The Standard · People, HR and L&D
Lesson Planning
Plans lessons with AI, aligned to objectives and checked for accuracy and level.
You design lessons or training sessions around outcomes, learner levels, activities, pacing and formative checks. You use AI to draft sequences and materials, but it can invent facts, misjudge cognitive level or overlook accessibility.
The exam for Lesson Planning is not open yet. A skill opens once its questions are approved and tested.
What it measures
Whatever the skill, the exam rates your work in the same six areas of the Standard. Three are for the value you get from the assistant, and three for the control you keep. Each area gets one of 4 ratings (Emerging, Developing, Proficient, Accomplished). For Lesson Planning, a strong performance looks like this. What each area includes and excludes.
Value
What you get from the assistant: how far it takes the work, how well you brief it, and the piece you hand in.
- Reaching further
You extend the lesson plan with learner questions, alternatives and gaps that improve learning beyond your initial design.
Using the assistant to produce work beyond what you could have produced alone, rather than the same work faster.
- Briefing the assistant
You brief the assistant with learning objectives, learner level, context, timing, format and required activities.
Giving the assistant the reader, purpose and source facts the work depends on, and the form, length and contents you need back.
- The finished piece
You turn the draft into a teachable lesson plan with coherent sequencing, differentiation, timings and your reasoning.
Turning the assistant's output into something a colleague could use: editing it, combining it and adding original thinking.
Control
What you keep in hand: checking its work, keeping information safe, and deciding what stays with a person.
- Checking its work
You check subject facts, learning-level alignment and answer keys against supplied curriculum or source material.
Checking the assistant's claims, figures and assumptions against the source before the work is used.
- Safety and confidentiality
You keep learner identities, sensitive needs and confidential institutional details out of the lesson-planning brief and materials.
Handling confidential and personal data, seeing compliance, ethical and reputational risk, and declining unsafe requests.
- Knowing what to delegate
You keep high-stakes learning decisions and learner-specific decisions, while delegating draft activities and resources.
Deciding what to hand to the assistant and what to keep, and at what stakes, before any output exists.
What you do in the exam
Every skill of the Standard is examined the same way, at the same pass mark, in the Applied AI Badge. Two tasks with the assistant and two sets of questions, over 15 minutes. You do real work with an AI assistant beside you, hand in what you would send, then answer follow-up questions about your own work.
- 01
A lesson plan from learning objectives, learner level, timing and curriculum constraints.
- 02
A differentiated worksheet with core, scaffolded and extension versions for one learning objective.
- 03
A formative-check sequence with hinge questions, responses and planned teaching adjustments.
These are the kinds of task the exam sets. Your exam draws its own from a bank the Examination Board has approved.
- Exam
- Applied AI Badge
- Price
- US$19
- Length
- 15 minutes
- Attempts
- One for each purchase, then a 7-day wait
What the badge certifies
What an employer reads
Passed an Institute exam in lesson planning. They briefed the assistant with objectives and level, caught factual errors, and delivered a differentiated lesson plan.
You earn it in one exam, never by finishing a course.
- Name on the certificate
- Applied AI Badge: Lesson Planning
- Who it is for
- Teachers, lecturers, trainers, tutors and learning designers who plan lessons or training sessions.
- Valid for
- 2 years, then renew
- Verification
- Every badge has a public verification page an employer can open, and a place in the public register if you choose it.
- Marked by
- An AI examiner marks your work against a marking guide and quotes your own words as evidence. A person checks anything borderline.
Near it in the Standard
- Assessment Design
Designs assessments with AI and validates that they measure what they claim.
- Instructional Design
Designs learning experiences with AI and keeps pedagogy, not the tool, in the lead.
- Online Course Creation
Builds online courses with AI-generated material that is verified before learners see it.
- Coaching
Coaches with AI as preparation and reflection, never as a substitute for the conversation.
- Mentoring
Mentors with AI-assisted resources and judgement about when advice must be human.
- Career Development
Plans career development with AI and tests its suggestions against real evidence.
- People Management
Manages people with AI-assisted planning and communication while keeping decisions and fairness human.
- Feedback & Performance
Gives feedback and runs performance conversations with AI preparation and human accountability.
Everything in People, HR and L&D, including the level exams that name the whole function.
Practise it before you pay for it
Practice is free (up to 50 sessions a day) and shaped like the exam, with a coach that tells you what to change. It never counts towards a credential, and an exercise you practised is kept out of your exam.
Want to learn it first? AI+ Lesson Planning covers this skill. No book is required to pass.