Generate Lesson Plans: Bringing AI to the Teacher's Desk

Dashboard.

We created Generate Lesson Plans because we believe teachers deserve their Sundays back.

When a Teacher Met a Developer

Our journey began in the most ordinary of places: a family dinner. My sister Lisa, a middle school science teacher for over a decade, was half-present as usual—her laptop open to next week's lesson plans while the rest of us enjoyed dessert. "Just once," she sighed, closing her computer after an hour of work, "I wish I could press a button and have a solid first draft appear."

As a developer who had been exploring AI applications, that comment sparked something. Could the new generation of AI models actually help create meaningful lesson plans? Not just generic outlines, but personalized plans that respected a teacher's style and met specific classroom needs?

The next morning, I started tinkering. What began as a simple prototype quickly evolved as more educators got involved, each bringing their unique classroom challenges and "what if" questions that shaped our development.

From Blank Page to Complete Lesson in Seconds

The magic of Generate Lesson Plans lies in its simplicity. Teachers input basic parameters—subject, grade level, duration, and learning objective—and within seconds, they receive a fully structured lesson plan.

But what happens behind that clean interface is far more sophisticated than it appears. When a teacher clicks "Generate," our system leverages AI to transform those basic inputs into a comprehensive plan with timing, activities, discussion questions, and assessment strategies.

What makes our approach different isn't just the technology—it's the education-specific expertise embedded in our system. We don't simply pass prompts to a general-purpose AI. Our system incorporates pedagogical frameworks, learning theories, and curriculum standards to ensure each generated plan follows sound educational practices.

A Day in the Life of a Teacher Using Our Platform

Let me walk you through how Ms. Rodriguez, a 6th-grade English teacher, uses Generate Lesson Plans to prepare for her poetry unit.

It's Wednesday afternoon. Ms. Rodriguez has a five-minute break between classes and remembers she needs to plan Monday's introduction to metaphors and similes. Instead of adding it to her weekend to-do list, she pulls up our platform on her phone.

She navigates to the lesson creator and enters a few quick details: "English Language Arts" as the subject, "Poetic Devices: Metaphors and Similes" as the topic, "45 minutes" for duration, "6th Grade" for student level, and "Students will identify and create metaphors and similes in poetry and everyday language" as her objective.

With a tap, she submits the request and continues with her day. During her planning period, she opens her computer to find a complete lesson plan waiting for her. The plan includes:

• A five-minute opening activity where students identify metaphors and similes in popular songs
• A fifteen-minute guided instruction on the difference between metaphors and similes with examples
• A twelve-minute partner activity where students create their own examples
• A ten-minute application exercise using poetry excerpts
• A three-minute exit ticket assessment

Ms. Rodriguez reviews the plan, makes a few tweaks to better match her teaching style, adds a specific poem she loves to use, and saves it to her dashboard. What would have taken her 60-90 minutes of planning time on Sunday took less than 10 minutes during her workday.

The Technology That Powers Teacher Freedom

Under the hood, Generate Lesson Plans combines several sophisticated technologies to deliver its seamless experience. Our system is built on a foundation of Next.js with its App Router architecture, providing a responsive and intuitive user interface. We use Prisma with PostgreSQL to manage our data models, ensuring reliable storage of lesson plans and user preferences.

The authentication system leverages Kinde Auth services, maintaining strong security while simplifying the user experience. Our subscription management system—completely redesigned to handle local management rather than relying on third-party services—tracks usage and ensures teachers stay within their plan limits.

Here's a peek at how our subscription system determines if a teacher can create a new lesson plan:

React TSX
Copy
export async function checkLessonPlanCreationEligibility(): Promise<{
  isEligible: boolean;
  message: string;
  remainingGenerations: number;
}> {
  // Get the authenticated user
  const { getUser } = getKindeServerSession();
  const user = await getUser();

  // Get user's subscription details
  const userData = await prisma.user.findFirst({
    where: { id: user?.id },
    include: { subscription: true },
  });

  // Determine limits based on subscription status
  const isSubscribed = userData?.subscription?.isActive || false;
  const limit = isSubscribed ? 30 : 10; // 30 for subscribers, 10 for free tier

  // Count lessons created in current period
  const lessonCount = await prisma.lessonPlan.count({
    where: {
      userId: userData.id,
      createdAt: { gte: startOfPeriod, lte: endOfPeriod },
    },
  });

  // Calculate remaining lessons
  const remaining = Math.max(0, limit - lessonCount);

  return {
    isEligible: remaining > 0,
    message: createUserFriendlyMessage(remaining, isSubscribed),
    remainingGenerations: remaining,
  };
}

But the heart of our system is the integration with Google's Gemini AI, which we've fine-tuned specifically for educational content. We've implemented robust error handling and content safety measures to ensure that all generated content is appropriate for classroom use.

