Lesson planning can be a chore.
But unit planning? That can be an even bigger headache, with so many standards to integrate, big-picture goals to achieve, curriculum to align.
Now, what about curriculum planning ...
Putting units together in a cohesive whole so that EVERYTHING is aligned ... everything is accounted for ... the boxes are all checked and everything is flying in formation?
It's ... well ... it's a LOT. It's easy to feel overwhelmed by curriculum planning.
Could you use some help?
The easy answer these days is to say "use AI ... it'll help!" Lots of the teacher options fall short, though ... especially if you want to go beyond LESSON planning. Try to string lessons into units or units into a curriculum and most of those teacher AI tools just fall short.
That's because they don't take EVERYTHING into consideration. They're just accomplishing the short-term task of lesson planning. But in reality, teachers don't JUST plan lessons. They orchestrate everything into a year of instruction that accomplishes lots and lots of goals.
Now, let me ask again ... could you use some help ... help with the comprehensive yearlong instruction I just described?
We're here to help -- and AI can definitely help you out.
In today's post -- 10 factors to consider when lesson planning with AI -- we'll look at practical strategies that'll help you pull all of it together.
BONUS: There's an AI platform that already does this!
It's called Learning Genie (learning-genie.com) -- and it uses a curriculum planning AI agent called Curriculum Genie.
Curriculum Genie's AI-powered teaching assistant makes curriculum creation, adjustment, and optimization a breeze, leading to more efficient and personalized learning experiences for your students.
Ready to supercharge your curriculum planning?
We'll highlight 10 ways to effectively plan curriculum with AI -- and we'll show you how Curriculum Genie can support you in it.
1. Preparing students for tomorrow: Implementing portrait of graduate
Lots of schools and school districts have implemented the "portrait of a graduate." It puts a face on the school mission statement -- and helps everyone see a description of what the district is striving toward.
When planning lessons, you can always ask an AI assistant, "How can I adjust my lesson plans to reflect our school district's portrait of a graduate?" Then, copy/paste a description for reference.
Curriculum Genie helps you seamlessly align curriculum with your district's Portrait of Graduate. Design learning experiences that foster the complete range of future-ready competencies defined by your profile – encompassing skills like critical thinking, and collaboration, and other essential attributes – ensuring every student is prepared for success.
2. Generate teaching resources aligned with curriculum goals
Lots of teacher tools create teaching materials. But do they fit your goals -- your department's goals -- your school and school district goals?
When creating lesson plans, teacher materials, student activities, and more, reference any curriculum goals or objectives in it. In fact, you might keep some verbiage in a separate document you can copy/paste any time you create instructional materials so they're aligned to curriculum goals.
Instead of copy/pasting your goals every time, Curriculum Genie offers a one-click solution, generating a complete set of teaching materials – from unit plans and teacher guides to lecture slides and assessments – in minutes, not weeks. Reclaim your time and focus on engaging students and providing personalized support.
Curriculum Genie boosts district-wide efficiency by automating curriculum planning. This reduces teacher workload, allowing them to focus on student growth and instructional quality, leading to improved outcomes and higher teacher satisfaction.
3. Use backward curriculum design to create materials
Curriculum design and lesson design is like getting directions in your GPS map app ...
To get where you want to go, you have to know your destination -- and your starting point.
Start with the end in mind. Tell a large language model / AI assistant what you want your students to accomplish. Then, have it suggest steps to get there.
Review and revise the steps that it gives you -- or use your own steps you created on your own. Then, use them to provide context whenever you ask an AI tool for teaching materials.
Learning Genie's Curriculum Genie helps you create complete teaching materials, going from the "Big Idea" to ready-to-teach lessons in minutes, including links, multimedia resources, EduProtocol Templates, Lecture Slides, formative assessments, etc. No need to spend time looking anywhere else, it's all here.
Curriculum Genie boosts district-wide efficiency by automating curriculum planning. This reduces teacher workload, allowing them to focus on student growth and instructional quality, leading to improved outcomes and higher teacher satisfaction.
4. Align to content standards and other disciplines
If you haven't already, identify the content standards you must align to (and/or want to align to). Having a spreadsheet of the different standards -- and dates/units when you make connections to those standards -- can make sure that you hit everything.
If you're committed to making interdisciplinary connections, you might want a separate tab in that spreadsheet doing the same thing. List the disciplines you want to connect to. Every time you make a connection, note the date / unit in a column next to that discipline.
Learning Genie's Curriculum Genie has built-in state standards integration. It automatically aligns your curriculum content with your state's educational standards, ensuring compliance without the extra work. Save valuable time and focus on teaching.
Ensure district-wide compliance and support holistic student development. Curriculum Genie's automated alignment and interdisciplinary integration streamline the process and promote well-rounded learning.
5. Personalize and differentiate learning
You know your students. Just by teaching them, you likely can already see that certain students need some extra attention and support. At the same time, certain students are excelling and could use extra opportunities so they keep progressing and don't get bored.
When using an AI assistant to help you plan lessons, you can differentiate learning by asking for variations of your lesson plans that support struggling or slower learners -- and faster-paced learners that are more advanced.
And your AI assistant can help you personalize learning based on student interests, future goals, student activities, cultural relevance, and more. Just ask for adjustments that reflect students on a personal level.
