The realistic win is time. A chat assistant drafts the lesson sequence, rewrites a passage at three reading levels, builds a rubric from your criteria, and writes the parent email you have been putting off. You still make every judgment call; you just stop starting from a blank page.
What it does badly: knowing your students, grading fairly without your eyes on the work, and telling the truth every time. It will invent a quote, produce a wrong answer key, and cite a standard by a code that does not exist. Treat every output as a draft from an eager student teacher.
Then there is safety. Student names, grades, IEP details, and behavior notes are education records protected under FERPA, and most districts now have an AI policy naming approved tools and what may be pasted into them. Read it first, and when in doubt, describe the student without identifying them.
Quick wins this week
- Paste a state standard and your unit topic and ask for five 'students will be able to' objectives, then keep the two you actually want.
- Take a reading passage you already use and ask for versions at two lower reading levels plus a vocabulary list, then check that every fact survived.
- Turn your grading criteria into a four-level rubric in student-friendly language with a one-sentence exemplar at each level.
- Generate ten exit-ticket questions on today's lesson at three difficulty levels and use them as a quick formative check.
What AI can do for teachers, task by task
Lesson and unit planning
Paste the standard's full text (not only the code), the grade, class length, what students already know, and constraints like 'no printer'. Ask for a hook, direct instruction, guided practice, and a check for understanding. Verify the alignment yourself and cut activities that assume materials you do not have.
Differentiating materials for reading level and language
Paste the passage and ask for versions at specific reading levels, a scaffolded version with sentence starters, and one with key terms glossed for multilingual learners. Read each version against the original: simplification routinely drops a fact or shifts a claim.
Writing rubrics and giving faster feedback
Give your criteria and point values and ask for observable descriptors at each level. For feedback, paste anonymized work plus the rubric and ask for two strengths and one next step in the student's language. Read every comment; AI feedback drifts toward generic praise and sometimes misreads the work.
Parent and guardian communication
Describe the situation without names or identifying details, say the outcome you want, and ask for a calm, specific draft. Ask for a home-language version if you need one and have a fluent colleague check anything sensitive. Never paste grades, attendance, or discipline history into a consumer tool.
Assessments, question banks, and answer keys
Ask for questions tied to named objectives at labeled difficulty levels, with an answer key and a one-line rationale each. Work every math and science problem yourself; the model can write a clean problem with a wrong key. Check that no multiple-choice item has two defensible answers.
Adapting work for IEP and 504 accommodations, without the student's data
Describe the accommodation in general terms ('a student with extended time and chunked assignments') and ask how to break a project into checkpoints or adapt a lab. Never paste IEP documents, evaluations, or names outside your district's special education system. Run the plan by the case manager first.
Prompts for teachers
Replace the bracketed placeholders, paste into any chat assistant, and iterate on the result.
Lesson plan from a standard
Act as an experienced [GRADE LEVEL] [SUBJECT] teacher and instructional coach. Plan a [CLASS LENGTH]-minute lesson on [TOPIC] aligned to this standard: [PASTE THE FULL STANDARD TEXT]. Students already know [PRIOR KNOWLEDGE]. Common misconceptions: [MISCONCEPTIONS]. Materials: [MATERIALS]. Format: one 'students will be able to' objective, a 5-minute hook, 15 minutes of direct instruction with two worked examples, 20 minutes of practice with one scaffolded and one extension task, and a 3-question exit ticket with answer key. Ask me up to three questions first if anything is unclear.
Tip: Paste the standard's actual wording. Models misremember standard codes and invent plausible-sounding ones.
Rewrite a text at three reading levels
You are a literacy specialist. Rewrite the passage below at three reading levels: on grade level for [GRADE LEVEL], two grades below, and a version for newcomer multilingual learners with short sentences and key terms in bold followed by a plain definition. Keep every fact, name, and number exactly as in the original. Do not add information. Keep the paragraph order. After the three versions, list any sentence you cut and why. Passage: [PASTE THE PASSAGE]
Tip: The 'list what you cut' line is your audit trail. Check it against the original before you print.
Rubric plus student-facing feedback
Act as a [SUBJECT] teacher who gives clear, kind, specific feedback. First build a 4-level rubric (Beginning, Developing, Proficient, Advanced) for this assignment: [ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTION]. Criteria and weights: [CRITERIA AND POINT VALUES]. Use observable language a [GRADE LEVEL] student can self-assess against. Then give feedback on this anonymized work using that rubric: [PASTE STUDENT WORK WITH NAME REMOVED]. Two strengths quoting the student's own words, one priority next step, one sentence of encouragement, under 100 words. Do not assign a grade.
Tip: Keep 'do not assign a grade' in the prompt. You decide the score; the model helps you explain it.
