4Mat Lesson Planner

Better lesson planning structured around Why, What, How, and What If - the four learning styles that stick.

Type: prototype. Platform: web. Year: 2024.

The 4Mat model is one of the most useful frameworks I've come across for designing learning experiences. It structures sessions around four questions: Why should I care? What is it? How does it work? What if I apply it? I built this tool to make it easier to plan workshops and lessons using this model without staring at a blank document.

Why I built this

The 4Mat model is one of the most useful frameworks I've come across for designing learning experiences. It structures sessions around four questions: Why should I care? What is it? How does it work? What if I apply it? I built this tool to make it easier to plan workshops and lessons using this model without staring at a blank document.

Stack

  • React
  • Vite
  • Replit
  • Claude
  • Tailwind CSS

Learnings

  • Getting AI to help structure content into the four quadrants is genuinely useful - it asks better 'why' questions than I do.
  • The hardest part was the export. PDF generation in the browser is still more painful than it should be.
  • Teachers responded to this much more warmly than I expected. There's a real gap for non-corporate learning design tools.

The 4Mat model is one of the most useful frameworks I've come across for designing learning experiences. It structures sessions around four questions: Why.

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