Back to prompting and why it still matters in teaching.
Over the past year, we’ve seen how prompt engineering has become an essential skill for teachers exploring AI tools. I’ve said before that this skill may not hold the same weight in the future. As AI models evolve, they’ll likely understand our intent even when our inputs are short, grammatically off, or loosely structured. But for now, prompts still guide how these tools respond, and that means they shape the quality and usefulness of what we get back.
A well-thought-out prompt helps you communicate your intent clearly to the model. It helps AI generate relevant content that fits your teaching context, saving you time without taking away your creative role. When used thoughtfully, AI can become a real thinking partner in lesson design.
In this post, I’m sharing ten practical prompts to support your lesson planning. Each one targets a specific instructional goal and gives you a starting point for working with AI to plan, adapt, or extend your lessons.
1. Create a lesson outline
Act as an experienced high school teacher and draft a detailed lesson outline on [topic]. Include learning objectives, warm-up activities, key discussion points, interactive tasks, and a closing reflection or assessment.
This kind of prompt helps you structure your thinking. AI can generate a full lesson framework that you can edit and refine to suit your students.
2. Suggest differentiated activities
Provide differentiated instruction activities for a lesson on [topic]. Include one activity each for visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners.
Prompts like this help you expand your repertoire of strategies for diverse learners. You can adapt the suggestions to match your students’ needs and classroom dynamics.
3. Align with curriculum standards
Analyze this lesson plan and suggest how it aligns with Common Core standards. Highlight any gaps and provide modifications to better align with the standards.
AI can assist in cross-checking your plans with curriculum standards and save time on alignment reviews.
4. Plan transitions and time allocations
Structure a 60-minute lesson on [topic] with time allocations, transitions between activities, and strategies to maintain student engagement.
This type of prompt is particularly useful for new teachers still developing pacing and classroom flow.
5. Design formative assessments
Based on this lesson plan for [topic], suggest five formative assessment strategies to gauge student understanding during the lesson.
AI can generate assessment ideas that match your objectives—quick exit tickets, polls, or reflective prompts.
6. Simplify for substitute teachers
Simplify this lesson plan on [topic] for a substitute teacher. Provide clear instructions, key objectives, and essential activities to ensure the lesson runs smoothly.
This prompt helps you streamline your plans for substitutes, reducing confusion and maintaining consistency for students.
7. Accommodate diverse learning needs
Suggest modifications to a lesson on [topic] to support students with dyslexia and ADHD. Include visual aids, step-by-step instructions, and opportunities for hands-on learning.
AI can suggest inclusive strategies that you can adapt to make lessons more accessible.
8. Create engaging homework assignments
Using this lesson plan on [topic], generate a homework assignment with two multiple-choice questions, one short-answer question, and a creative task for students to apply their learning.
Use this to brainstorm different formats that encourage reflection and application beyond the classroom.
9. Incorporate real-time updates
Search the web for recent developments on [topic] and incorporate the latest research or news into a 45-minute lesson that includes discussion and interactive activities.
This keeps your lessons fresh and connected to current issues, especially in subjects that evolve quickly.
10. Include cross-curricular connections
Suggest cross-curricular activities for a lesson on [topic], integrating themes from math, science, history, and language arts.
Prompts like this foster interdisciplinary thinking and help students see connections between subjects.
Final Thoughts
Each of these prompts can serve as a scaffold for your planning process. They’re not meant to replace your expertise, but to help you think differently about lesson design and save time on routine tasks.
I invite you to explore them, experiment, and adapt them to your classroom context. The key is to see prompting as an interactive process. The more you refine and iterate, the closer AI comes to becoming a true collaborator in your teaching practice.
