Let’s face it—teaching often gets overwhelming. Juggling lesson planning, grading, and administrative tasks leaves you with little time to engage with your students. Many teachers are curious about how AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, or Claude can make their lives easier but aren’t sure where to start or what’s possible.
Here are 30 ideas to inspire your productivity—with examples.
1. Plan Lessons with ChatGPT
- Create Lesson Plans: Imagine you need to prepare a science lesson on the water cycle but are short on time. ChatGPT can generate a detailed lesson plan with clear objectives like understanding evaporation and condensation, engaging activities such as creating a water cycle model, and effective assessments like a quiz on the stages of the water cycle. This way, you have a solid plan without spending hours on prep work.
- Generate Teaching Ideas: Looking for new ways to teach about the Industrial Revolution? ChatGPT can suggest activities like a factory simulation game, primary source analysis, or debates on the impact of industrialization on society. This provides you with fresh, engaging content that sparks student interest.
- Align Lessons to Standards: ChatGPT ensures your lessons meet state standards. For example, if you’re teaching fractions, it can provide a lesson outline with standard-specific goals, such as understanding and comparing fractions using visual models.
2. Develop Curriculum with ChatGPT
- Draft Curriculums: Designing a year-long program for any subject can be time-consuming. ChatGPT drafts a curriculum with weekly topics, objectives, and activities. For example, in an ESL course, it includes topics like introductions, food, and travel, along with corresponding grammar points and vocabulary lists. This structured plan covers key learning areas efficiently.
- Create Practical Syllabi: Whether focusing on science, math, history, or language arts, ChatGPT creates a syllabus tailored to your subject. It includes essential topics, learning goals, and engaging activities. For instance, in an ESL course, it covers conversational skills, basic grammar, and cultural nuances, ensuring your students develop practical communication skills.
3. Create Assignments with ChatGPT
- Generate Creative Writing Prompts: Need creative writing prompts for a dystopian literature class? ChatGPT suggests prompts like, “Imagine a world where water is the most valuable currency. Write a story about a day in the life of a water merchant.”
- Prepare Algebra Problems: ChatGPT provides a set of algebra problems with step-by-step solutions, such as solving linear equations and word problems involving algebraic expressions.
- Develop Reading Comprehension Questions: Say you need comprehension questions for “To Kill a Mockingbird”? ChatGPT generates questions like, “Why does Atticus defend Tom Robinson? How does Scout’s perspective on race and justice change throughout the novel?“
4. Assess and Provide Feedback with ChatGPT
- Create Quizzes and Tests: Preparing a test on cell structure? ChatGPT generates a variety of question types, including multiple-choice, short answer, and diagram labeling questions that cover cell organelles and their functions.
- Develop Rubrics: Grading rubrics are a breeze with ChatGPT. It creates rubrics with set criteria and clear point values for each. This approach works for any subject, ensuring uniform assessment standards.
- Provide Constructive Feedback: Paste student essays into ChatGPT, and it provides constructive feedback on thesis clarity, argument strength, evidence use, and grammar. You can further personalize the feedback yourself.
5. Create Academic Resources with ChatGPT
- Write Reading Passages: ChatGPT writes a vivid narrative on any topic, plus comprehension questions to accompany the passage.
- Generate Comprehension Questions: After students read a novel, you can use ChatGPT to generate comprehension questions like, “What motivates the protagonist? How does the setting influence the plot?”
- Create Vocabulary Flashcards: Need vocabulary flashcards for a unit on ecosystems? ChatGPT creates flashcards with terms like “photosynthesis” and “food web,” including definitions and example sentences.
6. Communicate Using ChatGPT
- Draft Parent Letters: Need to inform parents about an upcoming field trip? ChatGPT drafts a professional letter detailing trip logistics, required permissions, and educational objectives, ensuring clear and efficient communication without the hassle of writing from scratch. It can also help with emergency notifications, student updates, meeting invitations, or anything else.
