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Understanding by Design Planner

Plans OpenMAIC classrooms around enduring understandings, essential questions and GRASPS tasks.

Source Download skill
Repository
THU-MAIC/OpenMAIC
Stars
42,460
Licence
MIT
Files
1 file

What it does

When installed, the agent plans a classroom or course series using the Understanding by Design method: it first decides the big ideas students should keep, then how they will prove understanding through a performance task, and only then designs the lesson pages. It shapes each planned slide, quiz, interactive and project page around a guiding question instead of a list of facts. It is a planning and content guide for OpenMAIC, not a tool that makes files on its own, and it defers to other OpenMAIC skills for persistence, editing an existing classroom, visual style, teacher-style imitation and PPT import.

Great for

  • Teachers or course designers building a single OpenMAIC lesson around a concept rather than facts
  • Educators planning a multi-lesson unit that needs a shared blueprint before lessons are drafted
  • Anyone who wants project tasks and quizzes that check transfer of understanding

Skip it if

  • Copying a brand's visual style or a specific teacher's presenting style, since the skill explicitly excludes these; the reason is that other skills handle them
  • Importing an existing PowerPoint file directly, which the skill excludes in favour of a separate import flow
  • Editing a classroom that already exists, which should go through the pro-editing workflow instead of being rebuilt

Try asking

  • “Plan a single 45-minute OpenMAIC lesson on photosynthesis built around an essential question about energy flow”
  • “Design a four-lesson unit on statistics where each lesson has its own sub-understanding and a GRASPS project”
  • “Turn my list of facts about the French Revolution into a concept-centred lesson with WHERETO activities”
Step-by-step guide: how to use Understanding by Design PlannerInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 1 original files, the MIT licence and an attribution note.

    understanding-by-design.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip understanding-by-design.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip understanding-by-design.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • Give the agent your subject, grade level and target number of lessons so it can choose single-lesson or unit mode.
  • Review the unit blueprint (big idea and essential questions) before asking for individual lesson drafts, as the skill requires.
  • Ask for a check that every page serves a named understanding or essential question, and remove any that do not.

What's inside

  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from THU-MAIC/OpenMAIC under the MIT licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.