IB MYP SOI & Lesson Plan Generator

You know the feeling. It's Sunday evening, you're staring at a blank unit planner, and you need to write a Statement of Inquiry that somehow weaves together "relationships," "patterns," and "scientific and technical innovation" into a single transferable sentence. Thirty minutes later, you've rewritten it four times and it still sounds like word soup.

SOIs are the most painful micro-task in MYP planning. Each one takes 30 to 60 minutes to get right, and you write 8 to 12 per year per subject. Multiply that across your teaching load, and you're spending entire weekends on sentences that are never more than 30 words long.

Then there's lesson planning. According to a 2025 Gallup-WFF survey, 37% of teachers already use AI for lesson planning, making it the highest adoption category in education. But here's the problem: nothing out there understands MYP. Not the inquiry-based structure, not the concept-driven design, not ATL integration.

We built two Koncepts MYP planning tools to fix this. They work independently, and they work together.

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Why Did We Build These Tools?

We looked at what existed. MagicSchool's lesson plan generator is their most popular tool, but it has zero IB awareness. It doesn't know what a Key Concept is. It's never heard of ATL skills. IB Genie, Toddle's AI features, other edtech tools, none of them generate SOIs. Not one.

That gap is wild when you think about it. The SOI is the foundation of every MYP unit. Everything flows from it: the inquiry questions, the summative task design, the daily lessons. Yet no tool helps you write one.

MYP lessons are structurally different from conventional lesson plans. They're inquiry-based. They're concept-driven. They integrate Approaches to Learning. A generic AI lesson planner doesn't know any of this, so it produces generic output that you have to rebuild from scratch anyway.

We decided to solve both problems, and connect them.

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The SOI Generator: How It Works

This is the simplest tool in the suite. One screen. Three options. Done.

Step 1: Select Your Concepts

Choose your Key Concept from the 16 MYP Key Concepts. Each one has a hover tooltip showing the official IB definition, so you don't need to flip back to the guide. Then pick 1 to 3 Related Concepts, automatically filtered by your subject group.

Step 2: Choose Your Global Context

Select a Global Context from the dropdown. Once you do, a second dropdown appears with the specific explorations underneath it. So if you pick "Globalization and Sustainability," you'll see options like "sharing finite resources" or "the impact of decision-making on humankind and the environment."

This matters. A good SOI references the exploration, not just the broad context name.

Step 3: Optional Context

You can add a topic for context, like "ecosystems" or "migration patterns." This helps the AI calibrate, but it won't appear in the SOI itself. You can also set a year group so the language complexity matches your students.

Step 4: Generate

Hit Generate, or Cmd+Enter, and three SOI options stream in as cards.

Each card highlights the components visually: Key Concept in bold, Related Concepts in italic, and the Global Context exploration in a distinct style. You can see at a glance whether the SOI actually integrates what you selected.

Quality Badges

Every card gets a quality badge. A checkmark means "Contains both concepts and global context explicitly." A warning means "Global context is implicit," still usable, but you should check whether your coordinator will accept it.

What Happens Next

Pick one. Copy it. Or click "Use in Lesson Plan" to flow directly into the Koncepts MYP Lesson Planner with everything pre-filled.

Open the SOI Generator anytime with Cmd+Shift+S.

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What Makes a Good SOI Built Into the AI

The AI doesn't just mash concepts together. It follows official IB guidance on SOI construction:

• Must contain at least one Key Concept and one Related Concept explicitly — not buried or implied, but stated directly in the sentence.
• Must reference the Global Context exploration — not just the context name. "Globalization and sustainability" alone isn't enough; "sharing finite resources" is.
• Uses qualifying language — may, can, could, might. SOIs aren't definitive facts. They're propositions that drive inquiry.
• Does NOT reference specific content topics — no "photosynthesis," no "World War II." The SOI should be transferable.
• Must be transferable — could apply to different units sharing the same concepts.
• Must drive inquiry — provokes questions rather than stating conclusions.

These aren't suggestions. They're constraints baked into every generation. If you've ever had a coordinator send back an SOI because it was "too specific" or "doesn't actually reference the global context," these rules exist to prevent exactly that.

