7 Easy Ways to Use AI to Plan a Whole Unit (Not Just One Lesson!)

Planning a unit of lessons can feel like climbing a mountain. You’re juggling standards, timing, differentiation, assessment… and oh yes, you still want your students to enjoy it! 😅

That’s why learning how to use AI to plan a whole unit has been a total game-changer for me.

But what if you didn’t have to do it all alone?

In this post, I’m sharing how I use AI (yes, I call mine Seb 💬) to save hours each term — without losing that creative spark. This isn’t about handing over your expertise. It’s about working smarter, not harder, so you can focus on what matters most: teaching.

👩‍🏫 A quick note on my teaching life

Before specialising in Art, I spent years in a full-time primary classroom role. I still remember the pressure of planning across every subject, every term — but I loved it all the same. I’d spend weeks designing units that integrated subjects into engaging themes while making sure they covered the curriculum.

These days, I teach Visual and Media Arts across 10 year levels — from Year 3 to Year 12. That’s a lot of curriculum to cover, so finding ways to plan smarter is essential. AI helps me make sure each class gets a thoughtful, aligned unit, without burning me out.

🌻 Update: Since writing this post, I’ve refined this process into a 5-step method I call the AI PLAN Model. You don’t need to know the full model to use what’s here — but if you’re curious, you’ll see parts of it woven throughout. Stay tuned for more!

I used to do it all by myself — first for my Year 5 Primary class, and later for my Art classes. It took me days just to get all the content descriptors and achievement standards into succinct, simplified, and understandable lingo.

🎯 Want to dive deeper?

Here’s the official stuff — straight from the Australian Curriculum (Version 9). On the left, you’ll find the full content descriptors (what we’re meant to teach). On the right, the achievement standards (what students should be able to do by the end of Year 4). It’s all here in plain English — no jargon, no drama. 😉

Go on, open them up and see how delightful they are. After all, it’s only one year level for Visual and Media Arts . . .

Which do you prefer? The short simplified version or the official long version?
Of course you have to check that the short version actually matches the official one — but once you’ve done that, you can fly! 🚀

Step 2: Share your ideas (The AI can’t read your mind!)

When I plan a unit, I don’t hand over a vague prompt and hope for magic. I usually come in with a rough flow of activities — sometimes just lesson titles, sometimes a full description or even a bit of a ramble!

AI Seb helps me turn that mess into something meaningful. For example, I might say:
“I want my Year 3s to do a Kandinsky mural, a Monet-style painting, a digital liquify effect, a clay frog sculpture, and a photo activity with their frogs. Can you check if these tasks meet the curriculum?”

That’s enough to start refining.

Sometimes AI Seb gets it straight away. Other times, I need to give more context before AI Seb understands the vision. Either way, the back-and-forth helps me move faster than doing it alone.

Step 4: Plan for differentiation without starting from scratch

Once the core unit is sorted, I ask AI Seb for differentiation ideas that fit my class. For example:

• “What adjustments could I offer for a clay sculpture task with ILP students?”
• “What could early finishers do after their Monet pond painting?”
• “Give me sentence starters for a one-line artist reflection.”

This is one of the easiest ways to use AI to plan a whole unit that feels differentiated and manageable. AI Seb gives me options I can easily adapt to my classroom. Sometimes I use them directly. Other times, they just spark a better idea I hadn’t thought of yet.

Step 5: Build a reusable planner (Here’s a snapshot from mine!)

Now I’m ready to write it all up. I ask AI Seb to help:

• Write clear lesson descriptions — short for overviews and unit plans, or longer for detailed lesson plans
• Group assessments by achievement standards
• Ensure no lesson is overloaded (I stick to two standards per lesson, or three for bigger projects like claywork in older year levels)

🪄 In one session, I can create both the slimmed-down version needed for school documentation and my detailed planner. I use my own digital teacher planner for this — it helps me keep everything organised, clickable, and reusable each term. Take a peek at how my digital teacher planner works here.

✨ Real-Life Example: Three Lessons from my unit plan

Here’s a glimpse at how I structured three integrated Visual and Media Arts lessons with AI Seb. These were taught across a series of rotating sessions during Term 1, but I planned them as three distinct lessons — each with a clear focus and curriculum links.

The order worked beautifully: students explored traditional painting, moved into clay sculpture, then reimagined their work through digital effects. With AI Seb’s help, I created lesson descriptions, linked the right standards, and drafted success criteria in a fraction of the time it used to take.

In the third column of my planner below, the achievement standards are simplified and customised to each lesson. The standards codes are based on the official standards paragraph (listed in step 1 – deep dive), as follows:

• VA1 refers to the first sentence, VA2 to the second, VA3 to the third, and VA4 to the last sentence.
• MA1 refers to the first sentence, MA2 to the second, MA3 to the third, and MA4 to the last sentence.

These standards have been lightly customised to match each activity. In the free mini-course, I show you how to add short curriculum codes. In the full AI PLAN Experience Course, I show you how to turn those codes into clear, assessable learning goals like these, ready to drop into your planner or report comments.

I’ve always planned this way — carefully, creatively, and with every standard in mind. It just used to take me days. Now, with AI Seb helping me organise my thinking, I still plan with the same heart, just without all the midnight finish lines.

Step 6: Reflect and refine for next time

After teaching the unit, I review what worked, what flopped, and what surprised me. Then I might ask AI Seb:

• “Seb, can you simplify this photo task so it fits into a 40-minute lesson?”
• “Can you simplify this activity? It was a bit much for the class this time, and I want to streamline it for next term.”

And just like that, I’ve improved the plan in less than a minute, without rewriting it from scratch.

Step 7: Save your best prompts (Your future self will thank you)

I’ve started saving my favourite AI prompts in a Google Doc. Things like:

• “Summarise Year 3 Visual Arts standards”
• “Write a two-line summary for a frog sculpture task”
• “Suggest quick finishers for a digital art activity”

Having that prompt bank on hand means I don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time — and neither do you.

⚠️ Quick reality check: AI isn’t a mind reader

Seb (my AI sidekick) is fast — sometimes too fast. AI doesn’t always get things right, especially when I’m working across 10-year levels at once.

For example, I might be planning Year 3 and Year 7 back-to-back, and AI Seb occasionally pulls in the wrong curriculum standard, especially if I forget to say exactly which one I’m using. Some tasks work across year levels, but they need different depth or adjustments. That context? Only I can give.

And of course, AI doesn’t know about school assemblies, sick students, or that one kid who needs a hands-on task just to stay engaged. It doesn’t know that I need a task to take exactly 35 minutes or that half the class will be in choir.

It’s a bit like brainstorming on the whiteboard — but this time, it’s just you and your AI buddy. You’re still driving the ideas, but AI Seb helps shape them faster, checks the curriculum, and gets everything down without starting from scratch.

So while learning how to use AI to plan a whole unit has made me faster and more focused, I always check the results. It’s a co-planning buddy, not a substitute for your teaching wisdom. 😉

💡 P.S. Want to learn how to plan a full unit of 6 activities — mapped to the curriculum and ready to teach — in under an hour? My free mini-course is almost ready, and you’ll even get a PD certificate when you complete it!

🧡 Want to try it for yourself?

You don’t need to be techy. You just need to start. Try it for yourself and see how AI can help you plan a unit that saves time and hits the curriculum goals, without the overwhelm.