While AI will not replace the workload that teachers face at the beginning of a new school year, what it can do is help lighten the load. Here are 11 ways that you might consider using AI as a planning partner to help make the start of the school year more manageable.
1. Create a back-to-school checklist.
Since there is so much to accomplish before the first day of school, it can really help to have a thorough to-do list to ensure that nothing is forgotten. Even if you’re a veteran teacher, it can be easy to overlook things that need to be addressed. To help identify gaps and create a starting point for your work, you can ask AI to create a back-to-school preparation checklist.
Here’s an example of what this type of prompt might look like:
- “I am a 6th grade math teacher getting ready for the first week of school. Create a back-to-school preparation checklist for everything I should complete before students arrive. Include classroom setup, seating, supplies, routines, first-week lesson plans, technology setup, family communication, student accommodations, grading setup, emergency sub plans, and personal organization. Mark each task as: Must Do, Should Do, or Nice to Do. Also include a short ‘first-day readiness check’ at the end.”
2. Plan the first week of school.
For this one, you can ask AI to generate a first-week plan. If you wish, you can add specific requests, such as the inclusion of relationship-building activities, classroom routines, and content previews. Since this first week will set the tone for the class moving forward, it’s important that it does more than simply focus on getting through procedures. You can explicitly share this viewpoint with the AI tool to give it additional context and direction.
An example prompt might be:
- “Create a 5-day, first-week plan for a 7th grade science class. Include community-building time, classroom routines, technology expectations, and several short activities that preview a unit about ecosystems.”
If you want to take this a step further, you can ask AI to help you anticipate student needs and identify potential blind spots in your planning. You could ask such questions as:
- “What barriers might students face in this lesson?”
- “How could I support students with reading challenges, anxiety, executive functioning needs, or language barriers?”
- “Is the level of cognitive load appropriate for the first week? Am I overlooking any points of confusion my students may experience?”
3. Draft classroom routines and procedures.
AI can help you think through routines, such as those for entering class, turning in work, using devices, asking for help, group work, cleanup, and transitions. If you already have a draft from previous years, you can paste that into your chatbot and ask the AI to review it for clarity and conciseness.
Regardless of your approach, you should personally review what the AI tool suggests and revise the routines as needed so that they match your classroom personality. This is your class, not AI’s.
With this approach, you can start with a draft instead of a blank page. That can often be a helpful time-saver and productivity starter.
4. Create classroom culture scenarios.
This tip will probably be most helpful once you’ve got your classroom routines and expectations developed. When you have those, AI can help you rehearse how you will respond to common classroom situations before they happen. To do this, introduce a topic or scenario and then ask AI for suggestions around how to approach that situation. Another option is providing the context and then prompting AI to ask you questions that guide you through a response.
Scenarios might include:
- A student refuses to participate.
- A group activity goes off task.
- A student uses AI inappropriately.
- A parent questions a grading policy.
- Students are reluctant to talk on day one.
With this approach, AI can help you think through and practice potentially uncomfortable moments before they happen.
5. Create student-friendly syllabi and family letters.
Communication is always key, and AI is great at helping draft clear and concise messaging. This can be particularly helpful for teachers who have a long syllabus or course description that they want to condense into a more welcoming, readable version for students and families. This could be designed in various ways, such as a one-page course overview, a what-to-expect letter, or a back-to-school email.
Example prompt language that can be provided to the AI tool is:
- Translate teacher language into student-friendly language.
- Create separate family and student versions of my syllabus and back-to-school letter that are clear and concise.
- Adjust the tone to be warm and inviting.
- Generate FAQs for families.
If you’d like to further extend this, you might consider building in some parent communication around AI use in your classroom. AI can help create a variety of formats, including a short parent note about classroom AI expectations, an FAQ about student AI use, or a back-to-school night message explaining how AI supports learning without replacing thinking.
This process can help you really think things through in an intentional manner and offer a starting point that saves valuable time.
6. Create substitute and emergency plans early.
This is a practical and often overlooked tip. You never know what’s going to happen that might keep you out of your classroom, so having a substitute or emergency plan in place can provide you with peace of mind.