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The Lesson Plan Generator: How It Works

Two modes. Quick Plan is the default for when you need something between classes. Full Plan gives you the complete 5E structure with differentiation. A toggle switches between them, and it remembers your last choice.

Setting Up

Your subject and year group are pre-filled from your profile. Enter a topic.

Key Concept and Related Concepts are auto-suggested by the AI if you leave them blank, but you can override them. The SOI field gives you three options: generate one inline, paste an existing one, or skip it entirely.

If you're starting earlier in the planning process, the Koncepts MYP Unit Planner connects your Statement of Inquiry, concepts, global context, criteria and tasks before they flow into individual lessons.

Duration and Focus

Choose your lesson duration from pill buttons: 30, 40, 50, 60, or 80 minutes. Optionally set a criterion focus, A, B, C, or D, and an ATL skill cluster.

Full Plan mode adds approach pills: Inquiry, Direct Instruction, Lab, or Discussion. Pick the one that fits your lesson.

Then hit Cmd+Enter to generate.

Open the Lesson Planner anytime with Cmd+Shift+L.

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Quick Plan Output: What You Actually Get

Here's a real example of what a Quick Plan looks like:

Food Webs & Energy Flow · Bio MYP4 · 50 min

Objective: Students explain how energy flows through an ecosystem and predict consequences of removing a species. Criterion focus: A (Knowing), C (Processing)

Activities: Opener: Show collapsed ecosystem image. "What happens when one part is removed?" (5 min) Group activity: Build food webs with organism cards. Remove one species, trace consequences. (15 min) Teach: Introduce trophic levels, producers, consumers, decomposers. (10 min) Apply: Yellowstone wolf reintroduction data — process in table and graph. (12 min) Exit ticket: "Explain how removing an apex predator shows ecosystems are systems of interacting components." (8 min)

Formative check: Exit ticket (Criterion A) Resources: Organism cards, Yellowstone data, graph paper

This is what teachers actually use between classes. No rigid phase labels you'll ignore. No fluff paragraphs about "activating prior knowledge." Just what you're doing, when, and what you need.

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Full Plan Output: The Complete Picture

Full Plan generates a structured 5E lesson, Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate, with detailed timings for each phase.

It includes differentiation at three levels: Scaffold, Core, and Extension. ATL skills are mapped to specific activities. Formative assessment checkpoints sit within each phase, not just tacked on at the end.

Every section is independently editable and collapsible. Expand what you need, collapse what you don't. Nobody follows a lesson plan 100%. We change things according to sections, according to how the class responds. The tool is built for that reality.

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The Connected Workflow: SOI to Lesson Plan

Here's where the two tools become more than the sum of their parts.

Flow 1: SOI First

Generate your SOI. Pick the one you like. Click "Use in Lesson Plan." The Lesson Planner opens with your subject, SOI, Key Concept, Related Concepts, Global Context, and topic all carried over. You just set a duration, maybe pick a criterion focus, and generate.

Flow 2: Lesson Plan First

Open the Lesson Planner. When you reach the SOI field, click "Generate" to open the SOI Generator as a modal right there. Pick your SOI without leaving the page. It drops into the form and you continue.

Either way, you go from zero to a teaching-ready plan in under five minutes.

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Export Options

Once you have a plan you're happy with:

• Copy — Markdown or plain text, straight to your clipboard
• PDF — Print-ready, clean formatting for your desk or binder
• Word (.docx) — The primary export. Field structure matches what Toddle and ManageBac unit planners expect, so you can paste sections directly into your existing workflow

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Try Them Together

The SOI Generator is the simplest tool we built. One screen, three options, done. It takes the most frustrating micro-task in MYP planning and turns it into a 30-second decision.

The Koncepts Lesson Planner turns that SOI into something you can actually teach tomorrow. Quick Plans for between-class prep. Full Plans for unit planning days and observations.

They work independently. They work better together. Open the SOI Generator with Cmd+Shift+S, or the Lesson Planner with Cmd+Shift+L, and see how it feels.