How to Create a 10-Minute AI-Powered Lesson Plan

17 Sept

I had a terrifying experience in my 15th week of being a teacher.

As I put the key in the door to open the classroom, I had no lesson plan. I had no resources. I had nothing.

My laptop had bricked itself that morning. The traffic had been atrocious. After I got to school I had about 20 minutes to plan something and I spent the whole time just trying not to sweat through my blazer.

I did not have fun.

But do you know what?

If the same thing happened today it wouldn’t phase me at all.

Because I use AI to plan great lessons in under 10-minutes, and today I’ll show you how.

What we did before AI

I know I’m certainly not the first person to be caught high and dry without a lesson to teach.

There are several ways to get out of this.

You could play a documentary, work through a hastily sourced worksheet, do crosswords and other time-fillers.

The problem with these options are that, while they will keep the students busy, they’re not rich activities.

It used to be that if you had to cobble together a lesson in a few minutes it would be

Generic
Pedagogically poor
Not aligned to the unit

Now, using AI, in just a matter of minutes we can create lessons that are

Pedagogically rich
Well resourced
Ready to teach

But to do this, there’s one mistake you want to avoid.

How not to use AI

My first attempts at AI lesson planning were not great.

I remember opening up ChatGPT and typing “write me a lesson plan on biomes for year 9 geography”

What came out was beyond useless. It was

Not using language or frameworks that I knew
Not in a format that I recognised
Not curriculum aligned
Not helpful

You see, I didn’t understand the crucial difference between tasks and jobs.

How I use AI in my planning

My AI lesson planning revolves around this principle:

AI is great at tasks and bad at jobs.

A job is the whole thing you’re trying to do.

Each job is made up of tasks - the little steps within the job.

These are the little steps I had to complete to plan my lesson:

Engaging hook
Direct instruction content
Reading/video on the topic
Differentiate the reading
Retrieval practice questions
Sentence starters for writing
Closing discussion questions

When I use AI to plan my lessons, I go one step at a time.

This is the first prompt I use with ChatGPT

(Role) You are an expert Year 8 English teacher.

(Task) I need you to help me create resources. I will ask for various resources. Every time I ask you for something, give me 3 versions of that thing. I will choose the best one and we will continue to plan from there.

(Format) Give me the resources I ask for in Grade 8 english.

I start choosing the best hook of the 3 provided.

Once I have those, I generate the direct instruction content (or source it elsewhere). This may involve asking for a broad overview of the topic or asking for information on distinct parts of the topic.

Then I get my reading and use AI to differentiate it. If I want, I can also generate a reading. When I do this, I can make sure it gels well with the direct instruction content.

And I keep going through the steps, each step building upon the last.

It’s easy!

As you can see, in just a few minutes we can create a lesson that is Now, using AI, in just a matter of minutes we can create lessons that are

Pedagogically rich
Well resourced
Ready to teach

What a time to be alive!

(of course, now I use MyTeacherAide - after you’ve tried with ChatGPT, have a go with MTA. You can use it for free for 7 days on our free, cancel-at-anytime trial).