The user interface employs Framer Motion for subtle animations that make the experience feel responsive and alive without being distracting. When a teacher navigates to their dashboard, lesson plans appear with a gentle fade-in effect, each card revealing itself in a subtle cascade that guides the eye through their collection.

The Stories That Keep Us Going

Every day, we receive messages from teachers whose professional lives have been transformed by our platform. These stories fuel our continued development and remind us why this work matters.

There's Mark, a first-year high school history teacher who was spending six hours every Sunday planning for the coming week. "I was ready to quit by November," he told us. "I loved teaching, but I couldn't sustain that planning load while also giving my students good feedback on their work." With Generate Lesson Plans, Mark cut his planning time by 70% and redirected those hours to providing more detailed feedback on student essays. His students' writing scores improved significantly by semester's end.

Then there's the team at Roosevelt Elementary, where all 24 teachers adopted the platform as part of a school-wide initiative to standardize curriculum delivery. Their principal, Dr. Williams, reported that the consistency in lesson structure helped students transition more smoothly between classes and grade levels. "The plans give us a common language and approach," she explained, "but each teacher still puts their unique stamp on the delivery."

Perhaps most meaningful was the note from Elaine, a 30-year veteran teacher who was considering early retirement due to burnout. "After three decades, I found myself dreading Sundays more than I enjoyed weekdays with my students," she wrote. "Your platform has quite literally given me my weekends back. I'm finding joy in teaching again because I have the energy to be present with my students instead of constantly planning for the next day."

These stories remind us that we're not just building software—we're giving educators back their time, their weekends, and in some cases, their love for the profession.

The Journey Ahead: Where We're Taking Education

As we look to the future, we see Generate Lesson Plans evolving in exciting new directions. We're actively developing features that will further personalize the experience for teachers and their classrooms.

One area of particular focus is adaptive differentiation. Soon, teachers will be able to indicate specific learning needs within their classroom—from gifted students to those with IEPs or English language learners—and the system will automatically suggest modifications to the base lesson plan to accommodate those needs.

We're also exploring ways to incorporate more multimedia elements into our generated plans. Imagine receiving not just text-based activities but also suggestions for relevant videos, interactive simulations, or digital tools that could enhance each lesson.

Perhaps most ambitious is our work on continuity and progression. Future versions of our platform will be able to generate not just individual lessons but connected sequences that build conceptual understanding over time. A teacher could request a two-week unit on fractions, and the system would create a series of lessons with a thoughtful progression from introduction to mastery.

As AI technology continues to advance, so too will our platform's capabilities. But one thing will remain constant: our commitment to keeping teachers at the center of the educational experience. We believe technology should amplify teacher expertise, not replace it. Our goal is to handle the routine aspects of planning so that teachers can focus on the human elements that make education transformative—connection, inspiration, and personalized guidance.

Your Sunday Is Waiting

If you're an educator reading this, I want to leave you with a simple thought: imagine what you could do with your reclaimed time. That's the gift we hope to give you—hours returned to your life each week that you can spend however you choose. Whether that's providing more detailed feedback to students, designing creative extensions for your lessons, collaborating with colleagues, or simply enjoying a restful Sunday with family and friends, the choice becomes yours again.

We offer a free tier that includes 10 lesson plans per month—enough to experience the difference our platform can make. For those who find it valuable, our affordable subscription options remove those limitations, offering 30 plans per month with additional features and customization options.

In creating Generate Lesson Plans, we set out to solve a specific problem: the unsustainable time burden of lesson planning. But what we've discovered along the way is that we're addressing something much more fundamental—the need to restore balance to the teaching profession. By giving teachers back their time, we're helping preserve the energy and passion that brought them to education in the first place.

Your next Sunday morning could look very different. The coffee's still there, but instead of a blank template, perhaps you'll see a sunrise, or a smiling family member, or simply the inside of your eyelids as you enjoy a well-deserved extra hour of sleep. The lessons will still be planned, ready for the week ahead. The difference is that you didn't have to sacrifice your weekend to make it happen.

Teaching is a calling that deserves support, respect, and the right tools. We're honored to be creating one of those tools, and we invite you to join us on this journey toward a more sustainable and joyful teaching experience.