Curriculum Genie empowers you to personalize learning for every student. Easily adjust curriculum content to match individual needs, creating tailored learning plans that support diverse learning styles and abilities. Deliver truly differentiated instruction.
Champion equitable education across your district. Curriculum Genie facilitates personalized learning plans, ensuring every student receives the support they need to succeed. Empower teachers to meet each student's unique needs and advance educational equity.
6. Include formative assessment and student feedback
How do we know that student learning has happened? How do we make adjustments -- and what do we tell students to help those adjustments happen?
Now we're talking about formative assessment and student feedback. These help our students make adjustments throughout the unit so they'll reach the finish line at the end.
By describing students' progress in general, an AI assistant can help generate ideas for formative assessments so they assess the right things and gather feedback on what's most important.
And when you use AI to provide feedback on student work (WITHOUT providing personally identifying student information), you can get actionable suggestions for what to tell students to drive them forward.
(Note: Be sure you, the human teacher, stay engaged in student feedback! It helps you to see student progress with your own eyes -- and it helps students to see you're in the learning journey with them -- and aren't just farming it out to AI.)
Effective curriculum planning goes beyond lesson plans; it requires continuous assessment. Curriculum Genie bridges the gap by automatically generating formative assessments and providing Immediate feedback tools. This allows you to quickly gauge student understanding and adapt their instruction in real-time.
Gain access to real-time student performance data. Use these insights to refine curriculum, optimize teaching strategies, and improve educational outcomes across your district.
7. Connect with students using localized curriculum
Provide students with engaging learning materials that reflect their local community and culture. AI assistants can help you pull in the uniqueness of where you live -- all the way down to your own town or county or geographic location. (And if you can't think of anything, an AI assistant can help you brainstorm -- just ask!)
These resources enhance understanding and make learning more relevant. Boost student engagement and academic performance by making learning relevant to their lives.
Curriculum Genie localizes curriculum, integrating your community's unique culture and context to create a more impactful and relatable learning experience. It draws on what makes your own community special -- and helps lessons and activities feel more natural and relevant to students' personal and everyday lives. These types of personal touches are built into the curriculum, lessons, and teaching materials that Curriculum Genie develops for you.
8. Empower students as curriculum co-creators
Students have been through lots and lots of classes. By the time they graduate high school, in 13 years with 180 days of class, they will have endured 2,340 days of class.
Just in high school alone, with 180 days of class and 7 class periods a day, their four years will lead to more than 5,000 class periods -- just in high school alone.
Bottom line: They've seen it all. They know what they like -- and what they don't like.
Give students creativity and agency and let them help design how class -- and how learning -- might look.
Curriculum Genie enables student involvement in curriculum design, fostering ownership, independent learning, and creative expression. Curriculum Genie empowers you to implement a student-centered design approach, fostering a collaborative school culture, boosting overall student engagement, and creating a more flexible learning environment.
9. Use UDL and responsive practices
No matter who your students are, this holds true ... when students feel seen and noticed in learning, they're inherently more motivated.
Universal Design for Learning is all about accessibility -- making sure that no student is left out or at a disadvantage.
Culturally responsive and linguistically responsive practices help all students -- no matter who they are -- to feel represented. It can be as little as mentioning a student's favorite baseball team, incorporating a phrase that students love to use, or including students' family or community traditions.
Not sure where to start? Survey your students. Ask them about their interests, their families, their traditions and practices. We have guidance on conducting a student interest survey here.
Support every student's success. By integrating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Practices (CLR), Curriculum Genie ensures every student has access to high-quality, equitable learning experiences.
Curriculum Genie provides the tools to implement inclusive practices, differentiate instructions, and meet the diverse needs of your learners.Foster a district-wide culture of equity and inclusion. Curriculum Genie supports diversity, promotes cultural understanding, and ensures all students have equal access to a high-quality education.
10. Add customizable templates and collaborative tools
When you don't have to design engaging learning from scratch, it can save time -- and give you fresh ideas.
Educators have shared tons and tons of pre-made templates all across the internet. (For example, we've created dozens of free downloadable templates in our templates library.)
Need guidance incorporating them into the exact topic and content you teach? Here's a post that uses AI to help you incorporate pre-made template to what you teach.
Tap into the collective wisdom of your teaching team. Curriculum Genie provides customizable AI-powered EduProtocols templates and streamlines collaboration, allowing you to share ideas, resources, and proven strategies.
Build thriving Professional Learning Communities with Curriculum Genie. Empower teachers to collaborate, share best practices, and drive continuous improvement in teaching and learning across your district.
Ready to get started with Learning Genie?
In each of the 10 points of this post, we shared ways that you can use AI to help you plan comprehensive units and curriculum that takes everything into consideration.
Here's the problem ...
It's a LOT of extra work.
Learning Genie was designed to take EVERYTHING into consideration ... to plan for everything ... so all you have to do is teach.
You're still in control. Everything is generated so that the teacher can edit it and adjust based on their own personal teaching knowledge, teaching style, and everything that makes them special as a human teacher.
But to get a first draft that takes so many factors into account? That's valuable -- and it can save you a ton of time.
Maybe it's time. Give Learning Genie a try. You can get a month for free and start right now.
