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Minecraft Lesson Planner in Teach
The Minecraft Education lesson plan tool in Teach helps educators create engaging, standards-aligned lessons where students can build, explore, and collaborate within Minecraft Education. It automatically generates lesson plan drafts that include Minecraft-specific materials, structured building activities, formative checkpoints, and reflection prompts, making it easier for educators to design effective lessons even if they haven't used Minecraft before.
Note: This feature is only available to Faculty/Staff with a Microsoft 365 for Education Faculty license. If you do not see it, please check with your IT administrator.
This feature does not require a paid Microsoft Copilot license.
Features of the Minecraft Lesson Planner include:
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Standards-aligned Minecraft Education activities
Easily create build challenges that match your chosen academic standards in English Language Arts, math, science, social studies, and computer science. -
Minecraft-specific materials guidance
Get helpful suggestions for Minecraft blocks, items, and in-game tools that fit each activity. -
Built-in differentiation and collaboration support
Find options for working together on builds, different challenge levels, and quick checks that fit naturally into the gameplay. -
AI-powered refinement
Use the AI refinement panel to tweak challenges, adjust lesson length, add accessibility features, or regenerate content with updated instructions.
You can also learn how to craft your first lesson plan in this video as part of our Learn To Play series!
Using Lesson Planner
To access Lesson Planner in Microsoft Teach:
- Sign into office.com with your Faculty Account
- On the left hand navigation bar select "Teach"
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Then select "Minecraft Education Lesson Plan"
To create your plan:
- Select the subject you'd like to teach, such as "Math", "Science", "Writing", etc..
- Select the Grade Level for your lesson.
- Choose the language you prefer. Lesson Crafter supports more than 25 languages.
- Provide a clear description of the lesson plan's goals and content.
- For example: "A lesson on environmental sustainability that helps students understand key ideas about protecting our planet by covering topics like recycling, saving resources, and reducing waste."
- Note: You can also upload additional materials, like photos, to help explain your needs better.
- For example: "A lesson on environmental sustainability that helps students understand key ideas about protecting our planet by covering topics like recycling, saving resources, and reducing waste."
- Optionally, use the standards picker to filter by standard set, subject, grade, and strand. Add one or more standards to guide the lesson. Learn about supported standards
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Select how long you'd like the lesson to be: 30, 45, or 60 minutes.
- Then click generate!
- You'll receive a lesson plan similar to the example below:
Reviewing or Editing the lesson plan
Like with any AI-generated content, it's a good idea to review the plan carefully to catch any errors or issues and make sure it meets your needs. If you'd like to make changes, you can edit each section, add new ones, or improve the plan by specifying the adjustments you'd like.
To edit an individual section, just hover over it and click the edit pencil. You can then update any of the bullet points or add new ones!
Alternatively, you can use the Copy button to edit the content in your favorite word processor.
You can also use the arrows to move sections up or down. To add a new section, scroll to the bottom of the lesson plan and select "Add a Section." Then provide a title, estimated duration, and descriptions.
You can also enhance the whole plan using AI by providing refinements. On the right side near the top, you'll see the "Enhance with AI" box. Here, you can describe the changes you'd like, or choose from recommendations like "Add Challenges" or "Add Build Tasks." You can also select a new length for the plan’s detail level (Concise, Default, or Expanded) and/or translate it to a different language. Then just click "Regenerate Lesson Plan"!
A new draft will be created for you to review and edit as you like. You can switch between drafts using the arrows at the top-left of your screen.
Feel free to enhance or edit the plan as much as you need. When you're happy with a draft, you can click the top "Copy" button to copy the entire plan to your clipboard, or select "Save to OneDrive" to save it in your OneDrive folder!
Going a step further
After generating your plan, it should provide most of the tools you need (i.e. required worlds under Prerequisites or Recommended materials). The lesson plan should be fully complete to use on its own.
However, you can also go a step further by using other tools in Microsoft Teach to create supplementary material such as: Flashcards, Fill in the Blank, Matching, Quizzes, Rubrics, and more!
You can learn even more here: Teach in the Microsoft 365 Copilot App