- Write Progress Reports: During report card season, writing progress reports for 60 students can be daunting. Save yourself some time by using ChatGPT to generate personalized comments on academic performance, strengths, and areas for improvement.
7. Enhance Classroom Activities
- Brainstorm Activities: ChatGPT suggests engaging games like vocabulary bingo, matching games, and scavenger hunts to make learning interactive and enjoyable for students. There are countless other activities ChatGPT can recommend for different subjects.
- Create Role-Playing Scenarios: In ESL classes, use ChatGPT to generate scenarios such as dining in a restaurant, booking a hotel room, or interviewing for a job. This approach helps students practice real-life communication and can be adapted for other subjects.
- Generate Project Ideas: For a unit on renewable energy, ChatGPT suggests hands-on projects like building a solar oven or creating a model wind turbine. Similar ideas apply to other topics.
8. Differentiate Instruction
- Customize Learning Materials: Leverage ChatGPT to simplify complex texts for lower-level readers while providing more challenging versions for advanced students.
- Modify Assignments: When different levels of support are needed, ChatGPT creates modified assignments. For instance, you can offer simpler math problems or provide additional step-by-step guidance.
9. Support Students
- Develop IEP Goals: For students with dyslexia, ChatGPT suggests specific, measurable goals such as improving reading comprehension through multisensory learning techniques. This approach helps create effective, personalized plans and can be tailored to other learning challenges.
- Generate Study Guides: Before exams, use ChatGPT to generate organized study guides that highlight key concepts, important dates, and practice questions. Applies to any subject.
10. Translate and Simplify
- Translate Reading Passages: Teaching ESL students who speak different native languages? Found a reference material in a foreign language? ChatGPT translates passages into 30+ languages.
- Simplify Complex Explanations: Have ChatGPT explain complex topics in simpler terms. It rewrites explanations using everyday language so your students don’t get overwhelmed.
11. Manage the Classroom
- Establish Classroom Rules: As a new teacher, create a list of concise, positive classroom rules like “Respect each other” and “Raise your hand to speak” with ChatGPT.
- Create Behavior Management Plans: These plans include positive reinforcement techniques and consistent consequences.
12. Enhance Professional Development
- Summarize Research Articles: Stay updated on the latest educational research without extensive reading by using ChatGPT to summarize articles on topics like effective teaching strategies or classroom technology integration. This allows quick access to new ideas. To be honest this is a general life skill, not just related to teaching!
- Outline Professional Workshops: Leading a professional development workshop? Use ChatGPT to create an outline covering key points, activities, and discussion questions.
13. Create Interactive Learning Using ChatGPT
- Design Interactive Lessons: In a lesson like fractions, use ChatGPT to generate engagement activities such as using fraction tiles or virtual manipulatives. You can adapt this approach for various lessons and subjects.
- Develop Educational Games: Make vocabulary review fun! Create games like vocabulary bingo or word matching.
14. Provide Feedback and Improvement Plans Using ChatGPT
- Analyze Student Errors: Highlight common grammar errors in student writing by pasting the text into ChatGPT, which provides explanations and correct examples. Applicable to writing in any subject.
- Develop Improvement Plans: For students struggling with essay writing, ChatGPT suggests a step-by-step improvement plan, including organizing ideas, using evidence, and refining grammar.
15. Integrate Technology
- Recommend Tech Tools: In a history lesson, get ChatGPT to suggest digital tools like virtual timelines or interactive maps. These tools make historical events more vivid and engaging for students. Applies to other subjects as well.
- Create Digital Assignments: If you are using Google Classroom for assignments, get ChatGPT to create digital assignments with clear instructions, judgment criteria, and deadlines.
16. Assist with Research Using ChatGPT
- Summarize Key Topics: When preparing a lesson on climate change, ChatGPT provides a summary of key points, recent data, and reputable sources, ensuring you have accurate and current information without extensive research. But be sure to ask ChatGPT for references.
- Find Additional Resources: For a lesson on the Civil Rights Movement, use ChatGPT to find and suggest links to articles, videos, and interactive resources. This way you speed up your research and enrich your materials.
