I believe in the power of gamification as a way to keep learning engaging. It's not just about being fun - it's a much better way to absorb and retain information than a traditional lecture.

Games don't have to be brilliantly designed to be effective. Something as simple as "whichever team solves the most math problems wins!" is enough to get students going. 

But if you want to add a little spice, then it can be fun to invent a game. 

Often, the games I make up are as simple as taking an existing mathematical model, assigning students different roles to play within that model, and then maybe rolling some dice to add the element of randomization. Here's an example of a gamified version of the Lotka-Volterra competition model that I made for my ecology class.

If that doesn't fit your situation and you're not sure where to start, AI models help me brainstorm. Sometimes an AI will spit out a fully-formed idea that's ready to go. Sometimes it'll be something that has potential, but needs a little work. Sometimes I won't like the idea and I have to reiterate a few times. But in any case, AI has definitely helped me work through some ideas of how to model complex concepts.

Here's a template for a prompt I would use for AI:

Can you please design a fun demonstration or game for a college freshman class for biology majors to illustrate the concept of convergent evolution? Use only commonly available materials and make it last about 20 minutes. 

Professors aren't taught to write lesson plans (unless they're in the education department, I imagine, but that's not my experience.) I taught for nearly a decade when I finally took a continuing education class that taught me exactly what a lesson plan was and how to use them. Lesson planning is such an easy skill to learn, and I wasted a ton of time and effort trying to make do without it!

I'm including a template for my current lesson plan here. I've gone through several iterations and I like this one because it's thorough and easy to read. 

I won't wax poetic about the theory behind lesson plans because that's outside of my lane. But I think you can learn most of what you need to know about lesson planning just by filling in the blanks. I often use AI to help me fill it out, although you'll notice that AI doesn't always know what you need and sometimes gets things wrong, so please double-check everything and plan on writing some parts yourself. 

Why should you write a lesson plan?

• Makes it easy to keep things organized (both in terms of concepts taught, and in terms of actual materials needed)

• Helps you learn from your mistakes and your successes

• Reduces prep time

• Gives you a cheat sheet to refer to if you need it

• Makes things easy for substitutes - or for your replacement if you decide to climb that ladder

• Provides a paper trail for all the hard work you're doing