yes, if you're thinking this process seems a little backward, maybe it is. Maybe we should figure out which standards we're going to teach to and then plan a lesson that addresses them. But sometimes, we know what we want/need to teach -- and we have a lot on our to-do lists to check off! 

🏅 Suggested AI assistants: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude

12. Ask an AI assistant to turn your content into an engaging story

Our brains are wired for story. Give us a list of unrelated facts and you're bound to lose our attention. But tell us a story that knits them all together and we're riveted ... hooked ... wanting more. 

Want to use the power of story to help students learn? An AI assistant could help. First, tell it what you're intending to teach and ask it how it could be taught with a story (or the elements of storytelling). Then, if it gives you an idea that you like, ask it for an example (or multiple examples) of that idea. Remember to use follow-up prompts to ask for adjustments, for additional versions, for more teaching resources to supplement, etc.

🏅 Suggested AI assistants: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude

13. Ask an AI assistant for a content-related "adventure story"

I used to love Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid. I loved reading a few pages and then getting to choose the character's next move -- over and over until the story concluded. Then, I'd go back to the beginning and choose different paths.

AI assistants can create a version of these that students can engage in on their own -- or that you can drive in the front of the room on a projector or interactive display. And the stories can be infused with the content your students should be studying.

(Note: If students are going to use an AI assistant directly, be sure they're old enough -- and that they meet the terms of use of the app.)

Here's a prompt I gave an AI assistant to create one of these "adventure stories." Change the bold text to match your own content (or, really, adjust any of it to your liking).

I'd like you create a text adventure game for me. I'm studying history in high school. I'd like it to explore Mesopotamia and help me explore important people, events, and concepts in its geography and language. Create it like a historically accurate story, teaching me about Mesopotamia while I'm interacting with it. Give me three paragraphs of story at a time. Then, stop and ask me to make a decision. Continue the story in a way that's consistent with the decision I've made. Ideally, I'd like about 6 prompts before the story ends. When the story ends, ask me a few questions that help me reflect on what I've learned.

(Hat tip to Earl Yager of El Paso ISD for getting me started on these!)

🏅 Suggested AI assistants: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude

14. Ask an AI assistant for dialogue about class content

Dialogue, like story, can help tricky content feel a little more accessible ... a little more easily understandable. It conveys that content in a way that's very familiar to us -- back and forth conversation.

An AI assistant can create a variety of dialogues that can help students learn ...

• A conversation between student and teacher to explain new content
• A conversation from the perspective of two people you're studying
• A conversation between two students who are trying to understand
• A talk show interview of a person you're studying (or an expert in that content)
• A news reporter interviewing someone involved in an event/happening about your content

Use the results that the AI assistants create to share with students in a document -- or to be read out loud in class -- or in a comic strip or a video with the conversation as a script.

🏅 Suggested AI assistants: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude

15. Ask an AI assistant for real-world connections and examples

Students have been asking for the entire history of education -- "How am I going to use this in the real world?" An AI assistant can help you answer this question. Ask an AI assistant for several ways that your content fits into jobs or situations in which students might find themselves. Or ask the AI assistant to give you one example in detail, diving deep into how it might work. Share the examples that the AI assistant gives with your students and have them reflect on them.

🏅 Suggested AI assistants: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude

1. Choose an AI assistant. 

There are lots of AI assistants to choose from. These tools, powered by AI large language models (LLMs), can be general AI assistants that anyone can use -- or more specific teacher-focused AI assistants. Either has the potential to give you great results. Here are some options to choose from:

Major AI assistants (the most powerful AI models that can help with all topics, including education)

• ChatGPT (chatgpt.com)
• Google Gemini (gemini.google.com)
• Microsoft Copilot (copilot.microsoft.com)
• Anthropic Claude (claude.ai)

☝ How do I know which one to choose? All AI assistants have their strengths and weaknesses. My favorite approach is to open tabs in my browser for all four. Then, I'll write a prompt that I'll copy and paste into all four. Compare the different approaches by each AI model. Take what you like from each one -- and eventually, you'll get a feel for which one performs better on certain tasks.

Teacher-centric AI assistants (with specialized training for teacher-related tasks)

• SchoolAI (schoolai.com)
• MagicSchool (magicschool.ai)
• TeachAid (teachaid.ca)
• Eduaide (eduaide.ai)

☝ Why wouldn't I use specialized teacher-centric AI assistants? Sure, they do have specialized, built-in training for teaching on top of a general AI model. But sometimes, the teacher-centric AI assistants aren't built on the most powerful, most capable models. That's why you might find that the major AI assistants might still give you better results. Test them out with an open mind and see what you like best.

2. Start with the big picture.

When you plan new lessons with your AI assistant, think of it like this -- an infinitely zoomable, scaleable teaching plan. 

• 🔍 Zoom out: When you start asking an AI assistant for teaching ideas, you can zoom way out, asking it for a general two-week unit plan -- or for general concepts or key ideas that can be addressed in a unit.
• 🔎 Zoom in: Once it gives you a big-picture unit plan, you can always "zoom in" by asking for details about a particular day -- "What would day 5 in that unit plan look like?" -- or for a particular activity -- "What would that discussion on day 5 look like?".

3. Work from your academic standards.

If we're looking to create lessons focused on academic standards, then make sure your AI assistant knows which standard you're interested in -- and ask it to incorporate it.

Identify the standard

Choose a standard from your state’s curriculum that you want to address in your lesson. This could be a standard related to math, science, language arts, or social studies. You can copy the standard directly from your state website.