Parent email about a concern
Draft an email from a [GRADE LEVEL] [SUBJECT] teacher to a parent or guardian. Situation, with no student name: [DESCRIBE THE CONCERN IN GENERAL TERMS]. What I have tried: [STEPS TAKEN]. What I am asking the family to do: [REQUESTED ACTION]. Warm, direct, no education jargon, no blame, under 150 words. Open with something positive and true, state the concern plainly, propose one next step with a date, and invite a reply or a call. Then give me the same email in [HOME LANGUAGE].
Tip: Add the student's name only after you paste the draft into your school email, never inside the chat tool.
Assessment questions with a checked answer key
You are a [SUBJECT] assessment writer for [GRADE LEVEL]. Write [NUMBER] questions on [TOPIC] tied to these objectives: [OBJECTIVES]. Half multiple choice with four options and distractors based on real misconceptions, the rest short response. Label each with its objective and a difficulty from 1 to 3. Provide an answer key with a one-sentence rationale per question, showing the work for any calculation. Then review your key and flag any question where two answers could be defended.
Tip: Work every problem yourself anyway. A clean-looking key with one wrong answer is the most common failure here.
Want a prompt for something else? Use the Prompt Builder or browse education and training prompts, research and learning prompts.
Skills to build
Prompting with the standard, the students, and the constraints
Why: A usable lesson needs the context only you have: prior knowledge, misconceptions, class length, and what is actually in your closet.
How: Keep a reusable 'class profile' paragraph in a note and paste it at the top of every planning prompt. Revise it after each lesson that missed.
Anonymizing student information by reflex
Why: FERPA problems happen one careless paste at a time. Describing a student instead of naming them protects the student and protects you.
How: Before any paste, scan for names, IDs, grades, birthdates, and anything that could identify a child in a small class. Replace them with 'a student' or a letter.
Verifying generated content before students see it
Why: Students trust what you hand them. A wrong answer key or a fabricated quote teaches the wrong thing and costs you credibility with the kids who notice.
How: Anything with a fact, a number, or a quote gets checked against a source you trust before it is printed. Work every problem in a generated key.
Teaching students to use AI honestly
Why: Students already use these tools, and detectors produce false accusations. Making AI use visible and legitimate works better than surveillance.
How: State the allowed AI use and how to disclose it on every major assignment. Ask students to attach their prompts and explain what they changed. Show one hallucination in class.
Building a bank of reusable prompts and materials
Why: The second time you plan a unit should take a fraction of the first. Prompts and rubrics that worked are assets your department can share.
How: Keep a shared doc: the prompt, the tool, what you edited, the final version. If your district allows it, set up a Claude project or a custom GPT per course with your syllabus and rubrics loaded.
Tools worth knowing
ChatGPT
The general-purpose AI assistant most of your coworkers already use.
Claude
A careful writing and analysis assistant that shines on long documents.
Gemini
Google's assistant, strongest when your work already lives in Google Workspace.
Microsoft Copilot
AI inside Word, Excel, Outlook, and Teams, with your company's data protections.
NotebookLM
A research notebook that only answers from the sources you give it, with citations.
Canva
Design for non-designers, with Magic Studio AI for text, images, video, and resizing.
Cautions for teachers
Names, student IDs, grades, attendance, discipline records, IEP and 504 details, and health information are education records under FERPA, and pasting them into a consumer AI tool can be an unauthorized disclosure. Never paste confidential student data into a consumer AI tool unless your district has approved that tool for that use. Describe, do not identify.
Districts increasingly name approved tools (Gemini in a Google Workspace for Education tenant, Copilot in a Microsoft education tenant, or classroom products such as MagicSchool or Khanmigo) and whether students may use them. Consumer accounts usually require users to be at least 13, and terms for minors vary. Read the policy; if none exists, ask your instructional technology lead first.
Models invent quotations, misattribute sources, produce wrong answer keys, and cite standards by codes that do not exist. They also default to stereotyped names and scenarios. Check every fact against a trusted source, work every problem, and read materials with your actual students in mind.
AI-writing detectors are not reliable enough to support an accusation on their own, and they flag students who write in a second language or in a formal style. Use process evidence (drafts, version history, a conversation with the student) and clear assignment rules instead of a detector score.
Your 30-day plan
- Week 1: Read your district AI policy and pick the approved tool you will use. Write your class profile paragraph. Use AI for one low-stakes task a day: an exit ticket, a warm-up, an email draft.
- Week 2: Plan one full lesson with the lesson-plan prompt, teach it, and note what you changed. Rewrite one reading at two levels and compare it to the original line by line.
- Week 3: Build a rubric for your next major assignment and run the feedback prompt on anonymized work. Time yourself against your usual process.
- Week 4: Write an AI-use statement for one assignment and share it with students. Load your curriculum documents into NotebookLM and use it in one planning session.
- End of month: Share your best three prompts with your department, decide which two tasks you will keep using AI for, and start a one-page log of the AI mistakes you caught.
Frequently asked questions
Will AI replace teachers?
Is it safe to use ChatGPT for lesson planning?
Can I use AI to grade student work?
How do I know if a student used AI on an assignment?
Which AI tool is best for teachers?
Terms used on this page
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