Lesson planning prompts

Short answer: a planning prompt is not "write me a lesson plan". It is handing over your curriculum unit, learning focus and class profile first, then generating in four steps — plan, slide outline, worksheets, reflection.

That hour on a Sunday evening

A Primary 4 Chinese Language teacher has to teach the structure of expository writing. She opens an AI tool:

Write me a Primary 4 Chinese lesson plan on expository writing.

What comes back is not wrong. There is a starter, a development phase, a plenary, and the timings add up. But the introductory example is "describing an animal", which is not the unit in her school's textbook; the main activity is "discuss the features of expository writing in groups", which is far too vague; and nothing addresses the two non-Chinese speaking students in her class. She ends up rewriting most of it.

The real problem is that five pieces of information never left her head: which textbook unit, what the learning focus is, where the class got to last lesson, which students need support, and how long the period is.

Why this works

A lesson plan is an unusually context-dependent document. The same topic differs between Primary 4 and Primary 6, between an even class and a wide-spread one, between 40 minutes and 35. With none of that supplied, the model can only write "a generic plan about expository writing" — which is exactly what it produced.

An analogy: ask an experienced colleague to draft a plan for you and her first words are "which class, and where did you get to?" AI never asks. It just writes. So the questions she would have asked, you have to answer in advance.

The full 30-minute workflow, the time allocation and two worked subject examples are already set out in our article AI lesson planning: a lesson plan and tiered worksheets in 30 minutes. This lesson does not repeat that; it concentrates on how the prompts are written.

Template 1: the plan itself

You are a planning assistant for a Hong Kong primary Chinese Language teacher.
Task: design a single-lesson plan.
Context: Primary 4, unit "the structure of expository writing", lesson 2 of the unit. Learning focus: (1) identify the general-to-specific structure of an expository text; (2) use examples to explain a feature of something. Prior knowledge: the six elements of narrative, paragraph main ideas. Not yet taught: the classification of expository methods. Class profile: 30 students, average ability, 4 slower readers, 2 non-Chinese speaking students needing vocabulary support. Period length 35 minutes.
Output format: a five-column table — phase, minutes, teacher activity, student activity, learning focus number addressed. Above the table, two lines giving the key questions of the lesson. Below the table, three sections — (a) differentiation, listing specific support for the slower readers and for the non-Chinese speaking students separately; (b) three assessment questions with expected answer points; (c) two common student misconceptions.
Constraints: the starter must not exceed 15% of the time and consolidation must be at least 25%; every activity must map to at least one learning focus number, with no blanks; use examples from the daily life of Hong Kong primary students; if you refer to any curriculum document wording or figure you are unsure of, mark it "teacher to verify" rather than writing it out.

When the output arrives, do a thirty-second check: look down the learning focus column. Any activity where the number looks forced is usually the activity you can cut.

Template 2: the slide outline

Do not ask AI to build the deck. Ask for the outline and paste it into your slide tool.

You are a teaching assistant for a Hong Kong primary Chinese Language teacher.
Task: write the slide outline for the lesson plan below.
Context: [paste the output of template 1, or summarise it in five lines]. The slides are projected in a classroom and must be readable from the back row.
Output format: one block per slide giving — slide number, title (under 8 words), content points (maximum three, each under 15 words), one line of teacher narration, and a visual suggestion describing what image or diagram belongs there. Do not generate images. Ten slides maximum.
Constraints: keep text to what is readable when projected and never put a full passage on a slide; leave at least one question point on every slide; do not put answers on the slides, keep them in the narration line; mark any fact or figure you are unsure of as "teacher to verify".

Template 3: upgrading a plan you already have

The most underused prompt in this lesson. Your old plan already contains all the school context, so revising beats generating.

You are a planning adviser for a Hong Kong [primary / secondary] [subject] teacher.
Task: review the old lesson plan below, identify what can be improved, and produce an upgraded version.
Context: I used this plan in [year], when the class was [description]; this year the class is [description]. Our school's major concern this year is [for example, strengthening student questioning, or improving support for learner diversity].
Output format: part one, five bullet points naming weaknesses in the original with a reason each; part two, the full upgraded plan in the same format as the original, with new or changed material marked "[NEW]"; part three, two sentences explaining which part of the school's major concern the upgrade addresses.
Constraints: keep the activities that already work and do not change things for the sake of it; do not alter the learning focus unless you believe it does not match the topic, in which case say so and mark it "teacher to verify"; do not add activities requiring extra equipment or extra lesson time.

Old plan:
[paste]

Template 4: post-lesson reflection and the bridge to next lesson

Five minutes after the lesson, while it is still fresh.

You are a reflection partner for a Hong Kong primary General Studies teacher.
Task: turn my post-lesson notes into a reflection summary and propose how the next lesson should pick up.
Context: Primary 6, unit "Hong Kong's water resources", lesson 3. My notes: [three to five sentences, for example "the introductory video ran 12 minutes, far too long", "group 4 made no progress at all during discussion", "five students could not distinguish fresh water supply from desalination"].
Output format: three parts — (a) a summary of how the lesson went, three points, each quoting a specific observation from my notes; (b) what the next lesson must address, two points, each explaining why it must; (c) a five-minute opening activity that clears up the misconception in my notes.
Constraints: reason only from the observations I supplied and do not assume classroom events I never described; do not propose remedies requiring extra lesson time; when judging student performance, write "some students" rather than naming students or classes.

Reflection is not an administrative chore. It is the context source for next year's planning. Save it, and when you teach the unit again, paste it into template 3.

Common mistakes

• Four deliverables in one sentence. "Write the plan, the slides, the worksheets and the letter home" makes all four shallow. Four prompts, each using the last output as context, take less total time.
• Giving the topic but not the learning focus. "The structure of expository writing" is a topic. "Identify the general-to-specific structure" is a learning focus. Without it the model cannot judge which activities to keep.
• Forgetting the period length. A 35-minute plan and a 70-minute plan are structurally different documents. It costs three words and decides whether the plan is usable.
• A vague class profile. "Mixed ability" gives the model nothing. "30 students, about 8 still need consolidation on factorisation, 2 non-Chinese speakers" produces differentiation you can actually use.

Going further

• A different subject: Mathematics plans benefit from an extra column for worked and variation examples; Visual Arts from a demonstration sequence and materials list; Information Technology from the operational sticking points students hit and how to resolve them.
• A different year level: for secondary, add "note the public assessment requirement each activity serves". For primary, add "note one small thing per activity that could be extended at home".
• SEN needs: build differentiation into a fixed field of the output format rather than asking afterwards. For example, "add one line of SEN adaptation per activity, covering attention, literacy and language support separately". Tiered worksheets are handled fully in lesson 7.
• Panel co-planning: save the tuned template for the whole panel, so a newly appointed teacher reaches consistent quality in their first term. See lesson 17, building a panel prompt template library.

With the plan in hand, the next step is turning the same lesson into three levels of worksheet: lesson 7, worksheet and differentiation prompts.