17. Manage Time
- Create Detailed Schedules: Planning a unit on Ancient Egypt? ChatGPT creates a detailed schedule that breaks down the unit into manageable lessons with activities and assessments, helping you stay organized and on track.
- Generate Task Lists: Preparing for a parent-teacher conference (or any event/task) becomes simpler with task lists generated by ChatGPT. Keep things off your head!
18. Engage Students Using ChatGPT
- Develop Discussion Prompts: Stimulate class discussions on environmental issues with AI-provided open-ended questions, such as “What are the most pressing environmental challenges we face today?” This encourages critical thinking.
- Plan Interactive Sessions: For virtual field trips, ChatGPT can suggest interactive activities and discussion points.
19. Review Content Using ChatGPT
- Summarize Key Content: Reinforce student knowledge with quick summaries of key events in World War II provided by ChatGPT. These overviews highlight major battles, political developments, and outcomes. Use it as takeaway notes to reinforce student knowledge.
- Explain Key Concepts: Clarify complex concepts like photosynthesis with clear explanations and examples from ChatGPT — helps students understand the material.
20. Inspire Creating Writing
- Generate Story Starters: Overcome writer’s block in creative writing assignments with ChatGPT-created story starters. For example: “In a world where humans can communicate with animals, a young girl discovers her unique ability.”
- Create Poetry Prompts: Encourage poetry writing with prompts from ChatGPT, like “Write a poem about a season without using the name of the season”.
21. Provide Feedback and Assessment Using ChatGPT
- Grade Student Assignments: Use ChatGPT to generate feedback on essays. Focus on structure, argument strength, and grammar, and offer personalized insights for students.
- Answer Student Queries: Aid student understanding of assignments by having ChatGPT provide explanations and examples with homework questions.
22. Guide Behavioral Discussions
- Prepare for Difficult Conversations: Let’s say you need to discuss a bullying incident with a student and their parents. Ask ChatGPT for advice on approaching the conversation with empathy and setting clear expectations. But of course, you are more human than AI so only use it to get initial ideas.
23. Teach Information Literacy
- Evaluate Online Sources: Use ChatGPT to provide guidelines on assessing the credibility, accuracy, and relevance of online sources.
24. Simplify Complex Topics
- Rewrite Complex Explanations: Make complex readings more accessible by having ChatGPT rewrite the text, highlighting main points and removing unnecessary jargon.
25. Give Clear Assignment Directions
- Provide Detailed Instructions: Ensure students understand the expectations of a research project by using ChatGPT to create a detailed assignment sheet, outlining steps, required elements, and grading criteria.
26. Generate Writing Prompts
- Create Engaging Prompts: Stimulate student creativity with writing prompts from ChatGPT, like “Describe a day in the life of a character who lives in a world without electricity.”
27. Implement Flipped Classroom Strategies Using ChatGPT
- Encourage Student-Led Learning: Promote active learning by having students use ChatGPT to research historical events and create presentations. For example, students can study different decades and present their findings.
28. Reinforce Knowledge
- Answer Student Questions: Help students review and solidify their understanding of topics like atomic structure with ChatGPT-provided detailed explanations and diagrams.
29. Create Tip Sheets and Directions
- Offer Organizational Tips: Help students manage their work more effectively with ChatGPT-generated tip sheets, staying organized with digital files, such as structuring folders and naming conventions.
30. Plan Lessons with ChatGPT on Short Notice
- Prepare Next Day Lessons: For teachers needing to plan a quick lesson for the next day, ChatGPT can generate a detailed plan with activities, examples, and assessment ideas, additional resources or whatever you need. This helps you prep with minimal effort.
As you can see, the possibilities are endless, but getting the right output takes skillful prompt engineering. Without clear, specific directions, AI’s output will seem generic and algorithmic. Treat any AI output as first drafts and add your personal touch to make them authentic and useful.
Use ChatGPT as a tool to complement your teaching, not replace your creativity and personal connection. It’s here to make your job easier, not become you!
