How to Differentiate AI-generated Teaching Resources

AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, or Gemini have made it easy for you to create teaching materials with simple prompts, but there’s a catch.

Not every AI-generated resource is one-size-fits-all. In fact, in a classroom full of learners with different needs, interests, and learning styles, a generic resource may often fall short. That’s where you need differentiation.

Let’s explore how you can tailor your AI-generated teaching materials to support your students and help them learn effectively. The approach we’ll be focusing on in this article is often referred to as differentiated instruction or learning.

So …

What exactly is differentiation in education?

Differentiation simply means adjusting how you teach so that all of your students can learn in ways that work best for them.

Think of it like offering different paths up the same mountain. The goal is the same for everyone—reaching the top, but your students might take different routes based on their abilities, interests, or learning preferences.

You can usually differentiate in a few key ways:

• Content: What your students learn (e.g., reading texts at different levels).
• Process: How they learn it (e.g., group work vs. solo work, hands-on vs. digital).
• Product: How they show what they’ve learned (e.g., writing an essay, making a video, or building a model).
• Learning environment: The setup or tone of your classroom (e.g., quiet spaces, flexible seating).

A differentiated approach matters because your students come from different backgrounds and have different strengths and needs. It helps everyone feel seen and supported, boosting their engagement, confidence, and success. And you certainly want to reach that goal as a teacher.

What role can AI play in differentiation?

Now, as you can guess from the components of differentiated instruction, AI can’t help you much with the setup of your class. It can generate thousands of ideas for you, but the decision would still involve other stakeholders. Your school administrator, for instance.

Creating teaching resources, on the other hand, is where you can benefit the most from AI. There are plenty of ways for teachers like you to use AI tools, and customizing your materials is one of them.

In the past, you would have to spend hours or even days just to prepare a set of worksheets for the entire class. That’s not the case anymore. With AI, you can generate different versions of the same worksheet, based on your students’ needs. So you’re not only saving your time, you’re also being able to reduce your stress that comes with the demanding workload. That’s a personal benefit to consider.

How you can differentiate AI-generated teaching resources

Let’s take a look at a few basic examples to see how to use AI in your approach to personalized teaching.

Reading levels

Say you’re teaching a unit on climate change, and you want all your students to read about it, but they’re at different reading levels. You can ask an AI tool to rewrite the same article at three levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Now, everyone can access the same topic without feeling overwhelmed or bored.

Prompt example 1

“Write an article about the causes and effects of climate change for my 8th grade students. After you write the article, rewrite it in three versions: one for beginner readers, one for intermediate readers, and one for advanced readers. Make sure the beginner version uses simple words and short sentences. The intermediate version should use some more complex vocabulary but still be easy to understand. The advanced version can include more detailed explanations and scientific terms, as long as it's still understandable for 8th graders at a higher reading level.”


Prompt example 2

“Some of my biology students are at the B1 level of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Write a passage (200-250 words) for them about how the human respiratory system works. Describe the lungs, nose, and breathing process. Then, ask:
What is the function of the diaphragm?
How does oxygen enter the body?"


Prompt example 3

“Design a creative writing task where a group of my students have to imagine a world where humans live underwater. Ask them to describe what the city would look like, what people would do for work, and how they would communicate. This task is for those students who are at the Creating level of Bloom’s taxonomy.”


This is ideal if you need to adopt Bloom’s taxonomy in an English class.

Learning styles

Maybe you have students who learn best visually, and others who prefer hands-on activities. AI can generate ideas for both. For example:

• “Create a visual infographic explaining the water cycle.”
• “List five hands-on activities to teach the water cycle.”

Let’s explore a bit more.

For your visual learners, try prompts like these:

Prompt template example 1

"Generate an infographic that explains [subject/topic] for my 6th Grade students, with clear visuals and minimal text."


This works well for subjects like science, history, or math, where data, concepts, or timelines can be shown visually.

Prompt template example 2

"Create a step-by-step illustrated guide on [concept/process] that includes images or diagrams for each stage. Make the guide appropriate for 8th Grade students."


This is ideal for showing processes or workflows, like how plants grow, or the steps of solving an equation.

Prompt template example 3

"Design a visual timeline for [historical event] to help my 10th Grade students understand the sequence of events."


A prompt like this is useful for history or literature classes.

If you know your students love video games, space, or animals, use that in your prompts.

“Create a math word problem about fractions using a video game theme.”

You can expand it like this:

"Create different sets of math worksheets for my 12th grade students. Since my students have different interests, please make four versions of the worksheets, each based on one of the following interests:
Video Games: Design math problems that involve concepts like game scores, levels, character stats, or virtual economies.
Football: Create math problems related to game statistics, player performance, scoring, or team strategies.
Comic Books: Develop math problems that involve comic book characters, comic sales data, or superhero stats.
Hiking: Design math problems based on distance, elevation, maps, or calculating time and speed in hiking scenarios.
Make sure the math problems are appropriate for 12th grade level but use the students’ interests to make the problems more engaging and relevant to them."


This little twist can make a big difference in engagement.

How to evaluate AI-generated resources for differentiation

Not all AI output is perfect (yet). If anything, effective and responsible use of AI in education can be a concern. So how can you tell if an AI-generated resource is usable and adaptable?

Here are a few things to check:

Is the content accurate?

Double-check facts, especially for science or history. AI sometimes makes mistakes or invents details.

Is it at the right reading level?

Tools like Hemingway Editor can help you check how hard the text is to read.

Is it culturally relevant and inclusive?

Watch for outdated stereotypes or narrow examples. Modify anything that feels tone-deaf or doesn’t reflect your classroom community.

Does it align with your curriculum?

Make sure it matches your learning objectives, standards, and pacing.

Is it clear and engaging?

If it feels dry or confusing, tweak the prompt and try again. You might say:

“Make this explanation more fun for 6th graders using examples and simple language.”

The easiest way to differentiate AI-generated teaching resources

As you can see, you must be specific in your prompts to get good responses from AI tools. The more you try, the more you’ll see what works and what doesn’t. So this workflow may take a lot of practice in the beginning. Besides, general-purpose AI chatbots like ChatGPT don’t always have context regarding your curriculum or standards or differentiation requirements. That’s a problem you can solve with teaching-focused tools like Monsha.

Say you have an English Language Arts (ELA) worksheet, but you need to include more questions in it and adapt the final set to the Depth of Knowledge (DOK) framework. The prompting required for this task could be complicated and time-consuming, especially if you want to maintain the curriculum standards. With Monsha, you can get it done in seconds. Yes, seconds. All you have to do is upload your worksheet and select your requirements. It’s that easy.

You can go far beyond differentiating your worksheets and create different types of teaching materials with Monsha’s AI tools, including lesson plans , IEP goals, and more. Since you have the option to reuse your resources however you want, you don’t have to start over or worry about curriculum expectations. So the next time you need differentiated teaching resources, give Monsha a try.

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