Specifically, AI can help you prepare:
- A generic emergency sub plan.
- A “day one/two/three” backup activity.
- Directions that are clear enough for a sub.
- Independent review activities.
- A class profile template for subs.
This can be a quick win, even if you decide to update or improve the plan later. With this approach, you can have a functional plan in place with very little effort.
7. Build “getting to know you” activities.
Teachers know that relationships are a key classroom component, and as such, having a plan for building classroom community and trust is an important ingredient to any back-to-school planning process.
AI can help by generating interest surveys, reflection prompts, icebreakers, and student goal-setting activities for you to use.
Example prompts include:
- Design a student interest survey for a high school English class.
- Create five low-risk discussion prompts for students who may not know each other.
- Create a goal-setting activity for students to reflect on how they learn best.
- Draft student conference questions.
- Generate weekly check-in prompts.
As you enter these prompts into AI, be sure to provide relevant context about your class and objectives, as this will help the AI align its suggestions more closely with your specific needs and goals.
8. Prepare AI-use expectations for students.
Before students use AI, they need expectations, so you’ll want to start the year by clarifying when AI is allowed, when it’s not, and how students should document or explain their use.
One approach is to present categories for when and how much AI can be used in class. It might be structured something like:
- AI not allowed: independent skill checks, first drafts when the goal is original thinking, quizzes/tests
- AI allowed with permission: brainstorming, feedback, vocabulary help, practice questions
- AI encouraged: revising, generating study guides, asking for explanations, checking clarity
- Always required: verifying information, citing or acknowledging use, being ready to explain your thinking
If you want to take this process a step further, you can have AI help you prepare for student conversations about academic integrity. Going this route can help you decide how to teach and process those expectations instead of just stating them.
To help you develop this plan, you can use AI to create:
- AI-use scenarios for discussion.
- “Allowed or not allowed?” examples.
- A student-friendly AI agreement.
- Student reflection questions after using AI.
- A “How I used AI” disclosure form for students.
As with anything generated by AI, you’ll want to carefully vet these suggestions, ask clarifying follow-up questions, and discard what doesn’t fit your style or classroom needs.
9. Create lesson hooks and discussion starters.
This tip gets down to the daily lesson-planning level. You can use the AI tool to create engaging openings connected to student interests, current events, dilemmas, images, scenarios, or “Would you rather…?” questions.
For example, a middle school ELA teacher might prompt the AI with: “Give me five engaging opening questions for a middle school media literacy lesson about deepfakes and online trust.”
10. Generate formative checks.
AI can quickly draft exit tickets, quickwrites, retrieval questions, misconception checks, and short rubrics. Provide the objective, relevant content, and output format in your prompt.
AI-generated materials can contain flaws, miss your intended purpose, or fail to fully align to your instructional goals, so the key element is that you, the teacher, review these outputs for alignment and accuracy before using them.
11. Use AI as a thought partner, not a replacement.
The best use of AI is not “write my lesson for me,” but rather, “help me think through possibilities, create a strong first draft, and improve my plan.”
Use AI tools like you’d use a human assistant. Get insights, ideas, and help doing the work, but keep the key decision-making for yourself.
Reminder: Always protect student privacy.
As you use AI to plan activities, lessons, and materials for your students, you’ll want to always remain mindful of protecting student privacy. This reminder is especially important at the start of the year when you may be reviewing rosters, Individualized Education Program (IEP) notes, behavior plans, and family information. Student safety always comes first. If you’re unsure what is allowed, be sure to check with your local leadership team for guidance.
AVID Connections
This resource connects with the following components of the AVID College and Career Readiness Framework:
- Instruction
- Relational Capacity
- Break Down Barriers
- Align the Work
- Advocate for Students
Extend Your Learning
- A Back-to-School Checklist for Busy Teachers (Janelle Cox via WGU)
- New Teacher Checklist (Cult of Pedagogy)
- ChatGPT (OpenAI)
- Gemini (Google)
- Copilot (Microsoft)
- Claude (Anthropic)
- NotebookLM (Google)