Lesson Planning with ChatGPT: A Beginner's Guide
Effortlessly create effective and engaging lesson plans with ChatGPT's AI assistance.
Are you a teacher looking for an easy, time-efficient way to create standards-aligned lesson plans? If so, ChatGPT, a large-language model (LLM) developed by OpenAI, is a great resource to add to your lesson planning toolkit.
This post will provide step-by-step instructions explaining how teachers can create standards-aligned lesson plans with ChatGPT. You will learn to use basic prompting to make the following components of your lesson:
Learning Objective and Essential Questions
Opening / Warm-Up Activity
Instructional Routine
Guided & Independent Practice Problems
Lesson Closure
This sample lesson is for the 4th-grade math standard 4.NBT.A.1 on Place Value, but you can use these directions to create a plan for any grade and subject.
If you are new to ChatGPT, create a free account at Open.ai.
Disclaimer: Before we begin, it’s important to note that ChatGPT has some limitations. The more information you provide, the better your output (response).
Step 1: Give ChatGPT a Role
Give ChatGPT a role and provide as much information as possible, including standards, grade level, and relevant background information.
Example Input:
You are an experienced 4th-grade math teacher with a background in curriculum design. You are planning a lesson on Place Value using standard 4.NBT.A.1. 50% of your students are 2-3 grade levels behind in math, so we must scaffold some of the material. Here is the standard for your reference: https://tools.achievethecore.org/coherence-map/4/17/160/160
In the next few prompts, we’ll build out our lesson. Do you understand?
ChatGPT will respond to your prompt (output). If you are happy with the response, move on to Step 2. If you are unhappy, you can regenerate your response for a new answer.
Step 2: Standards, Objective, and Essential Questions
As with any lesson, identify the standards and learning objectives. If you already provided the standard, ask ChatGPT to give a lesson objective and essential question.
Example Input:
Write the standard out in full. Then create a lesson objective and create 3 essential questions that can be used to check for understanding.
Step 3: Opening Activity / Warm-Up
A good lesson should begin with an activity to engage students and activate prior knowledge. Be as specific as possible with your prompt.
Example Input:
Based on the learning objective and essential question, create a 5-minute warm-up activity to engage students and activate prior knowledge. The activity should use Think-Pair-Share for engagement.
Step 4: Instructional Routine
Your instructional routine is the meat and potatoes of your lesson. Be as specific as you’d like with your request. In this example, I included the instructional framework, lesson components and asked for practice problems.
Example Input:
Create a 20-minute instructional routine using explicit instruction to teach the standard and meet the learning objective. The lesson should include modeling, guided practice, and independent practice. During the modeling and guided practice phase, the teacher should ask questions to check for understanding and engage students. Provide problems for guided and independent practice.
Step 5: Exit Ticket / Closing Activity or Discussion
Finally, to close out your lesson, incorporate an Exit Ticket or Closing Activity to check for understanding.
Example Input:
Create a closing activity that includes a whole-group discussion question and an exit ticket problem that can be used to check for understanding. The exit ticket problem should be open-ended and require students to explain or show their thinking.
Conclusion
ChatGPT can be an excellent resource for teachers to add to their lesson-planning toolkit. Following the steps in this post, you can use artificial intelligence to create standards-aligned lessons in minutes.
Now it’s your turn to try ChatGPT and create engaging lessons tailored to your student’s needs.