 Input the standard into ChatGPT

Once you have identified the standard, prompt your AI assistant for ideas, resources, lesson plans, etc. You can do this by typing in the standard or copying and pasting it into the chatbot and then specifying what you're looking for.The AI assistant will generate a response that can provide an overview of the key concepts and skills related to the standard, etc.

4. Constantly evaluate what the AI assistant gives you.

AI assistants will give you tons of ideas. But they don't always give you good ideas. When it comes to AI-assisted lesson planning, the key is always the human teacher. YOU are the key. You know your students, and your teaching experience can guide you.

If an AI assistant doesn't give you what you need, ask it for something different. Ask it to make adjustments. Or, sometimes, if you just ask it again -- even with the same wording -- it'll give you something different. 

5. Fill out your lesson plan with everything you need.

Using the response generated by ChatGPT, you can begin to create your lesson plan. Consider the key concepts and skills related to the standard and brainstorm activities and assessments that will address these areas. 

1. Identify the key concepts and skills related to the standard. For example, if the standard is related to reading comprehension, the key concepts might include identifying the main idea, making inferences, and summarizing.
2. Consider how you can introduce these concepts to your students. Brainstorm activities that will engage your students and help them understand the material. For example, you might use a graphic organizer to help students identify the main idea of a text.
3. Think about how you can assess student understanding of the key concepts and skills. For example, you might have students write a summary of a text to assess their ability to summarize.
4. Consider how you can differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all students. For example, you might provide additional support for struggling students or challenge advanced students with more complex texts.
5. Determine how you will integrate technology into your lesson plan to enhance student learning. For example, you might have students use a digital tool to create a visual representation of the main idea of a text.

Remember, the response generated by ChatGPT is just a starting point for your lesson plan. Use it as a guide as you create engaging and effective activities and assessments that align with the standard you've chosen.

6. Use AI to assist with student practice activities.

If you want students to practice certain skills -- or create products or artifacts of learning -- AI can give you ideas. Ask an AI assistant for:

• Practice questions to develop a skill (like verb conjugation activities in world languages)
• Comprehension questions for a text (like a reading passage)
• Problem solving questions
• Critical thinking questions
• Discussion questions
• Writing activity prompts

You can use the ideas exactly as the AI assistant has given them to you ... but you definitely don't have to! Adjust them however you'd like ... or throw them out if they don't suit what you're trying to do.

7. Think about how you want to assess student learning.

At the heart of assessment is understanding where your students' skills are. A formative assessment uses the assessment to determine what to do next to advance your students' skills ... and a summative assessment measures students' abilities at the end of a unit of study.

Either way, an AI assistant can provide you ideas to help assess your students' progress. Ask an AI assistant for ...

• traditional assessment methods like multiple-choice questions, short-answer questions, etc.
• longer-form written assessments like essays or long-answer responses
• project ideas that will show students' application of skills learned during the unit
• creative assessment ideas like videos or role plays or posters

Here are some resources that can give you even more assessment ideas:

• Fun formative assessment: 12 easy, no-tech ideas you can use tomorrow
• Draw, choose, write or say: Fantastic formative assessments

8. Use AI to look for additional resources to support you.

AI assistants can often search the web for additional resources that can help you with your lesson planning.

• Do targeted searches for specific lesson topics, grade levels, and learning objectives. It can provide resources for lesson plans and ideas; educational articles and research papers; videos and multimedia presentations; and more.
• Use AI to prioritize resources that are age-appropriate, aligned to curriculum, from reputable sources, backed by research, accessible, and inclusive. Just ask it for what you're looking for when you prompt.
• Gather summaries of resources with titles, descriptions, direct links and recommendations. Just ask it to give you any of that when it provides you with resources.

9. Refine and enhance your lesson plan.

Once you have a rough draft of your lesson plan, refine it and make adjustments as needed. Your best tools? Your teacher brain and your expertise! (Along with some AI-assisted tools.)

Consider the needs of your students and how you can differentiate instruction to meet their needs. 

Also, think about how you can incorporate technology, hands-on activities, and other strategies to engage students and enhance their learning.

Here are some ideas:

• Use Canva Magic Presentations to help you craft slide presentations.
• Use Curipod to create interactive slides.
• Check out our list of AI tools for the classroom for more tools to help you.
• Browse the Canva Graphic Organizers and Worksheets. (Get a free EDUPro Account to unlock all of the templates!)
• Browse our Ditch That Textbook template library for engaging learning activity ideas.
• Incorporate learning resources from these 20+ sources of FREE digital content for your class.
• Use the Explore Explain Apply planning framework to plan engaging lessons.

10. Get AI feedback on your lesson plans.

Whether you've used AI to help you create your lesson plans or not, you can always run your plans by an AI assistant to see its constructive feedback or suggestions for improvement. Share lesson plans with one AI assistant -- or with multiple AI assistants at once (see #1 above).

The suggestions it gives are based on all of the data it has on teaching in its enormous dataset. The dataset includes journal articles, educational publications, blog posts, and a variety of other resources. However, that doesn't mean that its suggestions are always going to be right for you. Be open-minded to any suggestions, but always do what's best for your students.

📝 BONUS: Lesson Plan Examples

Click the lesson examples below to expand them to read the entire, full lesson plans.

🗄 BONUS: Lesson Planning Templates

You know you can ask your AI assistant for lesson plan ideas. But what will those lesson plans look like? And where will you organize them? These templates can provide a framework and a home for your new lessons.